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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

#331

Post by calf »

gatlin wrote: post #273
wredcoll wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If it must be ignored, then it exists. The bill proposes age verification. You may think the measures employed are weak or trivial, and I would agree, but the bill proposes age verification.

Why do I keep proposing things but they fail to exist and I can't ignore my failures?

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

#332

Post by hafthor »

What about embedded RTOS, like WindRiver or Zephyr? What if I write a memory manager and flash storage file manager for a really barebones MCU like a PIC? It didn't even define what an operating system is. What constitutes an update? If a security patch to DOS 6 came out, would it suddenly be required to have this tech? Is z/OS going to have this tech?

Overall, I think don't think it's a bad idea for devices to be able to host an age verification system that offers requestable boolean proof of age, like if porn site demands over 18 to view, the user, regardless of age, is prompted and if they accept, it returns either a positive cryptographic claim or a cancel signal if not of age. If they don't accept the prompt, the same cancel signal goes back. The idea that this feature would need a mandate of law is dumb.

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

#333

Post by cyberax »

SunshineTheCat wrote: post #288
palmotea wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know that the next step is you explaining why these don’t count, or saying “wow only 3” or whatever, but Oh, there's more: Medicare, Social Security, the highway system. The whole food/medicine regulatory system is also a big one, and it's the reason a lot of US (and European) products like baby formula are imported into China, because they can be more trusted. My bet is the GP's going to weasel out using his "th…

As with anything, they are all things that could be done better by a company. Airlines are a great example of this. They have changed very little in the last 30 years (again, thanks to all the government regulation and red tape). Smartphones, TVs, (and literally anything else not in the hands of the government) has also seen rapid improvements. Anything the government handles is always rife with overspending, ineffic…

Oh yeah. I feel sooooo good dealing with Comcast. At this point in life, I spent more time on the phone with Comcast support than I ever spent time in various DMV offices.

> A company must maintain profitability to stay alive.

Yeah. And once it becomes a monopoly (like Comcast), it can just keep raising prices.

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

#334

Post by mistercheph »

jatari wrote: post #317
hosh wrote: post #210

What about: - servers living in datacenters - realtime operating systems in embedded devices - the Intel Management Engine - the OS on every smart chip in credit cards and debit cards - wireless cameras, roombas, smart TVs, smart fridges - cars. Those automotive systems have OSes too right? - all those IoT devices, including California’s traffic cameras What age signals should those devices send out? Is there an excl…

The law is targetting consumer operating systems, not linux servers/iot devices.

Does the law state that? What if children find out about the exception and start installing Alpine Linux to circumvent the law?

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

#335

Post by fc417fc802 »

hirsin wrote: post #309
fc417fc802 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So does Google send a header for each search result when you look up "Ron Jeremy" so that some results get hidden, or does the browser just block the whole page? Sending all the "bad" data to the client and hoping the client does the right thing outs a lot of complexity on the client. A lot easier to know things are working if the bad data doesn't ever get sent to the client - it can't display what it didn't get.

Google would send a header that it is appropriate for all ages (I'm not sure how the safe search toggle would interact with this, the idea is just a rough sketch after all).

When you click on a search result, you load a new page on a different website. The new page would once again come with a header indicating the content rating. This header would be attached to all pages by law. It would be sent every time you load any page.

Assuming that the actual problem here is the difficulty of implementing reliable content filtering (ala parental controls) then the minimally invasive solution is to institute an open standard that enables any piece of software to easily implement the desired functionality. You can then further pass legislation requiring (for example) that certain classes of website (ex social media) include an indication of this as part of the header.

Concretely, an example header might look like "X-Content-Filter: 13,social-media". If it were legally mandated that all websites send such it would become trivially easy to implement filtering on device since you could simply block any site that failed to send it.

> A lot easier to know things are working if ...

Which is followed by wanting an attested OS (to make sure the value is reliably reported), followed by a process for a third party to verify a government issued ID (since the user might have lied), followed by ...

It's entirely the wrong mentality. It isn't necessary for solving the actual problem, it mandates the leaking of personal data, and it opens an entire can of worms regarding verification of reported fact.

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

#336

Post by Lanzaa »

> apply the privacy and data protections afforded to children to all consumers and prohibits an online service, product, or feature from, among other things, using dark patterns to lead or encourage children to provide personal information beyond what is reasonably expected to provide that online service, product, or feature or to forego privacy protections

My question, is if "the children" are worth protecting, why not adults? I would like to opt into not having to deal with dark patterns. Why not a age independent system, which a user can opt into and which "children" are automatically optd into.

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

#337

Post by mistercheph »

Bender wrote: post #294

Feel free to call me paranoid for seeing patterns where there are none but this to me looks like just one phase of a preparation for a very large event entirely unrelated to every age verification reason given thus far. I won't guess any further. "I'm a good boy."

Shut up and keep your head on straight, bender, you didn't see or hear anything.

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

#338

Post by cucumber3732842 »

cyberax wrote: post #333
SunshineTheCat wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with anything, they are all things that could be done better by a company. Airlines are a great example of this. They have changed very little in the last 30 years (again, thanks to all the government regulation and red tape). Smartphones, TVs, (and literally anything else not in the hands of the government) has also seen rapid improvements. Anything the government handles is always rife with overspending, ineffic…

Oh yeah. I feel sooooo good dealing with Comcast. At this point in life, I spent more time on the phone with Comcast support than I ever spent time in various DMV offices. > A company must maintain profitability to stay alive. Yeah. And once it becomes a monopoly (like Comcast), it can just keep raising prices.

Have you ever called the DMV? In my state it's worse than Comcast. 45min wait time when the lines open in the morning, only increasing from there.

I "owe" Comcast $200. They say I didn't cancel at an old apartment. I say I did. I have the email. They insist. They've sent me a letter once a year for a decade. About 2yr in it went to collections. They're still trying.

Imagine the consequences if I did that with government.

Say nothing of the fact that if I tried to pay it, Comcast would be able to take my money no problem. The government would take a check, ACH or charge me $5 to use a buggy 3rd party CC processing service.

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

#339

Post by Joker_vD »

amelius wrote: post #259
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.

Yeah, the commercial firms invented them all on their own just to keep tracking customers and oversharing whatever data they gather with random third parties while still getting to complain about stupid laws that require them to do so [0].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46521179

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

#340

Post by casey2 »

nlitsme wrote: post #249

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.

>reboot - ok for all ages.

I'm not so sure, who knows what woke UEFI and edgy motherboard vendors are putting up as splash screens these days. And the law doesn't even consider those since they aren't part of the OS!

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