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A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

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Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#241

Post by bitwize »

rpdillon wrote: post #193
bitwize wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beige PCs. Made to comply with German workplace-equipment laws. Yes, the Bundestag legislated the color of office equipment. That has always been the way of fhe world.

Wow, TIL. Thanks for mentioning this. I ran across this as I was researching the background: > The "beige box" era was largely the result of strict German workplace ergonomics standards (specifically the TUV and DIN standards) that became the de facto rules for the entire global industry. The law didn't explicitly say "thou shalt use beige," but the regulations were so specific about light reflectivity and eye strain…

IBM prepared some light-gray ThinkPad prototypes but were really committed to the black design. They negotiated with the German workplace ergonomics agency who allowed them to sell black ThinkPads but with a "not for office use" label. I wonder if something similar could be done for California's restrictions?

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#243

Post by Perenti »

Will this only apply to an OS with human user accounts? I wonder how autonomous agents that are operating systems running on bare hardware are defined under this strange law. Not all OS are for humans. Consider many uni-kernel applications.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#244

Post by simoncion »

gradientsrneat wrote: post #70

> (g) This title does not impose liability on an operating system provider, a covered application store, or a developer that arises from the use of a device or application by a person who is not the user to whom a signal pertains. So, this makes desktop Linux illegal, but all the software-as-a-service like Microsoft Azure and OpenAI get off scott-free? Fantastic.

No?

The sentence you quoted says that folks who are required to comply with the law are not also required to ensure that the person currently using the device or application is the same one who entered their age or birth date into the OS's "how old are you?" database. [0]

It is true that this law is as bad as the recent Oklahoma one for small, non-corporate Linux distros... but that sentence you quoted has nothing to do with that problem.

[0] If we were speaking in person, I'd love to have you walk me through that sentence and explain to me, piece by piece, how you came to the conclusion that you did. Doing it remotely like this would be too tedious.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#245

Post by bryan_w »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #228
ohhnoodont wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I feel the flow of having browsers send some flag to sites is the most privacy-preserving approach to this whole topic. The system owner creates a “child” account that has the flag set by the OS and prevents the execution of unsanctioned software. This puts the responsibility back on parents to do the bare minimum required in moderating their child’s activities.

What would be even more privacy preserving would be to mandate sites to send age appropriateness headers (mainstream porn sites already do this voluntarily). Possibly it could be further mandated that the OS collect relevant rating information for each account and provide APIs with which browsers and other software could implement filtering. And possibly it could be further mandated that web browsers adopt support fo…

I think you would find widespread support from the various websites out there for this. Most porn websites today voluntarily implement some type of mechanism that advertises them as not for children.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#246

Post by wredcoll »

gatlin wrote: post #222
eleventyseven wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Headline is wrong, and you didn't read the article. There is no verification requirement. You are a bad HN poster and should feel bad. All this does is require the user to select a non-verified age bracket on first boot. You can lie, just like porn sites today. I thought HNers wanted parents to govern their children's use of technology with these kinds of mechanisms. > There's an obvious theme with lawmakers in Calif…

> All this does is require the user to select a non-verified age bracket on first boot. This is the age verification requirement which you rudely and incorrectly said doesn't exist. Nothing is done with the data (for now) but age is in fact verified on the assumption that the user doesn't lie. Instead of lengthy condescending missives about the behavior of other users, you should instead write "I'm sorry for being ne…

Selecting an age choice from a drop down is in no way verification.

The original post was low effort flame baiting. There's an argument to be made that it should be ignored, but it's hard to say.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#247

Post by Filligree »

numpad0 wrote: post #150
almosthere wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Death threats mainly. Personally I think it would be easier if they just made it so that platforms ran a tiny LLM against the content that will be posted - determined if it is a death threat, then require them to be identified before it's posted, then it would solve a lot of these problems. TLDR: Evil people be doxxed internally not everyone.

That turns jokes into contracts that nobody wants. Bad idea.

Maybe just don’t make “jokes” like that.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#249

Post by nlitsme »

I will start making a list for linux then.

rm - ok for all ages.

grep - 18+, you can obviously use this to search for porn.

find - 18+, see grep.

reboot - ok for all ages.

echo - ok for all ages.

cat - 18+, prints the porn you found directly to your terminal.

sudo - 18+, obviously.

kill - ok for all ages. This is the US, right.

ps - 18+, no peeping at other processes.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#250

Post by SunshineTheCat »

alistairSH wrote: post #204
SunshineTheCat wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they pass laws to regulate things they have zero clue about While you are correct with this statement in this context, I would say it applies to most things in government in general. The vast majority of lawmakers have zero experience solving any real world problems and are content spending everyone else's money to play pretend at doing so. The reality is, most government "solutions" cause more problems than they s…

most government "solutions" cause more problems than they solve Zero basis in fact. We’re in the wealthiest nation on the planet. Most of us live better than any previous generation. To claim all that success is completely in spite of government is ridiculous.

Are you under the impression that the government created all that wealth?
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