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Comment on They wanted to make Free Software illegal and have all computers approved by the government.

How would this even work? What is a “computer” in the definition of this law? Gun nuts like to say that if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns. But if you outlaw computers… everyone will be an outlaw. your fucking microwave is a computer. In Corey’s book he restates many times that basically every computer we have is a Turing complete von Neumann machine, or rather all computers can run all software and the only limitations are those imposed by the software licenses…and time, really. I just don’t see how you could feasible restrict the use of all the computers already on the market. My PS2’s can run Linux and send emails… radio transmissions are easy to set up with point to point contact and encrypted messaging. It’s just an insanely stupid thing to attempt. I feel the same about the age verification at the OS layer thing. Maybe you can get Apple, Microsoft, and Google to put it in their OSes, but anyone with a Linux device or a VM will be able to avoid it very easily. It’s silly.

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ozoned@piefed.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Cory was talking about years ago. The FSF helped prevent it, but this is the kind of meetings Microsoft is willing to have to lock down systems. I think the rest of the world is now aware of US Big Tech and hopefully will steer clear. But yeah, we almost were in deep trouble.

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- 4am@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  We are still in big trouble.
  
  AI datacenters. Buy up all the commodity parts, put consumer companies out of business by promising that AI shall become a more lucrative market than consumer computing could ever be. Users have to turn to cloud services, which all content produced is run though AI to gauge who you are and what you think. You rent it from them.
  
  enshittification of OSes. AI scanning in every crevice. Cloud saving even when you don’t want it.
  
  devices are all cloud connected now and IoT is just spyware. From TVs to dishwashers;; and you never know what might have a microphone.
  
  ”Save the children” age checks; but in reality you have to scan your face to ID yourself. Now they have a facial recognition profile from an up close view, linked with your name age and location, correlated with whatever other data originated from your local IP.
  
  We didn’t dodge the bullet, we just got shot.
  
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  - ozoned@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    The AI stuff has real economic implications for sure, but it can’t last. IMO anyway. I just try to stay focused on fostering the fediverse and staying away from all of that other crap. I think small local communities for social web is the real winner for us.
    
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- wavebeam@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Yeah I get that, I just struggle to understand how this really could play out in a functional manner.
  
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  - ozoned@piefed.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Idk. How are they going to enforce age verification? Probably can’t. Doesn’t stop them from trying.
    
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hypna@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Apple, Microsoft, and Google account for roughly 95% of all human user systems.

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- wavebeam@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Yes. But does that satisfy this law? Is the Linux server that runs all the AWS nodes also required to be compliant? Or do you just get a free pass if you run Linux? Wouldn’t that incentivize anyone interested in porn to switch to Linux and undermine the hold those companies have on the personal computing market?
  
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  - hypna@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I think it kinda doesn’t matter. If they can catch 95% of all users, that’s pretty close to total victory. Well more than enough to shut out access from Linux systems for most things without causing public backlash.
    
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