Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

cybrkyd.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 148 posts

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#61

Post by heavyset_go »

uyzstvqs wrote: post #51

People need to understand the difference between age indication and age verification . Two very different things. Age indication is a completely private and realistically as-effective alternative to the invasive age verification . Age _indication_ means that when you set up your device or create a user account, you enter a date of birth for the user. The OS then provides a native API to return a user's age bracket (n…

It's a distinction that hinges on one law from one state that doesn't reflect the reality of the dozens of laws in dozens of states, nor proposed federal legislation, that all require age verification via AI face scans and ID uploads.

That's to say, this distinction is meaningless unless you're planning on blocking every jurisdiction outside of California so you can just adhere to its age verification laws and no one else's.

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#62

Post by lokar »

ekr____ wrote: post #18
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Systems are required to ask the user for their age and just trust whatever they say If you're going to do anything like this, this is the thing they actually get right. It removes the inconvenience, privacy invasion, forced use of corporate verifiers with perverse incentives, etc. Meanwhile if the user is actually a child then their age is set by their parent. > Applications are required to query the system for the…

>> Systems are required to ask the user for their age and just trust whatever they say > > This is the thing they actually get right. It removes the inconvenience, privacy invasion, forced use of corporate verifiers with perverse incentives, etc. Meanwhile if the user is actually a child then their age is set by their parent. Well, maybe. For instance, if a child buys their own device they could set the age to whatev…

I see it as fairly benign.

It requires the device/computer have a way to set the age. If you don't want to set your real age, that's fine. If you are a kid, your parent will probably have set it for you (it's really a feature for the parent, and they don't have to use it).

It then establishes that apps can know your age group, sufficient to comply with existing (and I suppose future) content age-restriction laws (where today they can dodge and say they did not know).

It's a pretty incremental step, and fairly minimal (in the range of all options proposed around the world). We can try it and see how it goes.

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#64

Post by stackghost »

Shank wrote: post #7

It seems incredibly silly to me that this is being rushed into systemd and other linux components. I understand Apple making changes, and even Canonical, but systemd is not run by one corporation and there is no reason to adhere to a badly written law. Why play along with the charade? If root is root, the "age verification" field does not make any sense. Why are these changes being made on a worldwide basis when the…

>It seems incredibly silly to me that this is being rushed into systemd [...]

Making user-hostile changes seems exactly on-brand for systemd, to my mind.

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#65

Post by Havoc »

uyzstvqs wrote: post #51

People need to understand the difference between age indication and age verification . Two very different things. Age indication is a completely private and realistically as-effective alternative to the invasive age verification . Age _indication_ means that when you set up your device or create a user account, you enter a date of birth for the user. The OS then provides a native API to return a user's age bracket (n…

That's just setting things up for a smoother slippery slope...

As appealing as the private part sounds I genuinely think it may make the situation worse here by facilitating the transition & muddying the waters

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#66

Post by tomhow »

htx80nerd wrote: post #24
looperhacks wrote: post #19

[flagged]

[flagged]

This is not an acceptable comment on HN. It breaks several guidelines:

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#69

Post by txrx0000 »

uyzstvqs wrote: post #51

People need to understand the difference between age indication and age verification . Two very different things. Age indication is a completely private and realistically as-effective alternative to the invasive age verification . Age _indication_ means that when you set up your device or create a user account, you enter a date of birth for the user. The OS then provides a native API to return a user's age bracket (n…

There are two things very very wrong with the California law, which you call "age indication".

1) The parental responsibility is given to the wrong people. You're basically being forced by law to give all apps and websites your child's age on request, and then trusting those online platforms to serve the right content (lol). It should be the other way around. The apps and websites should broadcast the age rating of their content, and the OS fetches that age rating, and decides whether the content is appropriate by comparing the age rating to the user's age. The user's age, or age bracket, or any information about the user at all, should not leave the user's computer.

2) The age API is not "completely private". It's a legally-mandated data point that can be used to track a user across apps and websites. We must reject all legally-mandated tracking data points because it sets the precedent for even more mandatory tracking to be added in the future. We should not be providing an API that makes it easier for web platforms to get their hands on user data!

For many years, certain tech companies, SIGs, and governments have fought against technologies that could enable real digital parenting, all while claiming to do the opposite and "protecting children". They craft a narrative to convince you that top-down digital surveillance and access-control is for your own good, but it's time we reject that and flip their narrative upside down: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47472805

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#70

Post by ben-schaaf »

hypeatei wrote: post #52
Aurornis wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this legislation is as dumb as everyone else does, but it also seems like the cheapest way for everyone to agree that we did something about the moral panic without actually giving up anything. It doesn’t do anything with ID or privacy or even actual verification. There’s no complicated auth dance to do with government services to verify our age tokens or whatever the latest Rube Goldberg machine “zero knowle…

I disagree with your overall sentiment that this is benign because it's ineffectual in its current state. If anything, this is going to warm people up to the idea of government mandated prompts gathering personal information in their OS, and legislators in 2030 (or whenever) are going to say: "this isn't working, lets build on top of that prompt we already have and make it verify IDs" In other words, I think this fir…

> This is the governments first plunge into mandating things on the frontend.

ADA mandates computer accessibility, as frequently interpreted by courts. CCPA & GDPR mandate a whole bunch of stuff. Hardly the first plunge.

Post reply on HN