Apparently this will include Linux…
Good luck with that
Every day this gets worse
And literally no one is doing shit to stop this. It is almost like personal property rights, privacy, and everything else are now dirty words that will make you look like a criminal.
I, and many others, will be born on 1/1/2000 at 0:00 'clock.
Imo, it’d be funnier if you picked Unix time. (1/1/1970 at 00:00).
I guess Linux distros are about to be banned in Cali.
Good fucking thing Linux is kernel
Doesn’t even make sense. Virtually all Linux distros can function completely offline. How do you do age verification completely offline? Classic politician who doesn’t understand tech trying to look like they’re doing something to save the kids.
They will make it a crime to not have any OS that is not compliant, that simple.
The only platforms for now where this might work are Windows, macOS, iOS, and stock Android, however as Muta hypothesized, if this extends to hardware-level, a law could just mandate SecureBoot and lock out the ability to implement custom keys, and then only allow a short list of state-approved OSes to boot on the hardware, which no doubt Windows would be on that short list.
Similarly, all non-Apple mobile devices as an extension to that could be locked exclusively to stock Android, eliminating custom ROMs like LineageOS or GrapheneOS as an option entirely, let alone mobile Linux distros.
Me, buying cellphone parts from another state to assemble myself like an 80% lower to avoid having to drink a Verification Can every time somebody calls me:
I think I just invented the concept of a “ghost phone”
That seems as reasonable as suggesting they could pass a law requiring everyone to hire a govt licensed computer user in order to interact with their devices, and otherwise touching a keyboard or touchscreen would be illegal.
It doesn’t feel like a realistic estimation of what they would actually try to do. There’s too much that is currently dependent on Linux, you’d do better to just dismantle and ban the internet.
Another thing that could hypothetically be done given NK does this already so there’s precedent as far as this goes, is any given government could make their own Red Star OS equivalent, and then have that as the only state-approved distro
"(1) Provide an accessible interface at account setup that requires an account holder to indicate the birth date, age, or both, of the user of that device for the purpose of providing a signal regarding the user’s age bracket to applications available in a covered application store.
Sounds like it’s a text box that enter input into. Making it completely pointless.
According to Gabe Newell, something like 90% of steam users were both on 1/1/99 (might be fudging the numbers somewhat but presumably you get the idea).
What the absolute fuck are these people doing!? An OS does not require age verification for anything but totalitarian intents. Fuck this timeline.
I saw the developers of MidnightBSD state that they are going to block users in California when this law gets put into place. I hope that more OSs do the same. Especially Windows, it could be devastating to California’s economy and make them, along with other states and countries, reconsider their decisions on age verification.
I don’t live in California but I’m interested in seeing if there are any other OSs that will be blocking California users. I’m probably fine to just continue using Linux Mint but I’m open to trying other distros/OSs in order to participate in this protest if Linux Mint doesn’t.
In my opinion, it is foolish and shortsighted of these developers to just block the state and move on. (I do live in Cali but hear me out)
Whether people like it or not we are stuck with this law now. A law that leaves all of the implementation details up in the air. The big corporations, Microsoft and Apple, are not going to be pulling out of California. Do we really want to leave all the power to determine how this system works to them? Leave the 4th largest economy in the world entirely in their hands?
If we ignore what is going on here then we will give up our chance to even propose a minimal acceptable solution to this law. One that does not require ID or face scans.
I desperately hope that the linux foundation is taking this seriously and is already looking at implementing a solution.
This law aims to place at least some of the responsibility back onto the parents that allow their children to run wild on the internet. Is the law perfect? Absolutely not. Would I repeal it if I could? Yes, of course. But this is the hand we are dealt.
(also it is midnightbsd)
I know that we do need better regulations for protecting children online but I don’t think we’re ever going to get that. It seems like the government that we have now just wants to have full control over everyone. In fact, the FTC made a statement saying that they’re basically giving companies a loophole that allows them to partially ignore COPPA, which is one of the best protections children had online. It’s obvious that they have no interest in protecting children online, if they’re making statements like that.
Just to reiterate I do not think this law is good and I would get rid of it in an instant but…
I don’t really see this as a law to protect children. I see this as a law that focuses on the parents. The parents become liable under this law if they circumvent the system and their child is hurt. If developers decide to flaunt this law and ignore the signals then they would be liable.
So if you don’t have children this law should effectively not affect you other than you might need to choose which age bracket you are in. Which sounds like such a small price to pay for making parents take responsibility over their children on the internet.
I mean, as long as they don’t require an ID that’s fine I guess, even though what they’re proposing can be easily circumvented. But my biggest, and everyone else’s, concern is that, as with what’s been going on with age verification, it’s possible that it’ll just snowball into something worse. It doesn’t help that there are people, like me, that currently can’t get IDs. There are already several websites that I have to use through a VPN, so if these age verification laws keep getting worse, people like me might completely lose the ability to use the internet entirely, unless they make getting IDs easier.
I’m sorry that you have to deal with that. IDs should be as easy as reasonable to get. (fucking SAVE act).
You are right, this could be used as a stepping stone towards gathering IDs and the deanonymization of the internet. We (Cali residents) need to make sure that we contact our reps and are heard. Voice our concerns with this law in its current form and that we will be up in arms if they go any closer towards ID verification being required.
It depends on how the system is implemented. It is entirely possible that MS will implement it with ID verification or face scans, since the law does not forbid them from doing that. But that is why the open source community/linux foundation need to make sure that we put forward a reasonable solution rather than just “forcing” users in Cali to go back to using windows.
