Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification • Hacker News Board

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

#321

Post by blackqueeriroh » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 11:07 PM UTC

soulofmischief wrote: post #208

misphrasing wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Code is speech. Forcing someone to implement something is legally-compelled speech, assuming no complicating factor like commerce.

Is is also clear that there are major deficits in our Constitution but that the amendment process has failed to survive a modern world. Any of our original forefathers would recognize today's American federal government as an overreach from their indended form of government. The only reason we aren't seeing a Boston Tea Party 2.0 over the recent string of coordinated assaults against our inalienable human rights is b…

Yeah but most of y’all wouldn’t accept the imprisonment willingly.

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

#322

Post by ivl » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 11:09 PM UTC

> The bill’s own text caps penalties at $7,500 per affected child.

If the distro does not ship with any hardware, it could only be attained via download? So how would this imperil Linux distros?

Not to defend the law, it's comically pointless. Conservative states demanding ID verification for anything 'pornographic' and progressive ones trying to limit anyone under 18 from having any social media access at all. Clownish.

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

#323

Post by blackqueeriroh » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 11:10 PM UTC

lrvick wrote: post #203

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.

Some time in jail or having to fight a fine for refusing to implement features in the constitutionally protected free speech code they author? If that is what it takes. I do not want to go to jail, but if that is the only way to get to an outcome where people have confidence they can not be forced to add unwanted code to open source projects, so be it. But that is a pointless thought experiment because it will never…

This thing where you keep saying “it will never happen” is why you’re showing your ignorance.

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

#324

Post by tzs » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 11:10 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #284

terribleperson wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's possible to lose a battle you were never going to win in the first place, and end up in a worse place. I think that if these types of laws (illinois, california) don't hit a critical mass, we're going to see ID verification become the dominant method of age verification. Most websites will use it, and it'll become global because it's easier to just demand an ID and a photo for every user through some third p…

> I think that if these types of laws (illinois, california) don't hit a critical mass, we're going to see ID verification become the dominant method of age verification. You are assuming that age verification must necessarily happen. It needs to be destroyed at every possible juncture.

What is your objection to the California law?

A summary for those not familiar with it:

• Operating systems on devices whose primary user is a child must provide a way for the parent to provide age bracket information about the child.

• They must also provide an API that apps and app stores can use to find out that age range if they need to have limits on what children can do with them.

• They amended it to not apply to most open source operating systems.

Note that there is no actual age verification. It just uses what the parents put in. It is really just requiring each OS to have a standardized parental control system.

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

#325

Post by EA-3167 » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 11:10 PM UTC

lrvick wrote: post #233

pixl97 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While they may take you to court over this, make sure you can survive sitting in jail at first if government decides to make an example of you. And where code is speech, is a distribution speech? There's a lot of places for this to go sideways on you personally.

The fact people are scared, or scared for me, is in and of itself a problem. But lets all wait for nothing at all to happen. Then confidence can grow over time that this is unenforceable in any effective way. They should go back to trying to police piracy via bittorrent (lol).

I think the issue here is that while the people here are aware of the history and "utility" of laws like the one above, most people aren't and right now "regulate social media, the internet, and what my kid does with computers" is having quite a day. Inevitably all of this is framed in terms of keeping children safe, whereas piracy is at most a misdemeanor of very little consequence.

Although I have no doubt that courts would ultimately side with you, the chance of becoming even a transient focus of a frustrated AG or congressperson looking to pin blame on "Out of touch and recalcitrant techies, the very ones who created this problem," is chilling. It's meant to be chilling, but it often works because he reality of what you'd go through on the way to eventual victory isn't trivial. Maybe you're willing to go through the courts (public opinion and otherwise), but if so the first thing any attorney you employ will beg you to do is stop talking the way you are.

tl;dr I think taking a stand is great, I support that, I think doing it now is a good idea. I don't think you should talk about it in public though, especially not in a literal, "Come and get me" way.

