So silly question, in theory this is like brewing beer... what if a kid wants to make an operating system?
A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
661–670 of 768 posts
Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
#662Earlier quoted context omitted.
The features are all already here.
Yes, buried in the settings of each account on each service. Parents want the equivalent of being able to let their kid go to the mall and trust that the movie theater will not let them in to an R-rated movie. They don't want to have to call the theater, identify the child, and say "don't let them in to this list of movies".
Movie theater attendant is a highschooler not a member of the stasi. Age verification doesn’t even work in the meatspace.
Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
#663Earlier quoted context omitted.
The law defines a user as a child running software on a general purpose computer. > “User” means a child that is the primary user of the device. It’s definitely more vague that necessary, but I’d imagine courts would readily find automated software deployment by an adult or corporation does not constitute a child using the device. Especially if done for servers or a fleet. Because then it’s pretty obvious that a chil…
Flat packs are fucked… What’s going to happen when there’s no UI, just a shell, and they pacman -S ? This law is unconstitutional based on criteria of vagueness. If they want it to stick, they need to call out the commercial app stores of Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc where a credit card is attached. Otherwise it’s too vague a term unless they define “store”.
This doesn't follow. There are clear technicaö means to achieve complience in all of these scemarios. All those installers can, for example, check a file in /etc to determine the pirported user's age. If this does need external verification, this file can be signed by a third party identity checking service.
If the distros ship this mechanisms enabled in their binaires, but the users install circumvention tools (e.g. a package manager without checking mechanisms) from a thurd party, the distro provider should be off the hook.
Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
#664Earlier quoted context omitted.
No but then the next step is "well we need a way to enforce it because people are just lying about their age". I guess let me show a slope I found over here, just past the boiling frogs, watch your footing though, it's recently been greased and is quite steep.
I was just at some .gov site from another HN post. It asked are you Over 18, I clicked No out of curiosity. Showed Access Denied, but the buttons stayed. I clicked Yes, and got in. I don't attribute to stupidity that which is clear malice. They'd don't actually give a flying fuck about what "kids" can get to, they only care about controlling everyone, of every age, as much as they possibly can.
Similar thing while printing postal labels. “Does this package contain any explosives” and I fat fingered yes. Tells me explosives can’t be mailed. Go back, say “no,” print label.
Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
#665Earlier quoted context omitted.
vague laws are put in place so that they can be used selectively to punish particular victims while letting friends through the nets
until you root out their friends and maliciously develop app stores for their products, then install them multiple billions of times on a docker and let them rack up charges ;) doom can run on -anything-
>doom can run on -anything-
Frotz and Zork/Tristam Island and tons of Z3 machine games cna run on a pen, on a FPGA based display and even under a PostScript file where the interpreter was done in PostScript. Heck, with Subleq and EForth some Z3 interpreter can be coded to run the games on simple hardware made with high school/advanced trade electronics kits.
Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
#666Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The example given was a ‘lightweight LLM’ by the poster, which sounded an awful lot like client side? If server side, you already have the heavyweight stuff going on, and yes there is no need to do all the bypassable shenanigans.
Since that client side llm would be processing billions of messages each year on each person's laptop, lol
Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
#667Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It defines operating system in the law. No, it doesn't. It defines the following terms: "account holder", "age bracket data", "application", "child", "covered application store", "developer", "operating system provider", "signal", and "user". > 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 gen…
In typical jury trials, the jury is instructed that any terms not defined in the relevant statutes are to have their common-sense, ordinary meanings as understood by the jury. The jury is usually also selected to be full of reasonable, moderate people, and folks who are overly pedantic usually get excused during voir dire. Do you really think a pool of 12 people off the street is going to consider an embedded system,…
MOST cases don't make it to jury. They're more likely to be resolved via motions and countermotions and the decisions of a jduge.
To dumb down "operating system" for normies, they're probably going to say something along the lines of "the software that makes your computer work.. like Windows." If it stays at that level, we'll have a specific, discrete definition in play.
A broader, equally correct definition could be "the software that makes technology work.. there's an operating system on your computer, your cell phone, your Alexa, and even your car." Then yes, some people will think of their Ring doorbell, the cash register at the coffee shop, and other embedded systems, even if they've never heard the word "embedded."
The definition that shows up will depend entirely on a) the context of the case and b) the savviness of the attorneys involved.
Not a bet I want to take.
Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
#668Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It defines operating system in the law. No, it doesn't. It defines the following terms: "account holder", "age bracket data", "application", "child", "covered application store", "developer", "operating system provider", "signal", and "user". > 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 gen…
In typical jury trials, the jury is instructed that any terms not defined in the relevant statutes are to have their common-sense, ordinary meanings as understood by the jury. The jury is usually also selected to be full of reasonable, moderate people, and folks who are overly pedantic usually get excused during voir dire. Do you really think a pool of 12 people off the street is going to consider an embedded system,…
You'll be arrested for some weird law that doesn't make sense, but it's ok because a pool of 12 people off the street won't consider whatever random thing you did a real crime!
Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
#669Just when you thought windows couldn’t possibly get any shittier.
Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
#670Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 console…
> It defines operating system in the law. No, it doesn't. It defines the following terms: "account holder", "age bracket data", "application", "child", "covered application store", "developer", "operating system provider", "signal", and "user". > 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 gen…
From the bill:
> "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
There is a reasonable argument that a linux distribution is, itself, a host application. This is clearly an argument against their intention... but makes perfect sense to me. With this argument, the law does not apply to pretty much any environment where the applications are scheduled and run by a supervising process, at least by my reading.