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Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age
- wewewedxfgdf 7mo agoAge checks are 1 million times worse than cookie verifications.
- pocksuppet 7mo agoThat's interesting that you think whether someone is over 18 is a million times worse privacy invasion than their exact location, full name, browsing history, and date of birth. Can you substantiate why that is?
- alpaca128 7mo agoThe former will be mandated by law, the cookie law requires a way to opt out. Why would you not prefer avoiding a privacy violation over a guaranteed one that is smaller...for now?
- pocksuppet 7mo agoThe former also makes it illegal for internet things to demand your ID to know if you're over 18. They have to trust the setting.
- tstrimple 7mo agoHonestly I don't think it's worth trying to engage with these people anymore. They sat silent while websites were asking for license uploads. They were silent while discord asked for face scans. They are outraged that California is trying to setup a system to bypass more privacy violating schemes. They are either illiterate or they know that this is a better solution and prefer the draconian ones.
- alpaca128 7mo agoAssuming that these people (like me?) are "illiterate" and evil and didn't speak out about worse problems because they happen to disagree with this specific (also terrible) development is not a very charitable interpretation. But I agree it's not worth trying to engage with that kind of rhetoric.
- nerdsniper 7mo agoI adore their courage. I assume they feel prepared to mount a legal defense? It would seem silly to be this forward about willful noncompliance if they're just hoping to stay under the radar. I can't tell if this is driven by impulsive pettiness with no real plan for how to mount a legal defense, or if they're engaging in a clear-minded legal mission. > Ageless Linux is a registered operating system under the definitions established by the California Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043, Chapter 675, Statutes of 2025). We are in full, knowing, and intentional noncompliance with the age verification requirements of Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.501(a).
- aniviacat 7mo agoThey seem to be ready for this: > Q: What if the AG actually fines you? > Then we will have accomplished something no amount of mailing list discussion could: a court record establishing what AB 1043 actually means when applied to the real world. Does "operating system provider" cover a bash script? Does "general purpose computing device" cover a Raspberry Pi Pico? Can you fine someone "per affected child" when no mechanism exists to count affected children? These are questions the legislature left unanswered. We'd like answers. A fine would be the fastest way to get them.
- dataflow 7mo agoI have a feeling they're going to be very disappointed with the actual answers they'll receive to these questions.
- Telaneo 7mo agoOn the one hand, I'd love a judge to respond 'yes' to all of these, if only to confirm how ridiculous they are and that a reasonable implementation is impossible. On the other hand, I'd hate for a judge to respond 'yes', because then the enforcement of said ridiculousness becomes vindicated.
- dataflow 7mo ago
- bigyabai 7mo agoI feel like I need to read the prompt to understand what this website wants me to download here. What is it installing? What is it promoting?
- kykat 7mo agoI think it just wants to invite a lawsuit
- pocksuppet 7mo agoit's basically the government said "no asbestos in food" and some contrarians set up a website selling asbestos food, except not really because they don't have a product.
- akersten 7mo ago> it's basically the government said "no asbestos in food" and some contrarians it's actually the government saying "you must include salt in your food" and a few people who cook dinner at home and don't care for salt set up a website teaching you how to desalinate your... (well, there's no direct continuation of the metaphor here, but the point is it's very important that this is not the government banning a developer from implementing something, it is them mandating a developer implement something. That's far more troubling than an "asbestos ban" as in "your open source project must not fry the computers it runs on," which is equally questionable in light of "no warranty expressed or implied" but a totally different ballgame from "this API is required")
- pocksuppet 7mo agoIt's the government saying "you must put fluoride in tap water" and a few people making a big fuss about selling unfluoridated water
- akersten 7mo agoIf we insist on stretching this absurd metaphor, the government would be issuing civil penalties to "water distributors" who provide water without the requisite floridation, where "water distributors" includes not just Aquafina for selling bottled water, but also the lemonade stand the kids set up in front of the house and you, in your home kitchen, serving your house guests water from your reverse-osmosis private reserve. It seems metaphor is important to you, so hopefully this thoroughly illustrates the insanity of this law. The point is there are no carve outs (for open source). Your toy operating system is just as liable as Microsoft to implement this. In the real world, the health department does not require your home cocktail hour beverages to meet industrial water supply mineralization standards. Perhaps you believe that analogue is "a few people raising a stink" because you don't really believe the "health department" would go after my "little open source water faucet." But the way the law is written, there's nothing stopping them. And none of us want to be the test case. And that's not even getting into the whole "compelled speech" problem, but I'm going to have to leave that line of argument to someone else to analogize.
- akersten 7mo agoNow this is what open source development should look like. I cannot believe a few days ago I was thumbing through an email thread on freedesktop.org about how they could implement the mandatory government API in dbus. Can they not read their own domain name?
- kykat 7mo agoThe API seems like a funny joke anyway, `sudo setage 12987123`, done.
- matthewfcarlson 7mo agoOh nice! I’ve been wanting to ask someone of your age, how was the Middle Miocene Climate Optimum?
