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California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

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Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#151

Post by shevy-java »

anigbrowl wrote: post #129
Bender wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup I was just replying to the .001% that was discussing it. Please do reach out to your congress people.

OK but we're talking about a general social problem (parents understandably don't want their kids corupte dby adult stuff, and some adult services vendors are unscrupulous but the internet makes it easy for them to hide. I personally think this current version of the legislation is a good compromise. Tech workarounds are fine for the few of us that understand the relevant technology (though I have never bothered to c…

> I personally think this current version of the legislation is a good compromise.

I don't think it is a good compromise. It seems to cover the wrong use cases.

My use cases have nothing to do with children on any level. Why would I want to submit to government restrictions? That makes zero sense.

It's as if the right-to-repair-movement would suddenly be undermined by a lobbyist advocating how restrictions are great. Or Jackie Chan suddenly praising the sinomarxist mono-party.

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#152

Post by iamalizard »

infinitezest wrote: post #139
reddalo wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People also wanted to smoke cigarettes but they got fierce opposition from their parents. That's what parents should do. Maybe we should teach parents how to be parents instead of imposing draconian age checks (read: mass surveillance).

Aren't there laws against selling tobacco to minors? And advertising to them? Your analogy is supporting the opposite conclusion.

In some countries they scan you ID and likely keep it some database when you buy drugs or enter bars or clubs. In others they just look at your ID card if you don't look old enough.

The first example is bad, the second is tolerable.

But the reason most kids don't smoke is that the parents and the teachers instilled in them that it was bad. If a kid wants to smoke or drink, they can surely get an older friend or a friend of a friend to sell them the cigarettes or alcohol. Anyone can buy 20 bottles of hard liquor and 50 packs of cigarettes, sell them to a 15 year old who can then sell them to their friends. That doesn't happen often not because a surprise police raid will show up and bust the seller but because there isn't enough demand. If there is demand from the kids and the parents don't care, kids will get their hands on drugs. Maybe not 9 year olds but certainly the teens.

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#153

Post by anigbrowl »

jwitthuhn wrote: post #128
anigbrowl wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LEarn to take a win as a win. People who are unable to look at anything without seeing themselves being scammed are clinically paranoid.

It is an admission from the writers that this law is unrelated to safety and people should very loudly and frequently point that out. If OSes that don't verify the age of their users are a genuinely unsafe for children, why should they be allowed just because they are open source? That doesn't seem to mitigate dangers associated with age in any away I can identify.

Have you considered that the writers typically have legislative but not technical skills and are just trying to placate upset voters, without really understanding what the optimal solution could be? Reading this and other threads you can see therea re plenty of highly technical people who struggle to articulate what kind of policy they want or what kind of parental controls they want to set up themselves?

It's kind of a hard problem and legislators are inclined picking the lowest hanging fruit. Their primary concern is to not be smeared as child predators by their political opponents at the next election, eg "jwitthuhn voted to give gambling websites, pronographers, and pedophiles easy access to YOUR children - s/he OPPOSED age verification laws on internet sleaze!! Who's jwitthuhn really working for - you, or the people who want to exploit your kids?!!"

One can point out that such electoral pitches are dishonest bullshit until one is blue in the face, but the fact is they work on a lot of voters because most of them are not smart and don't have the energy or inclination to research every issue. And it is true that there are a lot of hustlers on the internet who are willing to either passively or actively exploit kids, and the anonymity, non-locality, and technical complexity of the internet makes that relatively easy to do and hard to prosecute. Legislators offer simplistic solutions because that's what a most of the public wants, and people often make their voting decisions based on emotional factors rather than cold rationality.

You don't need mustache-twirling villains saying 'let's impose burdensome techn regulations that perpetuate oligopolies and allow me to make another trillion dollars, a few million of which I'll send your way, mwhahahaha' to get shitty legislation (which is not to say they don't exist). It will emerge naturally by default if other conditions are right.

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#155

Post by wizzwizz4 »

infinitezest wrote: post #139
reddalo wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People also wanted to smoke cigarettes but they got fierce opposition from their parents. That's what parents should do. Maybe we should teach parents how to be parents instead of imposing draconian age checks (read: mass surveillance).

