alt Hacker NewsIllinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification
Comments
I feel like all of these laws are being designed backwards. Content providers, like MPAA films, should have to identify what sort of content they are providing. Then I can give my kids a device configured to allow some or all of that at my discretion.
Requiring my kids' devices to advertise their age (or their age "bucket", as if that was a meaningful difference) to protect them is not doing me or my kids any favors.
Not that I'm condoning it, but this law requires self-declaration, not verification. It might sound pedantic but the practical difference is huge.
Self-declaration means that the system asks the user to declare if they are a minor. Nothing is verified.
Age verification typically means a system which checks ID or has other enforcement measures to try to verify age.
So in red states porn is being used, and in blue states TikTok and Instagram are being used. Is anyone tracking who is behind the concerted efforts here? For example, which organizations, executives, lobbyists and politicians are valid and responsible parties?
I agree with literally everyone who thinks this is pointless and probably malignant. The problem isn't the visibility or the fact that weird stuff "exists" on the internet. The problem is advertisers "showing" it to people who didn't go looking for it. Ads and algorithms that decide what a person to see are 99.8% of this actual problem, and meta lobbying for something like this is just obvious self-interest to absolve them from any liability for showing kids damaging material, and to hit 2 birds with one stone, they get more PII to add to their "anonymized" aggregate data.
No good will come from this for the consumer. Websites are suddenly all going to start accurately reporting their content rating, especially ancient documents that have been "online" since before css and javascript were a thing. The only ones that will be implementing these checks will be adtech people that shouldn't have it in the first place. Letting out of touch geriatrics make tech policy decisions in a time when the bleeding edge is moving faster than ever is going to be disastrous for generations to come.
What does that mean, practically? The person who installed linux on that particular device is liable?
>no algorithmic feeds for minors by default
Any choice of what content to display is an algorithm. Maybe they want a simple or easily explainable algorithm?
Since TFA can't be bothered, here's the text of the actual bill: https://my.ilga.gov/Legislation/BillStatus/FullText?GAID=18&...
> The signal itself isn’t a birthday, it’s a bracket: under 13, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, or 18 and up. Operating systems have until January 1, 2028 to have this built.
> Nothing in the bill requires a passport scan or a face scan at setup. It’s self-declared, the same way most apps ask your birthday today, just centralized once at the OS level instead of repeated app by app.
Maybe this is just a badly written law or purposefully designed to have basically no impact on anyone?
Or maybe the age bracket self-declaration part of this might make it a legitimately useful mechanism when a parent sets up a device for their kids. Their device declares “under 13” and apps and sites have to then follow the more strict social media laws which themselves should be relatively beneficial to the target audience.
In other words, the part that’s really privacy-destroying is the age verification, but that’s not part of this bill. The part that could be a benefit is the part where companies need to respect an age flag set by parents and comply with a concrete set of parental controls.
In other other words, it’s not left up to operators like Meta and Roblox to decide what age their users are, parents can set that device-wide and know it can’t be circumvented.
I love how everyone knows this has nothing to do with kids safety. However no one can or is willing to put up a fight. In the UK where I live its the same. Government does whatever they want and most of us just shrug our shoulders and say "that's messed up" and go on about our day.
Serious question: This is a out-of-box "ask for age" requirement. No one is "verifying" anything. Why are we using this misleading headline? Face scans, ID cards, all that stuff that makes everyone nervous, are specifically not a part of this. To imply that it is verification is propaganda.
As a parent, I'd be very happy with this "age declaration" method, as I also don't think the 'verification' others push for is at all worth the risks. All parents want is to put the devices permanently into a mode that flags it to third parties as belonging to a minor, so they can't just hold up their hands and say "idk they said they're 18" like they do today.
I'm surprised we're not seeing heaps of lawsuits here. Age verification in general violates privacy.
This is unconstitutional. Code is freedom of speech and cannot be censored in any fashion. Period.
2 days ago, 123 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49228350
Cool. I'd like to propose a federal law wherein every lawmaker, state or otherwise, musts either demonstrate they correctly enough understand the subject they're legislating over (for every single instance of legislative act they perform) or get approval from an actual accredited expert panel before being allowed to push any more inane bullshit that will help noone in the future.
Does it even ask for verification? If not, the problem with it is that it seems to require the OS provider (not the local installation) to store the age.
> The bill’s own text caps penalties at $7,500 per affected child.
If the distro does not ship with any hardware, it could only be attained via download? So how would this imperil Linux distros?
Not to defend the law, it's comically pointless. Conservative states demanding ID verification for anything 'pornographic' and progressive ones trying to limit anyone under 18 from having any social media access at all. Clownish.
as Linus would say, that is a userland issue, not a Linux issue
Can someone tell me why all of the sudden everyone's totally cool with letting political hacks choke the internet to death?
