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Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

theregister.com

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Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#21

Post by hamdingers »

NoraCodes wrote: post #4

This headline is misleading. The California law requires that the OS store and provide the age bracket. It does not require that any verification take place. I am not arguing that this is a good idea, but it is simply false that the law requires that Linux 'check kids' IDs before booting'. The New York law is worse, and should be opposed, but the article only mentions it at the end - and even then, we actually don't…

The initial mislead comes from the bill[1] where it's described as "verification" in the name and digest but nowhere in the law itself.

1. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#22

Post by m132 »

quesera wrote: post #18
m132 wrote: post #9

> The real problem is this hodgepodge of laws; it's the growth of the surveillance state. From voting rights in the United States, facing Trump's Orwellian-named SAVE America Act, to Ring's doggie tracking system that can also be used to follow people, to Trump booting Anthropic to the side for refusing to allow its AI tools to be used for mass surveillance, privacy is on the decline. I understand it is popular to pi…

You're not wrong, but there is a huge difference between moving US government regulated currency to (possibly) foreign and (possibly) nefarious actors, and this.

Ever since KYC was extended to cover cryptocurrency exchanges, I have given up any faith in that this is solely about regulated currencies, or money laundering at all.

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#24

Post by quesera »

LtWorf wrote: post #19
NoraCodes wrote: post #4

This headline is misleading. The California law requires that the OS store and provide the age bracket. It does not require that any verification take place. I am not arguing that this is a good idea, but it is simply false that the law requires that Linux 'check kids' IDs before booting'. The New York law is worse, and should be opposed, but the article only mentions it at the end - and even then, we actually don't…

It's funny that they want to do these checks in a country where even the checks for voting are very iffy.

FWIW, there are vanishingly few problems with improper voting in the US, and the extremely unusual occurrences are mostly PartyB voters trying to "counteract" the imaginary PartyA violations.

Anyone who tells you differently is lying or ignorant.

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#25

Post by alephnerd »

iamnothere wrote: post #20
NoraCodes wrote: post #4

This headline is misleading. The California law requires that the OS store and provide the age bracket. It does not require that any verification take place. I am not arguing that this is a good idea, but it is simply false that the law requires that Linux 'check kids' IDs before booting'. The New York law is worse, and should be opposed, but the article only mentions it at the end - and even then, we actually don't…

Who is paying FOSS devs who will be implementing this? Who is providing them with legal indemnification since they are now apparently subject to fines for a fucking hobby if they do it wrong? Who is making CA the only jurisdiction instead of the myriad contradictory laws all over the place? Who is stepping in to make sure no additional legislation comes across regulating how FOSS has to include backdoors or weaken en…

> Who is paying FOSS devs who will be implementing this

Most Linux maintainers are employed by Google, IBM, Facebook, and other similarly sized organizations.

> Who is making CA the only jurisdiction instead of the myriad contradictory laws all over the place

The US is a federal system. It's part of our checks and balances.

> Who is stepping in to make sure no additional legislation comes across regulating how FOSS has to include backdoors or weaken encryption

No one. This is why organizations with actual security requirements do their own dependency checks.

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#26

Post by quesera »

m132 wrote: post #22
quesera wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong, but there is a huge difference between moving US government regulated currency to (possibly) foreign and (possibly) nefarious actors, and this.

Ever since KYC was extended to cover cryptocurrency exchanges, I have given up any faith in that this is solely about regulated currencies, or money laundering at all.

I don't understand this position. Cryptocurrency exchanges are the primary legal touch point (fiat offramp) for a lot of criminal activity. Of course they will get attention for AML.

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#27

Post by whywhywhywhy »

wongarsu wrote: post #16
alphabetag675 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we are installing docker repositories on my Rockylinux installation on 100 nodes at once, should we need to manually put an age of the person who is running the script somewhere in the process? Will docker be forced to prevent me from downloading its packages if I do not transmit the age in a header?

The California law only stipulates that there's an "accessible interface at account setup" to set the birthday or age at account setup, and an interface to query the age bracket. Plus the crap for "application stores" I don't think it's a very well thought-out law. But realistically this will end up as setting some env variable for your docker containers to assure them that you are 99 years old. And yes, maybe transm…

So once my application is running I can just keep querying an age bracket until it flips and then I've successfully determined a date of birth.

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#28

Post by jmclnx »

> Jef Spaleta, the Fedora Project leader, isn't sure of the legalities, but he thinks it might be as simple as mapping "uid to usernames and group membership and having a new file in /etc/ that keeps up with age."

Personally I think Linux distros should ignore this law and put a disclaimer on their download sites. I expect OpenBSD will do just that. If Linux decides to make this a requirement, I guess I know what OS I will move to next.

Anyway, Instead of a new file, there are optional fields in /etc/passwd that can be used for "age". These fields can be added as comma separated fields. But, maybe he is thinking of making the new file readable only by root ?

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#29

Post by whywhywhywhy »

iamnothere wrote: post #20
NoraCodes wrote: post #4

This headline is misleading. The California law requires that the OS store and provide the age bracket. It does not require that any verification take place. I am not arguing that this is a good idea, but it is simply false that the law requires that Linux 'check kids' IDs before booting'. The New York law is worse, and should be opposed, but the article only mentions it at the end - and even then, we actually don't…

Who is paying FOSS devs who will be implementing this? Who is providing them with legal indemnification since they are now apparently subject to fines for a fucking hobby if they do it wrong? Who is making CA the only jurisdiction instead of the myriad contradictory laws all over the place? Who is stepping in to make sure no additional legislation comes across regulating how FOSS has to include backdoors or weaken en…

>Who is paying FOSS devs who will be implementing this?

honestly if they let it be known they'd do it for payment the same person who's paying off the politicians to push this through would probably pay them too.

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#30

Post by iamnothere »

alephnerd wrote: post #25
iamnothere wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is paying FOSS devs who will be implementing this? Who is providing them with legal indemnification since they are now apparently subject to fines for a fucking hobby if they do it wrong? Who is making CA the only jurisdiction instead of the myriad contradictory laws all over the place? Who is stepping in to make sure no additional legislation comes across regulating how FOSS has to include backdoors or weaken en…

> Who is paying FOSS devs who will be implementing this Most Linux maintainers are employed by Google, IBM, Facebook, and other similarly sized organizations. > Who is making CA the only jurisdiction instead of the myriad contradictory laws all over the place The US is a federal system. It's part of our checks and balances. > Who is stepping in to make sure no additional legislation comes across regulating how FOSS h…

Linux is the kernel, it has nothing to do with this.

The law apparently seems to target the packager/distributor of the distribution. Many small distros are hobby distros!

> The US is a federal system. It's part of our checks and balances.

Nonsensical answer. Different states are passing different requirements that often contradict each other. This is going to be a nightmare.

> No one. This is why organizations with actual security requirements do their own dependency checks.

So you’re saying that we should expect those laws too? Because before now “code is speech” has ruled, and the US government have not been able to be so invasive about how computers should work. If this is the direction we’re headed in, we need to organize and fight like hell.

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