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

#326

Post by DennisP » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 11:13 PM UTC

otterley wrote: post #261

DennisP wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe try google before making statements like that. The decision was Bernstein vs. US. Prior to that, export controls prevented PGP source code from being exported from the US. Advocates printed it in books and exported those, which helped clarify the issue. Bernstein was a math student who made his own encryption software. The government tried to make him register as an arms dealer, and he sued in 1996, with the ba…

It is you who needs to do your research. That was not PGP. The Bernstein case was about Snuffle. In that very same case, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said: "We emphasize the narrowness of our First Amendment holding. We do not hold that all software is expressive. Much of it surely is not. Nor need we resolve whether the challenged regulations constitute content-based restrictions, subject to the strictest cons…

Yes, I mentioned that Bernstein made his own software. But that was in the context of a huge public controversy over encryption regulations, mostly focused on PGP, and after the Bernstein decision, the Clinton administration eased up on export restrictions and moved them to the Commerce department. Junger vs Daley strengthened the Bernstein decision, ruling that all source code is protected speech.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junger_v._Daley

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

#327

Post by doublerabbit » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 11:17 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #292

buzzwords wrote: post #141

I love how everyone knows this has nothing to do with kids safety. However no one can or is willing to put up a fight. In the UK where I live its the same. Government does whatever they want and most of us just shrug our shoulders and say "that's messed up" and go on about our day.

How has this fatalism been working out for your society?

It sucks for sure. But how is it going for yours or any other country?

I can't even get the politician of my city to reply to me in email because of his arrogant persona.

How am I suppose to change something when I can't even get the local politician to listen? Cash would; but I'm stripped for that. You have any?

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

#328

Post by weaksauce » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 11:17 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #57

weaksauce wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that is the start of a lot of bills like this... they really only ever increase in scope and invasiveness.

On the contrary in my experience once a legislature passes a bill to "fix" a particular problem they consider it fixed and don't update it for at least 20 years.

i mean with the rise of flock ad campaigns of "think of the children" and them installing platereaders all over the place this kind of thing is something that people want to capitalize on and make a buck. i can definitely see the lobbying pushing for more and more invasive versions of this.

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

#329

Post by Grombobulous » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 11:17 PM UTC

> The signal itself isn’t a birthday, it’s a bracket: under 13, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, or 18 and up. Operating systems have until January 1, 2028 to have this built.

> Nothing in the bill requires a passport scan or a face scan at setup. It’s self-declared, the same way most apps ask your birthday today, just centralized once at the OS level instead of repeated app by app.

Maybe this is just a badly written law or purposefully designed to have basically no impact on anyone?

Or maybe the age bracket self-declaration part of this might make it a legitimately useful mechanism when a parent sets up a device for their kids. Their device declares “under 13” and apps and sites have to then follow the more strict social media laws which themselves should be relatively beneficial to the target audience.

In other words, the part that’s really privacy-destroying is the age verification, but that’s not part of this bill. The part that could be a benefit is the part where companies need to respect an age flag set by parents and comply with a concrete set of parental controls.

In other other words, it’s not left up to operators like Meta and Roblox to decide what age their users are, parents can set that device-wide and know it can’t be circumvented.

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

#330

Post by iamnothere » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 11:18 PM UTC

otterley wrote: post #107

monocasa wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legislating that all complex computing devices must give out your birthday (technically a "signal" of which bucket you're in, but sites are absolutely going to keep track of which bucket you where in, keep asking, and see when it changes). It's constitutional case law that there's an implicit right to privacy in the constitution. I don't see a law that you must wear a band with your birthday out in public passing mus…

> It's constitutional case law that there's an implicit right to privacy in the constitution. Constitutional scholar here! I mean, yes, that's true in a very general sense, but no court has held that age verification to gain access to a service, or even a device, is unlawful in practice.

Not yet they haven’t. Not yet.