- amarant 7mo agoThe climate was optimal. Everything else was kinda mid tbh.
- lavela 7mo agoIt being Linux those would obviously be seconds so they are roughly half a year old.
- fc417fc802 7mo agoUnless it represents seconds since the epoch which would make it a birthday - May 31st 1970.
- pocksuppet 7mo agoIt's designed for parents to enact parental controls on their children. If you're root, you're the parent. Obviously root can turn off parental controls.
- kykat 7mo ago
- technol0gic 7mo agomaybe its being done by the people lobbying for the OS-based ID malarkey, so they can have something to point at and jump up and down
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- neilv 7mo ago1. By involving Debian prominently in its stunt, is this drawing fire upon Debian? 2. Are the pile of assertions they're making (which sound like legal arguments and stipulations to me) against Debian's interests?
- akersten 7mo agoDebian's interests, whether they know it or not, is for the government not to be able to mandate what features must be present in their open source software. They should be happy to have such a vocal advocate involved in this important fight.
- neilv 7mo agoScene. Ext. Town street. Night. Invader military vehicles patrolling, announcing curfew through loudspeakers. TEEN: *runs at invaders* Hey, you thugs! You can't make me obey! I support Bob, over there! *points at Bob's house* THUGS: Grrr! Thugs smash! BOB: Please! I have done nothing! I don't know who that teen is! JOE: You should be happy to have such a vocal advocate in this important fight. NARRATOR: Ironically, Bob and Jane were quietly plotting strategy and tactics for the Resistance. Until they and their children were dragged out into the street that night.
- atemerev 7mo agoThe law is absurd. We should not discuss compliance to absurd laws.
- 7mo ago
- nextos 7mo agoSomething remarkable and unsettling is how the age verification debate has popped up almost simultaneously in the US, UK, and EU. With the same logical fallacies. Pretty telling about how transnational lobbies and their interests work. Controlling what children do online is a solved problem: Parenting and parental control applications.
- tmnvix 7mo agoAustralia and New Zealand too.
- BoredPositron 7mo ago[flagged]
- simmerup 7mo ago[flagged]
- pocksuppet 7mo agoWhy should that be our problem when we can just tell parents to parent?
- fsckboy 7mo agobecause parents get to vote same as you, and it looks like they are winning. there are many problems in the libertarian utopia that could be dumped on individuals ("if you don't like it, don't leave your house") but equally unfortunately many prefer a socialist utopia with lots of social and financial controls
- dangus 7mo agoI don’t think any parents as constituents had anything to do with these laws. If voter priorities influence legislature so much, where is our healthcare reform that the obvious majority of people have been demanding for decades? Many parliaments and legislative bodies throughout the western world continually ignore their constituents’ demands because lobbying bodies with real money get their priorities addressed first.
- kykat 7mo agoI like the idea, and hope that they are ready to challenge the law. However, the text in this website has a very distinct Claude feel to it.
- terribleperson 7mo agoI honestly think the pushback against the California law is a mistake. We are being presented with an increasing number of services demanding identity verification, in the form of ID verification and/or video verification. California is offering an alternative to that, an alternative that only requires you provide your age, without verifying it. If the California law flops, the result isn't going to be no age verification. It's going to be increasing numbers of internet services requiring that you verify their identity with them through some shady third-party you have no control over, until you effectively can't use the internet without giving away your ID. I'd prefer to have no age verification, but it's pretty clear that's not an option. People in power are using minors accessing porn and social media as a cover to push age verification, and it's believable enough that people are going along with it. Approaches where someone attests their age on an OS or account level are our best shot at disarming this push.
- ectospheno 7mo agoI’ve fallen prey to too many people at the top of slippery slopes offering “gentle pushes”. The end result is always the same. If I’m to go down one it will be kicking and screaming not silent as a lamb.
- terribleperson 7mo agoThe thing is, I think these are distinctly different approaches. Mandating that OSes collect a provided age and that websites/software collect and use that is very different from making sites liable for providing various types of content to minors. The first one is basically standardizing parental controls. The second one is already happening and results in ID verification approaches. I really, really do not want the second one, and it is already happening.
- pocksuppet 7mo ago[flagged]
- pocksuppet 7mo agoWhy was my comment flagged next to this one?
- zimpenfish 7mo agoI wish iOS 26.4 didn't bother because I'm stuck with an immovable "verify you're 18+" flag[0] in Settings even though it was well into the previous century when I was even near 18. [0] I have no credit card and it won't accept debit cards. It also won't use the fact that I've had an Apple account and spent 10s of thousands in my own name at their damn shops, online and real life, over the last 2 decades (and Apple/partners have done at least one credit check on me in that period!) But that's fine, there's an alternative! A driving licence (don't have one of those either) or a national ID (also don't have one of those.) Can I use my passport? NOPE. Absolute farce.
- pocksuppet 7mo agoYou should hope the California law passes, because it'll be illegal for them to verify you're 18+ instead of just asking you whether you're 18+.
