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I don’t like to shill for companies, but I’m glad System76 made a statement. The addendum does feel like their legal team made them add it though: > Some of th

I don’t like to shill for companies, but I’m glad System76 made a statement. The addendum does feel like their legal team made them add it though: > Some of these laws impose requirements on System76 and Linux distributions in general. The California law, and Colorado law modeled after it, were agreed in concert with major operating system providers. Should this method of age attestation become the standard, apps and websites will not assume liability when a signal is not provided and assume the lowest age bracket. Any Linux distribution that does not provide an age bracket signal will result in a nerfed internet for their users. > We are accustomed to adding operating system features to comply with laws. Accessibility features for ADA, and power efficiency settings for Energy Star regulations are two examples. We are a part of this world and we believe in the rule of law. We still hope these laws will be recognized for the folly they are and removed from the books or found unconstitutional. Anyways, it feels like all sides of the political spectrum are trying to strip away any semblance of anonymity or privacy online both in the US and abroad. No one should have to provide any personal details to use any general computing device. Otherwise, given the pervasive tracking done by corporations and the rise of constant surveillance outdoors, there will be nowhere for people to safely gather and express themselves freely and privately.

panja 7mo ago
Gotta find a way to profitability I suppose
threatofrain 7mo ago
> Anyways, it feels like all sides of the political spectrum are trying to strip away any semblance of anonymity or privacy online both in the US and abroad. It's not this or that political party, your neighbors simply don't share your values. Maybe you don't agree with their values either — like to what degree we should be ceding privacy in favor of fighting child exploitation on the internet. Child protection arguments work because it is a compass to the true feelings of your neighbors.
- ls612 7mo ago
  It is as Aristotle said, the average person is a natural born slave (to their emotions, and thus to the rhetoriticians most skilled in changing them). That is why democracy always fails in the end. Americans just had such good geographic and historic luck to delay this reckoning by a century or two. If you see politics through this lens then the 'democratic backsliding' that has been universal across the world for the past two decades is entirely unsurprising. Vae Victus.
  - kij 7mo ago
    Vae victo — Vae victis
- AnthonyMouse 7mo ago
  > your neighbors simply don't share your values The problem with this argument is that everyone agrees with protecting children. "Think of the children" arguments are the legislator's fallacy: Something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do this. In reality there are alternative means to accomplish any given goal, and the debate is about what should be done, because no one benefits from using methods that cost more than they're worth. Well, almost no one. The opportunists who drape themselves in the cloak of "safety" when they want to have the government mandate the use of their services or use it as an excuse to monopolize markets or establish a chokepoint for surveillance and censorship do benefit from the machinations that allow them to screw the majority of the population. But the majority of the population doesn't.
  - nicman23 7mo ago
    nah let them die i tell you
  - gzread 7mo ago
    There's fake protecting children and there's real protecting children. The Colorado and California parental controls API laws (not age verification laws, there is no age verification in these laws) are clearly "real protecting children" since all they do is mandate standardisation of a parental controls API on each OS. We kept saying parental controls are all that's really needed, these states said "ok then, do parental controls" and we're still complaining.
hulitu 7mo ago
> The California law, and Colorado law modeled after it, were agreed in concert with major operating system providers. So it is Microsoft, Google and Apple pushing for this.
- teekert 7mo ago
  Makes sense, these laws are great for the establishment. Difficult to adhere to for newcomers or smaller parties. Compliance to this madness eats away a much larger proportion of thin profits.
- Thorrez 7mo ago
  That quote doesn't imply that those companies are pushing for it. The lawmakers might be pushing for it, and the companies might be ambivalent to whether it's done or not but said "if you're going to do this, then it should be worded this way." Disclosure: I work at Google, but not on anything related to this.
idle_zealot 7mo ago
> No one should have to provide any personal details to use any general computing device I agree. I also agree with S76 that some laws regarding how an operating system intended for wide use should function are acceptable. How would you react to this law if the requirement was only that the operating system had to ask the user what age bracket it should report to sites? You get to pick it, it isn't mandatory that it be checked, and it doesn't need to be a date, just the bucket. Is that still too onerous? I ask because I feel like if we don't do something, the trajectory is that ~every website and app is going to either voluntarily or compulsorily do face scans, AI behavior analysis, and ID checks for their users, and I really don't want to live in that world.
- edflsafoiewq 7mo ago
  What makes you think this is going to stave off that world? More likely you'll get both, since I doubt this API is going to satisfy other states' age verification requirements.
  - idle_zealot 7mo ago
    Sometimes a token effort or theater is sufficient to quell public sentiment. Like the oft-ignored and ineffective speed limits on roads, or the security theater at airports. That only handles the sentiment angle though. You still have to do something about would-be autocrats who want censorship and surveillance tools, and the oligarchs who want tracking and targeting data.
- heavyset_go 7mo ago
  > if we don't do something, the trajectory is that ~every website and app is going to either voluntarily or compulsorily do face scans, AI behavior analysis, and ID checks for their users You're going to get that, anyway. Platforms want to sell their userbases as real monetizable humans. Governments want to know who says and reads what online. AI companies want your face to train their systems they sell to the government, and they want to the be the gatekeepers that rank internet content for age appropriateness and use that content as free training material. Age verification across platforms is already implemented as AI face and ID scans. This is where we're already at.
shevy-java 7mo ago
> Accessibility features for ADA The problem is that the comparison falls flat. ADA does not sniff for birth date and surrender that data to others. One has to look at things at a cohesive unit, e. g. insecure bootloaders by Microsoft surrendering data to others. It seems as if they try to make computers spy-devices. That in itself is suspicious. Why should we support any such move? Some laws are clearly written by lobbyists.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
FpUser 7mo ago
I remember western public laughing about requirement of the former USSR to register a typewriters. So we have a case of he who slays the dragon becomes one
- brutal_noodle 7mo ago
  >register a typewriters _register typewriters_ >he who slays the dragon никто тут этого кина не видел и никто не понял какого в сраку дракона в какую позу. у меня тоже знакомый из СССР->США->Канада прокатился в 90-ых. вы не из академгородка?
gzread 7mo ago
The California law doesn't strip away any anonymity or privacy except for the additional fingerprint signal of you being a kid or not, which is no worse than Accept-Language
- hellojesus 7mo ago
  It kind of does. Depending on how the mechanism works, if I check the user's age every time my executable is launched, and my user launches daily, I can determine with certainty what the user's birthday is. That information may be enough to deanonyimize in rural regions. It certainly gives away pii.
  - gzread 7mo ago
    One allowed way to implement it is that your mom has to log in as root and unrestrict your account, and the user's age is only set to one of 4 different brackets so you'd better be watching the user every day for several years. Also if you are root you can just lie.
- EmbarrassedHelp 7mo ago
  That additional "fingerprint" makes it easier to track people online. If the system was meant to protect privacy and anonymity, the signal would only be present if the user was underage.
sharperguy 7mo ago
The same politicians who claim to support the free market will do deals like ttis with corporate oligopolies to cement their position into eternity.
curt15 7mo ago
>Anyways, it feels like all sides of the political spectrum are trying to strip away any semblance of anonymity or privacy online both in the US and abroad. No one should have to provide any personal details to use any general computing device. What was the legislative history for the California law? Who sponsored it, and who are their backers? Is there some coordinated effort by surveillance state proponents?
- Spivak 7mo ago
  I mean I can already answer the last question in the affirmative even without knowing anything else. That's just how the sausage is made—if you see similar laws being pitched in multiple states it's because some org is lobbying for it. It's not so much coordination but all coming from the same place. Now they're probably not cloak and dagger surveillance state people, just misguided folks who are true believers in the protecting children narrative. Generally any actual surveillance state people would be tag-along donors to the org.
jadbox 7mo ago
Why can't it be the BROWSER that reports age instead of the OS?
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
cc-d 7mo ago
[flagged]
strangattractor 7mo ago
Cigarette vending machines had little stickers that said it was illegal for those under 18 to purchase cigarettes. Sure stopped all my friends from buying them. Seems exactly like the useless process fixation that Abundance advocates abhor.
- paulddraper 7mo ago
  Point being the service provider/vendor has to do it directly.
cmxch 7mo ago
Still not good enough to comply in advance.

