So it has always been about collecting data about kids all along?
Yes.
I’m trying to understand the logic. I guess they think the kids are too dumb to use Linux.
So what if you’re running Linux on Windows? Does that qualify?
Probably because you can just modify the OS to say you’re old enough. With a closed source OS you can’t.
In reality it just means you can’t use the OS as age verification, and will have to use other means if you’re into that. Personally I just slap on a VPN and go somewhere that hasn’t succumbed to this idiocy…
I’d imagine most kids using Linux are either being actively taught computers by a parent who’s paying close attention, or so smart that nobody is stopping them from doing anything.
The logic is none of these distros would do shit to comply with this, and enforcement is almost impossible. This is just saving face.
While I do like the idea of saving face, let me ask you this: when was the last time something as mundane as reality stopped a politician?
Ummm, more then you think. If it makes them look bad then yeah. In this case I don’t think anyone (even the big players) where pumped about this law. If they could spin it as a win then yeah, reality be damned. But here I doubt they even got much of a rise from distros that don’t sell their stuff anyways.
There were some people practically tripping over themselves to add all the prerequisites needed to support age verification. Instead of waiting to see how things played out, they just rushed through changes for things like systemd.
Adding a nullable “date of birth” field on a json doesn’t seem like “rushed”. The whole thing was massively overblown, considering it already had a field for the user real name (also optional).
I don’t know what the Cali gov was thinking
But it makes sense to me, based on the commercial incentive. It’s not that FreeBSD doesn’t form the basis of products that will need to comply with the law (whatever Apple calls their desktop OS for instance), but FreeBSD itself is only for the leet.
No, you don’t have to be a genius to use it, but you do need to be very weird, in that you want to use your own actual brain to solve problems, and you want to fully understand what the thing is doing, from bootup to shutdown. If that’s you, you’re a very odd person, according to many.
How does that make any sense? How is the license for a piece of software relevant to verifying age? If I make a site that is objectively harmful to minors, I can just make it open-source and I’m exempt? Or, if I make a completely innocuous site that doesn’t actually do anything but is closed source, I would have to comply?
But really, nothing should be doing strong identity verification outside of stuff like government (e.g. passports), or anything that commonly exploits identity for crime (e.g. major financial operations).
First off, we’re talking about operating systems and not websites.
Second, if it’s open source, the users can just edit out the age verification, no matter how it’s implemented. And if it’s open source, you simply can’t prevent that behavior.
In theory, the closed source systems make that more complicated, to the point where we can “rely” on those safeguards.
There’s a logic here, even if I totally disagree with the premise of the OS needing anything to do with the user’s age. Parents need to parent and we’ve had solid enough parental controls for a long time now that make this type of monitoring and control easy.
But really, nothing should be doing strong identity verification outside of stuff like government (e.g. passports), or anything that commonly exploits identity for crime (e.g. major financial operations).
FYI the article title (and the name of the law) are both misleading. The law does not require age verification, only age attestation.
Does that make the law even dumber? Probably, lol.
This is fucking BAD you guys. Like, we’re being dog walked into a fucking wall here.
Major Big Tech companies (and their Fortune 500 partners, and the smaller businesses they support) are ALL going to be asking for age verification for all their SaaS “cloud” offerings and be required to do so by law.
If Linux is exempt from these laws then these services which we may all still be dependent on in some form or another will not work with Linux, since it doesn’t verify age.
You won’t be able to bank or watch Netflix on Linux anymore and it will destroy adoption just as it’s going mainstream.
I think you are confusing something. A tech company running proprietary code can and will ask for age verification. It does not matter if the user runs Windows, Linux, iOS, GrapheneOS.
The law here makes sure that services, which are basically also open source, are not required to do the age verification check.
So, you install Windows? Age check. You install Linux? No age check. Before even opening a browser. Then on Linux you open Netflix? Age check.
So I fundamentally saw this actually as a good news.
The law requires the OS to ask the age and provide it to applications, not verify the age. Linux can provide the same API with a static value or “no age” signal if needed.
For now. When is it going to need some sort of Age Verification Authority stamp to run?
What if an asteroid flies into the Earth and splits it in two?
Edit: I’ll add more now that I can sit down and focus.
Age attestation has existed for longer than I’ve been alive. Every service with an age requirement (must be 18+ to view, must be 13+ to play, must be 8+ with parent permission or 18+ to play, etc) used user attestation. The law is stupid because:
- Age attestation doesn’t restrict. It only exists for services to cover their own asses legally.