- wtallis 7mo agoAre you referring to the law that the California governor signed five months ago?
- qmr 7mo agoHorrible take.
- zimpenfish 7mo ago> You should hope the California law passes Californian law won't apply in the UK, sadly.
- exabrial 7mo ago[flagged]
- softwaredoug 7mo agoThe problem is we’re regulating individual behavior by adding to the surveillance apparatus. We should be regulating the companies and dismantling the surveillance that makes the apps addictive to kids. It’s a way of socializing the losses, this time you lose civil liberties and they get to keep acting unrestricted
- sophrosyne42 7mo agoRegulating the companies also socializes the costs of implementing age verification measures. The correct solution that does not do this is to put liability on the parents.
- delusional 7mo agoLiability? You want to make give parents fines for their children accessing Facebook at a young age?
- sophrosyne42 7mo agoNo, I am just saying what policy will allow the legislators to achieve their goals. So if your goal is for the state to decide what is good or bad for children, then yes, giving parents fines when their children access 18+ content will motivate those parents to parent their children. That will be an effective way to achieve your goal. Other policies have issues with externalities (ignoring the inherent externalities of creating liabilities ex nihilo, which will exist no matter what policy you choose). If you believe that parents should get to decide what content their children, then like me, you would oppose any kind of legislation with this goal in mind.
- macintux 7mo ago> ...giving parents fines when their children access 18+ content will motivate those parents to parent their children. And, like most such policies, will disproportionately impact the working poor.
- parsimo2010 7mo agoIn this case, yes, this is probably a violation of the law as it is written. But I doubt law enforcement even notices or cares. You’re not actually doing anything to the kids. Maybe hypothetically you’re not setting/respecting an age flag in a web browser, but that’s the worst thing going on. So it’s a nice statement but ultimately hollow because the devs aren’t at any real risk of being arrested or fined. This isn’t like Rosa Parks refusing to move to the back of the bus. Want to make a real statement about software freedom? You gotta do something that makes the normies mad, like making an OS that explicitly helps kids do sports betting, buy drugs, watch porn, and whatever else. Then people will notice, but unfortunately you probably won’t convince them that this law is bad. Unless Microsoft, Apple, or Google refuses to comply then I think this law is where commercial OSes are headed. But Linux doesn’t really need to worry, because nobody is going to arrest a nerd waving his arms saying, “look at me everybody, I’m breaking the law!”
- pocksuppet 7mo agoIt's a consumer product safety law anyway. It won't be the police knocking down anyone's law, it will be whoever comes after you if you release a product containing 1% more arsenic than the legal limit.
- reilly3000 7mo agoUntil the normies come in droves because their dear leader decided that it’s illegal to speak ill of him on a computer, or whatever drives mass change. The regulations will follow, and they will say what we were doing the whole time is impossible and would never work.
- gzread 7mo agoThis is fantasy
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- helterskelter 7mo agoMeta is why all these laws are happening. Please reach out to media outlets with this investigation so it can get more coverage. People need to be talking about this. https://tboteproject.com/ https://tboteproject.com/
- jmcgough 7mo agoI'm fairly skeptical of the findings, as the majority of the research and writing was done by Claude Opus. I'd be more likely to believe groups like AIPAC are behind this - they have poured a lot of money into online censorship legislation.
- smithcoin 7mo agoI saw this posting from here the other day about how it’s meta wanting to pass the buck to OS and browser vendors a la Section 230: https://web.archive.org/web/20260313125244/https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_billion_in_nonprofit_grants_and_45/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260313125244/https://old.reddi...
- gzread 7mo agoWhich doesn't mean that isn't the right place for the age to be set.
- jmcgough 7mo agoOkay, I've learned a bit more about this - the motivation is COPPA fines, which cost Youtube $170M in 2019, Epic Games $275M in 2022, etc. Meta is in the middle of a huge multi-state lawsuit (33 attorney generals), so they have a lot of incentive to do this.
- drivebyhooting 7mo agoI wonder if we can get a popular referendum to sentence Meta to capital punishment. There would be great rejoicing.
- macintux 7mo agoYou'd get 10-20% at best in favor. People are not even paying attention to what's happening in the White House, they're definitely not attuned to the storms brewing around social networks and their negative impacts.
- muyuu 7mo agounironically those pushing for blatantly unconstitutional laws should be charged for sedition and moved to a death penalty state but that is an American solution, not a worldwide one and this is happening everywhere would be great if the US provided a safe haven against all of this garbage, because this would essentially derail other efforts and other jurisdictions dead-set on them would have to go full China/Russia/Iran/NK and segregate themselves
- iamnothere 7mo ago> would be great if the US provided a safe haven against all of this garbage, because this would essentially derail other efforts and other jurisdictions dead-set on them would have to go full China/Russia/Iran/NK and segregate themselves Good news, this is already happening, with pushback against foreign attempts to meddle domestically. Look up Wyoming’s GRANITE Act which is spreading to other states.
