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California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

tomshardware.com

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Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#471

Post by Bender »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #467
Bender wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what its worth this header has been around for a very long time. It's actually the second iteration and much simpler than it's predecessor. Parents today can accomplish what you are suggesting by installing parental control software and only allowing access to things they explicitly approve. This can also be done via headers explicit blocking of all the things and was suggested in another thread. [1] Some people…

Again, RTA header doesn't work because it's a blacklist, not a whitelist, and also because it's only granular enough to say "this is a porn website" and nothing else.

Again, RTA header doesn't work because it's a blacklist, not a whitelist, and also because it's only granular enough to say "this is a porn website" and nothing else.

None of that is true. Not even close. It will work if there are laws with big teeth as the government can have contractors that scan for the header. Header missing? Adult content? User provided adult content even if it violates the rules? Well darn, there goes 10% of revenue. Also it is not "this is a porn site". RTA stands for restricted to adults. That can include literally anything that is not appropriate for small children including but not limited to social media, forums, gallery sites meant to be SFW but users content is not pre-moderated meaning people can see it before a moderator does. What Restricted to Adults ultimately means will depend oh the laws behind it.

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#472

Post by Ajedi32 »

kelnos wrote: post #310
Bender wrote: post #3

The only device mandates that should be taking place is for the default installations of web clients should be checking to see if parental controls are enabled. This only impacts the major browsers. An intern at each browser company could add this check in minutes. If they are enabled and the person logged in is on a regular account (not admin or power user of sorts) then the base installation of web clients must che…

How does this work for mixed-content sites? Like say a minor visits a video sharing or social media site and the default feed/recommendations list includes stuff that should be age-restricted, but is mostly stuff that shouldn't be. The entire site shouldn't be blocked; the browser needs a way to tell the website "my parental controls are enabled and I need to you to filter out age-restricted content". Alternatively,…

Once you have a content label header it's pretty easy to build more complicated systems on top of that. Like the site could send "compliant with x regulation" in the content labeling header, and then that would tell the kid's browser it doesn't have to completely block the page but can instead reload the page with a request header saying "filter out a, b, and c content" and expect that to be complied with.

That could be a fingerprinting vector though so maybe depending on privacy settings it just blocks the page. Really these are all solvable problems that web standards orgs have dealt with before; you just need to create the incentive for such systems to exist.

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#473

Post by Bender »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #243
bitwize wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Lolberts Huh?

Slang is sometimes in UrbanDictionary [1]

"lolbertarian - A disparaging term for internet libertarians, used jokingly or not."

[1] - https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lolberts

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#474

Post by Bender »

miki123211 wrote: post #454
Bender wrote: post #3

The only device mandates that should be taking place is for the default installations of web clients should be checking to see if parental controls are enabled. This only impacts the major browsers. An intern at each browser company could add this check in minutes. If they are enabled and the person logged in is on a regular account (not admin or power user of sorts) then the base installation of web clients must che…

Three things: 1. This assumes that websites are under your jurisdiction and can be fined. This is not a valid assumption on the internet. If you want to do this, you need a framework to block noncompliant websites via ISP-side null-routing, putting pressure on payment processors and hosting companies which do operate in your country etc. 2. HTML tags and not HTTP headers. If just a small part of the site contains con…

Countries that do not follow it could in theory be BGP filtered or sanctioned. I doubt that would happen. Probably more like the country would be added to parental controls in the browsers and parents could de-select a checkbox that is checked by default saying to block that country. If that were a thing I think some people would be enabling parental controls on themselves just to filter out some shenanigans.

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#476

Post by Ajedi32 »

Bender wrote: post #471
Ajedi32 wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, RTA header doesn't work because it's a blacklist, not a whitelist, and also because it's only granular enough to say "this is a porn website" and nothing else.

Again, RTA header doesn't work because it's a blacklist, not a whitelist, and also because it's only granular enough to say "this is a porn website" and nothing else. None of that is true. Not even close. It will work if there are laws with big teeth as the government can have contractors that scan for the header. Header missing? Adult content? User provided adult content even if it violates the rules? Well darn, the…

That's incorrect. The existing RTA header is for marking porn as porn.[1][2] (In case English isn't your first language, "adult website" is a euphemism.)

An actually useful standard would need to be much more granular, and be designed as a whitelist not a blacklist, as I and previous commenters said.

[1]: https://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/MetaExtensions#:~:text=Restrict...

[2]: https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/q/140733

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#477

Post by BobaFloutist »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #343
codedokode wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the header/metatag is designed poorly. The RTA proposal is that every operator of every site must verify the content and add the header to mark the site as "safe" or "unsafe". This is unnecessary burden that they have to bear if this proposal is given a green light and this is wrong. Instead, the default should be, that if there is no header or it cannot be parsed, then the content is unsafe. And if there is…

> Instead, the default should be, that if there is no header or it cannot be parsed, then the content is unsafe. That's something the client should be doing. You can configure your own device (or your kid's) to have whatever default you want. The actual problem is that classifying the entire firehose of user-generated content is precarious and uneconomical, so the default tag is going to be whatever minimizes liabili…

Basically we'll get 99% of websites with headers that amount to "Online Interactions Not Rated by the ESRB"

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#478

Post by mmooss »

lucas_t_a wrote: post #440
mmooss wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I wonder what false positives and false negatives will result from that definition. I suppose Microsoft permits corporate licensees to copy (to all their PCs and servers), redistribute (internally), and modify (by corporate software developers and also by sysadmins using group policy) the software. Maybe it should say, the software 'code' - requiring open source code - and to do it all 'for free'.

there must be an reasonable assumption of what counts as such in the first place. being modifiable and publicly available in both source and binary form sound like enough to me.

> both source and binary form

Where does it say that? Not in the GGP.

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#479

Post by fc417fc802 »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #464
lokar wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are seeking a solution to a social problem, not just a technical problem. If it fails to achieve most of the social goals, it won't be used and you get something worse. Welcome to the real world.

The standard OP is describing doesn't exist. So whether it "fails to achieve most of the social goals" is yet to be determined. Blocking unrated content seems like a pretty desirable feature to me. Why wouldn't that be one of the "social goals"?

You can turn on filtering and subscribe to a whitelist today. People don't seem to be satisfied with that solution. Why not? The answer to that question is what needs to be solved.

Re: California moves to exempt Linux from its age-verification law after backlash

#480

Post by subscribed »

grim_io wrote: post #74
mikestorrent wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, as a longtime free speech believe. but... I would also like to keep my kids from seeing the very worst of the internet before they're ready to handle it. I tried using a PiHole but Firefox DNS-over-HTTPS nullifies that now. It's not realistic for me to be watching over their shoulders 24/7; what can I do to keep them away from stuff 99% of people agree isn't for children to see, without something li…

Well, you can't. Like no past generation could stop their kids.

With all due respect.... this younger generation (zoomers and "alpha") is on average utterly clueless when it comes to technology.

Fluent in pod tide trends and latest sticker packs, but utterly unable to comprehend anything not working, be it wifi, proxy, dns, their phone's mobile connection. Unable to even ask the question "_why_ is something not working" or "what can I possibly do with this arcane message obscuring my $app's screen".

I know that's a quite broad generalisation but I see this in my kids' school across basically all their peers, and I can observe it online.

Anything broken -> passive hang up until fixed (of course if they cna talk to their bestie about the issue, this is what they do).

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