panja 7mo ago

Gotta find a way to profitability I suppose

threatofrain 7mo ago

> Anyways, it feels like all sides of the political spectrum are trying to strip away any semblance of anonymity or privacy online both in the US and abroad. It's not this or that political party, your neighbors simply don't share your values. Maybe you don't agree with their values either — like to what degree we should be ceding privacy in favor of fighting child exploitation on the internet. Child protection arguments work because it is a compass to the true feelings of your neighbors.

ls612 7mo ago
It is as Aristotle said, the average person is a natural born slave (to their emotions, and thus to the rhetoriticians most skilled in changing them). That is why democracy always fails in the end. Americans just had such good geographic and historic luck to delay this reckoning by a century or two. If you see politics through this lens then the 'democratic backsliding' that has been universal across the world for the past two decades is entirely unsurprising. Vae Victus.
- kij 7mo ago
  Vae victo — Vae victis
AnthonyMouse 7mo ago
> your neighbors simply don't share your values The problem with this argument is that everyone agrees with protecting children. "Think of the children" arguments are the legislator's fallacy: Something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do this. In reality there are alternative means to accomplish any given goal, and the debate is about what should be done, because no one benefits from using methods that cost more than they're worth. Well, almost no one. The opportunists who drape themselves in the cloak of "safety" when they want to have the government mandate the use of their services or use it as an excuse to monopolize markets or establish a chokepoint for surveillance and censorship do benefit from the machinations that allow them to screw the majority of the population. But the majority of the population doesn't.
- nicman23 7mo ago
  nah let them die i tell you
- gzread 7mo ago
  There's fake protecting children and there's real protecting children. The Colorado and California parental controls API laws (not age verification laws, there is no age verification in these laws) are clearly "real protecting children" since all they do is mandate standardisation of a parental controls API on each OS. We kept saying parental controls are all that's really needed, these states said "ok then, do parental controls" and we're still complaining.

