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Ubuntu, Fedora, Linux Mint Eye Age Verification Amid California Law Backlash (9to5linux.com)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/linux@lemmy.world
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Of course, this is not only about Ubuntu, Fedora, or Linux Mint, as it would apply to all GNU/Linux distributions, desktop environments, and application hubs lke Flathub or Snap Store, which will have to comply with the upcoming law in the near future in some way, especially since similar laws have already been proposed in other US states, including New York and Colorado.

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[+] -38 points 8 months ago (25 children)

Age declaration, not verification. I know I'm in the minority here, but I don't understand what the big uproar is. All it is is a way for mom and dad to mark an account as under aged.

If this didn't happen we would keep seeing more mandatory ID uploads and facial scanning. This is probably the best outcome we can hope for. They get to protect the children and we can keep using the internet.

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  • [–] 32 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I credit Stallman with correctly being a zealot unwilling to give an inch on this topic for the last 30+ years. If he'd been the tiniest bit "realistic", we wouldn't have Linux or GNU coreutils or ad-free browsers.

    Here's the deal: I paid for this computer, it is mine. I can make its logic gates do anything I want (back then there was no Internet so it couldn't reach out and hack/defraud someone else)

    No matter what, it will be trivial to fork either Fedora installer or whatever to remove this. And because it's files that are freely given away, it's a lot harder to legally restrict than other consumer software.

    No, age verification is not in inevitability. Neither is panopticon surveillance. We have the defensive shields.

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  • [–] 18 points 8 months ago

    The uproar is the same uproar that has always existed when government overreach threatens privacy. The question should never be, "why are you fighting this?" the question is, "why is this needed?" And the answer is that it is not. It's yet another mnaufactured moral panic which is being pushed by the folks who want to destroy privacy. Some want that destruction for the privacy so that they can spy on and control others, the rest are dimwitted fools who believe that they can give up privacy to obtain some small measure of security. They are wrong and in the end will have neither privacy nor security.

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  • [–] 55 points 8 months ago (14 children)

    Day 1: Age declaration laws.

    Then the public gets used to it. It becomes the norm.

    Day 30: Age verification digital ID laws.

    "But I don't have anything to hide!"

    Society gets used to it.

    Day 60: Always on live digital monitoring stream

    "Well I'M not doing anything wrong, and it's to protect children"

    Day 90: Always live camera video/audio feed inside your house.

    "Well I don't have anything to hide! And it's to help find child predators."

    Ect ect ect ect ect.

    The thing to remember here is, they wouldn't bypass child protection COPPA laws to install age verification if it really was meant to protect children.

    Also, YOU don't get to decide if you have nothing to worry about. YOU don't get to decide if you've done nothing wrong. That's for the fascists to decide. You won't know until it's too late.

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  • [+] -26 points 8 months ago (12 children)

    See this is what we call the slippery slope argument. If things like that happen I will be up in arms with all of you. That's not what is happening though.

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  • [–] 44 points 8 months ago

    That is absolutely what has BEEN happening!

    All throughout the 2010s there was a battle for net neutrality. We lost that fight.

    Then they put in the scanners for TSA that take full body nude photos whenever you fly. You can "opt out", but they intentionally make it a hassle, and make it feel like YOU'RE the asshole for not wanting yourprivacy invaded like that.

    Then all the appliances in your home started getting smart, so the internet was slowly becoming less of a luxery, and more of a requirement. Let an entire generation grow up without knowing a world without internet.

    Then comes the tracking. We're entering this phase now.

    And eventually you'll be isolated from society if you don't consent to being tracked.

    I have never had a facebook account. Yet facebook knows my name, my face, my phone number, my address. All of this was never consented by me. You know who did consent to it? My mom. She put me in her contacts list on her phone. She willingly entered all that info, uploaded a photo, and saved it to her phones contacts. Then she downloaded the facebook app. Which promptly asked her if she'd like to import her contacts list into her facebook contacts.

    And it's true that officially facebook isn't technically part of the government. However, these mega corporations are all in bed with the government. Whatever they want, under this corrupt fascist government, it's theirs for the taking. Nothing a little bribe can't solve.