I mean, it’d suck for all of us outside of California to have more surveillance just because y’all have that law, and it’s absolutely not really about protecting children, it’s about surveillance
I’d love for you to go into more detail on how this is surveillance since that seems to be your main concern.
The law does not require providing IDs or face scans or any other identifiable information. There are clauses in the law limiting where the data gets sent to and that if data does need to be sent then it is the minimum that is necessary.
The law only requires that an account holder “indicate[s] the birth date, age, or both, of the user of that device”. Outside of the abstract the law not once mentions any type of verification that must happen.
Also it’s a California law. It doesn’t affect anyone outside of Cali so if you are affected take it up with your os provider or fork your distro.
So the input is not verifiable? This will not work and sounds more that it’s not intended to do anything other than shift the Overton Window. California has a huge fascist issue in Silicon Valley.
The point isn’t to verify your age the point is to have the account holder (the parent) attest to the age of the user (their child). If the parent lies and it negatively impacts the child then the parent can be fined.
It also penalizes apps that see the user’s age is in a lower bracket and still shows them sensitive content.
There is a huge fascist issue everywhere in the US. SV is not special in that respect.
In essence, while the bill doesn’t seem to require the most egregious forms of age verification (face scans or similar), it does require OS providers to collect age verification of some form at the account/user creation stage—and to be able to pass a segmented version of that information to outside developers upon request.
So you just fake a date and call it a day… thank you Cali…
For real though I can’t imagine the sysadmin and docker nightmares that arise from having to completely overhaul your account orchestration scripts to input a garbage birthday.
I don’t think anyone thought of the fact that an account on an OS doesn’t always correspond to a human.
The law only specifies “computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device.”
Which is extremely vague. It appears that the intention was to just affect end user devices. Not specific purpose systems.
Please explain to a complete doofus how can someone enforce this?
Cant they just download any linux distro from millions of different places and install them on any machine, even offline?
Bios are becoming more and more locked down, that’ll be the next thing, at the tech lobbyists behest.
soon we will need bootloader unlock exploits (or the blessing of our overlords) to install anything other than (unrooted) stock os, not unlike android and chromebooks.
we desperately need to break free from US tech.
The law only penalizes instances that affect children. So by circumventing this law does not mean you would be charged with any fines. But if you circumvent it and your child uses the device then you would be liable no more than 7500$ (since in this case it would be an intentional violation).
I am not a lawyer. This is just what I understand the law to penalize.
OS providers and developers are also not liable if you set an incorrect age for your child intentionally or by mistake, only you would be.
But if they flaunt this law (do not try to comply with best effort) then they would be liable for each affected child.
Edit: sorry this didn’t exactly answer your question. How they enforce it would be that it is tacked onto other charges from what I understand.
Edit 2: oh and children can’t be charged, only adults (18+).
So, umm, what city is always the same time zone as California, but not in California?
Vancouver? Portland?
Gavin Newsom is such a fucking tool.
Tbf every single politician is.
Every politician should be… At least here in America. They are supposed to be our representatives, regardless of how they feel.
They are not. Not the grand majority of them, anyway.
If you run for office to be different from all the rest and win, do you immediately become corrupted upon election?
People wonder why the Dems are unpopular. 2 of my Dems here in Colorado are pulling the same OS age gate shit right now. What I want to know is: “who fucking asked for this?”. Everyone seems to be doing it at the same time, but many people don’t want it. Smells fishy. Let’s not elect these assclowns to anything ever again. Why are you doing authoritarian shit when we elected you to advocate on our behalf.
In my book, a take that extremely authoritarian and unconstitutional should end your political career instantly. You can watch it all on your TV at home like every other clueless boomer (shout out to the boomers who are with it, actually understand, and care). How can we send people to represent us who will openly sell out our and our children’s futures for a few thousand dollars in campaign contributions?
Removed by mod
Please drink a verification can
Gotta love it when people who have no understanding of how Linux works writes laws about how Linux should work…
It goes way beyond Linux. Think any device that could download something at some point. Gas station pump, calculator, FreeDos, VxWorks, etc.
There is a lot of language like “or can download an application”, so if you can download something, then that thing could be an application, and thus that device and it’s OS is covered.
And every point of sale system everywhere
I have never internally facepalmed harder in my life
The law only specifies “computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device.”
Which is extremely vague. It appears that the intention was to just affect end user devices. Not specific purpose systems.
Define “Operating System”…
I guess my washing machine & car are also going to be “not for use in California.”
Those Cisco switches & Broadcom DSLAMs would be tricky too … I guess the internet’s “not for use in California.”
And the air-gapped power station control system? “not for use in California.”
It is annoying that these laws come in (I’m also including magical thinking about encryprion backdoors for “the good guys”) without any form of real-world, practical assessment. Complete waste of tax payers money and undue stress for everyone.
FFS.
Imagine you’re not allowed to use your washing machine if you’re under 18.
It will get repealed when all the always-working parents can’t stand “teenager smell.”
The law only specifies “computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device.”
Which is extremely vague. It appears that the intention was to just affect end user devices. Not specific purpose systems.
I’m going to report the shit out of any of these companies if they have locations in California and Colorado (if it passes in CO). If the law is scoped that wide, there’s no way they’ll actually be compliant. Even corporate desk phones have an OS. :-D
I mean you can. They only get fined for children affected by violations of the law. Soooo…
what are they they gonna do against it?
