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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

#251

Post by xomiachuna »

mmooss wrote: post #230
fangpenlin wrote: post #67

There's an obvious theme with lawmakers in California—they pass laws to regulate things they have zero clue about, add them to their achievement page, cheer for themselves, and declare, "There! I've made the world a better place." There are just too many examples. For instance: - Microstamping requirements for guns—printing a unique barcode on every bullet casing (Glock gen3 cannot be retired, thus, the auto-mode swi…

I think they demonstrate a welcome and sophisticated understanding of technology. Their solution to age verification maximizes privacy by not sending any data off the computer besides a simple signal of age category (if I understand the design). They show more sophistication than the parent commment: > 3D printers should have a magical algorithm to recognize all gun parts in their tiny embedded systems Color scanners…

3d shape classification is different from matching a set of well-known, mostly fixed patterns (like eurion constellation) necessary to detect currency.

With 3d shapes of non-governmental origin this is at best difficult and at worst intractable. Consider the fact that many parts of a gun can be split into multiple printable pieces to be later assembled, making it very nontrivial to decipher the role of the shape.

With currency, the government has the controls for the supply of the target shape (it can encode hidden signals onto banknotes) and effectively controls the relroduction side (through the pressure on printer manufacturers). But it cannot control the supply of gun-part-shapes (it is not the only source for it), and since the problem is likely intractable - neither can it enforce the control on the 3d printing side.

Paper money being almost non-fungible is a great achievement, but is it as easy to make any mesh nonfungible as well?

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

#252

Post by SunshineTheCat »

wredcoll wrote: post #233
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…

> The reality is, most government "solutions" cause more problems than they solve The "reality" is that propaganda heavily encourages you to ignore the government successes and only focus on the failures. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine who benefits from that.

> "government successes"

Please, name for me one product or service that the US government has created, that people willingly buy, that has made your life tangibly better.

I can list a billion made by businesses.

Please, go for it. Just one.

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

#253

Post by Spivak »

eleventyseven wrote: post #215

Headline is wrong. There is no verification requirement. 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.

It seems to come down to whether you expect the next law to be taking the enforcement mechanism away from the parent. If the law was, "major operating systems must ship parental controls that actually work" I doubt you would see much pushback. Parental controls is an oft cited reason to give your kids Apple devices. Expanding that everywhere would be great. But I don't want to have to present my government ID to use my own computer.

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

#254

Post by Joker_vD »

fangpenlin wrote: post #67

There's an obvious theme with lawmakers in California—they pass laws to regulate things they have zero clue about, add them to their achievement page, cheer for themselves, and declare, "There! I've made the world a better place." There are just too many examples. For instance: - Microstamping requirements for guns—printing a unique barcode on every bullet casing (Glock gen3 cannot be retired, thus, the auto-mode swi…

> Microstamping requirements for guns

Eh, sounds kinda reasonable. Ammo already has unique serial numbers embedded in the butt of every cartridge (in some countries, not sure about the US), and guns do leave somewhat unique marks on the bullets upon firing so... sure, why not. Surprised it took that long TBF, the necessary technology has been commercially available since the early 90s, I think?

> 3D printers should have a magical algorithm to recognize all gun parts in their tiny embedded systems

Yeah, this one's seems unnecessary. Is weapon manufacturing without a license a crime? If yes, then whoever 3D-prints a gun can be prosecuted normally.

> Now, you need to verify your age... on your microwave?

Or on your gas stove. A travesty, really: I was taught how to operate a stove when I was in the second grade and never burned any houses down, thank you very much.

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

#255

Post by pklausler »

michaelteter wrote: post #234
fangpenlin wrote: post #67

There's an obvious theme with lawmakers in California—they pass laws to regulate things they have zero clue about, add them to their achievement page, cheer for themselves, and declare, "There! I've made the world a better place." There are just too many examples. For instance: - Microstamping requirements for guns—printing a unique barcode on every bullet casing (Glock gen3 cannot be retired, thus, the auto-mode swi…

You can single out California, but I assure you there are asinine laws on the books in most states. What it takes to become a “successful” politician is typically not what it takes to define good policy.

Democracy rewards mass appeal, and that in turn encourages demagoguery and gives a platform for stupidity. It's been an unavoidable problem with the system since Athens.

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

#256

Post by bitwize »

zeta0134 wrote: post #147
packetlost wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's the lowest common denominator between the user and every online interaction. The bill basically says provide a date-of-birth as metadata to accounts and provide an API to query the age bracket, not even the age, of the user to applications. It's a privacy-aware, mostly reasonable approach that shifts responsibility to the owner/administrator of a device to enforce it. It's basically just mandating parent…

I'm trying to understand how this is even a bad thing. Where is the privacy invading verification? Surely a given OS can implement the API response however it wants? If you're root, tell me your age. If you're not, (a child account), the admin (their parent) sets the age. Seems fine?

Y'all are like Dilbert with the shock collar on, "It's not so bad." It's requiring all operating systems, apps, and online services to add age checks. It adds friction to the process of developing stuff. If there's something you do not want to do especially in California of all Goddamn places (swear to God, Wozniak would be spinning in his grave if he had one) it's add friction to the software development process with government-mandated code paths. But what do I know. This is a site actually called Hackernews, where the answer to all large-scale social problems is "that's why we need more government regulation".

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

#257

Post by EmbarrassedHelp »

ohhnoodont wrote: post #189
tzs wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This law doesn't do anything that prevents non-anonymous access. Here's how you would access things anonymously if you bought a new computer that implemented this. 1. When you set up your account and it asks for your birthdate, make up any date you want that is at least far enough in the past to indicate an age older that what any site you might use that checks age requires. 2. Access things the way you've always don…

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.

If browsers are going to send flags, they should only send a flag if its a minor. Otherwise is another point of tracking data that can be used for fingerprinting.

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

#258

Post by mbgerring »

SunshineTheCat wrote: post #252
wredcoll wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is, most government "solutions" cause more problems than they solve The "reality" is that propaganda heavily encourages you to ignore the government successes and only focus on the failures. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine who benefits from that.

> "government successes" Please, name for me one product or service that the US government has created, that people willingly buy, that has made your life tangibly better. I can list a billion made by businesses. Please, go for it. Just one.

USPS

Medicaid

The National Park System

I know that the next step is you explaining why these don’t count, or saying “wow only 3” or whatever, but

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

#259

Post by amelius »

fangpenlin wrote: post #67

There's an obvious theme with lawmakers in California—they pass laws to regulate things they have zero clue about, add them to their achievement page, cheer for themselves, and declare, "There! I've made the world a better place." There are just too many examples. For instance: - Microstamping requirements for guns—printing a unique barcode on every bullet casing (Glock gen3 cannot be retired, thus, the auto-mode swi…

At least they did not invent cookie banners.

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

#260

Post by palmotea »

fangpenlin wrote: post #67

There's an obvious theme with lawmakers in California—they pass laws to regulate things they have zero clue about, add them to their achievement page, cheer for themselves, and declare, "There! I've made the world a better place." There are just too many examples. For instance: - Microstamping requirements for guns—printing a unique barcode on every bullet casing (Glock gen3 cannot be retired, thus, the auto-mode swi…

> - Microstamping requirements for guns—printing a unique barcode on every bullet casing (Glock gen3 cannot be retired, thus, the auto-mode switch bug cannot be patched...)

I don't know much about guns, but I assume that would be on the hammer? Couldn't you remove that "microstamping" by lightly filing down the hammer or just using it a bunch and causing some wear?

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