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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

#361

Post by s3p »

kube-system wrote: post #162
lrvick wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to hack the law. Our FOSS code is constitutionally protected free speech and I would defend on those grounds. The technical design of the project just makes it so no one can force changes on the distro unwanted by the maintainer team regardless of any courtroom outcomes. Like, what if someone made a law that said Bitcoin nodes must KYC? They could make the law I guess, and the international network operators…

> Our FOSS code is constitutionally protected free speech and I would defend on those grounds. You have precisely zero additional speech rights as a FOSS project than any other organization has. If "free speech" was a valid defense for you, then Meta would be doing the same. > The technical design of the project just makes it so no one can force changes on the distro unwanted by the maintainer team regardless of any…

[dead]

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

#362

Post by prmoustache »

hdgvhicv wrote: post #127
izzydata wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the sense that a website could just ask your OS if you are over a certain age and that age was self declared? That seems fine to me, but why can't the websites just ask me for my self declared age? That's how things used to be and that makes more sense in my opinion because an OS isn't the thing displaying content. It just run whatever it is told to run.

The computer owner can set the age, not the user. I am root on my computers. My 11 year old isn’t root on my computers.

Most kids are and this law won't change that.

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

#363

Post by Melonai »

genewitch wrote: post #212
LPisGood wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m unfamiliar with systemd’s haters or why this would give them a valid point. Could you please elaborate?

systemd is a massive blob of code that infects every part of a system and all of its subsystems. It completely changed the way system administration was done, the way init scripts work, and added tons of things to init that some argue aren't necessary, like dhcp and DNS. Newer linux folks like it because they're used to it, people who don't like it use devuan, gentoo, or one of the others that still lets one use open…

Maybe I'm about to be too pedantic, but I never quite got the argument of systemd being massively bloated based on examples of it including DNS and DHCP. Sure it's a mono-repository that includes all these services, but in the end you do run them separately? The actual "systemd, the init system" doesn't have DNS, DHCP or a user birthday database built-in, those are contained in their own services, namely systemd-resolved, systemd-networkd, and systemd-userdbd respectively, and, although systemd does genuinely lead you down the path of using them (which might be a real problem!), there isn't actually a definite requirement to do so. systemd will gladly run your BIND, ISC DHCP and NetworkManager for you if you tell it to, no? In fact we do so at my place of work. Just because they are under the same project as the init system doesn't mean they are one monolith, I think. To me that feels like saying "Why does the GNU C library include a bootloader!".

Now it's not like there's not plenty to dislike about systemd, it is a wide-reaching project that has managed to get a huge mindshare of the lower-level services needed to run a basic Linux server or desktop, and that has caused many utilities and services to appear that have a hard dependency on it, which is obviously bad for anyone running services that aren't part of the systemd package set, just take a look at NixOS, it's practically built purely on systemd, with efforts to support alternative init systems essentially archived at this point. Plenty of people also quite dislike Lennart, or how involved corporations are in the systemd development, and other people have loads of other reasons. One of my own gripes is speed for quite a few basic procedures in networkd. There's enough stuff to hate about it! I think it's not really necessary to pretend that your init system runs a DNS server and stores birthdays.

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

#364

Post by kikoreis »

xp84 wrote: post #263
marak830 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue the reason is so people can make arguments like yours. Step 1: get easily passed, simple looking laws passed to 'protect the children' Step 2: 'oh look at all these people bypassing the law. It's so simple for a child to watch porn with this.' Step 3: increase the requirements bit by bit on the verification By letting something simple pass, they can claim it's not thst bad, and anyone who argues against…

Can you back that up? > Step 2: 'oh look at all these people bypassing the law. It's so simple for a child to watch porn with this.' This would be a demonstrably stupid argument. A parent who simply opens the box and does 5 minutes of setup before giving their child a new $300-2000 device, and maintains the most basic awareness of any rogue devices (i.e. ask questions if a new phone appears) is all it takes to make s…

Do you have children? Have you witnessed what they can do with restricted $300-2000 devices? My kids hack restaurant tablets at every place we go. I don't even know how they do it most of the time.

This is going to be one hell of a slippery slope. And the actual publisher-driven proposal in this thread is so much more useful; I would love to filter out anything with excess violence and generally NSFW content from my view of the Internet -- and I am over 18.

