A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 1:24 AM UTC

palmotea wrote: post #267

mbgerring wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> 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…

> My bet is the GP's going to weasel out using his "that people willingly buy" language

Well, they aren't willingly buying it. They are funded with taxes.

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

#372

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 1:26 AM UTC

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.

Comcast has a monopoly granted to it by the government.

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

#373

Post by cyberax » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 1:28 AM UTC

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #338

cyberax wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 governm…

Well, ask your state to fix the issue. Perhaps elect better politicians? The states where I lived all have online booking.

And their websites are well-designed and functional. There are customer support emails and phone numbers.

> Say nothing of the fact that if I tried to pay it, Comcast would be able to take my money no problem.

About that... A couple of years ago I got locked out of AT&T because I forgot to update my credit card. And I couldn't log in because it required a (you guessed it) one-time SMS password. Their "pay your bill" needed a bill number, for which I needed to log into their website.

Their fix? Visit the store.

> Imagine the consequences if I did that with government.

A couple of years ago I accidentally overpaid the IRS (I paid the capital gains tax twice, as it was already deducted during the sale by the broker) to the tune of $10k. A year later, they sent a letter asking me for clarifications. I called them, and they sent me a refund check.

> The government would take a check, ACH or charge me $5 to use a buggy 3rd party CC processing service.

And what's wrong with a check or ACH?

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

#374

Post by SllX » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 1:28 AM UTC

martin-t wrote: post #216

SllX wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incentives are all wrong. You can serve up to 6 two-year terms in the Assembly or up to 3 four-year terms in the Senate, but regardless of which combination you do, nobody in the California legislature can serve more than 12 years combined across both Houses of the legislature. So we don’t have professional legislatures with long-term electability incentives or leadership goals, we have a resumé-building exercise…

> professional legislatures That should not be a profession. Decisions should be made by people who are the most informed about the subject matter. By definition you cannot have someone who is the most informed about everything.

If someone can still keep getting people to vote for them, that’s not really an issue.

We elect the way we do and empower the way we do because it empowers voters to choose on a regular recurring basis who is going to provide oversight that way. When you start screwing around with the basis tenets of electoral democracy, you distort and pervert the value of an actual legislative seat and undermine the value of holding people directly responsible through elections.

Another good example is the ballot proposition system. Some things must go before voters—which is another separate wrong which would be righted—but apart from those, the ballot proposition also presents legislators an opportunity to outsource decision-making risk to voters where instead of having to take a chance of being wrong on a piece of legislation with a roll call vote, they can pass the risk off to State voters. If people voted on the issue directly, they’re not as empowered to hold the people who only put it on the ballot rather than making the decision as someone whose job is to make & pass legislation.

You want legislators to be empowered to serve their role in society so that they are also taking real risks every time they take a stand on an issue that risks pissing off their constituents.

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

#375

Post by jamesgill » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 1:28 AM UTC

Since Linux is a kernel, not an operating system, it's unaffected by this law.

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

#376

Post by wredcoll » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 1:29 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #371

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…

> My bet is the GP's going to weasel out using his "that people willingly buy" language Well, they aren't willingly buying it. They are funded with taxes.

People can choose not to use a lot of those things.

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

#377

Post by decidu0us9034 » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 1:30 AM UTC

tzs wrote: post #117

9x39 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m more curious in the genesis of these laws, whether their sponsors received written suggestions or ghostwritten bills, etc. as a form of parallel construction. It seems all at once, everywhere that many groups that have a vested interest in forcing precedent and compliance of non-anonymous access across the computer world. It smacks of something less-than-organic.

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'm not sure it's worth entertaining these hypotheticals. Just another absurd CA law that's impossible to comply with. "When you set up your account and it asks for your birthdate." What does this mean? "Setup" what account? "It" what? Some graphical installer? What if I don't want to use one? How would this protocol be implemented in such a way where it's not trivially easy for the user to alter the "age signal" before sending a request? The "signal" is signed with some secret that you attest to but can't write? So it's in some enclave? What if my smart toaster doesn't have an enclave? Does my toaster now have to implement software enclave? I'm not aware of a standard, or industry standards body, or standard specification, or implementation of a specification, around this "age signal" thing. Is this some proprietary technology that some company has a patent on, and they've been lobbying for their patent to be legally mandated? If so that's very concerning and probably has antitrust implications (it is ironic that ever-tightening surveillance of people is a downstream consequence of all this deregulation of corporate persons; fine for me but not for thee I guess). I would love to know the full story here, since this is being shopped around in several states, but I haven't seen any sort of investigative journalism about this which is disappointing. This whole thing is really curious.

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

#378

Post by lysace » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 1:30 AM UTC

cbsmith wrote: post #344

mistercheph wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes. I'd recommend reading the bill if you have concerns.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

I think mistercheph is right to be concerned. This bill applies to all "operating system providers", defined thusly:

(g) “Operating system provider” means a person or entity that develops, licenses, or controls the operating system software on a computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device.

Regarding penalities:

1798.503. (a) A person that violates this title shall be subject to an injunction and liable for a civil penalty of not more than two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500) per affected child for each negligent violation or not more than seven thousand five hundred dollars ($7,500) per affected child for each intentional violation, which shall be assessed and recovered only in a civil action brought in the name of the people of the State of California by the Attorney General.

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

#379

Post by dataflow » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 1:36 AM UTC

LooseMarmoset wrote: post #269

Joker_vD wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 h…

The micro stamping law is in no way reasonable because removing the micro stamping from the end of a firing pin is laughably trivial. The only people who won’t do this are people who weren’t going to break the law in the first place. Even people who didn’t want to break the law might find themselves on the receiving end of law-enforcement if the firing pin wears such that the micro stamping is no longer identifiable.…

> The micro stamping law is in no way reasonable because removing the micro stamping from the end of a firing pin is laughably trivial. The only people who won’t do this are people who weren’t going to break the law in the first place.

I'm curious, so if (when?) California ends up successfully hunting down some criminals with this, what is your new position going to be? They were going to get caught anyway, or something like that?

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

#380

Post by harrall » Sat, Feb 28, 2026, 1:38 AM UTC

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…

No it’s a mindset thing.

Some people think all problems should be fixed with regulation.

Some people think all problems should be fixed with free market / responsibility.

California and liberals tend to lean to the former. A place like Texas and conservatives tend to lean to the latter.

I think both camps are crazy because it’s a case-by-case basis where you need to consider second and third order effects. But man talk to a die hard regulation supporter or die hard free market supporter and you just want to say “the world isn’t just simple rules like that.”