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Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

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Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#25

Post by tombert »

htx80nerd wrote: post #23
tombert wrote: post #21

I've been running NixOS for awhile, which is very firmly integrated with systemd. I wonder if it's time to try something like sixos or Guix SD.

Artix (Arch) and MX Linux (Debian) are very nice

Oh I only use distros that are declarative like NixOS.

I've run Arch in the past and I liked it just fine, but they are ultimately different than how I like running my computer.

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#26

Post by Aurornis »

ekr____ wrote: post #9

OP is certainly right that a lot of this legislation is written in ways that are hard to interpret and that often seem like they would have undesirable side effects even under the assumption that the basic idea is good (whether that's actually true is a whole different question). In the specific case of CA AB1043: (1) Systems are required to ask the user for their age and just trust whatever they say (2) Applications…

I think this legislation is as dumb as everyone else does, but it also seems like the cheapest way for everyone to agree that we did something about the moral panic without actually giving up anything. It doesn’t do anything with ID or privacy or even actual verification. There’s no complicated auth dance to do with government services to verify our age tokens or whatever the latest Rube Goldberg machine “zero knowledge” age check proposal is.

I’ve been shocked at how many HN comments always come out in favor of age related legislation and heavy government regulation when the topic comes up. The pro-regulation commenters always seem to assume the age checks would never apply to them because they don’t have use TikTok or Facebook or other services, yet few realize that there aren’t going to be laws written in a way that only apply to a couple named companies you don’t use anyway. If we age verification laws then they’re going to be everywhere.

I personally hope this legislation dies and we can be done with this silly exercise, but if we’re stuck with age verification moral panic than a simple OS-level switch that we set once and then forget about seems like the least intrusive form of “age verification” we can get away with.

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#28

Post by pharrington »

This is actually nuts. You can't even constantly implement "age verification" at the system level in a way that makes sense across world cultures.

The only sane way to do this is you were playing along with arbitrary legislative age-gaters would be to add a generic "additional user info" blob to the account fields, if it didn't already exist.

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#29

Post by simion314 »

ekr____ wrote: post #18
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Systems are required to ask the user for their age and just trust whatever they say If you're going to do anything like this, this is the thing they actually get right. It removes the inconvenience, privacy invasion, forced use of corporate verifiers with perverse incentives, etc. Meanwhile if the user is actually a child then their age is set by their parent. > Applications are required to query the system for the…

>> Systems are required to ask the user for their age and just trust whatever they say > > This is the thing they actually get right. It removes the inconvenience, privacy invasion, forced use of corporate verifiers with perverse incentives, etc. Meanwhile if the user is actually a child then their age is set by their parent. Well, maybe. For instance, if a child buys their own device they could set the age to whatev…

> For instance, if a child buys their own device

Then the law can make it illegal to sell smartphones or computers to 12 years olds or we could just ask the parents to do a bit of work and ensure their children is not buying devices behind their backs.

The idea is to make it easy for responsible parents to give a device to their children and make it easy for legal websites to block minors from adult content. We can't get perfect results but good enough could shut upo the complainers and maybe we get them do things like educating parents on how to proceed when they gift a device to a child.

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#30

Post by lunar_rover »

Shank wrote: post #7

It seems incredibly silly to me that this is being rushed into systemd and other linux components. I understand Apple making changes, and even Canonical, but systemd is not run by one corporation and there is no reason to adhere to a badly written law. Why play along with the charade? If root is root, the "age verification" field does not make any sense. Why are these changes being made on a worldwide basis when the…

California has both vendors and clients that are big enough to warrant immediate compliance. A very measurable chunk of Linux is from corporations, most major advancements are corporate backed in some way.
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