- bunbun69 7mo agoI can not help but think that this is performative AI slop We get it, you’re against the government and big tech
- jacquesm 7mo agoThere is no way that this will happen on any Linux box that I use. And this is why I'm an enemy of device attestation and the requirement to register operating systems in the first place, no matter whether it is Apple or Microsoft.
- Phelinofist 7mo agoOnce the new Poettering startup took off you won't get any choice. SCNR.
- jacquesm 7mo agoI have all the choice I need, I can build Linux from source and I'm old enough to know this stuff will outlast me. F*ck Poettering. Want to bet that once he's done the damage his company will be acquired for a large amount of money by Microsoft? This is just another Nokia for them.
- gzread 7mo agoIf you're unaware, the new Pottering company is about bringing Secure Boot and remote attestation to Linux. If you don't run approved systemd Linux, you won't be able to access banking websites. Now that's a real slippery slope.
- tstrimple 7mo agoLooks like you're yet another person speaking out of their ass. There is no age attestation in the California bill. You specify an age at account creation that sites and apps must query. And they cannot fall back on other methods like uploading your drivers license to websites which is rapidly becoming a thing in red states. There is no verification. Just a system that enables your OS to respond to age queries and provide a privacy enforcing acknowledgement. This is in direct contrast to red state laws which require you to upload your drivers license to sites to verify your age. This enables parents who give a fuck to setup accounts for their children which reports their age to apps/websites. No more entering in random digits at random prompts. A consistent age qualifier set by the admin of the system. The websites cannot require further validation. No license uploads or anything else. This is a far better solution than anything else being implemented yet it stirs up far more ire from morons because it's California doing it not Texas. Maybe you'd rather upload your drivers license to access apps and websites. I don't. And I resent ignorant fucks who pretend like having your account provide an age range is so much worse than what everything else is trending towards. For fucks sake, this would make your life easier. Instead of having to enter your DOB for everything you access, your OS based on your account can just send it. I'm tired as fuck of Steam asking my age even though my Steam account is 21 years old. If Steam and other websites / apps could query the age I've specified that would be far better and less disruptive.
- pudelsplasher 7mo ago[dead]
- throw7 7mo ago"AB 1043 passed the California Assembly 76–0 and the Senate 38–0. Not a single legislator voted against it." Amazing. We the people are not engaged. It really feels like we're at the end of history or something.
- ArchieScrivener 7mo agoWe The People are simply no longer represented. Do the math on historic representation ratios and you'll quickly see the first consolidation (long before corporate or bureaucratic) was Representation. We are about 6500 Reps shy of an actual Democratic Republic.
- sobjornstad 7mo agoRelevant: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/last-rights https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/last-rights
- ArchieScrivener 7mo ago>not less than 40,000 It was originally 30,000 but was changed, your author is using the updated version. Additionally, there is another way to change it. The Texas State Legislature. Texas is the only state with Congressional pre-approval to break up into 4 more states. 5 total without the need for congresses approval. Texas breaks up, then California and New York are heavily outnumbered in the Senate as each state gets 2 Senators. Other states will follow and so too will calls to expand the House. There is a path without state amendment process or congress.
- enoint 7mo agoBut only for Texas, unique because its annexation limits the number of new Texian states to 5.
- tim333 7mo agoOr that some normal people want to protect kids and don't freak out over "It asked my age! This is a Nazi state and the end of the world!"
- kybernetikos 7mo agoI don't want to give the impression that I don't find the whole direction of travel concerning, because I do, but as I understand it, the requirement is that the system administrator assigns ages to the users on their system. That seems pretty reasonable to me, and maybe even like a good idea in some scenarios. As far as I know, we aren't talking about software that fights against the interests of the system owner - that's the admin. In fact, I think this might be a feature I would even want.
- user3939382 7mo agoIt's a shim for a legal requirement to tie TPM to your license and then to all online activity and computing.
- SV_BubbleTime 7mo agoI’m glad some people see this because the number of “oh but it’s just a small legal requirement they’re imposing” is nuts.
- skissane 7mo ago> but as I understand it, the requirement is that the system administrator assigns ages to the users on their system. That seems pretty reasonable to me, and maybe even like a good idea in some scenarios Does it require exact age, or just a flag >=18 vs <18? It seems like this could be trivially met by something like a file /etc/userages, where if a login is missing from that file, it is assumed they are >=18 - and a missing file is equivalent to an empty file
- slopinthebag 7mo ago> but as I understand it, the requirement is that the system administrator assigns ages to the users on their system. That seems pretty reasonable to me Why would it be reasonable for a government to use the power of law to enforce the design of an open source operating system developed by an international consortium of developers? The very fact they are even considering this is extremely suspicious.