We used to make fun people like Ted Stevens for calling the internet "a series of tubes" and now we're just totally cool with letting a failed, bankrupt state in the US dictate what code needs to go into voluntary open source software. We need to fight back, now.
Thankfully for now this dragon is a hydra. Too many paths to block for now. The whole TPM fiasco with windows is preparation to put the genie back in the bottle. Soon, much sooner than I would like you will need a Global ID to access the internet, which will require an "internet safe operating system". It's only a matter of time. Get your sneakers ready folks.
This renders all servers in Illinois illegal. Thanks.
I think this is a bad thing overall, but if the OS is responsible for reporting my age, that means I get to pick my own age... I'll take what I can get.
Some states will pass laws that companies cannot show advertisements to minors. So...
I think I'm about to become a bit of a minor myself, at least whenever it serves my interests.
Backdoor way to get data centers out of your state.
Democrat Representative Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz in the House
Democrat Senator Willie Preston [D] in the senate
Ok so, all the appliances and cars and TVs and who knows what other embedded electronics sold in Illinois will require the user (?) to verify their age?
Declaration, not verification
These laws are so short-sited and willfully ignorant of the unintended consequences. The constitution provides rights and protections, and the government cannot compel speech. This will be appealed on consititional grounds and reversed. If not, I'd ban any Illinois resident from being able to use the site and redirect them to their local government representation. Compelled speech is just one attack the law is open to.
Here's my slight defense of something like this, in theory. I have not read the text of the bill.
If OSes build a standards-based way to query age of user that is logged-in, where non-admins are not allowed to adjust the age bucket, then parents can configure devices on first use to have an OS-wide enforcement of age controls.
Apps and sites would query the OS, not individual app/site accounts, for user age and act accordingly.
Apps can then lock out certain features like algo feeds and adult content more consistently.
Responsibility for proper use is still on the parent, and no verification process is put upon the operators of sites.
Not sure how I actually think about this; I'm only putting this out for discussion.
The interesting part here is enforcement. Linux isn't controlled by a single vendor, so I'm not sure who the law would actually target.
i don't understand who this law targets. Is it targetting people who install linux on machines used by children and teens, say an overworked IT Admin at schools? or is it targetting linux developers?
TL;DR: learn how to live without computers.
This will end Linux as end user OS, it will stay only in Cloud and containers. Arguably, the goal here is to destroy home PC altogether. maximum we will be allowed is a laptop with endpoint verification and mandatory touch ID, locked boot and non-replaceable hardware. If you think Linux is the end of it – think again. The same crap will be implemented in BIOS/UEFI, on "HW management" level. Essentially, your bare HW only laptop will not even start without you touching fingerprint sensor and allowing it to "validate your age" against – of course government approved – HW manufacturer.
Same with smart phones – it's already here, if you tried to activate iPhone.
And projects like Open/Free BSDs? Government will sure their leaders happily retire and ... well, the community will just "die" naturally.
Okay, go scorched earth with malicious compliance.
Including Tails?
This is worse than the California one. Since this applies to all Internet-capable operating systems, it's effectively forcing people to utter their age bracket in order to communicate digitally, which is compelled speech - a violation of the First Amendment.
Here's an idea for the lawmakers that actually want to solve the digital parenting problem: fix the mobile OS duopoly with antitrust. Most kids only know how to use touchscreen devices. If you force mobile hardware vendors to ship smartphones without an OS, then we will get plenty of forks of Android and even entirely new OSes as a result of natural demand, some of which will be toy OSes with all of the child features built in. We'll also get scam-proof OSes for the elderly as a bonus. There is no good reason for the entire population to use the same OS.
Lets check how that state votes. "Solid Democrat". Yep.
Our political and business elites need age verification added to their penis.
Insert X reason to steal user freedom
Gross. Age verification is a completely degenerate level of privacy violation
[dupe] Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49228350
What does this have to do with us?
Illinois can put up a great firewall like China and search citizens devices for contraband operating systems. The onus is not on tech to enforce it, it's on them.
Unpopular opinion, but this is objectively better than having to upload your ID to every random website that requires an age check (if that's what the end result is).
I hate that news you can’t ignore comes packaged as obvious slop you have to trudge through to to comprehend.
It’s bonkers that 50 states all decide to make their own set of rules for this. Maybe talk to each other?
So that includes Android? What about the Unix of iOS?
You can also thank big tech for this because they'll do anything to not verify age on their platforms they want to push it onto devices and OSes.
“You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you.”
Is being concerned that this article is obviously AI slop matter anymore?
It's none of your business. Go pound sand.
Linux distro founder here (stagex)
I will never be compelled to implement this, and would never merge it.
Every release requires quorum signatures by an international maintainer team, and the distro is designed to work offline-first, with some variants not even supporting network drivers in the kernel, so Illinois legislators can eat shit.