Aren't there laws against selling tobacco to minors? And advertising to them? Your analogy is supporting the opposite conclusion.

Laws like that are sensible – and, in fact, already apply to the internet, too. Age verification doesn't help with that.

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#156

Post by ekr____ »

Bender wrote: post #107
ekr____ wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only device mandates that should be taking place is for the default installations of web clients should be checking to see if parental controls are enabled. This only impacts the major browsers. An intern at each browser company could add this check in minutes. If they are enabled and the person logged in is on a regular account (not admin or power user of sorts) then the base installation of web clients must c…

It's a bit late for that, given that around half of US states already have some kind of age assurance mandate. Perhaps late to solve this globally but parents can still install parental control software if they so desire and can still intervene locally to prevent sharing data with 3rd parties. At worst this means small children might not get to visit social media and other assorted sites and I am fine with that. I th…

I'm not following you here.

Certainly parents can install parental control software, but what does this have to do with children's PII being shared with sites?

Just so we're on the same page, the way AB1043 works is that the OS determines the user's age and then shares the age bracket with apps. No PII is shared with sites (this is not to say that the age isn't sensitive, but it's not PII as usually regarded). Is your concern here that sites get access to children's information because children visit certain sites regardless of legislation? That's a real thing, but it seems mostly orthogonal to age assurance.

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#157

Post by hansvm »

burnte wrote: post #135
iamalizard wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No such mandates should take place at all.

This is correct. It is not the government's job to raise our children. The more we ask the gov't to do that we should do, the less power we actually have. Some will say this ship has sailed, well, I say it's not too late to sink it.

On the other hand, I know several "home-schooled" people [0] who literally can't even read and later married people more than twice their age or had other serious deficiencies in their life potential. The government can probably step in a little more here and there.

[0] I also know home-schooled people whose parents are far better than any teacher I've ever had and whose education and achievements reflect that obvious fact. Home-schooling itself isn't the issue, and I'd prefer that it remain possible.

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#158

Post by Bender »

codedokode wrote: post #148
Bender wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what its worth this header has been around for a very long time. It's actually the second iteration and much simpler than it's predecessor. Parents today can accomplish what you are suggesting by installing parental control software and only allowing access to things they explicitly approve. This can also be done via headers explicit blocking of all the things and was suggested in another thread. [1] Some people…

The point is that it is unrealistic to expect millions of people to mark the content. Also, the header is better than the metatag because it can be added to images, videos and other non-HTML content as well.

The header (for videos and other) was mentioned in [1]. I agree that is the way to go.

Adding a header to a web server or load balancer or app server if done globally can be done in a minute or two. Maybe 5 minutes for the intern not counting QA testing.

But you are right, the inverse is easier. I like that too. That was debated in the other recent thread.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47950091

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#159

Post by hansvm »

Bender wrote: post #61
iamalizard wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No such mandates should take place at all.

I agree fundamentally and ideologically but we are past that point. The toothpaste is already out of the tube as they say. There will be restrictions so all I can do is suggest more sensible restrictions that keep the control on the client side and do not share data. Any data shared can and will be abused, leaked , sold, stolen without consequence.

> toothpaste out of the tube

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2521/

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#160

Post by anigbrowl »

shevy-java wrote: post #151
anigbrowl wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK but we're talking about a general social problem (parents understandably don't want their kids corupte dby adult stuff, and some adult services vendors are unscrupulous but the internet makes it easy for them to hide. I personally think this current version of the legislation is a good compromise. Tech workarounds are fine for the few of us that understand the relevant technology (though I have never bothered to c…

> I personally think this current version of the legislation is a good compromise. I don't think it is a good compromise. It seems to cover the wrong use cases. My use cases have nothing to do with children on any level. Why would I want to submit to government restrictions? That makes zero sense. It's as if the right-to-repair-movement would suddenly be undermined by a lobbyist advocating how restrictions are great.…

I'm sure than intelligent person like yourself understands that a lot of voters have kids and prioritize feeling that their kids are safe, even if those feelings are not always grounded in rationality. Most people shy away from complexity.
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