- singpolyma3 7mo agoI think this falls under what lawyers call "being cute"
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- bryan_w 7mo agoSome people are being played like a gosh dang fiddle. Y'all are so pavlovian that you see Zuck/Meta and instantly rage. The alternative to OS based verification isn't no verification. It's cloud-based verification The cloud verifiers have all the interest in the world to making you hate the idea that this problem could be solved at the OS level without any third party involvement
- raincole 7mo agoExactly. And the funniest part is that when Steam implemented cloud-based verification for UK compliance, many people on HN suggested that the correct approach is to verify on hardware/OS level.
- pocksuppet 7mo agoWe're just antisheeple who'll go for the opposite of whatever our flock leader says.
- iamnothere 7mo agoNot by legal mandate! And especially not a universal one that applies to FOSS! If legislators want to create some kind of legal category of child friendly device and put requirements around it, maybe that’s ok. Until they attempt to ban, restrict, or otherwise inconvenience non child friendly devices, and I guess I no longer have confidence that they won’t attempt that. At this point I’m only in favor of market based solutions and IDGAF if that fails. Our country is apparently incapable of intelligent, fair legislation, and it’s going to be the end of us as a society.
- tstrimple 7mo ago> Not by legal mandate! And especially not a universal one that applies to FOSS! How the fuck do you think these sorts of standards are created? The companies involved aren't going to do it out of the goodness of their hearts. That doesn't exist. So you've got multiple competing private standards which are all more privacy invasive or an option when you setup your account to specify an age that is reported to anyone who asks and is required to be accepted as true. The alternatives currently are uploading your photo ID to random websites to get access. And you think that's a better solution?
- somat 7mo agoIt is a stupid law but I feel people are overthinking this. For compliance the os has to provide an age category to an application and an interface for the user to enter this data. We already have an api to provide information to applications. it's called the filesystem. and an interface to enter the data, that's called the shell. so everything is already there. If the user lives in california and wants to be compliant (wait a minute, let me stop laughing) all they have to do is put a file somewhere with a age category in it. if the application can't find it. well it's not their fault the law is stupid.
- LelouBil 7mo agoYes people are overthinking. Actually having a cross-distro way to specify an age group for parental control purposes would be very useful. If the law starts to change and be about surveillance (which it isn't about _right now_) then distro maintainers will just not implement that.
- SV_BubbleTime 7mo ago[flagged]
- tstrimple 7mo ago[flagged]
- fainpul 7mo agoYou are underthinking this. You described a technical solution to comply with this law. Yes, that's easy. The problem is the legal implications.
- raincole 7mo agoThe California law is actually the best form of age verification one can imagine. It only requires the OS to let the user to 'signal' their age. In other words, it's more like a checkbox asking if you're older than 18, instead of scanning your face or driving license. It doesn't require a cloud account either. Storing the ages the user inputted in /etc/ages besides /etc/passed and providing an API to read it is compliance. How is it so bad that we need some civil disobedience movement over it? On the contrary to, UK's Online Safety Act and China asking all online platforms to verify your phone number?
- crooked-v 7mo agoI think the bigger factor there is that it requires apps to use that, which preempts things like Discord sharing info with Peter Thiel in the name of age verification.
- martin-t 7mo agoBecause people don't have real power, it's all indirect through politicians who are manipulated or paid by professionals. Democracy should be direct and the gating function shouldn't be age but a test of intelligence, logical reasoning, general knowledge and ability to detect manipulation.
- crummy 7mo agoPeople want age restrictions on social media; this seems like politicians enacting the will of their constituents
- martin-t 7mo agoThat begs 2 questions: 1) Do they really? I honestly don't know, are there independent polls about this? 2) What makes them think they have any right to decide for other people's children? I would be OK with them genuinely thinking they need to surveil their own children but if 1) is true then there is this underlying need of people to control others and I am not OK with that. This is how minorities are suppressed and harassed - same mechanism, different target.
- deadbabe 7mo agoI may be missing something obvious but, what happens if people just lie about their age en masse?
- iamnothere 7mo agoThen they will up the ante to require age verification at the hardware level, using this bill as precedent, and all the people cheerleading this bill will say “what’s the big deal? You show your ID all the time! You can’t drive without ID!”
- stephbook 7mo agoThat's not the problem this is meant to solve. You can give your kid a cigarette, a gun, alcohol, heroine and the car keys. What this enables is to set up a children's account on Linux.
- rkagerer 7mo agoI'm so glad I grew up in an age before all this bullshit, when I could do all the same things on a computer an adult could (and frankly, more). I never would have developed the knowledge and skills that led to my career in such a stifled environment as we are setting our kids up in today.
- mursu 7mo agoI don't think anyone is trying to prevent kids from gaining knowledge and skills while using the internet on a computer. The kids can develop all the knowledge they can handle and more ... This (at least in theory) is about protecting them from dubious characters and services online .. just like you would want you local police protect your child if they walk to the store at night from dubious characters lurking in the street. Your kid can learn python and become a world leader using the internet and do fine, without accessing torture videos or sleazy markets to buy speed from online. And just like the cop will not always be able to see your kid buying drugs on the street because they might be hiding deliberately from the said cop.. the same may happen online.. and the kid might choose to go on sites by hiding their real age .. and go into a lot more of a psychological damaging enviroment than the back alley offered. The oversight is never perfect.. but it is a mental checkpoint that can steer a kid by at least showing the right path.. choice is always theirs. Now.. that this subject is being used by corporations for other reasons.. yeah. That is another debate. But we shouldn t cast stones at a rule just because it may be misused. Instead just work on it . Or hold the misusers accountable.. not the law.
