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A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

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Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#611

Post by White_Wolf »

vineyardmike wrote: post #408
bmitch3020 wrote: post #290

Reaction 1: how would this even work with embedded systems that have no UI to input this data? Reaction 2: it's open source, make the lawmakers do submit the changes. Reaction 3: how would this ever be enforced? Would they outlaw downloading distributions, or even older versions of distributions? When there's no exchange of money, a law like this is seems like it would be suppression of free speech. Reaction 4: Someo…

While there are some enforcement questions here, especially around non commercial OSes, most of your reactions are clearly based on the headline alone. It defines operating system in the law. This wouldn’t apply to embedded systems and WiFi routers and traffic lights and all those things. It applies to operating systems that work with associated app stores on general purpose computers or mobile phones or game console…

By that logic, my NAS (TOS6) falls under that category.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#612

Post by igregoryca »

jmward01 wrote: post #468
vineyardmike wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there are some enforcement questions here, especially around non commercial OSes, most of your reactions are clearly based on the headline alone. It defines operating system in the law. This wouldn’t apply to embedded systems and WiFi routers and traffic lights and all those things. It applies to operating systems that work with associated app stores on general purpose computers or mobile phones or game console…

" It applies to operating systems that work with associated app stores on general purpose computers or mobile phones or game consoles. That’s it" Everything is a general purpose computer. Just look at how many things have been made to run doom. I haven't read the law specifically but if it actually does say this then that language is useless and means practically everything.

Wood is edible when processed correctly, but it's not legally considered "food" because there are a bunch of nontrivial steps to get it into that state. Likewise, any reasonable interpretation of "general purpose computer" in this context by a judge would not include your microwave oven just because someone with skill and finesse could transform it into a cursed Doom arcade machine.

Laws are interpreted by people trained to fill in the blanks[1] with a best guess of the legislative body's intent. And the intent here seems pretty clear: to regulate computing devices that let end users easily install software from a centralized catalog.

[1] which we all do subconsciously in day-to-day speech, because all language is ultimately subjective

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#613

Post by Twisell »

Although it appear stupid, maybe an OS level endorsement of user age is actually a more reasonable middle ground than delegating mandatory age verification to data brokers...

It still parents that usually buy the computers and set up the différents user accounts. So the responsibilities would be put back in their hands as machine owners to correctly tag kid's accounts. OS vendors would then only be responsible to accurately transmit this declarative information to requesting App/services.

Of course some smart kids are gonna find a way to bypass that (as any other mesure you can imagine, because kids are smart). But nonetheless we could have a good enough OS level declarative age for 95% uses cases and send to the trashbin all the age verification creep that is the current trend.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#614

Post by numpad0 »

Filligree wrote: post #247
numpad0 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That turns jokes into contracts that nobody wants. Bad idea.

Maybe just don’t make “jokes” like that.

I don't make such "jokes". Idiots do.

And when the idiots do, the proposed system locks the fire door for them. That's just dangerous. We'd want them with bunch of confusing options and better illuminated de-escalation paths.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#615

Post by duskdozer »

pwthornton wrote: post #178
zdragnar wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, term limits are something many people want in the hopes that it will solve some of the problems in Washington DC. There, the professional legislators can't get anything right either. Do you think there's a middle ground of increasing the term limits to, say, 18 or 20 years?

Term limits are anti-democratic, and it's just a way for voters to not take responsibility for their voting. A much more real issue is actually age limits. If someone starts in the Senate at 40 and serves for 24 years, term limits hardly seem to be the big issue. They are retiring at a normal time, and they should still be functioning at a high level. Conversely, someone who gets elected at 70 and then gets term-limi…

I don't really see why age limits would be exempt for "voters need to take responsibility for their voting".

IMO, the real issue is that voters are coerced to accept candidates put up by the parties due to FPTP. The threat of the wrong side winning gets people to accept someone they don't want. The primary process does not need to be democratic, and the results are pressured by the future threat of losing to the other side in a head-to-head.

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#617

Post by filleduchaos »

juris wrote: post #510
filleduchaos wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it bad for a free society?

not to be flippant, i am answering your question with the seriousness it deserves: it is because any government regulation over user identifiers in an operating system (and left to grow and fester according to political wont) will chill free speech (code, data) and assembly (the ability to share code and data with others unsupervised).

That's nice but doesn't actually answer the question that I asked, which is how this (i.e. requiring local user accounts to specify an age range on creation) is bad for a free society.

Simply stating something you apparently see as self-evidently true in the abstract doesn't really make much of a point. Especially when said something is unironically just "but the slippery slope!"

Re: A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification

#620

Post by al_borland »

upofadown wrote: post #594
al_borland wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t that classification apply to Linux package managers as well? They are publicly available online services that distribute and facilitate the download of applications from third party developers to users of a general purpose computing device.

That doesn't seem to be the intent for something like, say, Debian. How would that work anyway? This would probably cover something like a Linux based Steam box, where there are different organizations providing applications.

That may not be the intent, but it seems like it would still apply. Many of the “app stores” on Linux are just front ends for the package manager in some way.

I assume the people behind this don’t know things like apt or dnf exist, so it likely wasn’t considered.

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