    And now you got ICE out on the streets, downloading databases of who they want to oppress, where they live, what they look like.

    It's ALL connected. You are a frog slowly boiling. You don't think the water is hot because you keep getting used to the tempature increases.

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  • [–] 19 points 8 months ago (9 children)

    There is a difference between a theoretical slippery slope and a logical path to an obvious goal.

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  • [+] -8 points 8 months ago (8 children)

    That's actually my point though, that some sort of this is going to happen no matter what. If you start at the assumption that they're not going to stop until they can verify that the children can't access porn, then working backwards this is the best way to accomplish that because it's privacy focused.

    The option of refusing is not on the table. It's not going to happen. There can be holdouts, but it's happening whether you like it or not. The only real thing we can do is fight for a version which does handle our privacy, which this one does.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago (7 children)

    An operating system is not a tool for accessing porn.

    To state that this is required for protecting children from porn or harmful content means there is an essential misunderstanding of what an operating system is.

    When you say privacy, I say surveillance.

    I will not be proving my identity in anyway to my computer. It's never happening whether you like it or not. I will fork an old Linux distro before I submit to that.

    Your argument -- that this type of privacy intrusion is inevitable -- is also a full of various logical fallacies which i am not going to take the time to list.

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  • [–] -5 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    Well great! Because no one is asking you to provide your identity. Both California and Colorado laws say that you only provide a birthdate (that you set) on a child's account. So, don't make a child's account?

    Your argument is literally the slippery slope argument, so maybe we can agree that the whole topic is blown out of proportion.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)
    1. You are ignoring the premise that an operating system is not a tool for accessing porn.
    2. Details such as one's birthdate are absolutely part of your identity.
    3. There is no such thing as a "child" account in Linux.
      • Who pays the open source developers to add this feature?
      • Would it be against the law if a child uses sudo?
    4. What possible legal consequences might there be?
      • How would the state know that a user in compliance with the law?
      • what are the consequences if a user or operating system is not in compliance?
      • Is this data being recorded in a database?
      • If they suspect you have a child using an "adult" account, does the state have the right to seize your computer?
      • if a child uses an "adult" account to access "harmful" content and that somehow leads to damages, is there no ability to sue for those damages since the child was committing "fraud"?
      • What if an adult is logged into an account and a child uses the computer while the adult is logged in?

    The community's reaction is not "blown out of proportion". I'd say the reaction is actually not proportional enough.

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  • [–] -4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

    I hate lists in comments, but fine.

    1. This is irrelevant, it doesn't matter how you use your computer
    2. They don't specify it has to be the user's exact birthdate. It can quite literally be anything the parent wants to put in there. In fact when you read the law, it says "Age brackets". The birthdate will not even be exposed in the API, only what bracket the user is in.
    3. Correct, which is why it has to be mandated.
    • I supposed that's on each distro to decide? It's a mandate, they're not defining payroll.
    • I read the laws for both CA and CO, it doesn't say, but it does say that above applications will listen to that and may block functionality if the account says they are underage. As for circumventing, I assume each distro will want to prevent that from being circumvented.
    1. What possible legal consequences might there be?
    Up to $2,500 per affected child for negligent violations
Up to $7,500 per affected child for intentional violations

    How would the state know that a user in compliance with the law?

    They don't, there is no mandatory reporting, there is no "phone home" of compliance. It is only, and I mean only a boolean check in the OS, "Is the user a child or not".

    What are the consequences if a user or operating system is not in compliance?

    There is no section mentioning penalties for individuals entering false age information. You are completely free to submit whatever age you wish. This is 100% for parents to create a childs account.

    Is this data being recorded in a database?

    No. This is the largest bit of misinformation about these bills. There is no place where a database is created. It is literally an OS level signal that says "Child is under X age". A browser can check that signal, and if little Billie wants to see something adult related, the browser blocks it saying that they are under aged. It is still 100% opt in, there is no requirement for an OS to take an age, only that they must allow the option.

    If they suspect you have a child using an “adult” account, does the state have the right to seize your computer?

    NO. They have no idea! There is no tracking at all! Seriously. Read the law for yourself.

    if a child uses an “adult” account to access “harmful” content and that somehow leads to damages, is there no ability to sue for those damages since the child was committing “fraud”?

