Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting • Hacker News Board

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#191

Post by wat10000 » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 5:51 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #134

wat10000 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's a competitive market and offering a lower price than your competitors helps you earn more business. If your competitors lower their prices and you don't lower yours then you'll lose business.

This is a wildly optimistic view for insurance companies in particular. You basically need to jump providers every few years, or else you're overpaying.

I don't understand how this is supposed to be an argument against what I'm saying. The fact that you can shop around and get a better rate demonstrates the fact that insurance is a competitive market and companies will lower rates to win business.

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#192

Post by hackinthebochs » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 5:55 PM UTC

hrimfaxi wrote: post #165

hackinthebochs wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always found it strange how Americans like to validate their ideals using their kids as vehicles. Instead of teaching kids how to be successful in a less than ideal world, we teach them our ideal view of the world. Like teaching kids violence is never the answer, instead of sometimes a situation does call for violence. We raise kids for a world that doesn't exist. It's up to the kid/adult to unlearn those obviou…

How did you arrive at this being uniquely American? I would say it's Western society more generally.

I mainly said America because I only feel qualified to speak on America. But I do think there is something uniquely American about seeing the march of "progress" as an ultimate ideal and stagnation in any form as a defeat. Economic and social progress is basically a founding ideal of American society and is a major driver of our success over the centuries. It permeates our culture in so many ways, e.g. the idea that your kids should have it better than you. So shaping the next generation by way of shaping the views of your kids, despite the potential mismatch between the ideal and the reality is seen as just a part of the march of progress.

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#193

Post by iamnothere » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 5:58 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #189

iamnothere wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re an American and you want to change this, feel free to propose and pass an amendment. That’s the allowable process for changing what the government can and can’t do regarding individual rights. Edit: removed part of my comment because misunderstood your rambling point about that website, and I guess I have no idea how it relates to OS regulation. Websites are not operating systems. Your ability to tell me ho…

Conversely, you're an American and you want to change this, feel free to propose and pass an amendment that makes regulation of OS as a product the concern of the federal government, as opposed to (as per the 10th Amendment) a state government concern. These regulations are state affairs for the same reason that glyphosate is known in the state of California as a carcinogen (but not other states). Product standards a…

State governments cannot pass laws that violate freedom of speech. Code is (written) speech, despite attempts to attack this.

If you want to push really hard, we can come up with something extremely verbose (worse than COBOL) that is VERY obviously speech. “Define a variable named x. Set the value of x to 3. Add the value of y to x.”

Outcomes take a back seat to rights. Bad outcomes are sometimes the inevitable consequence of liberty.

If you want to try and license use of public Internet infrastructure, like public roads, go ahead. But most of the Internet is private. Free association and free speech rules, regardless of the occasional difficulties it creates.

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#194

Post by Apocryphon » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 6:00 PM UTC

iamnothere wrote: post #193

shadowgovt wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely, you're an American and you want to change this, feel free to propose and pass an amendment that makes regulation of OS as a product the concern of the federal government, as opposed to (as per the 10th Amendment) a state government concern. These regulations are state affairs for the same reason that glyphosate is known in the state of California as a carcinogen (but not other states). Product standards a…

State governments cannot pass laws that violate freedom of speech. Code is (written) speech, despite attempts to attack this. If you want to push really hard, we can come up with something extremely verbose (worse than COBOL) that is VERY obviously speech. “Define a variable named x. Set the value of x to 3. Add the value of y to x.” Outcomes take a back seat to rights. Bad outcomes are sometimes the inevitable conse…

If code is speech then isn’t the regulation of encryption as a munition unconstitutional?

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#195

Post by shadowgovt » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 6:03 PM UTC

iamnothere wrote: post #193

shadowgovt wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely, you're an American and you want to change this, feel free to propose and pass an amendment that makes regulation of OS as a product the concern of the federal government, as opposed to (as per the 10th Amendment) a state government concern. These regulations are state affairs for the same reason that glyphosate is known in the state of California as a carcinogen (but not other states). Product standards a…

State governments cannot pass laws that violate freedom of speech. Code is (written) speech, despite attempts to attack this. If you want to push really hard, we can come up with something extremely verbose (worse than COBOL) that is VERY obviously speech. “Define a variable named x. Set the value of x to 3. Add the value of y to x.” Outcomes take a back seat to rights. Bad outcomes are sometimes the inevitable conse…

Code is speech, but installing an OS someone else wrote on hardware you own is not code.

I think you're making a good argument for why the regulation should be at the network-connect level and not the OS-account level, though, if the real issue is that networks are a shared resource with consequences for other people (which seems to be the issue). At that point, the OS collecting the data is just a convenience to satisfy the requirement for network access, not something that needs to be mandated.

