Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak • Hacker News Board

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#141

Post by wolvoleo » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 6:47 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #85

txrx0000 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the clarification. Regarding what to do with algorithmic feeds, instead of forcing platforms like Facebook to be less evil, we should give parents the ability to simply uninstall Facebook, and prevent it from being installed by the child. We could implement a password lock for app installation/updates at the OS-level that can be enabled in the phone's settings, that works like Linux's sudo. Every time you…

> instead of forcing platforms like Facebook to be less evil, we should give parents the ability to simply uninstall Facebook, and prevent it from being installed by the child. Isn't that how parental controls already work? There are problems, though: 1. The kids want to use Facebook. If parent A refuses to let their kid use Facebook, then kids B, C, D, E, F... all use Facebook and kid A becomes a social outcast. Thi…

> The kids want to use Facebook. If parent A refuses to let their kid use Facebook, then kids B, C, D, E, F... all use Facebook and kid A becomes a social outcast. This actually happens. (Well, now it's other apps; kids don't use Facebook anymore.) This is similar to the mobile-phones-in-schools problem: if a parent doesn't let their kid bring a phone to school, and all the other parents do, that creates social isolation. When the school district bans the phones, it solves the problem for everyone. (So it's a collective action problem, really.)

If so many people give their kids phones and so few don't, why ban them in the first place? Clearly the vast majority of parents are fine with their kids having one.

You're just inventing a problem then. Or worse, implement a conservative talking point.

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#142

Post by ddtaylor » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 8:08 PM UTC

dzikimarian wrote: post #138

ddtaylor wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are examples of software people choose to use voluntarily. The context here is government removing that choice and forcing you to use something under the conditions they set. I'm sure there are parental controls for many that go too far or not far enough. A reminder of why the government trying to solve parenting problems is likely to fail like most of their other attempts, such as failing to stop people from g…

I agree to some extent, but who should make parental controls reasonable then? What corporations deliver is both invasive and ineffective.

The market decides. Google and Apple both compete and there are other disruptors. I worked on an education product in 2018 and it would contact third-party services like Khan Academy or Duolingo. And if a child had not earned enough measurable results, they would be unable to access non-educational content.

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#143

Post by dzikimarian » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 8:13 AM UTC

ddtaylor wrote: post #142

dzikimarian wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree to some extent, but who should make parental controls reasonable then? What corporations deliver is both invasive and ineffective.

The market decides. Google and Apple both compete and there are other disruptors. I worked on an education product in 2018 and it would contact third-party services like Khan Academy or Duolingo. And if a child had not earned enough measurable results, they would be unable to access non-educational content.

Market is two companies who do not compete in this area at all, because Google literally earns on monetizing attention and Apple since Jobs era uses children as part of the strategy to lock you down in their ecosystem (see emails they had to make available to the court). There are zero serious disruptors and chance they'll appear gets smaller, because of push for device attestation being required for more and more apps.

Making children do an hour of Duolingo before they access open internet is hardly the goal. It's more about limiting their exposure to brain rot content. Existing tool would require you to block it domain-by-domain.

Honestly I can't see less invasive solution for that tool to work than page broadcasting age-rating with http response and device being aware it's owned by minor and refusing to display it.

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#144

Post by rickydroll » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 11:23 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #39

rickydroll wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could interpret the age verification operation must run for every command executed in interactive or non-interactive mode.

It sounds like you want to automate the invisible purposeless no-op. Is that allowed?

I was thinking ways to implement with malicious compliance

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#145

Post by _nobody » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 8:13 PM UTC

One very disturbing consequence not discussed enough is that some American state law is suddenly supposed to be tolerated by the rest of the world just because they depend on open source software, which sees contributions from all around the world.

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#146

Post by user205738 » Mon, Apr 06, 2026, 10:16 PM UTC

hdgvhicv wrote: post #128

gzread wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you implement a feed of mixed content? Say you're YouTube and some videos are about puppies and some videos are about guns? How would you hide only the gun videos from the homepage when the user is under 16?

Why does YouTube allow videos about guns but not boobs?

why not?

These are quite modest and decent examples

TWIN BUSCH® Germany - Making-of Kalender 2017 ^[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP7HYlBsVB4]

TWIN BUSCH® Germany - Making-of Kalender 2018 ^[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdCga9jqD_8]

Making-of TWIN BUSCH® Kalender 2024 ^[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9JNBdYUYiA]

MAKING OF | Twin Busch Kalender 2026 ^[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWPastHi8Vs]

and more: https://youtu.be/YzDHQXKBRek

https://youtu.be/draP5nH_WXk

https://youtu.be/LkpTshwskgg

I'm not even talking about entire sections that feature blatantly pornographic or perverted content, some of which are clearly aimed at a younger audience who might accidentally stumble upon it through keywords you wouldn't expect.

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#147

Post by gzread » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 11:10 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #136

gzread wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is classic legislative stupidity. Applications are required to query the user's age range even if they contain no age-restricted content? Brilliant. This is classic programmer stupidity attempting to read the law in the stupidest possible way. No - if the application needs to know the user's age because of a content restriction, it shall query the system for that, instead of getting it some other way. Unlike c…

> This is classic programmer stupidity attempting to read the law in the stupidest possible way. Except you're the one missing the context. What they're trying to do with that provision is force everybody to check if someone is designated as a minor so they can't claim that they didn't know. If they let you choose whether to check then you choosing not to check could make it harder to punish you when there is a dispu…

Sensible people are pointing out that it means if you need to know if the user is a minor, you're required to check this new thing. You, however, are trying to claim grep has to check if the user is over 18. It does not.

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#148

Post by gzread » Wed, Apr 08, 2026, 11:11 PM UTC

MarsIronPI wrote: post #124

gzread wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The operating system already stores your full name. Isn't that a problem?

Not necessarily your real full name. Plus on Unix systems full name is not a required field in /etc/passwd.

Not necessarily your real age. Plus on Unix systems age is not a required field in /etc/passwd.