Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

congress.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 243 posts

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#161

Post by hedora »

iamnothere wrote: post #142
Andrex wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if the software complies, which is in discussion. https://www.phoronix.com/news/Debian-Undecided-Age-Laws

Many distributions have decided not to comply. Debian has settled on not making anything like this mandatory, as they are an international project, although they may (after discussion and likely voting) agree to optionally package age verification stuff for users who want it for some reason.

I'm worried that Poettering's new startup is designed to ban unapproved Linux, BSDs, etc.

https://linuxiac.com/systemd-creator-lennart-poettering-join...

The cynic in me says the Win 11 "you must have a TPM" push (along with passkey's "big tech owns all your accounts" design) were rammed through specifically to centralize control of the open web.

At this point, if the federal government actually forced OS-level censorship, most literate folks would just download Linux. So, first, they need to close the remaining door.

I'm not exactly holding a candle for debian. SystemD has already started adding support for this, and, in the past, downstream has been able to force unpopular debian votes through.

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#162

Post by b00ty4breakfast »

hypeatei wrote: post #120
paddor wrote: post #95

According to a recent CRYPTO-GRAM issue from Schneier, it's in Meta's interest to push these regulations as their product isn't an OS. Their competition (Apple/MS/Google) are OSs though.

I'm not sure why Meta's lobbying is harped on so much when all of Big Tech benefits from this; Zuckerberg is just the fall guy. Tech companies love the idea of identity / age verification so they can target ads more effectively. My general feeling is also that privacy is a thorn in their side when it comes to integrating more deeply into people's lives. There are also state actors at play here who would love if compu…

because Meta's lobbying has been publicly identified. When the other companies are found to be spending millions of dollars to push these age verification laws, then they, too, will be harped on.

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#166

Post by iamnothere »

hedora wrote: post #161
iamnothere wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many distributions have decided not to comply. Debian has settled on not making anything like this mandatory, as they are an international project, although they may (after discussion and likely voting) agree to optionally package age verification stuff for users who want it for some reason.

I'm worried that Poettering's new startup is designed to ban unapproved Linux, BSDs, etc. https://linuxiac.com/systemd-creator-lennart-poettering-join... The cynic in me says the Win 11 "you must have a TPM" push (along with passkey's "big tech owns all your accounts" design) were rammed through specifically to centralize control of the open web. At this point, if the federal government actually forced OS-level censo…

SystemD only added an optional birthdate field to userdb, and many distros don’t even use userdb by default. And there exist distros without SystemD. So I wouldn’t worry too much about the SystemD angle, although IMHO they were spineless for adding the field.

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#167

Post by usefulcat »

someguyiguess wrote: post #127
VadimPR wrote: post #101

US should first implement a national identifier that can be used for healthcare purposes before implementing age verification, that would be a lot more helpful.

Yes but they would need a functional healthcare system first.

In the US, quality of health care is not really a problem. The problem is that the cost is too high, and also availability (in part because of the cost).

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#168

Post by microtonal »

Schiendelman wrote: post #152
someguyiguess wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but they would need a functional healthcare system first.

I struggle with this. Outcomes for our healthcare system are much better than critics want to accept. Most of the negative health outcomes in the United States are mostly about our built environment - people who aren't very poor and live in walkable urban centers in the US have health outcomes similar to Europe. Those reading this website in the US often have outcomes that exceed their peers in Europe - we have much…

"If we focus on a subset of the population that is lucky, we have a great healthcare system." Got it!

Sorry for the sarcasm, but that's how your comment reads.

Do those lucky people have healthcare insurance tied to their employment? Are they afraid to go to a demonstration or advocate a union, because they could lose their job and thus healthcare?

A good healthcare system treats everyone equally, no matter where they live in a country, their income level, being employed/unemployed, etc.

We have a pretty good healthcare system, we just need to subsidize it for people who can't afford it.

No, it is broken. The US healthcare capita costs twice as much per capita as most West European countries and the 'outcomes per capita' are worse. The problem is, similar to the prison system etc., the privatization of the system. It's run by companies that go for profit maximization, which entails rejecting as many claims as possible, driving up medicine prices, etc.

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#169

Post by krunck »

iamnothere wrote: post #119
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever seen a giant warning on cigarette ads that nicotine is addictive? Do you think half the ad is covered by the black box out of charity? Settled law decades ago. On that note, today is April 15th, tax day. The day where if you don’t provide hard numbers about your life against your will and at your own expense, prison opens as a possibility.

Cigarettes are a product that is sold . Many operating systems are free. I use several that are small projects entirely produced by hobbyists. Even if they stack the courts with muppets who ignore the obvious first amendment angle to get this passed, I will never comply with this and I will happily help others defy it.

I pledge to defy it.

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#170

Post by WarmWash »

binarymax wrote: post #130

Nonsense bills get introduced all the time. I’m not saying this shouldn’t be taken seriously, but this eventually getting codified is a long shot. There are so many issues with how this can work in practice. Best case it just asks how old you are like a website that shows mature content, and the user lies. So from a liability perspective that shifts it to the user who gave false information. Beyond that there’s no pr…

>Beyond that there’s no practical way to actually verify someone’s age at the OS level.

KYC for windows, MacOS, iOS, Android, and internet players like Google and Cloudflare being forced to block unverified devices.

There probably would still be a way around it, but it would be a headache for most people.

Post reply on HN