71–80 of 171 posts
Age verification at the OS level makes no sense to me. Most households aren't going to have a separate device for every family member and so you will end up with a tablet or computer set up by one of the parents (and thus having their age stored) that will be used by both parents and children. Likewise, people generally won't create a separate account for every potential user.
I think that malicious compliance all the way might have been the better option here. If a birth date is all that is needed, let the user enter a random one. If actual biometric verification is needed alongside, let the user also paste the code to a fake biometric validator that always returns valid. It is the same philosophy as with an app that forcibly wants an invasive permission to the detriment of the user. Let…
Asking the device owner for the user's birth date is precisely what the (California) law requires. Biometrics are not required. The concept appears to be that a parent or guardian could enter the birth date before turning the device over to a child. Malicious compliance would be providing this age bracket API: boolean is_user_over_18() { sleep (18 * 365.25 * 86400); return true; } This is a real-time interface (as re…
In the meantime systemd already added handling for Age to the system bus. Next step is to add your race, then income, then who you voted for...
Why? Why should Linux ever implement local laws like this as core functionality? Especially invasive/anti-privacy ones. If someone wants to introduce an age-verification-ca-module, fine, but not make it core. Yes I understand systemd is not the kernel, but its ubiquitous enough. That just says to every country around the world; Windows, Mac, and even Linux is on board too, let's make it law also! I dunno, I always ex…
There are still distros without it, I may have to go to one, since I already jumped Win10 to Cachy for the BS MS is pulling. I was going to go systemd-free but Cachy "just worked" compared to the others in terms of setup. So I stuck with it.
I wish Lennart would just stop already.
Is it lack of something similar to PKI for identify verification?
The GrapheneOS Mastodon post says, "GrapheneOS will remain usable by anyone around the world without requiring personal information, identification or an account." https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/116261301913660830 That raises the issues that GrapheneOS needs to solve, which may require more creativity than bold, somtimes combative statements. If GrapheneOS doesn't comply with laws and regulations then they wil…
Also it would be nice if, where Graphene has partnered with hardware manufacturers, then said hardware sellers could issue a statement like "$Manufacturer promises that in regions where GrapheneOS is illegal we'll leave the bootloader unlocked, if users choose to break local legislation then that is on them" and furthermore a statement like "$Manufacturer fully swears on all honour possible that in any regions which ban unlocked bootloader devices then, oops, we found that if you short pins 3 and 8 of the third chip on the left together at any time during booting you'll permanently unlock the bootloader and absolutely nobody is allowed to know that. Which is why we've posted this on every social media channel. Afterall, all our users need to know that they're not allowed to know that the bootloader can be unlocked by shorting pins 3 and 8 (third chip on the left) with anything less than 20 ohms (nobody must know that a paperclip would do for this)".
Nonetheless: Well done GrapheneOS!!!!!!!
Age verification at the OS level makes no sense to me. Most households aren't going to have a separate device for every family member and so you will end up with a tablet or computer set up by one of the parents (and thus having their age stored) that will be used by both parents and children. Likewise, people generally won't create a separate account for every potential user.
it's the only form of "age verification" which can be done in a somewhat privacy respecting way (as in at most leak the age)
the idea is to "bounce back" the "is old enough" decision to parent controls and let the parent choose (the Californian law doesn't quite do that perfectly, but goes into that direction)
and if you sell what is more or less a general purpose compute/internet access device with OS (which I do include phones into) I think it's very reasonable to either sell it to adults only (with a disclaimer it's "not for children") or include proper parent controls
> Most households aren't going to have a separate device for every family member
in current times in the west it is very very common for many devices to be for one person only. Especially phones, or at least have different (OS) accounts.
but again this comes back to "parent controls", weather that is for a child (OS) account or a way to switch from a child profile to a adult profile doesn't matter
but in the end, the point of such laws should be to give parents tools to parent. As well as handling the case of parent acting in neglect by inaction. But if a parent intentional decides to give their children a device with their profile because they think it's fine than that should be their choice and responsibility.
> Likewise, people generally won't create a separate account for every potential user.
where it was possible I have not seen it not used, weather it's on a switch, gaming console or PC. It is the most convenient way of automatically separates logins, browsing history, game safes etc.
and the law als isn't made for that shared computer in the living room (through it will apply there). It's more about the devices children might use unsupervised, e.g. their phone.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What are you talking about, most households give personal phones to their children, especially teenagers. Laptops aren't rare either.
I suspect there’s quite a difference between what most people do and what most HN commenters do.
it's as if humans have a tendency to make up their mind/world view in their younger years and then tend to kinda stick with it/only change it slowly as long as no big live changing events happen
In the meantime systemd already added handling for Age to the system bus. Next step is to add your race, then income, then who you voted for...
Why? Why should Linux ever implement local laws like this as core functionality? Especially invasive/anti-privacy ones. If someone wants to introduce an age-verification-ca-module, fine, but not make it core. Yes I understand systemd is not the kernel, but its ubiquitous enough. That just says to every country around the world; Windows, Mac, and even Linux is on board too, let's make it law also! I dunno, I always ex…
1) It's legally required to sell computers with that OS in certain jurisdictions
2) I presume there is at least one person actually selling said
3) The feature is so trivially easy to bypass that it presents no reasonable privacy threat at this time (IIRC, it's just a numeric field with no validation?)
Age verification at the OS level makes no sense to me. Most households aren't going to have a separate device for every family member and so you will end up with a tablet or computer set up by one of the parents (and thus having their age stored) that will be used by both parents and children. Likewise, people generally won't create a separate account for every potential user.
What are you talking about, most households give personal phones to their children, especially teenagers. Laptops aren't rare either.
I think that malicious compliance all the way might have been the better option here. If a birth date is all that is needed, let the user enter a random one. If actual biometric verification is needed alongside, let the user also paste the code to a fake biometric validator that always returns valid. It is the same philosophy as with an app that forcibly wants an invasive permission to the detriment of the user. Let…
Asking the device owner for the user's birth date is precisely what the (California) law requires. Biometrics are not required. The concept appears to be that a parent or guardian could enter the birth date before turning the device over to a child. Malicious compliance would be providing this age bracket API: boolean is_user_over_18() { sleep (18 * 365.25 * 86400); return true; } This is a real-time interface (as re…
Why would anybody bother to implement that?