- stephbook 7mo agoI'm also glad I got to experience phpBB message boards, justin.tv and a Facebook that was about friends. But nowadays you get Discord servers with IS propaganda and twitch.tv is full of prostitutes. Facebook is "the feed", scoured by corporations, full of idealized vacation photos and Russian propaganda. The old days are not coming back and doing nothing will lead to a further deterioration of the internet landscape.
- tosti 7mo agoGet off of FB, Twitch and Discord. There's still choice. My 6 online friends are on signal and they're 5 real people I interact with irl and 1 guy I never met irl.
- saulpw 7mo agolarge print and I'm in
- jwrallie 7mo agoReminds me of the DeCSS T-shirts [0] and the Penguin Liberation Front [1]. That logo was so cool for 16 years old me. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS [1] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penguin_Liberation_Front https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penguin_Liberation_Front
- ab_testing 7mo agoWhy are Linux operating system providers taking it upon themselves to comply with the California law especially if they are not selling anything. Since it is just a downloadable piece of software then it is up to California state to set up a firewall to protect themselves from such harmful software. Let's say I am a generic linux developer who develops variants of Debian Linux while sitting in my basement in any part of the world. If one country wants to ban my software because I don't ask for their age, then set up suitable protections for your citizens. Don't force me to do that. I am not responsible for protecting your citizens. That is like saying if Saudi wants your id to make sure only males can download operating systems, so now will I add another restriction. At least China takes it upon themselves to ban sites that they deem harmful for their citizens rather than forcing devs.
- TZubiri 7mo agoVery common pattern in compliance, if you want to export to a country, (regardless of monetization method), manufacturers and distributors comply with local requirements like for example getting approved for local electrical parameters and implementing specific plugs for local sockets.
- iamnothere 7mo agoIf you came to my website and downloaded something, I did not export it. Maybe you imported it, that’s on you.
- gmueckl 7mo agoI am not a lawyer. Still, my two cents are: You didn't geobock the download or prompt for then user's address first in your scenario. So it may constitute export because it would be reasonable to assume that you clearly intended to make it available worldwide. Phil Zimmerman was investigated for illegaly exporting munitions because he made PGP available via FTP. The case was settled, so I don't know whether this argument would ultimately have been successful.
- 7mo ago
- _zagj 7mo ago[flagged]
- akersten 7mo ago> But banning OpenAI/Anthropic/Gemini would fix a lot of this. I doubt that anyone authoring these laws even thinks about the two concepts on the same day. I think these issues are totally separate.
- _zagj 7mo ago> I think these issues are totally separate. You don't think the timing is suspicious?
- horsh1 7mo agoThe problem is that organizations providing infrastructure (such as message exchange, money exchange, physical entities exchange) are allowed by law to manipulate the stream, heavily advertise, provide credit etc all kind of scum. Depriving children from writing a message to parents and friends is nonsense. Exposing them to these for-profit organizations is questionable. But that is also questionable with the grown ups.
- notepad0x90 7mo agoThe intent behind these laws is noble, but the implementation shows the deep-rooted corrupted nature of law making in these jurisdictions. That said, the failure is shared evenly with the tech industry's refusal to work with governments to implement viable solutions. Legislators favor their corporate benefactors, the tech industry favors its ideologies and freedom of developers and engineers. But who looks out for the regular individual? Who is making sure their interest is enforced first and foremost? Consider these facts (and correct me if they're wrong): 1) it is possible to issue hardware to the public that verifies to computers and internet services alike the age of the bearer without disclosing anything else about the bearer. 2) Age verification laws for other things like drinking, smoking, and gambling all primarily require the seller to authenticate that the person has authentic identification, and their age is lawful for the activity. 3) The secure method of authenticating users requires MFA, a FIDO2 compliant device like a Yubikey is the most secure means of the 2nd factor of authentication. It requires knowing a secret, and physically touching the device. Knowing all this, it is possible to issue the public devices that receive a challenge from a government operated server, require the user to tap on the device, and then enter a pin to respond with a signed version of the challenge, to verify they possess the device. The device could be sold or given to the public without any registration, the only thing required would be showing and verifying your valid ID at the point of sale (from a government office ideally). This is just one solution, but the burden could be passed onto the government, and the tech industry to implement solutions that work with that. If we had that, I wouldn't agree with it, but I would also not have a problem with requiring insertion of an age verification device to start installing Linux -- of course the installer wouldn't know it's in California, it would rely on the people installing it to tell them it is. And when selling devices in california, by default they could require inserting this device to proceed, but I see nothing preventing users from installing their own custom OS lawfully if they too the device elsewhere, and how can the device tell it is at "elsewhere", even if it has a GPS there is no law requiring GPS to be turned on for that purpose. --- The key thing you should all consider is that this is the will of the people to the most part. Most people agree that access to tech should be age restricted, although to what degree is a different story. This isn't the 90s, using an OS is not a novel or special thing you do, it is similar to driving a car except we depend on these devices more than cars!! Things the public depends on, things a country depends on, will always require regulation of some sort. Forget about what it was like for you in your nostalgic days of experimenting with Linux or whatever. These are not those days. this is happening. if you can stop age verification laws, please go ahead, you have my full support. But I don't see that happening. We will get shitty situations where third party companies bribing politicians collect our physical ID scans, and we'll be forced to not only disclose our identity to everyone and their mother on the internet, we'll be forced to let these 3rd parties and the government track every site we visit at this rate. Corrupt lawmakers are one half of the problem, technologists refusing to adapt and make best of the situation and propose privacy preserving solutions is the other half. I'm glad so many are willing to go all-or-nothing and die on their hills, but there is no reason they have to drag everyone else with them.
