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Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

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Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#311

Post by zenoprax »

kej wrote: post #58

I feel like all of these laws are being designed backwards. Content providers, like MPAA films, should have to identify what sort of content they are providing. Then I can give my kids a device configured to allow some or all of that at my discretion. Requiring my kids' devices to advertise their age (or their age "bucket", as if that was a meaningful difference) to protect them is not doing me or my kids any favors.

Can we extend that beyond just parental controls? I'd love to permaban 90% of the internet from ever reaching me. But the laws are designed backwards because they're probably written for someone else's benefit.

If this age verification stuff ever becomes plausible we always have the option of distributing actual Linux ISOs over bittorrent. Failing that, source code in RAR'd archives distributed across IPFS nodes and Tor. I feel like many of us would welcome the challenge if it were under better circumstances.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#312

Post by bodge5000 »

mosura wrote: post #53
Aurornis wrote: post #24

Not that I'm condoning it, but this law requires self-declaration, not verification. It might sound pedantic but the practical difference is huge. Self-declaration means that the system asks the user to declare if they are a minor. Nothing is verified. Age verification typically means a system which checks ID or has other enforcement measures to try to verify age.

It is a technical ratchet. Once you accept part of the implementation it will never be undone, more will be added.

Very true, though this is something thats pretty difficult to get to by tiny increments, which is usually how these nefarious means are accomplished. One tiny thing is asked after another, each one too small to put up a fight against, and then suddenly they've crossed your line and you didn't even notice. Thats not particularly easy to do here, so the line will remain just as strong.

Maybe next they'll ask maintainers to go from a bracket to a specific age, and then next ask for verification, but the jump from specific age to verification is big enough that there'll be just as much resistance to it.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#313

Post by iamnothere »

lrvick wrote: post #154
imhoguy wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it will have some new TPM/SecureBoot guard rails to not let minors install unapproved systems. Think of children again ;)

I specialize in TPM security and know plenty of ways to bypass it with physical access to consumer laptop hardware, and would gladly make that easy for the public if needed. But I hope they try this. It will be funny to watch the public humiliation of how hard it fails at scale.

Some of us hoard stacks of old computers (and lots of source code) in case they ever try this! ;)

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#314

Post by twothreeone »

RealWed5 wrote: post #204
twothreeone wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So presumably the next step is they move their servers out of the US and then DA's target the Linux Foundation directly (e.g., coerce the kernel to take a change by some Meta engineers that "attests" a device when said option is compiled in, then force it as default on.. so in Debian you'd get an "Illinois"-kernel variant). At which point the only move is to relocate the foundation to another country, which will then…

"another country" is drafting this same law right now.

There are 189 active legislative bodies to choose from; it's hard to imagine, but yes in the worst case they all fall in lockstep on this issue and none of them provide this kind of freedom. The obvious next step is to buy a remote island (better yet: some foreign body in Space) and form "Freedom (tm) Republic".

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#315

Post by 28304283409234 »

lrvick wrote: post #104
otterley wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're in the USA or plan to visit someday, I would recommend you speak with your attorney before making such commitments.

I am in the USA, but I literally cannot comply because by design it is not possible for me to ship changes without the international maintainer team agreeing to them. And Illinois legislators have no power over them. Also, we are not a company. We are an independent community owned project. Our code is free speech and I will burn the world down to defend that right. Truly I dare someone to try to take me to court ove…

Honey, that just means you cannot ship.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#316

Post by lotsofpulp »

Buttons840 wrote: post #278
bluGill wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can stop you from doing any work on the project. They can even fine or jail you for work done after the law takes affect that the international committee doesn't allow. Which is to say you can be forced to stop work. Though if you don't live in IL it is unclear how this affects you.

Can someone who knows the law explain to me how someone who lives in California, and hooks his computer in California, to a wire in California, from a company in California... At what point do they become subject to Illinois law? And can Illinois prosecute someone for doing something that is legal in California while they are in California?

>At what point do they become subject to Illinois law?

When they sell to someone in Illinois, although there is probably some bullshit case law out there that says the website owner has to take basic steps to block Illinois users to avoid all IL jurisdiction.

>And can Illinois prosecute someone for doing something that is legal in California while they are in California?

No.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#317

Post by kube-system »

lrvick wrote: post #286
otterley wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concern here is probably with the shipping of the product (i.e. the binary artifacts), not the code itself. I can imagine a situation in which you could continue to make the code available, but could not produce a shippable artifact from it that Illinoians could access.

If they are successful at doing so, then those distribution methods were too brittle. I expect in response one of the maintainers outside US jurisdiction of their own volition publishes via bittorrent, tor hidden services, and embedding blobs in public blockchains with no help from me. Then the problem the legislators sought to solve just got a lot worse, while calling a lot of attention to how little power they actu…

The person you replied to is using "could"/"could not" to mean "would comply with the law"/"would not comply with the law"

Nobody here is saying that anyone is going to swoop in and physically prevent this software from being distributed on the internet.

