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Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

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Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#181

Post by epiccoleman »

teekert wrote: post #49
cosmos0072 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am from EU, and contrary to age verification laws in general. My stance is that if somebody is a minor, his/her/their parents/tutors/legal guardian are responsible for what they can/cannot do online, and that the mechanism to enforce that is parental control on devices. Having said that, open-source zero-knowledge proofs are infinitely less evil (I refuse to say "better") than commercial cloud-based age monitoring…

"mechanism to enforce that is parental control on devices." Meh, I use it, but it's super annoying and I think that with my Daughter I'll take a different approach (but it will be some years before that is relevant). On Android: The kid can easily go on Snapchat (after approval of install of course, and then you can just see their "friends") before Pokemon Go (just a pain to get working, it keeps presenting some bork…

> Granting kids access to our own minercraft servers: My god, I felt dirty about what the other parents had to go through to enable that.

This is a hobby horse of mine to the point that coworkers probably wish I'd just stfu about Minecraft - but holy shit is it crazy how many different things you need to get right to get kids playing together.

I genuinely have no idea how parents without years of "navigating technical bullshit" experience ever manage to make it happen. Juggling Microsoft accounts, Nintendo accounts, menu-diving through one of 37 different account details pages , Xbox accounts, GamePass subscriptions - it's just fucking crazy!

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#182

Post by tinfoilhatter »

pjc50 wrote: post #22
axegon_ wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though the EU is at large keeping it's composure with this. My only criticism towards the EU as an EU citizen is how slow and bureaucratic the EU is and that decisions that should be made on the fly are dragged on forever. That said, government agencies have been doing a terrible job at keeping the private information of citizens safe. But it is nowhere nearly as bad as the US. My best childhood friend died in very q…

The critical thing is not so much "Americans" as "big money". Big Russian money is also a threat. Big Chinese money .. well, there's a bit of that about, but it doesn't seem to have shown up at the legislation influencing layer.

You fail to mention big Israel money, when 98% of US congress members are taking donations from AIPAC. Strange omission on your part.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#183

Post by pixl97 »

module1973 wrote: post #159
cosmos0072 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am from EU, and contrary to age verification laws in general. My stance is that if somebody is a minor, his/her/their parents/tutors/legal guardian are responsible for what they can/cannot do online, and that the mechanism to enforce that is parental control on devices. Having said that, open-source zero-knowledge proofs are infinitely less evil (I refuse to say "better") than commercial cloud-based age monitoring…

that is correct the parents are meant to pass on morals and parent the child. If the parents fall through, there is the community such as church, neighbors, schools etc. The absolute last resort is government or law enforcement intervention, and this should be considered an extreme situation. But as John Adams noted, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people" -- in other words, all these laws s…

>all these laws start to rip at the seams when the fabric of society, the people who make up the society no longer have morals

Morals like owning slaves, right?

A moral system that requires everyone to be white Christian males isn't a moral system, it's a theocracy.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#185

Post by user_7832 »

edgyquant wrote: post #73
user_7832 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, like the Left-pad incident [1], getting things to go suddenly dark is extremely effective at getting people to drop everything else to fix an issue. Ideally, getting these servers to auto turn off the day this goes into effect ("In compliance with this new law, Linux is now temporarily unusable. Please .") would be glorious for getting the bill staved off, or killed. It would hurt some productivity, but tha…

It would make people move quickly to use a forked version of the kernel and would be an all around blunder by the Linux foundation

My comment was half in jest (I wasn't super serious about it.) In another sibling comment below I wrote how it's still possible to leverage this without actually implementing it.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#186

Post by gruez »

inetknght wrote: post #163

Age verification is merely the background task to set up infrastructure for OS to provide many many other signals about who's using the device. Age signals from the OS? Need to provide a channel of information available to applications. Applications already talk to servers with unchecked commonality. Biometric data? Today it unlocks your private key. Tomorrow it's used to verify you are the same person that was used…

>Age signals from the OS? Need to provide a channel of information available to applications. Applications already talk to servers with unchecked commonality.

This is a non-issue because it's almost certainly going to be gated behind a permission prompt. There are more invasive things sites/apps can ask for, and we seem to be doing fine, eg. location. Moreover is it really that much of a privacy loss if you go on steam, it asks you to verify you're over 18, and the OS says you're actually over 18?

>Biometric data? Today it unlocks your private key. Tomorrow it's used to verify you are the same person that was used during sign-up -- the same that was "age-verified".

Given touch id was introduced over a decade ago, and the associated doom-mongering predilections did not come to pass, I think it's fair to conclude it's a dud.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#187

Post by MonkeyClub »

ndriscoll wrote: post #98
heavyset_go wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having said that, open-source zero-knowledge proofs are infinitely less evil (I refuse to say "better") than commercial cloud-based age monitoring baked into every OS To be honest, I worry that the framing of this legislation and ZKP generally presents a false dichotomy, where second-option bias[1] prevails because of the draconian first option. There's always another option: don't implement age verification laws a…

> App and website developers shouldn't be burdened with extra costly liability Why not? Physical businesses have liability if they provide age restricted items to children. As far as I know, strip clubs are liable for who enters. Selling alcohol to a child carries personal criminal liability for store clerks. Assuming society decides to restrict something from children, why should online businesses be exempt? On who…

> Physical businesses have liability if they provide age restricted items to children.

Ok, suppose the strip club is the website, and the club's door is the OS.

Would you fine the door's manufacturer for teens getting into the strip club?

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#188

Post by inetknght »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #161
inetknght wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want age verification Why?

Because it's absurd to allow children to simply click "I am 18." Nowhere else works like this.

> Nowhere else works like this.

Are you serious? Because this comment doesn't make it sound like you're serious.

EULAs and the like allow adults to simply click "I accept". That's apparently the way contracts work these days. Speaking of contracts: children aren't allowed to sign contracts. So those apps that children are using with EULAs? It's absurd to allow adults to simply click "I accept". We need to have "acceptance verification" laws to prevent this kind of abuse.

It's also absurd to allow children to simply enter a church. Churches teach dangerous thoughts. Have you read their books?! Those books have sex, murder, theft! Think of the children! There's many kinds of religions and we need to track the religion bracket of our children. It's absurd to allow a child to simply click "I am Christian." Nowhere else works like this. We need to have "religious verification" laws to prevent this kind of abuse.

What you want isn't conducive to a "high trust" society [0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-trust_and_low-trust_socie...

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#189

Post by shagie »

mvdwoord wrote: post #100
someguyiguess wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I probably don't have all the info on the various laws across the US and EU that are being pushed, but I'm confused why Linux distros don't just update their licensing and add a notice on the installation screen that it is illegal to run their OS in places where these laws exist? Heck, Linus Torvalds should just add an amendment to the next release of the Linux Kernel that makes it illegal to use in any jurisdiction…

Would be funny indeed... And also curious why nobody does that.

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html

    6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.
It would be in violation of the GPL and such a license would not be an OSI approved license.

https://opensource.org/osd

    5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups

    The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#190

Post by idiotsecant »

gzread wrote: post #80
idiotsecant wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great solution to the stated problem. The issue is that nobody is actually trying to solve the stated problem. This is a terrible solution to the real 'problem' which is the lack of surveillance power and information control.

Three states now implement this solution that you just called a great solution, and most of HN still hates it. Are they seeing something that you're not? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47357294

Psst I was talking about zero knowledge proofs. Read twice before talking.
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