> most of the Internet is private

True, but automotive licensing still applies to one's right to operate a vehicle on turnpikes. I believe the analogy here is that you might not need a license to set up an intranet.

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#196

Post by wat10000 » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 6:03 PM UTC

alpaca128 wrote: post #152

wat10000 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's a competitive market and offering a lower price than your competitors helps you earn more business. If your competitors lower their prices and you don't lower yours then you'll lose business.

Or they could all just agree to not cut prices so everyone profits more than with a race to the bottom. Not the first nor last time for this to happen. Undercutting the competition pays off when they're much smaller and you can eliminate them that way and subsequently raise prices.

They could. It's very hard to enforce a cartel like that when there are a large number of competitors. It's a prisoners' dilemma with dozens or hundreds of participants. It only takes one defector to break it.

If you've ever shopped for car insurance, it should be pretty clear that there isn't a cartel holding prices high. Prices differ substantially across insurers, and are influenced by many other factors as well. Premiums are much lower if you have a clean driving record and no claims, or if you drive a car that's cheaper to repair, or less likely to cause injury, or you're of an age/gender with less propensity to crash, or live in an area with less automobile-related crime. Why would they give you lower rates for these things when they could just keep the premiums high and collect more profits?

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#197

Post by iamnothere » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 6:07 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #194

iamnothere wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

State governments cannot pass laws that violate freedom of speech. Code is (written) speech, despite attempts to attack this. If you want to push really hard, we can come up with something extremely verbose (worse than COBOL) that is VERY obviously speech. “Define a variable named x. Set the value of x to 3. Add the value of y to x.” Outcomes take a back seat to rights. Bad outcomes are sometimes the inevitable conse…

If code is speech then isn’t the regulation of encryption as a munition unconstitutional?

Yes, see Bernstein v. United States.

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#198

Post by shadowgovt » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 6:07 PM UTC

alpaca128 wrote: post #143

shadowgovt wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, "it's just a fucking hobby" no longer being an excuse has been a long time coming, much in the same way that driving cars or flying airplanes started as just a hobby but became no longer one when practicing it had outsized consequences to non-practitioners. Signed, someone who notes frequently that the default apache configs probably put a web developer in violation of the GDPR (since if you just left on…

> driving cars or flying airplanes started as just a hobby Those still are hobbies, you just need a license for it now. Which makes sense since crashing an airplane is a bit more devastating than crashing a computer. But most hobbies don't need a license and aren't a danger to others.

I think we've reached a point where we're really turning our heads and squinting away from reality if we think that computing is a hobby that no longer poses danger to others.

A person using their own machine can hack all manner of other people's machines without their consent. On the flipside, a person who is not even malicious, but negligent, can configure a machine on the open internet with open ports and become part of a botnet in a half-hour. Perhaps these behaviors imply a level of responsibility that suggests licensing to use the shared resource that is "The internet" is appropriate.

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#199

Post by iamnothere » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 6:14 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #195

iamnothere wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

State governments cannot pass laws that violate freedom of speech. Code is (written) speech, despite attempts to attack this. If you want to push really hard, we can come up with something extremely verbose (worse than COBOL) that is VERY obviously speech. “Define a variable named x. Set the value of x to 3. Add the value of y to x.” Outcomes take a back seat to rights. Bad outcomes are sometimes the inevitable conse…

Code is speech, but installing an OS someone else wrote on hardware you own is not code. I think you're making a good argument for why the regulation should be at the network-connect level and not the OS-account level, though, if the real issue is that networks are a shared resource with consequences for other people (which seems to be the issue). At that point, the OS collecting the data is just a convenience to sat…

> True, but automotive licensing still applies to one's right to operate a vehicle on turnpikes.

I wonder if this has ever been challenged? Driving on most private roads does not require a license or even a tag.

My rough understanding is that turnpikes are a special case because they were established by legislative charter, but it would be interesting to see the specifics. I don’t know much about the legal history.

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#200

Post by iamnothere » Fri, Mar 13, 2026, 6:18 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #186

iamnothere wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The consequences of the Wickard v. Filburn mistake will continue to haunt us until that decision is finally overturned. (Slightly different area of the law but similar principle.)

Even if the federal government won't sue, state and other jurisdictions could. The Diesel Brothers also ran afoul of Utah’s State Implementation Plan of the CAA. This whole story is about state law.

This is a good point, but even so, state governments also can’t override freedom of speech. Especially with small FOSS hobby projects, it’s hard to make an argument for regulation on commercial grounds.