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

Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

theregister.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 227 posts

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#81

Post by bigfishrunning »

bee_rider wrote: post #47
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So once my application is running I can just keep querying an age bracket until it flips and then I've successfully determined a date of birth.

This is a neat attack (in that it is obvious and a big flaw but also it makes sense that the lawmakers wouldn’t have thought of it), but it would only affect users who have an age-bucket transition while your application is running, right? Edit: as folks have pointed out, the attacking application doesn’t actually have to be running while the age-transition takes place. The attacker just has to have logs from before…

Not necessarily, depending on how the application is logging it just means the resolution to which you know a birth date is limited by how often the application is run. If i check my email every morning at 8am, and my email app logs my "age bucket", then it can know to a resolution of one day. If i only check my email on Monday mornings, it knows to a resolution of one week, etc...

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#82

Post by slopinthebag »

wongarsu wrote: post #16
alphabetag675 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we are installing docker repositories on my Rockylinux installation on 100 nodes at once, should we need to manually put an age of the person who is running the script somewhere in the process? Will docker be forced to prevent me from downloading its packages if I do not transmit the age in a header?

The California law only stipulates that there's an "accessible interface at account setup" to set the birthday or age at account setup, and an interface to query the age bracket. Plus the crap for "application stores" I don't think it's a very well thought-out law. But realistically this will end up as setting some env variable for your docker containers to assure them that you are 99 years old. And yes, maybe transm…

> The real issue is when the law inevitably gets expanded to get some real teeth, and all the easy workarounds stop being legal

Which will happen. The road to hell is built one brick at a time.

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#83

Post by LtWorf »

quesera wrote: post #24
LtWorf wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny that they want to do these checks in a country where even the checks for voting are very iffy.

FWIW, there are vanishingly few problems with improper voting in the US, and the extremely unusual occurrences are mostly PartyB voters trying to "counteract" the imaginary PartyA violations. Anyone who tells you differently is lying or ignorant.

But how are any of them able to carry out the violations?

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#85

Post by zb3 »

k33n wrote: post #58

Totally inaccurate. The actual technical requirement is to add a self-reported age field to user creation flows, and that the value selected be made available to applications. But let's just pretend something totally different is happening. It's more exciting that way.

So TempleOS is still illegal?

And well, the law represents an intent.. if self-reporting won't work (obviously won't), then the scenario where PCs end up as locked down as smartphones is not far fetched.

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#86

Post by EGreg »

mothballed wrote: post #72
wat10000 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's a competitive market and offering a lower price than your competitors helps you earn more business. If your competitors lower their prices and you don't lower yours then you'll lose business.

It's optimistic to think it will even do anything to stop drunks. It's a $5 wrench problem. They think all this tech will stop drunks, when in reality some guy gorded out his mind on vodka is paying his 12 year old his weekly $20 allowance to blow into the machine.

To be fair, it's not about blowing into the machine, but a bunch of sensors all around the driver, e.g. looking at the finger pressing the button to test your blood alcohol content through your skin, detecting alcohol particles, etc. So you better hope your passenger isn't drunk LMAO

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#87

Post by Arch485 »

curt15 wrote: post #84

The overwhelming majority of programmers likely cut their teeth on computers as kids. Any attempt to restrict computer access to 18+ will only handicap American programmers in the job market.

Or lots of parents will put their ID into their kid's computer so that they have full access.

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#88

Post by mothballed »

EGreg wrote: post #13
nszceta wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no limit to the power grab. The only acceptable thing to do is to dig the trenches before it gets worse.

The trenches will eventually be overwhelmed regardless. Once the government has AI and sensors, it will mandate its ubiquitous use. For minors, we have this lovely law coming in NYC: that will broadcast to everyone that you’re a minor: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S8102 But let’s talk about around the US. For example, all cars manufactured in 2029 and onward will be required to have a built-in alco…

What's hilarious is that in supposed dystopic corrupt hellholes I've lived or spent time in (Syria during the civil war, Iraq, Philippines, etc) all of this is unimaginable. Westerners view freedom as having a piece of paper that says they are free plus not having to bother fighting off ISIS or the gangsters because the even bigger gangster in a clean uniform and nice jackboot will take care of it. Much of the rest of the world views freedom as the government being weak enough that it's actually possible for rebel groups to emerge, which you might then have to fight off, but at least that is easier to fight off than a central government that consumes 25+% of the GDP and projects their air power to every end of the earth and meanwhile if you exercise a bit of freedom it goes under the radar particularly if there is no victim to complain about it.

Of course, there are cases like North Korea where you get the worst of both worlds (strong central government + not even a useful piece of paper limiting it).

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#89

Post by jasonlotito »

linksnapzz wrote: post #33
quesera wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, there are vanishingly few problems with improper voting in the US, and the extremely unusual occurrences are mostly PartyB voters trying to "counteract" the imaginary PartyA violations. Anyone who tells you differently is lying or ignorant.

If there's no problem w/ improper voting, then why would anyone object to measures intended to verify that the proprieties involved are being followed?

> measures intended to verify that the proprieties involved are being followed?

Giving you the benefit of the doubt regarding the intent, why would anyone support a measure that demonstrably does not achieve what it intends, but instead denies you the right to vote?

Re: Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

#90

Post by bigfishrunning »

NegativeK wrote: post #69
alephnerd wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many small distros are hobby distros... Then region lock. You don't have to support California or NY or ... > Different states are passing different requirements that often contradict each other. This is going to be a nightmare Create regional feature flags or region lock. It's a solved problem. > So you’re saying that we should expect those laws too They already de facto exist contractually speaking. > Because bef…

>> hobby > You don't have to support This isn't just a kernel thing. Expecting volunteers to dump time into compliance is ridiculous. Not because they oppose the idea, but because huge swaths of the internet run on people doing something for free -- and they'll just do something else if governments begin threatening them. Europe realized this with their new infosec liability regulations. If you're giving your labor a…

> Expecting volunteers to dump time into compliance is ridiculous.

Exactly, so any distribution that relies on volunteers will likely include a region-locking clause in their documentation (which may or may not be a GPL violation)

Many big distributions (Ubuntu, Suse, Fedora) are sponsered by big tech companies, and are not maintained by volunteers.

Post reply on HN