- bastawhiz 7mo agoThis is kind of neat, but the site design is very obviously Claude's handiwork. Has anyone else noticed this very distinctive look, which is a dark mode site with semi transparent cards with a thin less transparent border, maybe ten pixels of border radius... In the last six months this has shown up everywhere. Tools at work look like it. Blogs look like it. It's inoffensive but imperfect, and when so many sites look like it, it starts to look cheap.
- royal__ 7mo agoYes! This is very obviously AI. Even in the last week there have been several submissions that have this exact same style. Also, the text on the site is obviously AI, em-dashes and all. I don't have a problem with people using the tools to make stuff, but man...at least say it's generated somewhere.
- tosti 7mo agoThere's a meta tag for that, but hardly anyone uses it.
- mikolajw 7mo agoThe style of the website reminds me of https://faircoding.com/ai/ https://faircoding.com/ai/, which I suppose is an example of these recent LLM-generated websites you're talking about. It likewise has dark background and semi-transparent cards with thin non-transparent borders.
- talentedcoin 7mo ago[flagged]
- slopinthebag 7mo agoIt's incredible how people will cheer for their own enslavement as long as the groups they hate are enslaved alongside them.
- amy7979 7mo agocool
- colordrops 7mo agoGreat analysis that traces these laws back to Meta: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_billion_in_nonprofit_grants_and_45/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_b...
- bradley13 7mo agoAll of Linux should do this. Add to T&C that it cannot be legally used anywhere that requires an age check. Then have the big distros enforce it. See how long Silicon Valley lives with no Linux. Seriously, we in the tech industry can help stop this 1984 stuff.
- petterroea 7mo agoLLMs have really made pushing out protest websites easier recently, hasn't it. We've seen tonnes on HN recently
- shevy-java 7mo agoEveryone wants to find out your age now. How about "age-agnostic Linux"? Just work?
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- mursu 7mo agoI agree that measures like this, in which some character willfully finds practical ways to challenge a law, may faster lead to it being forcefully looked upon and probably amended. I also agree that age restriction software implementation may open the door to more tolerance regarding social control (under certain administrations). But as with most subjects that transcend borders and are multifaceted by nature with respect to any approach meant to deal with them, the age restriction digital regulation is prone to become a hard problem. There is the moral aspect that a child should be prevented from the worlds harm until the age of maturity because neurologically they lack the mechanisms that help them discern the world on their own, thus needing external support. There is the problem of the controlling entity, the enforcer, the authority, which is not impeccable. There is the problem of the speculator entity which hijacks the situation, creates certain narratives based on mass perception and may drive the process towards their own personal interests. There is the ideological perspective that only operates based on its underlying rules and filter every decision according to its ideological convictions. And this list is probably not exhaustive. So I think an appropriate angle to tackle this (or anything) is the balanced view. Which is hard. But from my current understanding: the law itself is well intended, just like a cop is put in the street from the good intention of protecting citizens, but just like the cop can turn bad... the entity enforcing the law can also. But the law itself.. is inherently a good point. A psychologically healthy point. A child should be .. somehow protected from situations in which, in lack of discerning, will almost always choose the bad option that is being offered... just for testing it, if not for anything else. So parents have rules, schools have rules, etc.. and no, they are not perfect. Nothing is. Should we give up on rules or the creation of new rules, just because they are not perfect? Well, in my opinion, that is precisely what a child would say, when presented with a new rule that does not entirely suite them. And that brings in the psychological argument. A mind that rejects a car seat belt simply because they don't want to be told what to do, and lack the perspective that it's simply a protective measure, which is ultimately imposed because of the lack of education characteristic of the individual rejecting it... is simply that.. an uneducated mind. Which in psychology means the individual has a mental age that is smaller than their biological age. So it boils down to education. But education starts when we are 0 days old. From parents, neighbors, schools and government... they all have to do their part. Each one. But when the parent does their job, the child complains... when the school does its job, the child and sometimes (more often I'd say) the parent complains... when the government tries to do its job, the parents, children and schools complain... so isn't this the perfect ouroboros. Now on top of this... the speculative entity comes and takes advantage of the situation. It manipulates narratives and entices the participant groups at each other's throats, steering the outcome for personal gain. This is all an entanglement that cannot be easily solved. It is human nature at its best. The perfect paradigm does not exist. So I guess the answer would be... what lesson can we gain out of this... (and this is with respect to every one's own perspective). I for one would welcome initiatives that try to protect, steer and show a righteous path.. even if the initiative is distorted by exterior forces, and try to work with it, iterate on it and implement it as best we can... as opposed to no action at all out of fear that the same exterior forces will act against us.
