[dupe] Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49228350
[dupe] Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49250112
Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification
531–537 of 537 posts
Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification
#532Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are a lot of remedies available to a court with respect to a recalcitrant party, ranging from an injunction to remove your product from the market to fines and imprisonment. Again, speak with your attorney. Do not try to "hack the law" yourself; many who have tried have regretted it later.
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…
No, not all code is constitutionally protected free speech. Generally speaking, code can be considered speech, but it can also be considered defamation, a munition that could not be exported, a dangerous device that a convicted person could not possess, or a number of other Very Bad Things that could get a fella in a jam.
Look to Universal Studios v. Corley for an example of code (speech) that is nonetheless not free, because the government has an interest and can regulate subject to intermediate scrutiny.
> Truly I dare someone to try to take me to court over this. Would be great publicity for our coercion resistant approach.
IANYL but that’s commendable. Ain’t a lot of people got a code to live by anymore. But it’s double the reason you should touch base with an attorney. Remember this: test cases have to know what they’re testing. If you want to move the law forward you have to break it correctly.
Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification
#533Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference is that those other things in the past didn't really place an undue burden on everybody else. Whether a child is allowed to watch an R rated movie or go to a pub has no effect on how I conduct myself, age-gating computers or the internet does affect how I use things. > I think the theory behind the law is that experimenting on children to optimize (without any ceiling) for increasing watch hours, which…
How exactly would this bill, as written, affect you? Would you indicate that you're a child when you set up your device? If not, you're arguing with a strawman version of the bill, I'm guessing one that imposes verification (which isn't in there, and which I oppose too). The slippery slope argument is nonsense. Windows XP asked me to type my full name to make a user account in 2001 and that didn't become a driver's l…
> The slippery slope argument is nonsense
If you're going to operate from that point of view there's really no point to further explaining how a bill like this would adversely affect people. One only needs to look as far as the 'temporary' measures in the patriot act to understand that slippery slope arguments are often not so silly. The Overton window moves with laws like this.
Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification
#534What 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?
The article is slightly wrong. It is "addictive" feeds that are address, not "algorithmic" feeds.
The definition is in in the bill, but the copies I have seen are formatted in ways that make copy/paste too much work, and a quick comparison looks like it is almost identical to New York's law targeting such feeds (except Illinois numbers there list 1-8 whereas NY letters it a-h), and I happen to have that in an easily pastable form, so here is the NY definition:
> "Addictive feed" shall mean 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 mobile application, either concurrently or sequentially, are recommended, selected, or prioritized for display to a user based, in whole or in part, on information associated with the user or the user's device, unless any of the following conditions are met, alone or in combination with one another:
> (a) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is based on information that is not persistently associated with the user or user's device, and does not concern the user's previous interactions with media generated or shared by other users;
> (b) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is based on user-selected privacy or accessibility settings, or technical information concerning the user's device;
> (c) 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 associated with the user or the user's device that is not otherwise permissible under this subdivision;
> (d) the user expressly and unambiguously requested that specific media, media by a specified 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 pursuant to paragraph (c) of this subdivision, be blocked, prioritized or deprioritized for display, provided that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for display based, in whole or in part, on other information associated with the user or the user's device that is not otherwise permissible under this subdivision;
> (e) the media are direct and private communications;
> (f) the media are recommended, selected, or prioritized only in response to a specific search inquiry by the user;
(> g) the media recommended, selected, or prioritized for display is exclusively next in a pre-existing sequence from the same author, creator, poster, or source; or
> (h) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is necessary to comply with the provisions of this article and any regulations promulgated pursuant to this article.
Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification
#535Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how they enforce it though? Isn't this saying every linux instance needs basically a backdoor network access? How would verify the 30 pods on my node are from minors or adults without that? Or this is more about a user facing node? So my aws nodes need to verify my age before I ssh in? Remote desktop services? Sounds so complicated to actually do.
There's no verification necessary. Instead, you'd just set a flag on all of those pods that says "this is an adult". Or more likely, you wouldn't set anything, there would be no changes at all, because that would be the default. However, if I gave my child a laptop with Linux installed, the law would force the OS to provide some setting somewhere that I can toggle that switches the installation to child mode. (On Lin…
Oh, that's not that bad? Literally a flag at bios/admin layer defaulting to adult. I mean completely unenforcable but still not that crazy
Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification
#536Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're in the sixth circuit you're even safer because of Junger vs Daley.
Stop it. This is not something either of you are competent to provide legal advice about. Anyone concerned about this should consult a licensed attorney, not get advice from randos on HN.
Dude everybody here is smart enough not to rely on internet comments for their legal advice. You don't have to be the gatekeeper.
The guidelines say what's on topic here is "anything that good hackers would find interesting," and the free speech protections of source code definitely qualify.
Re: Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification
#537Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stop it. This is not something either of you are competent to provide legal advice about. Anyone concerned about this should consult a licensed attorney, not get advice from randos on HN.
Dude everybody here is smart enough not to rely on internet comments for their legal advice. You don't have to be the gatekeeper. The guidelines say what's on topic here is "anything that good hackers would find interesting," and the free speech protections of source code definitely qualify.
> Dude everybody here is smart enough not to rely on internet comments for their legal advice
If only that were true. I've seen people take the law into their own hands far too often, among other bad decisions based on Internet conversations.
I'm going to repeat this exhortation every time I see someone armchair lawyering.