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Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

agelesslinux.org

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Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#301

Post by throwaway173738 »

snowchaser wrote: post #231
kimixa wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no (state) school giving out tablets that aren't pretty much single-use locked down devices. That's the parents. The expectation that "Parenting" is now outsourced to Teachers, to the Government, to anyone else. People seem to expect they just have a kid, and somehow magically they'll grow up to be a perfect person without any work from themselves. So there's over-reach, there's pressure on making "unworkable…

“There's no (state) school giving out tablets that aren't pretty much single-use locked down devices.” They try, but kids are smart and there are holes in the tools to lock things down. You would not believe the inventive workarounds that kids find to circumvent content filters. It’s a losing battle to lock everything.

We figured out that if you clicked on the context menu fast enough we could bypass the block on “Run as administrator” and the rest was history.

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#302

Post by matheusmoreira »

throw10920 wrote: post #284
matheusmoreira wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unjust laws should be removed. Yeah, in an ideal world. Good luck with that. We live in a deeply unjust world where laws are literally bought and paid for by corporations. This age verification nonsense is just the latest example. They aren't going to sit idle if we attack their lobbying efforts, they're going to come after us. God only knows what a surveillance company like Meta can do to you if they really hate y…

OK, so then you think the entire system is corrupt, and you should reform/replace it. Selective rejection of laws based on your own personal morals is wrong in every circumstance. Either you believe the system is just and you follow all the rules (and work through the system to changes the individual rules you believe are unjust), or you believe that the system is fundamentally unjust and you take drastic action to f…

> you think the entire system is corrupt

I do.

> you should reform/replace it

This is a way to reform it. If nobody obeys a law, is it really illegal? It's more like a custom.

> Selective rejection of laws based on your own personal morals is wrong in every circumstance.

So if your so called authorities passed a law saying you're required to participate in some atrocity such as genocide, you'd do it with a clean conscience? Okay.

> you believe that the system is fundamentally unjust and you take drastic action to fix it

I don't have the power to do so. Also, people who try "drastic" actions are called terrorists.

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#304

Post by lambda »

spigottoday wrote: post #171
lambda wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of the California/Colorado laws is to provide an alternative to that. The whole point is that it provides a privacy preserving way to provide a signal about whether someone is in a particular age bracket, without requiring any kind of third party ID verification. I am so puzzled by everyone who objects so strongly to these operating system based opt in systems; all it does is provide for a way for a p…

I'm confused. What's the age definition of child? 12, 15, 18? Does this mean its against the law for children to install an operating system? What is the penalty for a child doing this and putting the wrong age or just doing it at all? What is the penalty for a parent or guardian of the child that does this? What happens to the parent or child if the child circumvents this control? Will child services be involved? Cr…

Here's the law: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

It requires that operating systems provide a way, at account setup, to specify the age or birthdate of a user, and provides an API for indicating which age range the user falls in (under 13, 13 to 16, 16 to 18, or over 18) to an application, so the application can use that information to comply with any laws or regulations relating to the age of the user.

It doesn't make any requirement that the parent actually truthfully put that information in. It doesn't require that anyone verify the information. It doesnt provide for any requirement that a child not set up a user themselves. It explicitly calls out that there is no liability on any of the parties if one user uses a computer under another user's account.

So all it's doing is saying that there must be a reasonably accessible mechanism for a parent to indicate a child's age so that rough information about which age range the child is in can be provided.

Now, is it perfect? No.

It does seem a bit over broad as there are lots of things which be classified as computers uner this, like routers, smart TVs, graphing calculators, cars, etc. Having to provide account setup with age and an API to accesss it in all of these environments could be a bit of a lift in the time frame given. And it doesn't leave a lot of time for something like standardization of Unix APIs between operatings systems, so for systems not running graphical environments I'm sure we're going to get a bunch of different solutions from different OSes as everyone sticks it in a different place and provides a different way to access it. And this would need to be a new feature added into long-term supported maintenance releases operating systems.

So yeah, could it have been done better? Yes. Is it likely that they are actually going to fine OpenWRT developers if they don't implement this? I doubt it; it's pretty clear that the legislative intent is desktop and phone OSes, and other mass market consumer oriented devices that might offer app stores.

So yeah, I see some issues, but overall this seems like the right way to do things; just provide a way for parents to set an age on their children's account, and then provide that to any apps that might need to do age verification. That's it.

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#305

Post by throw10920 »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #302
throw10920 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, so then you think the entire system is corrupt, and you should reform/replace it. Selective rejection of laws based on your own personal morals is wrong in every circumstance. Either you believe the system is just and you follow all the rules (and work through the system to changes the individual rules you believe are unjust), or you believe that the system is fundamentally unjust and you take drastic action to f…

> you think the entire system is corrupt I do. > you should reform/replace it This is a way to reform it. If nobody obeys a law, is it really illegal? It's more like a custom. > Selective rejection of laws based on your own personal morals is wrong in every circumstance. So if your so called authorities passed a law saying you're required to participate in some atrocity such as genocide, you'd do it with a clean cons…

[flagged]

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#306

Post by TZubiri »

ab_testing wrote: post #255

Why are Linux operating system providers taking it upon themselves to comply with the California law especially if they are not selling anything. Since it is just a downloadable piece of software then it is up to California state to set up a firewall to protect themselves from such harmful software. Let's say I am a generic linux developer who develops variants of Debian Linux while sitting in my basement in any part…

Very common pattern in compliance, if you want to export to a country, (regardless of monetization method), manufacturers and distributors comply with local requirements like for example getting approved for local electrical parameters and implementing specific plugs for local sockets.

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#308

Post by neilv »

akersten wrote: post #249
neilv wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scene. Ext. Town street. Night. Invader military vehicles patrolling, announcing curfew through loudspeakers. TEEN: *runs at invaders* Hey, you thugs! You can't make me obey! I support Bob, over there! *points at Bob's house* THUGS: Grrr! Thugs smash! BOB: Please! I have done nothing! I don't know who that teen is! JOE: You should be happy to have such a vocal advocate in this important fight. NARRATOR: Ironically, B…

Nice, but in this case the advocate is open and willing to take the heat himself, even encouraging it.

The teen was also sent to the prison camp.

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#309

Post by TZubiri »

akersten wrote: post #245
raincole wrote: post #216

The California law is actually the best form of age verification one can imagine. It only requires the OS to let the user to 'signal' their age. In other words, it's more like a checkbox asking if you're older than 18, instead of scanning your face or driving license. It doesn't require a cloud account either. Storing the ages the user inputted in /etc/ages besides /etc/passed and providing an API to read it is compl…

Just because it's easy doesn't mean it's right. Give legislative busybodies the ability to force this little flag into the OS because it's no big deal, and next year they'll say "hey, make sure you only report 18+ if secure boot is enabled" and 5 years later it'll be "hey, you can only report 18+ if one of our Identity Partners has confirmed it." It's the principle of the matter. The State should not be allowed to co…

"It's the principle of the matter. The State should not be allowed to compel speech (what code you write)"

What a stretch man. Is banning nuclear weapons a restriction of free speech because it compels speech (the blueprints and specs engineers write).

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