Exactly. It's my own device, I can do whatever I please with it. There shouldn't be an automated way for apps to check if my device has been blessed by the US tech giants or not.

> An app should have absolutely no way of knowing what kind of device it’s running on or what changes the user has made to the system.

and therefore the app cannot give a reasonable guarantee that it is not running in an adversarial environment that actively tries to break the app's integrity. Thus, the app cannot be used as a verified ID with governmental level of trust.

Exactly this. And whats more, the idea of device attestation makes people trust those devices, and the history of rooting consoles and phones proves that nothing holds, even tech backed by billions in commercial interest.

The whole point in reducing the blast radius is valid - by all means make this optional and allow the user to elect to tie their identity to the device. For everyone else, implement validation of actual transactions, not just user secrets and device secrets.

I agree, you should be able to run anything you want, root your device, etc., but you also have to accept the consequences of that. If an app can no longer verify its own integrity, certain features are simply impossible to implement securely.

Think of it this way: A physical ID (which is what we're trying to replace here) also has limitations, it looks a certain way, has a certain size, etc. Just because somebody wants a smaller ID or one with a larger font or a passport in a different colour or whatever, doesn't mean that this should be allowed or possible. Some limitations exist for a good reason

This is the original sin of modern computing. Almost all anti user features are only made possible because we didn't pass laws against "secure elements" that serve the maker and not the owner when NGSCB got announced.