- Age verification would be required to restrict access, but age verification costs money that MS/Apple/Google/etc wouldn’t make back (maybe MS but Android and Mac OS are free).
- Linux exists and can bypass it all anyway and often isn’t subject to CA’s laws.
This law isn’t age verification. It’s just politicians being technically illiterate imbeciles.
So the banks lose customers or do people capitulate?
The 2-4% of us who actually daily drive Linux will stand firm but it depends on how far the mandate goes. If you can’t access ANY financial, entertainment, or pron website without OS level age checks, how many of us will really want to do all our banking on paper?
The real plot is to stop “line go up” for Linux. They know they can’t control it, but they also know if they just kill it outright then they will make enemies.
Will normies install Linux if they can’t get on their banking website? Teenagers will say it sucks if it can no longer log into Steam. When grandma can’t verify to Gmail that she’s been an adult for the last 60 years she will want “the Windows” back.
Intelligence agencies don’t want to make big, sweeping, draconian moves; that’s how you get social unrest (ask them how they know). They’re trying to boil this frog.
“The tighter your grasp, the more systems will slip through your fingers.”
Right now crypto is pretty much only for libertarians and money laundering.
Video piracy is pretty much only for people who can’t stand a little bit of ads.
Porn sites just ask if you’re over 18 and then show you whatever you want.
Increasing the barrier to exit allows these services to enshittify further, but also gives normal people an actual reason to switch.
Idk, do people like being able to purchase food?
does cash and card not work?
does cash and card not work?
How do people get paid, @jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works ? How does a card transaction clear? When was the last time you went to a brick and mortar facility to check your balance?
I get paid with a check I either take to the bank or mail to the bank, I do think it should be required that employers offer for no additional charge payment in cash though.
Sure. Right after you provide ID.
This is still bad, rollback the law
But if lawmakers didnt constantly push out completely ineffective laws that cause problems, then what else would they do with their time? Effectively govern? Fucking nonsense.
I’d like medicare for all, a 50% reduction in military spending, and for the wealthy to pay taxes and be held accountable. Please and thank you.
Mamdani is ruining the grading curve.
This makes literally zero sense.
Why would the software license determine this? Just rollback the shit law.
Cause they don’t want to have to force corpos to get age verification on the ludicrous number of IoT devices that run Linux, but cover their ass in making it not seem that way.
Oh sorry. I mean… cause they’re, like, open-source and how could you even enforce that?
They’re not going to enforce it anyway.
We need to divest from big tech. We can’t have our lives leveraged by companies for more concessions from us. What is even left to concede?
Sexual slavery, chattel slavery, blood sports.
None of these is that far off.
Big tech read cyberpunk dystopias and thought they were instruction manuals.
It can definitely get worse.
Surely systemd is going to roll back Dylan’s change, right?
Can you explain in detail, what exactly that change did?
Certainly. They set the precedent that open source software should capitulate immediately to any authoritarian demand.
EDIT : I guess people haven’t read facing fascism :
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/revoluciana-facing-fascism-sabotage
specifically https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/revoluciana-facing-fascism-sabotage#toc3
Fascism is when I can input fake birth date into my init system
What a shocker, such an optional date field indeed seems like a grave menace to all of the freedoms. You should make a merge request with an optional field for an user’s income, so that we may hunt the billionares and exterminate that vvermin with such powerful optional fields.
Why would they?
Why? That law was stupid in the first place but now it is completely idiotic. It isn’t coherent even with its original sick logic.
My guess is they figure it will make little difference due to network effects, and by making this exception they can remove a meaningful source of political resistance to the change. If the vast majority of users are running operating systems that declare underage status, then websites and apps will be able to use those signals to sidestep legal liability for actually doing anything meaningful to protect underage users, and new laws can be passed that assume the use of those signals is possible. That it isn’t 100% doesn’t change that very much.
are they going to keep the exception if everyone installs linux now
Yes, but they’ll rule that using free open-source software is terrorism.
No they’ll just rule that services need to verify age; and since Linux doesn’t do that now it’s incompatible with the services people rely on.
This exemption is no better than the Winona councilman who interviewed with CNN and heavily implied that all they had to do was wait until the people moved on from caring about flock cameras and then “it wouldn’t be a problem anymore”.
They don’t give a fuck what we want, they want to implement verification as a stepping stone to real user ID and they will let Linux fall into irrelevance if it doesn’t comply. They think you will all calm down now since they appeased you with their “exemption”.
So android doesn’t need verification?
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I knew they wouldn’t chase down stuff like Linux.
Maybe they will someday, if the year of, on the desktop, truly arrives for normal people.
