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Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

agelesslinux.org

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Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#571

Post by headsman771 »

lesostep wrote: post #383
akersten wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because it's easy doesn't mean it's right. Give legislative busybodies the ability to force this little flag into the OS because it's no big deal, and next year they'll say "hey, make sure you only report 18+ if secure boot is enabled" and 5 years later it'll be "hey, you can only report 18+ if one of our Identity Partners has confirmed it." It's the principle of the matter. The State should not be allowed to co…

I want to agree with you, but if it's my system and my browser reporting my bracket, wouldn't it be trivially easy to inject an http-header with the age I want to report? And by "trivially easy" I mean "somebody already posted how-to for windows to stackoverflow"

You're trivializing how difficult tampering with OS internals in locked down secure boot environments can be. Just look at the state of Android custom roms. Devices that are years old can be impossible to modify the OS on.

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#572

Post by fainpul »

gzread wrote: post #557
fainpul wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are underthinking this. You described a technical solution to comply with this law. Yes, that's easy. The problem is the legal implications.

What are the legal implications?

I'm not a lawyer. But it seems to be the same as accepting the terms of service of some product you use or clicking on a "Yes I'm 18+" button to gain access, isn't it? If you somehow suffer from a negative outcome, it puts the blame clearly on you, from a legal standpoint, if you lied about your age or ignored the TOS.

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#573

Post by headsman771 »

gzread wrote: post #565
irusensei wrote: post #428

Anyone ever heard about the story of how Phill Zimmerman made an absolute clown of the US federal government by publishing the source code of PGP as a book? History of computing and open source is full of clever subversiveness. If back in the past hackers had the same attitude crying about complying otherwise fines we would have nothing today.

Their subversion was protecting our speech and privacy from the government. Our subversion is.......... letting 12-year-olds access gambling websites???

Its about maintaining access to general purpose computing. There is no way to enforce laws or policies like this without removing the ability to modify the software running the computer.

Once that door is closed you can kiss 90% of what we love about computing goodbye.

They will solely be marketing and advertising platforms which you increasingly MUST use to interact with institutions private and public.

And by the way they'll be spying on and profiling on you even worse than is happening today, all fed into digital identity silos sold to anyone who wants it, including governments. Governments you like, and governments you don't.

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#574

Post by gzread »

headsman771 wrote: post #573
gzread wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their subversion was protecting our speech and privacy from the government. Our subversion is.......... letting 12-year-olds access gambling websites???

Its about maintaining access to general purpose computing. There is no way to enforce laws or policies like this without removing the ability to modify the software running the computer. Once that door is closed you can kiss 90% of what we love about computing goodbye. They will solely be marketing and advertising platforms which you increasingly MUST use to interact with institutions private and public. And by the w…

Nothing in CA AB 1043 requires or even suggests losing the ability to modify software running a computer.

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#575

Post by graemep »

widowlark wrote: post #535
graemep wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Access to educational material, communicating with friends and family, fun. There huge benefits to being able to look things up, download books, talk to friends and family even if they live on another continent, playing chess or D & D online. I think social media is net harmful (to adults too) but devices, games etc. are not bad per se.

Then you also take on the risk that brings for your childrens health and well-being. Its not a problem for the government to solve for you.

I agree. I know my kids and can judge what is right for them better than rigid age rules. My point is that there are benefits to balance against the harms.

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#576

Post by lesostep »

headsman771 wrote: post #571
lesostep wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to agree with you, but if it's my system and my browser reporting my bracket, wouldn't it be trivially easy to inject an http-header with the age I want to report? And by "trivially easy" I mean "somebody already posted how-to for windows to stackoverflow"

You're trivializing how difficult tampering with OS internals in locked down secure boot environments can be. Just look at the state of Android custom roms. Devices that are years old can be impossible to modify the OS on.

Look at projects like byeDPI. Essentially, it's just a VPN service that runs on the phone itself. You phone connection is passed to this VPN that modifies http-headers.

I kinda did forgot about Android, yeah. You can't exactly rewrite OS rules there. But it's no less trivial* on Android, you just have to solve it from different angle.

* assuming someone will just write the app, and share it. But since similar projects exist, it wouldn't be a reach to say that it's doable and some folks would be interested to do it.

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#577

Post by gzread »

fainpul wrote: post #572
gzread wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the legal implications?

I'm not a lawyer. But it seems to be the same as accepting the terms of service of some product you use or clicking on a "Yes I'm 18+" button to gain access, isn't it? If you somehow suffer from a negative outcome, it puts the blame clearly on you, from a legal standpoint, if you lied about your age or ignored the TOS.

It says nobody is liable for the signal being wrong i.e. the parent is allowed to give the child an over 18 account or full access if they think that's appropriate.

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#579

Post by jacquesm »

prohobo wrote: post #385
nextos wrote: post #14

Something remarkable and unsettling is how the age verification debate has popped up almost simultaneously in the US, UK, and EU. With the same logical fallacies. Pretty telling about how transnational lobbies and their interests work. Controlling what children do online is a solved problem: Parenting and parental control applications.

I'm completely baffled why anyone still engages with the "official" framing around this. Obviously, it's not for protecting children. Obviously, it's a technocratic trojan horse for increasing surveillance capabilities on digital systems. This is so cynically anti-democratic that they obfuscate the real purpose, don't even bother to make it plausible, and everyone is left talking about how "awful it is" that it's alr…

There you go:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47385001

Re: Ageless Linux – Software for humans of indeterminate age

#580

Post by headsman771 »

gzread wrote: post #574
headsman771 wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its about maintaining access to general purpose computing. There is no way to enforce laws or policies like this without removing the ability to modify the software running the computer. Once that door is closed you can kiss 90% of what we love about computing goodbye. They will solely be marketing and advertising platforms which you increasingly MUST use to interact with institutions private and public. And by the w…

Nothing in CA AB 1043 requires or even suggests losing the ability to modify software running a computer.

I will reiterate: there is no way to enforce laws or policies like this without restricting the ability to modify the OS.

There is already a pre-existing push to bring attested computing to Linux.

The California law is not the only OS level age verification law passed or in the process of passing in the US.

One wonders if you're being intentionally obtuse.

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