Is there a common group of lobbyists trying to push these laws in multiple states? It doesn't seem like a coincidence that these are all popping up around the same time.
One thing that I find interesting and has me wondering, it is this quote from the article I linked below:
>During the legislative window for AB 1043, none of the major open-source institutions submitted formal comment or testimony.
https://www.linuxteck.com/california-age-verification-law-li...
So where does this leave open source operating systems?
I also want to know how they think this assinine system will guarantee no one can lie to the computer about how old they are.
I’m very torn because I think if you accept the idea that age verification is going to happen. An anonymous os level signal is probably the best way to do it vs using some data hungry vendor and sending them all my info and having them collect data on every site I visit. But also I’m not thrilled because I think parents should decide etc. But pragmatically this is a good solution vs what’s happening with age verification solutions that pop up when I use apple private relay and my ip address is showing as being from some southern state.
Kids are circumventing this so now we need to enforce it with cryptographic attestation of unmodified approved software on an approved device.
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47359401 for a project planning to actively fight these laws on the technical level.
Legal/political means will also be required.
forcing the OS to authenticate the age of the person using the machine? age verification can easily be done by using the DMV as a conduit or using login.gov as a conduit or using id.me as a conduit. these interfaces are already used by dozens of government agencies to authenticate citizens of the United States, and there doesn't need to be any special software installed on the machine
Aside from the fact that legislating how operating systems can be designed is an extremely bad idea, I don't understand how you can create state laws for ubiquitus or open source software that aren't an absolute joke.
How is this going to play out in reality?
Are OSes going to ban sales in Illinois?
Are the 8,000 flavors of Linux going to comply? What about adduser?
Will we be using bootleg or foreign OSes soon?
What an asinine law.
I'm getting really tired of people trying to use "for the children" to be able to identify every user and remove anonymity from the internet.
The content is inaccessible and I can't find any cached copy, so I'm burying this for now. Will restore if/when there's an accessible source.
Age verification doens't solve my problems as a parent. Sure I'm worried about things like porn (I know some of the parents around me share a beer with their kids. I'm sure some give their kids porn. They might not buy tobacco, but only because that is now very out) - but that isn't my real problem. My real problem is my kids are using their devices to play game when they should do homework - often the games are just fine but only after the other things are done. (I'm sure this type of thing goes back to the first schools - kids reading the wrong scrolls.)
The parent controls on devices is terrible. Android won't let me block hotspot at all (which they have turned on so their can use their school device after I turn the router off for the night). I can limit a game to only 5 minutes - but they have a dozen games like and that is an hour between them all (both not enough to really get into the game, and way too much time when they really do need a study break). I can block youtube, but if there is an educational video they need I have to unblock everything not just that one (or a limited selection). There are new play a game websites popping up daily, and when they to every kid in school is playing until we block it (or more likely the school blocks it as they are all playing in class on the school device) - but trying to block all but a whitelisted set of websites is no better since there are so many legitimate ones teachers really do need kids to see.
When you read the above remember not only do I need a solution it needs to be one I can figure out. My degree is human-computer interaction and I'm not sure I can design something I as an expert could make work - but I still need something.
Again, this problem is not new. However parents are still mad about the situation and governments who don't really have any better ideas see a need to solve it.