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A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

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Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#401

Post by mh- »

petejodo wrote: post #322
aldonius wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting idea and I do agree that contiguous is OK but total is not. I think I'd suggest a more generous Senate term limit. Three terms (18 years) would allow for someone to see out a complete Presidential super-cycle, for example. The word Senate is etymologically related to "senior", it's a place where you _want_ people to be able to develop a lot of institutional experience.

Or incumbents have to win some larger percentage of the vote in order to win over time

This is an interesting idea. Would be curious to hear from someone who thinks this is a bad idea (why).

edit: I see the "term limits are anti-democratic" takes elsewhere in the comments, so I guess let me narrow the above ask to "someone who isn't opposed to term limits, but thinks this idea is flawed."

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#402

Post by cbdevidal »

trhway wrote: post #399
jatari wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would just be unenforced for all platforms except windows, apple and android. I doubt the california legislature knows what a Linux even is.

>I doubt the california legislature knows what a Linux even is. they would never need to know it once they learn what SecureBoot is. Any device with 1+ Gflop must have SecureBoot, and goodbye general computing.

It’s political theater. “See? We did something. Vote for us again.”

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#403

Post by cyberax »

WalterBright wrote: post #372
cyberax wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah. I feel sooooo good dealing with Comcast. At this point in life, I spent more time on the phone with Comcast support than I ever spent time in various DMV offices. > A company must maintain profitability to stay alive. Yeah. And once it becomes a monopoly (like Comcast), it can just keep raising prices.

Comcast has a monopoly granted to it by the government.

Not here. It's a natural monopoly, just like sewer lines or electric transmission.

Where I live now, I paid $50k to get a private fiber optics line just not to deal with Comcast anymore. There were no other options. We _might_ get AT&T fiber, eventually.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#404

Post by decidu0us9034 »

zeta0134 wrote: post #147
packetlost wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's the lowest common denominator between the user and every online interaction. The bill basically says provide a date-of-birth as metadata to accounts and provide an API to query the age bracket, not even the age, of the user to applications. It's a privacy-aware, mostly reasonable approach that shifts responsibility to the owner/administrator of a device to enforce it. It's basically just mandating parent…

I'm trying to understand how this is even a bad thing. Where is the privacy invading verification? Surely a given OS can implement the API response however it wants? If you're root, tell me your age. If you're not, (a child account), the admin (their parent) sets the age. Seems fine?

Well the problem is, there is no consensus standard. The onus is on every individual vendor to figure out how to comply. And it's so poorly written that there is no clear path to compliance. Even attempting to comply is burdensome and subjects you to a lot of legal risk. Only the largest vendors can afford to take on this risk. For others, the only winning move is not to play. Classic regulatory capture.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#405

Post by thayne »

dddgghhbbfblk wrote: post #324
Supermancho wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Term limits are anti-democratic, and it's just a way for voters to not take responsibility for their voting. That is one aspect, but not the important one. The most important element is anti-corruption. Legal bodies can always entrench themselves and their own interests. Term limits significantly weakens entrenchment...excepting when the same legal bodies inevitably gut it.

You're saying that term limits reduce corruption? That's in fact not at all what the research says. There's a decent amount of research that suggests that they actually increase corruption. There's overwhelming evidence that they increase the power of lobbyists and interest groups. This is a classic one of those ideas that many people intuitively "feel" makes sense but is actually just terrible policy.

It seems logical to me that a term limit could increase vulnerability to corruption in your last term. If you can't be re-elected, there is less incentive to be loyal to the people you represent.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#406

Post by theptip »

jatari wrote: post #313
bmitch3020 wrote: post #290

Reaction 1: how would this even work with embedded systems that have no UI to input this data? Reaction 2: it's open source, make the lawmakers do submit the changes. Reaction 3: how would this ever be enforced? Would they outlaw downloading distributions, or even older versions of distributions? When there's no exchange of money, a law like this is seems like it would be suppression of free speech. Reaction 4: Someo…

It would just be unenforced for all platforms except windows, apple and android. I doubt the california legislature knows what a Linux even is.

Exactly. This is obviously targeted at these three, and in those cases will be a massive improvement over forcing every site operator to start collecting photo ID.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#407

Post by upofadown »

lysace wrote: post #378
cbsmith wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I'd recommend reading the bill if you have concerns.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... I think mistercheph is right to be concerned. This bill applies to all "operating system providers", defined thusly: (g) “Operating system provider” means a person or entity that develops, licenses, or controls the operating system software on a computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device. Regarding penalities: 1798.503. (a) A…

>This bill applies to all "operating system providers", ...

Not really.

>...for the purpose of providing a signal regarding the user’s age bracket to applications available in a covered application store.

So the OS has to provide an age signal to apps from a "covered application store" defined as:

e) (1) “Covered application store” means a publicly available internet website, software application, online service, or platform that distributes and facilitates the download of applications from third-party developers to users of a computer, a mobile device, or any other general purpose computing that can access a covered application store or can download an application.

(2) “Covered application store” does not mean an online service or platform that distributes extensions, plug-ins, add-ons, or other software applications that run exclusively within a separate host application.

So things like Windows, Android and iOS...

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#408

Post by vineyardmike »

bmitch3020 wrote: post #290

Reaction 1: how would this even work with embedded systems that have no UI to input this data? Reaction 2: it's open source, make the lawmakers do submit the changes. Reaction 3: how would this ever be enforced? Would they outlaw downloading distributions, or even older versions of distributions? When there's no exchange of money, a law like this is seems like it would be suppression of free speech. Reaction 4: Someo…

While there are some enforcement questions here, especially around non commercial OSes, most of your reactions are clearly based on the headline alone.

It defines operating system in the law. This wouldn’t apply to embedded systems and WiFi routers and traffic lights and all those things. It applies to operating systems that work with associated app stores on general purpose computers or mobile phones or game consoles. That’s it.

Enforcement applies as civil fines per-child usage. So no suppression of speech by banning distribution.

(Also it’s not age verification really, it’s just a prompt that asks for your age to share as a system API for apps from above app store, no verification required)

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#409

Post by filleduchaos »

MangoCoffee wrote: post #289
idle_zealot wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'm reading of this law is that it requires OS developers to require users select their age (really their age bracket) when making a user account, and an interface for applications/websites to read that user-provided field. I.e. not age verification, but just a standard way to identify if a user is on a child account. If that understanding is correct, how is this bad at all ? It's a way to put to rest people's c…

How is this good at all for a free society? You are basically making a "what about the children?" argument. its the parent job to protect their children. why should anyone suffer this b.s.?

How is it bad for a free society?

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#410

Post by BenjiWiebe »

lazide wrote: post #346
almosthere wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm totally lost here. If you don't identify, you don't post.

Good thing no one ever breaks any rules!

If a platform decides to require an account to post, or requires your message to pass an LLM sniff test before publishing it, you can break all the rules you want but your message won't be visible to others on said platform.
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