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[–] 43 points 8 months ago

Age verification, which is a public way to say "Identity verification", is absolutely stupid, and does absolutely nothing but making everything worse. And even if identity verification is somewhat understandable for web services, it should not apply to the locally used software, especially foss one, which is by definition available to everyone.

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  • [–] 27 points 8 months ago

    It's like Christmas for identity thieves

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

    Why should a minor not use a OS. An empty OS does contain nothing 18+. Think about it.

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

    It's easier for them to impose their will on a small amount of people (OS devs) who will in turn impose that will on everyone else thus tightening their control.

    In short, hierarchy.

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  • [–] 0 points 8 months ago

    OS Dev won't be the problem. Its bull shit laws thats forced upon them in order to keep the project alive. No one wants to be the dude that has to keep up with securing the new literal front door on a distro. This shit is a security nightmare. Devs ain't the top of this food chain the distro's shut down and we have what? TempleOS?

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago*

    The age assurance thing is ridiculous but it doesn't lock out people under 18 from the OS, it just records their age and has to tell it to every program on their computer so those programs can change their behavior based on whether the user is a minor, ostensibly so that programs meant for adults only can lock out minors without having to individually age verify the user.

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

    The Us governments are filled with pedophiles trying to target kids.

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  • [–] 11 points 8 months ago

    If you live in a US state where a bill like this is being proposed, please contact your state legislators and urge them to oppose it. Might not move the needle, but trying is better than doing nothing.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    Wait until the dumb fucks discovers the embedded OSes

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago

    I get the impression that Darknets are going to start popping up everywhere.

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  • 15 comments in c/technology@piefed.social view that post
    [–] 19 points 8 months ago

    I was there for the birth of the internet for everyone, sadly I'll be here for its death as well

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

    These laws are stupid. If you want to protect kids, you should focus on getting parents the tools they need to lock down their kids' devices however they see fit.

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  • That is kinda the point of the California one. The parents identify the device as belonging to a child when setting it up. There is no verification past asking for a date. The Illinois law also appears to be constructed in this way (I may have missed something though). The New York and Texas ones seem to require ID though the wording is vague. Utah and Louisiana outright require verification. Interestingly Louisiana's law explicitly considers children married under 18 not to be minors for the purposes of the law.

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

    If you want to protect kids, you wouldn't let a couple random adults dictate their life, body, education, and web access just because they happened to give birth to them

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    It's sad that people who don't know what it's like will probably disagree with you, and to be honest I do not have a entirely better solution as it feels like it requires positive intent not specific stipulations (Russia and North Korea for example take it to the other side of the extreme). The width and depth of the human experience remains one of it's worst characteristics. 🫠

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  • [–] 0 points 8 months ago

    And it's downright fiendish that a 100% imaginary thing like money decides who lives and who dies, but that's the world we live in.

    It's not that you're wrong, it's just that there are very few paths to a better solution. Perhaps the local people's militia should take all children at birth and raise them? Until that time it'd be neat if parents had a simple, affordable way to stop their eight-year-old from seeing hardcore pornography.

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

    I don't understand how anyone thinks any part of this is going to work out.

    • The vast majority of machines online are fully automated, how do you validate the age of an automated account? If automated accounts are allowed without verification, how can you possibly tell the difference between them and an actual person?
    • How do you handle old and foreign software? Are they going to start prosecuting individual people for running non-compliant software? Can't afford to update your old phone? Well now you're a criminal.
    • Validating age requires private information to identify who you are. They have completely put the security of this information on each individual OS. Expect this info to be leaked.

    This will never keep someone from viewing something if they really want to. All it will do is open up individuals to prosecution if they want to use any device anonymously.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago

    I don't understand how anyone thinks any part of this is going to work out.

    Unfortunately, you do, but because you don’t have an authority fetish (guessing), you’re thinking about the law and how the hell it could be implemented.

    However

    All it will do is open up individuals to prosecution if they want to use any device anonymously.

    This isn’t a bug. It’s a feature.

    There are laws in the works outlawing VPNs too.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago

    Papers, please, comrade.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago

    They are trying to contain free and open source operating systems of all kind and as a bonus they get to stop people from using PCs and other devices anonymously.

    The future is going to be workhouses.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago

    These types of laws seem to be popping up around the US. How long until this plague spreads to other countries?

    There was a post on r/linux and OP said there were lobbyists for this bill, and Meta was one of them.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    If they require authentication with some identity checking company, that's really bad

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago*

    It already did for a few years. The US wasn't the vanguard of it.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    Is this to keep gramps from doomscrolling

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