> Then the problem the legislators sought to solve just got a lot worse, while calling a lot of attention to how little power they actually have to control decentralized FOSS software projects.

The legislators who passed this don't give a shit about that. Their intended target of this legislation is mainstream devices and mainstream users.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#318

Post by kej »

xp84 wrote: post #276
kej wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I'm saying that if the goal is to keep kids off of addictive social feeds, it would be better to have social media have to say "this site implements addictive feeds" and then I can configure my kids' devices to disallow that. The decision should be happening in my house on the devices I control, not in a Meta data center. The current law just gives Meta a way to start building a shadow profile early.

> then I can configure my kids' devices to disallow that C'mon. We all know parents are far more likely to tap "OK" for "Allow personalized social feeds?" than they are to knowingly falsify their kids' age. The kids will be begging them to and saying "It's just to personalize it, Dad! There's nothing scary or bad on Tiktok - all my friends are using the personalized feed and mine is BORING!" > The decision should be…

> We all know parents are far more likely to tap "OK" for "Allow personalized social feeds?" than they are to knowingly falsify their kids' age.

I know lots of parents and lots of kids, and I don't think this is accurate. In my experience the breakdown is parents who care what their kids are doing online, and parents who assume it will all turn out fine because they had AOL or even Facebook as teenagers and didn't get into too much trouble. The first group is already keeping an eye on their kids and might even have decent parental controls set up, and the second group doesn't care what happens as long as charges don't show up on the credit card.

These bills punish the first group of parents and OS/device makers for the transgressions of social media companies. The uninvolved parents won't even be in the room when the age question comes up.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#319

Post by xp84 »

pessimizer wrote: post #294
xp84 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: your last paragraph I actually agree with you, if you mandate that the site has to look for an affirmative signal and if it doesn't get one, has to assume the user is the youngest possible age group. Users would demand the proper support for it. Although it would have to have some teeth capable of biting the client software companies, because for instance, if browser(s) chose to on their own simply send "I'm over…

> if browser(s) chose to on their own simply send "I'm over 21" to every site this becomes a pointless exercise and that applies whether the browser makers do it out of frustration that the OS support hasn't landed, or out of malice (imagine a browser that misreported age on purpose, specifically targeted at kids who want to bypass the parental controls). If it's a header, you can strip it out at the browser level, t…

This sounds like a hot take, but I'm way less concerned with sketchy porn sites (mostly for the kind of reasons you say which boil down to ... they're sketchy).

I'm more concerned with deliberate manipulation of young people by social media. TikTok and its clones especially have demonstrated an incredibly strong ability to not just addict and brainrot kids (which is bad enough -- and it's really, really bad), but also to shape their opinion. All that discussion about the CPC having complete control if they wanted to exert it wasn't BS. Whoever controls them absolutely can use an algorithmic feed to astroturf "viral" videos pushing any narrative they want. Think of Elon Musk in his role as owner of X if you like the CPC.

Anyway. Most tweens and young teens don't know how to use Bittorrent. They use iOS and Android all day, and Chromebooks. These function as closed platforms, and macOS is as well unless you go out of your way. And Windows unless you make your kid an Administrator. Linux and other noncommercial OSS operating systems can have an exception if it makes it less burdensome on the maintainers. This doesn't change the fact that a law like this still solves a ton of problems that parents otherwise can't solve, and that big tech could only solve independently today by very privacy-invasive means.

> because it won't work.

It sounds like you think "work" means "prevent 100% of minors from seeing even a single frame of Bad Stuff anywhere online on any device"

To me "work" means "prevent most children (who aren't extremely technical) from mainstream social media sites openly experimenting on them daily to build a paperclip maximizer, where the paperclips are 'watch minutes' (as a proxy for ad revenue) and the planet being dismantled is our society."

It would "work" by this definition.

> device attestation

this specific term means something specific and is not what this law is about - not sure if you meant to tangle that idea up with this.

Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

#320

Post by dooglius »

otterley wrote: post #236
dooglius wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you be specific in how you think he is behaving unintelligently, and what you think that people will do in response to his actions?

I'll bite. His statements in this very forum could he used against him as evidence of intent to violate the law, should he be prosecuted someday. There's a reason why lawyers generally advise their clients to remain silent.

> There's a reason why lawyers generally advise their clients to remain silent.

Most people prioritize their finances (and non-imprisonment) over their rights, and attorneys will optimize for that expressed preference. GP has clearly indicated his priorities are different. That has nothing to do with intelligence. Someone having a different set of values than you does not constitute unintelligence on his part.

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