hulitu 7mo ago

> The California law, and Colorado law modeled after it, were agreed in concert with major operating system providers. So it is Microsoft, Google and Apple pushing for this.

teekert 7mo ago
Makes sense, these laws are great for the establishment. Difficult to adhere to for newcomers or smaller parties. Compliance to this madness eats away a much larger proportion of thin profits.
Thorrez 7mo ago
That quote doesn't imply that those companies are pushing for it. The lawmakers might be pushing for it, and the companies might be ambivalent to whether it's done or not but said "if you're going to do this, then it should be worded this way." Disclosure: I work at Google, but not on anything related to this.

idle_zealot 7mo ago

> No one should have to provide any personal details to use any general computing device I agree. I also agree with S76 that some laws regarding how an operating system intended for wide use should function are acceptable. How would you react to this law if the requirement was only that the operating system had to ask the user what age bracket it should report to sites? You get to pick it, it isn't mandatory that it be checked, and it doesn't need to be a date, just the bucket. Is that still too onerous? I ask because I feel like if we don't do something, the trajectory is that ~every website and app is going to either voluntarily or compulsorily do face scans, AI behavior analysis, and ID checks for their users, and I really don't want to live in that world.

edflsafoiewq 7mo ago
What makes you think this is going to stave off that world? More likely you'll get both, since I doubt this API is going to satisfy other states' age verification requirements.
- idle_zealot 7mo ago
  Sometimes a token effort or theater is sufficient to quell public sentiment. Like the oft-ignored and ineffective speed limits on roads, or the security theater at airports. That only handles the sentiment angle though. You still have to do something about would-be autocrats who want censorship and surveillance tools, and the oligarchs who want tracking and targeting data.
heavyset_go 7mo ago
> if we don't do something, the trajectory is that ~every website and app is going to either voluntarily or compulsorily do face scans, AI behavior analysis, and ID checks for their users You're going to get that, anyway. Platforms want to sell their userbases as real monetizable humans. Governments want to know who says and reads what online. AI companies want your face to train their systems they sell to the government, and they want to the be the gatekeepers that rank internet content for age appropriateness and use that content as free training material. Age verification across platforms is already implemented as AI face and ID scans. This is where we're already at.

shevy-java 7mo ago

> Accessibility features for ADA The problem is that the comparison falls flat. ADA does not sniff for birth date and surrender that data to others. One has to look at things at a cohesive unit, e. g. insecure bootloaders by Microsoft surrendering data to others. It seems as if they try to make computers spy-devices. That in itself is suspicious. Why should we support any such move? Some laws are clearly written by lobbyists.

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

FpUser 7mo ago

I remember western public laughing about requirement of the former USSR to register a typewriters. So we have a case of he who slays the dragon becomes one

brutal_noodle 7mo ago
>register a typewriters _register typewriters_ >he who slays the dragon никто тут этого кина не видел и никто не понял какого в сраку дракона в какую позу. у меня тоже знакомый из СССР->США->Канада прокатился в 90-ых. вы не из академгородка?

gzread 7mo ago

The California law doesn't strip away any anonymity or privacy except for the additional fingerprint signal of you being a kid or not, which is no worse than Accept-Language

hellojesus 7mo ago
It kind of does. Depending on how the mechanism works, if I check the user's age every time my executable is launched, and my user launches daily, I can determine with certainty what the user's birthday is. That information may be enough to deanonyimize in rural regions. It certainly gives away pii.
- gzread 7mo ago
  One allowed way to implement it is that your mom has to log in as root and unrestrict your account, and the user's age is only set to one of 4 different brackets so you'd better be watching the user every day for several years. Also if you are root you can just lie.
EmbarrassedHelp 7mo ago
That additional "fingerprint" makes it easier to track people online. If the system was meant to protect privacy and anonymity, the signal would only be present if the user was underage.

sharperguy 7mo ago

The same politicians who claim to support the free market will do deals like ttis with corporate oligopolies to cement their position into eternity.

curt15 7mo ago

>Anyways, it feels like all sides of the political spectrum are trying to strip away any semblance of anonymity or privacy online both in the US and abroad. No one should have to provide any personal details to use any general computing device. What was the legislative history for the California law? Who sponsored it, and who are their backers? Is there some coordinated effort by surveillance state proponents?

Spivak 7mo ago
I mean I can already answer the last question in the affirmative even without knowing anything else. That's just how the sausage is made—if you see similar laws being pitched in multiple states it's because some org is lobbying for it. It's not so much coordination but all coming from the same place. Now they're probably not cloak and dagger surveillance state people, just misguided folks who are true believers in the protecting children narrative. Generally any actual surveillance state people would be tag-along donors to the org.

jadbox 7mo ago

Why can't it be the BROWSER that reports age instead of the OS?

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]

cc-d 7mo ago

[flagged]

strangattractor 7mo ago

Cigarette vending machines had little stickers that said it was illegal for those under 18 to purchase cigarettes. Sure stopped all my friends from buying them. Seems exactly like the useless process fixation that Abundance advocates abhor.

paulddraper 7mo ago
Point being the service provider/vendor has to do it directly.

cmxch 7mo ago

Still not good enough to comply in advance.