    NO. If the account is a default, normal adult account, all developers can trust that signal. "A developer that relies in good faith on a signal… is presumed to have accurately determined the user’s age and to be in compliance…"

    What if an adult is logged in and a child uses the computer?

    This is the only slightly ambiguous part, which CA at least knowledges is a gap, if there is a shared account. This law does not state anything about that, and only puts in place that a child should be able to create a child account. At this point the OS would say that the user is an adult, and would fire the signal that they are an adult, and from the other parts of the law there is no liability if the parent didn't set it up as a child's account.

    Seriously. Please go read it yourself. I've been an open source advocate for a long time, and I'm a software engineer. Nothing in this law seems alarming to me. Annoying sure, but literally I can't think of a better more privacy friendly way to do this. It is quite literally only saying "You must have a way to create a child's account, so that the API is there for other apps to block access". It's literally just closing the giant loophole of "I'm totally over 21" that we all made fun of for years.

    In fact what I really love is that it's doing what we always wanted from the beginning. Put the onus on the parents. This quite literally puts 100% of the onus on them. Like as an app developer I can say If !os.isChild showPorn. It's quite literally saying "Look, we've done as much as we can, you had one job to do as a parent and that was to set your child's account as a child account, and you didn't. That's on you." As an engineer myself, if all I have to do is check a flag to make sure kids don't use my NSFW app, then that sounds like a win.

    https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB1043/id/3269704

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago* (3 children)

    1. Hard disagree, If it doesn't matter how one uses a computer, then why would one have to comply with the state's requirement to specify who is using a computer? In this case, the state is regulating the way a minor uses a computer and plans to enforce it with legal action including severe monetary fines.

    2. Do you know how digital fingerprinting with metadata works? This information, even just Age brackets will be very helpful to accomplish this.

    In respect to everything else, which I appreciate you taking the time to type, it's important to remember how legal precedent works, how laws are interpreted, and how legal overreach happens.

    These two statements are in conflict and cannot both be true.

    • "There is no section mentioning penalties for individuals entering false age information. You are completely free to submit whatever age you wish."
    • "It's literally just closing the giant loophole of "I'm totally over 21" that we all made fun of for years."

    This is the same cat and mouse game that has always existed in prohibited material. There will always be loopholes and sometimes those loopholes will expose users to increased risk.

    Note, I haven't even gotten to the fact that not only computers use Linux. Some refrigerators might use it to run it's "smart" features. And refrigerators might store alcohol.

    Put the onus on the parents.

    This is not doing that. It is poorly protecting the distubitors of "harmful content". Likely, this will only benefit large companies like Meta. If your goal as a parent is to restrict porn websites, some firewall rules would do a better job, and even that is doomed to failure as you won't be able to add all porn websites. A combination of education, an honest talk with your child, and the realization that abstinence/prohibition does not work would be a better approach than any technical one.

    Like as an app developer I can say If !os.isChild showPorn

    And what if a website or app doesn't check this or add a nudity flag for the device/browser to check? Do you think porn sites in other countries will care?

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  • [–] -2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    For this:

    These two statements are in conflict and cannot both be true.

    “There is no section mentioning penalties for individuals entering false age information. You are completely free to submit whatever age you wish.”
“It’s literally just closing the giant loophole of “I’m totally over 21” that we all made fun of for years.”

    They are not in conflict, because the onus is on the parents to set up a child's account. So if the parent did their job, then the child can never click "I am over 21" because at the OS level it's blocked. They would need their parent to bypass that again. For adults, on your device, you simply never set up a child's account, and you don't need to worry about it. So yes, I consider that closed. A child loses the ability to click "I'm over 21". Adults if anything hopefully don't have to click that anymore, but I'm guessing for safety they'll still force us to tick the box.

    And what if a website or app doesn’t check this or add a nudity flag for the device/browser to check? Do you think porn sites in other countries will care?

    So far this isn't for the web at all, but I see this as clearing up the grey areas. Maybe they don't care, maybe they do. Maybe it puts more power on the browser to help stop it. If a website or app does not listen to it there are consequences for it, but seeing how it's quite literally a boolean check it sounds pretty easy to be in compliance. That's the monetary damages we saw above.