- fainpul 7mo agoTo those who don't get it: this law is like the "Yes I'm 18+" button on porn sites. Every kid knows they have to click that button to see the porn. It's not about keeping anyone out, it's about legal liability (i.e. making it easy for companies to blame you).
- notpushkin 7mo ago> The child has learned the following lesson: legal compliance prompts are obstacles to be bypassed. This is a good lesson. What is legal is orthogonal to what is moral and/or good for you.
- irusensei 7mo agoAnyone ever heard about the story of how Phill Zimmerman made an absolute clown of the US federal government by publishing the source code of PGP as a book? History of computing and open source is full of clever subversiveness. If back in the past hackers had the same attitude crying about complying otherwise fines we would have nothing today.
- gzread 7mo agoTheir subversion was protecting our speech and privacy from the government. Our subversion is.......... letting 12-year-olds access gambling websites???
- headsman771 7mo agoIts about maintaining access to general purpose computing. There is no way to enforce laws or policies like this without removing the ability to modify the software running the computer. Once that door is closed you can kiss 90% of what we love about computing goodbye. They will solely be marketing and advertising platforms which you increasingly MUST use to interact with institutions private and public. And by the way they'll be spying on and profiling on you even worse than is happening today, all fed into digital identity silos sold to anyone who wants it, including governments. Governments you like, and governments you don't.
- gzread 7mo agoNothing in CA AB 1043 requires or even suggests losing the ability to modify software running a computer.
- headsman771 7mo agoI will reiterate: there is no way to enforce laws or policies like this without restricting the ability to modify the OS. There is already a pre-existing push to bring attested computing to Linux. The California law is not the only OS level age verification law passed or in the process of passing in the US. One wonders if you're being intentionally obtuse.
- alkonaut 7mo agoThe order of things here is: 1) develop good systems for completely anonymous age verification. 2) now, potentially, use this in the places you think need age verification. Why are people accepting 2 before 1?
- madduci 7mo agoWhere can I buy the $18 kit? A link to a shop would be also interesting, as interesting is the project itself
- huhntmoral 7mo ago[flagged]
- phillipclapham 7mo ago[flagged]
- sgbeal 7mo agoReminiscent of the classic DMCA email footer: This email is encoded with ROT-26 encoding. Decoding it is in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
- arturkesik 7mo agoFor a second I thought it's a linux dedicated for older adults and I was so excited that maybe my mom would have it easier using tech
- lrvick 7mo agoAs the founder of the stagex linux distribution, and a California resident, it is my personal position that I will never implement age verification nonsense, and no one can physically make me. Our distribution has no centralized legal entity in any country, and our decentralized trust model requires signatures from multiple maintainers from multiple legal jurisdictions to sign code and reproducible builds to make changes so quite literally no single person has the power to change stagex alone. I would genuinely be fascinated to see anyone attempt to make us do anything we don't want to do. I do hope California attempts to make me. I would make it my personal mission to drag them in court and make a spectacle of proving that I literally am unable to comply due to the design of the operating system.
- casey2 7mo agoIs breaking the law, advising people to break the law by distributing harmful materials to minors really the solution? Why not just ask for the laws to be amended?
- everdev 7mo ago[dead]
- papounecustom 7mo ago[dead]
- arturx 7mo agoSomething I have seen a lot of confusion here in HN, and I think in this context it's important, is that something to be legal is not the same as to be legitimate. Legality is what is permitted or prohibited by the law. In contrast, legitimacy is based on a moral principle. And thus, it is not universal and depends on the culture and tradition of a specific region. When concerning law, in my opinion, one does not need to ask, is it legal? Which now clearly, in California, will be legal to impose restrictions on the OS level to access content on the internet. At start it is about age. But this builds a base which can be extended on. One needs to ask, is it legitimate? Is it legitimate to impose restrictions on computer and internet usage based on who you are? Another question to be asked is if in democracy all laws are legitimate, as they emanate from the congress which belongs to the nation. It's clear that in non-democratic regimes legality will never be equal to legitimacy.
- 66yatman 7mo agoIt baffles me people in china feels safe in areas with cameras but it’s an opposite reality beyond that territory.