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

#365

Post by Groxx »

kube-system wrote: post #48
LPisGood wrote: post #2

What does that mean, practically? The person who installed linux on that particular device is liable? >no algorithmic feeds for minors by default Any choice of what content to display is an algorithm. Maybe they want a simple or easily explainable algorithm?

> Any choice of what content to display is an algorithm. Maybe they want a simple or easily explainable algorithm? That's a paraphrasing of what law says. The law is more clearly defined: > "Addictive feed" means a website, online service, online application, or mobile application, or a portion thereof, in which multiple pieces of media generated or shared by users of a website, online service, online application, or…

> (3) the user expressly and unambiguously requested the specific media, media by the author, creator, or poster of media the user has subscribed to, or media shared by users to a page or group the user has subscribed to, provided that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for display based, in whole or in part, on other information that is not permissible under this definition;

incoming wave of "follow back"-encouraging UX patterns, "subscription packs", and "you might like [add all]" buttons in 3... 2... 1...

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

#367

Post by bryanlarsen »

genewitch wrote: post #272
bryanlarsen wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and that's as useful as self-documenting "i am over 18" or "over 21" for things that require that, without any document checks. No OS I'm aware of allows non-admin users to add new users to the system. Parents that care about these sorts of things don't give their kids admin access to their computers. > the rest of the stuff (patches, if you will) comes later. Unless the legislation allows for such patches through…

Maybe. I give kids more credit than most people on here, i guess. All it takes is one moment for the kids to see the password, guess the password, or whatever. if there's a physical key involved, parents sleep. A determined kid will find a weakness in the pursuit of freedom. also nintendo's OS lets users add users to their heart's content. At least i haven't found a way to stop a toddler from adding 6 avatars....

All I claimed is that as passed it is more effective than a "check this box if you're over 21" on forms. Not that it was fool-proof. I don't think any legislation would be fool-proof. Certainly not the privacy-destroying "upload your ID", which this isn't.

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

#368

Post by hackinthebochs »

genewitch wrote: post #346
hackinthebochs wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also children can "come upon" devices Yes, this mechanism isn't perfect, but is a substantial improvement over the status quo. >and now that's stuck with the verified age set. This inference is nonsensical. >If "just let someone report the age" worked, pornhub wouldn't be blocked in TX. Also nonsense

How do you propose that a child's device will remember their age in a "legally distinct" way for the life of the device? You ought understand what i am asking here, as it directly follows what i said before. You have a child, somehow the device knows how old the child is. An adult sets it? great. What if the device wasn't set up by a responsible adult? You don't foresee a black market of "no-age-audit" devices? How d…

I really don't know where you're coming from. You seem to be imagining that the law requires some kind of cryptographically validated age attestation. The law requires nothing of the sort. It's just an age field associated with the account. There are many ways to get around it, none of which the law demands protection against. It's simply a standardized way for parents to ensure a modicum of reasonably effective age-discrimination for online services.

There are no secure enclaves, no verification, and certainly no black markets. I really don't know where you are getting any of this from.

>TX passed a law stating that adult sites like pornhub must verify age.

Yes, when states are left to their own devices to come up with laws, some of them will be more onerous than others. But I don't know what you think you can infer from this. Casual dismissal was warranted.

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

#369

Post by taneq »

wtallis wrote: post #259
nemomarx wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what could they be compelled to stop doing here? Mechanically speaking, I mean. I can imagine fines or contempt of court, etc But how would you remove an international distro from "the marketplace" if it's free and not operating a business?

If anyone is distributing it within Illinois jurisdiction (or maybe even distributing it elsewhere while maintaining a business presence in Illinois), they could be at risk of qualifying as an operating system provider under Illinois law.

How does that work with data on a server outside of the jurisdiction, that’s freely available to download and re-upload? The ‘local legal presence’ thing might work, but then what if they only distribute it on (say) a thumb drive, sent outside the jurisdiction, which is then uploaded by a third party? This whole thing seems unenforceable (or worse, arbitrarily enforceable).

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

#370

Post by wtallis »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #351
slg wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do folks realize how many people would need to be a part of this conspiracy to get these laws passed at the state level? Maybe some people actually want to do good and are just misguided. And responding to those people as if they are evil government stooges certainly isn’t going to help them find the light.

The adtech companies need human verification so they can keep selling ads. Age verification is a way to get that under the radar because normal people are pissed off about "the children" and "the social media". You've also got cultural warriors who would love to censor speech on the Internet championing it, too.

This kind of age signalling with no verification whatsoever does not help the adtech companies at all.
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