    I don't know man, I see this, which is a simple thing a parent can set on an account: are they a child or not. Or, the alternative, which is everyone has to upload their government ID to some third party site, have it stored for all of eternity, and collated and collected, just so they can access discord, or social media, or whatever. The thing is that I do not believe there exists governments right now who are willing to let any of it slide anymore, they are demanding that something be done. Nothing is no longer an option. If we have to choose one of the options, (and by not choosing it means they will choose for you), this seems like the safest most privacy focused option.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I don't know man, I see this, which is a simple thing a parent can set on an account: are they a child or not. Or, the alternative, which is everyone has to upload their government ID to some third party site, have it stored for all of eternity, and collated and collected, just so they can access discord, or social media, or whatever.

    We will never agree on this since your whole premise is built on a lie.

    You are claiming that it's inevitable for the state to govern how we use our devices. When the realty is, that the state does not need to be involved at the operating system level.

    If this was actually about protecting kids, then maybe the state should go after tech companies like xAI which hosts a child pornography generator known as Grok.

    This is not about that, this is actually a law that will protect xAI, and allow them to continue to generate non consensual pornography including those of children.

    If a child sees harmful material like child pornography that xAI generates, somehow that is now the operating system developer's fault. And it's not impossible to imagine in a few years the parents would also be legally liable.

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  • [–] -2 points 8 months ago

    Okay calling it a lie is a harsh term, and I thought we were coming to at least a mutual understanding of each other's points.

    I do not disagree with you, that it shouldn't be them getting involved. However, what is happening is that they are getting involved whether we like it or not. This is the fundamental difference in our viewpoints. If you think there is still a chance to hold out, go for it, but I think there is no way to avoid it at this point.

    I see it very clearly. That it's going to happen whether we like it or not. I personally think if all the OSes just held out and said "No way we're not doing anything" then the obvious response is that sites will need to require IDs for everything, and we lost even harder. It's better to suggest a tech forward privacy based approach now rather than let them dictate that everyone should take IDs.

    That's my point of view. I know you disagree, and we're not going to come to an agreement, so I don't see the need to continue this thread.

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Why are you even accepting this something like this should exist? What is the threat model that this is protecting against? How would it offer any protection against that threat? Why should everyone who is making any program need to ask about the age of their possible users?

    In addition, the law requires that every developer of every application, commercial, FOSS, student, hobbiest, professional, or whatever verify the age bracket of every person who downloads and runs their program every time. Every time it is downloaded, every time it is run. Yes an API for this would be trivial to implement, but that’s not the point. The point is why the fuck should I have to face a $2500-$7500 fine every time some kid downloads my pong demo? Why the fuck should PyPI, GitHub, or crates.io have to get the age bracket of every user? Why should every apt request include an age flag? Because that is what the bill requires.

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  • [+] -10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

    Yeah this is a way better alternative and no more invasive than a “I’m over 18” checkbox, it’s just done once on a OS user account rather than on every site.

    I think all the age verification bullshit happening elsewhere is making people jump to angry conclusions rather than actually read the law.

    EDIT: JFC the straw man arguments on this one are insane. I feel like people are intentionally misunderstanding how this functionality works because they’ve decided to be mad about it in advance.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Except that’s not all it is.

    Go read the bill, particularly section 1798.501.b, 1798.502.a and b. Every developer of every application that can be downloaded from every package system MUST request your age bracket every time it is downloaded. And possibly every time it is launched. Basic utilities like ‘ls’ and ‘cat’, that pong example I pushed as a test two weeks ago, everything.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago*

    To be clear, I still think the law is dumb and poorly thought-out, but not because it increases surveillance or compromises privacy. It’s just so ridiculously broad and completely ignores the fact that majority of internet queries are server-to-server and aren’t even seen by any user.

    What I really don’t get is why there’s no specification of content sensitivity. Isn’t that the entire point of this? Like if the software never accesses any age-restricted data, then it should be categorically excluded from this requirement.

    It really feels like the writers of this law never considered the fact that “software” means anything beyond apps from iOS or Android.

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