Is this a weird attempt at device verification?
A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
41–50 of 768 posts
Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
#42Are lawmakers bored? Who is asking for this? Not the tax paying citizens.
Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
No but then the next step is "well we need a way to enforce it because people are just lying about their age". I guess let me show a slope I found over here, just past the boiling frogs, watch your footing though, it's recently been greased and is quite steep.
I agree, I don’t like it as much as you do. I’m just saying nothing short of a mandated TPM will actually enforce this. I think they know that. I think this is mostly for show to stay relevant wrt. What is happening in the courts. This is the Same play as it always been for registration “are you over the age of 13?”
How does a TPM stop people from lying about their age?
Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
#44You know the non-governmental organization "Save the Children"? Maybe it's time to create a new one called "Fuck the Children" to defend people from these laws designed to mine privacy under the pretense of protecting minors.
Ghislaine Maxwell asks where to send her CV in, she's going to be available for work soon...
Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
#45This sounds like one of those laws that get used not so much to force compliance, but to punish noncompliance as part of a larger case.
Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
#46> [..] requires an account holder to _indicate_ [..]
i.e. this doesn't require age verification at all
just a user profile age property
> [..] interface that identifies, at a minimum, which of the following _categories_ pertains to the user [..]
so you have to give apps and similar a 13+,16+,18+,21+ hint (for US)
if combined with parent controls and reasonably implemented this can archive pretty much anything you need "causal" age verification for
- without any identification of the person, its just an age setting and parent controls do allow parents to make sure it's correct
- without face scans or similar AI
- without device attestation/non open operating systems/hardware
like any such things, it should have some added constraints (e.g. "for products sold with preinstalled operating system", "personal OS only" etc.)
but this gets surprisingly close to allowing "good enough privacy respecting" age verification
the main risk I see is that
- I might have missed some bad parts parts
- companies like MS, Google, Apple have interest in pushing malicious "industry" standards which are over-enginered, involve stuff like device attestation and IRL-persona identification to create an artificial moat/lock out of any "open/cost free" OS competition (i.e. Linux Desktop, people installing their own OS etc.).
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"causal" age verification == for games, porn etc. not for opening a bank account, taking a loan etc. But all of that need full IRL person identification anyway so we can ignore it's use case for any child protection age verification law
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it's still not perfect, by asking every day daily used software can find the birthdate. But vendors could take additional steps to reduce this risk in various ways, through never perfect. But nothing is perfekt.
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Enforcement is also easy:
Any company _selling_ in California has to comply, any other case is a niche product and for now doesn't matter anyway in the large picture.
Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
#47How wouldn't this also apply to things like useradd(8) or simply automated user account setup, e.g. like cups, sshd, etc? Do we need to add this to vi for use in vipw on UNIX?
..or "browse as guest" on a chromebook?
Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
#48How wouldn't this also apply to things like useradd(8) or simply automated user account setup, e.g. like cups, sshd, etc? Do we need to add this to vi for use in vipw on UNIX?
All good questions the legislators had no idea even existed.
Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
#49One could cope that this regulation can not apply to Linux or other OSS operating systems. But this is only true unless the bootloaders on consumer devices are mandated to be closed next.
We already have Secure Boot, the infrastructure is in place. It is currently optional, but a law like this can change that.
Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
#50You know the non-governmental organization "Save the Children"? Maybe it's time to create a new one called "Fuck the Children" to defend people from these laws designed to mine privacy under the pretense of protecting minors.
Not the best choice of words, but I get what you're saying.