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US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

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

#181

Post by wavemode »

iamnothere wrote: post #58
eek2121 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are assuming that courts will shut this down. Guess what? The Supreme Court is responsible for these laws: https://publicinterestprivacy.org/paxton-age-verification/

There is precedent that indicates otherwise, as this is a clear First Amendment violation. Requiring commercial services to adhere to certain guidelines is constitutional, even though the Texas law is a bad one and I think a different court may have slapped down the law. Mandating speech (code is speech) is clearly not, especially for noncommercial projects. I think the key would be getting the right person to explai…

I kind of doubt that most judges are going to agree with a "code is speech" argument. I think it's more likely that the courts view code as a mechanism, and so this is more like requiring cars to have airbags.

Though this does bring to fore the issue of enforcement. Nobody can stop you from building a custom car which has no airbags. Where enforcement happens is when you try to get it registered (thus making it legal to drive on public roads). That's when the government would stop you.

Curious how such enforcement would work for operating systems. We could all just mod our OS's to remove/bypass age verification. The government doesn't (currently, yet) have a legal nor physical mechanism to prevent this.

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

#182

Post by trollbridge »

dotwaffle wrote: post #67
OhMeadhbh wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's what this bill is about. I think they want to be able to attach a government issued ID to logins for various services. They tried claiming it was to fight terrorism, but that didn't really work so now they're saying "it's for the children!"

Someone came up with a good theory a while ago that I'm inclined to believe: The social media companies (esp. Meta as I understand it) were looking at huge fines for showing adult content to under-18s, so they lobbied hard to ensure that the burden of proof for age verification was on anyone else but themselves, hence why the OS vendors are being targeted now. Ultimately, they seem to have realised that they can't st…

They could stop adult content from being shown to minors; it would just take effort on their part to do so, so why not shift the effort on to everyone else?

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

#183

Post by bcjdjsndon »

danwills wrote: post #91
ButlerianJihad wrote: post #19

What is the age of a script that I wrote to be triggered by cron? What is the age of a script that my 10-year-old son wrote to be triggered in his dad's crontab? If I do "sudo -l" to my son's account, what is the age of the user performing actions? If my son writes a set-user-ID program and I run it, what is the user's age now?

Spot on! So much silly engineering would be needed to make this even slightly make sense for normal Linux 'users' and even then, if you can be root then there is no limit!? root can do anything as any user, right? And it's definitely expected that the system admin (ie yourself for your own computer!) can become root!! I'm glad I'm on a source distribution (Gentoo, even though it does require patience) so I could in-t…

Programs don't run themselves though... well technically that's what AI agents do but forget that

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

#184

Post by black6 »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #104
bayareateg wrote: post #100

This is a stupid bill, but how is this an anti-LGBTQ issue?

It isn’t, the author of the criticism is desperately trying to attach another issue to get people to pay attention. It also doesn’t make sense a Democrat from New Jersey writing the bill saw it that way at all.

This. That crowd is constantly shoehorning themselves into non-pertinent issues as part of their pathological attention seeking behavior.

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

#185

Post by hephaes7us »

danwills wrote: post #91
ButlerianJihad wrote: post #19

What is the age of a script that I wrote to be triggered by cron? What is the age of a script that my 10-year-old son wrote to be triggered in his dad's crontab? If I do "sudo -l" to my son's account, what is the age of the user performing actions? If my son writes a set-user-ID program and I run it, what is the user's age now?

Spot on! So much silly engineering would be needed to make this even slightly make sense for normal Linux 'users' and even then, if you can be root then there is no limit!? root can do anything as any user, right? And it's definitely expected that the system admin (ie yourself for your own computer!) can become root!! I'm glad I'm on a source distribution (Gentoo, even though it does require patience) so I could in-t…

Ultimately, there's people out there who don't expect you to have root access on your own computer.

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

#186

Post by peteyPete »

Why do people with no understanding or ability to clearly think through the implementation and consequences of said implementation, have the ability to initiate a vote changing everything for everyone? This is just about the dumbest thing I've read this week which says way too much these days.

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

#187

Post by HNisCIS »

i-e-b wrote: post #176

This will be fun to implement in washing machines, and car ECUs; and for users that aren't humans, and...

It's like explaining to IT that you can't, in fact, install global protect/UEM on a satellite just because it runs a Linux operating system.

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

#188

Post by kdhaskjdhadjk »

peteyPete wrote: post #186

Why do people with no understanding or ability to clearly think through the implementation and consequences of said implementation, have the ability to initiate a vote changing everything for everyone? This is just about the dumbest thing I've read this week which says way too much these days.

The people pulling the strings behind all this do indeed have a clear understanding or ability to clearly think through the implementation and consequences of said implementation. They know exactly what they're doing and why.

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

#189

Post by layla5alive »

hrimfaxi wrote: post #144
iamnothere wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The laws about giving (not selling) tobacco to minors are state laws, not federal. There’s no interstate commerce there or here. Besides, you’re comparing apples to oranges. Cigarettes are a physical product, not a form of expression. Code is speech and compelled speech violates the first amendment. That makes even state laws for OS age verification unconstitutional.

> Code is speech and compelled speech violates the first amendment. The first amendment does not blanket ban compelled speech. You can be compelled to testify against someone if granted immunity. You can be forced to take an oath or affirmation in court. I'm sure there are other examples. > The laws about giving (not selling) tobacco to minors are state laws, not federal. There’s no interstate commerce there or here.…

This is such a bad decision - its infuriating. Incredible overreach of state power. This decision laughs at values such as liberty and freedom.

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

#190

Post by phkahler »

trollbridge wrote: post #182
dotwaffle wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone came up with a good theory a while ago that I'm inclined to believe: The social media companies (esp. Meta as I understand it) were looking at huge fines for showing adult content to under-18s, so they lobbied hard to ensure that the burden of proof for age verification was on anyone else but themselves, hence why the OS vendors are being targeted now. Ultimately, they seem to have realised that they can't st…

They could stop adult content from being shown to minors; it would just take effort on their part to do so, so why not shift the effort on to everyone else?

>> They could stop adult content from being shown to minors; it would just take effort on their part to do so

If you voluntarily sensor content, you might be in danger of being held responsible for various things since you control what people see. Phone companies in the US are "common carriers" which means they just connect people, but are not responsible for what people do over the phone (plotting crime or whatever). Social Media is still trying to have it both ways - censor some stuff but not be responsible for anything. IMHO that will eventually fail.

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