Archr
@Archr@lemmy.world
- Comment on System76 tries to talk Colorado down over OS age checks 1 hour ago:
How I understood it would be that the api could be implemented as an API contained within your os. So it would be more equivalent to comparing it to a system call like open file or allocate memory than a REST API.
- Comment on System76 tries to talk Colorado down over OS age checks 1 hour ago:
This is just the slippery slope argument.
The California law does not require verification. Only attestation.
- Comment on System76 tries to talk Colorado down over OS age checks 1 hour ago:
The California law does not require age verification. Only attestation. From what I have heard the Colorado one is basically identical.
The NY one I have heard is more stringent. But I have not read that or the Colorado one.
- Comment on California introduces age verification law for all operating systems, including Linux and SteamOS — user age verified during OS account setup 6 days ago:
I fully agree, the definition of application is too broad and should be revised. But how do we revise it without also introducing loopholes that companies can exploit.
All the law requires developers to do is receive the signal and treat that as the primary indicator of the user’s age and to comply with applicable laws (ie. things you should have been doing already anyways).
For applications like ls (which let me be clear that I do not believe this app should be covered by this law) it could be as easy as requesting the signal from the OS, deciding that the user’s age bracket does not matter for your execution, and just performing as usual.
They should really limit the definition of application to just social media apps. (which would likely include things like irc apps).
- Comment on California introduces age verification law for all operating systems, including Linux and SteamOS — user age verified during OS account setup 6 days ago:
Yea they have to ask for your age bracket. That’s not the same as an ID.
I agree, the definition of an application is much too broad. And should be revised. But the difficulty is how do you restrict it without also creating a multitude of loopholes for businesses to exploit. At the very least we should restrict it to applications whose primary purpose is to interact with the internet.
And before you say it, yes I am aware that that still leaves many apps like curl, wget, ssh being covered. But it could be a start.
Or maybe just restrict it to social media applications. I am not a lawyer, I definitely don’t have a great grasp of how to create the type of language that is appropriate for laws.
- Comment on California introduces age verification law for all operating systems, including Linux and SteamOS — user age verified during OS account setup 1 week ago:
It prevents apps from asking for additional ID verification. I’d rather my os ask me for a number I am able to lie about that to have to send my ID to 30 different apps and data aggregators.
Many people say that we should put more responsibility on the parents for what their kids are allowed to do online. This law does that.
- Comment on California introduces age verification law for all operating systems, including Linux and SteamOS — user age verified during OS account setup 1 week ago:
Sorry it is really hard to understand what you are arguing here.
If you don’t want your info (whether you are an adult a teen or a child) to be shared with “owners of apps that are on the Epstein list”, then don’t install those apps. There is nothing in this law requiring you to download any particular app.
If an app were sending this data to a third party, like palantir, then they would be in direct violation of this law.
If you were expecting to be able to leave decisions about your personal privacy and security to any governing body then you are in for a sore awakening. You should be well aware of how privacy and security are things that we have to take personal responsibility for.
- Comment on California introduces age verification law for all operating systems, including Linux and SteamOS — user age verified during OS account setup 1 week ago:
I agree until this law there was no reason for my os to know my age. This law creates that reason.
Any law can be bad if we take into account the imagined future possibilities. Should we outlaw electricity because it might be used in some way to make nukes?
If lawmakers try to issue further requirements for ID or facial scans then we can fight that. But until then there is nothing in this law that affects me outside of needing to enter a number less than 2005 when I setup my OS.
If you don’t have any kids then you literally can’t be fined under this law.
- Comment on California introduces age verification law for all operating systems, including Linux and SteamOS — user age verified during OS account setup 1 week ago:
No… The law literally says that if you make a good faith effort then you are not liable.
An operating system provider or a covered application store that makes a good faith effort to comply with this title, taking into consideration available technology and any reasonable technical limitations or outages, shall not be liable for an erroneous signal indicating a user’s age range or any conduct by a developer that receives a signal indicating a user’s age range.
Also the 2500$ is only for negligent violations.
Look, I don’t want linux to leave Cali. I have primarily used linux for the past 8 years and have no desire to use windows anymore than I have to. But, as you said, the linux community throwing their hands up and deciding to exit Cali and Colorado is just playing right into Microsoft’s desires.
- Comment on California introduces age verification law for all operating systems, including Linux and SteamOS — user age verified during OS account setup 1 week ago:
The law actually has a specific provision preventing both os providers and developers from sending your information to whoever they want.
And the OS is only allowed to send the minimum information that is required. Ie. your age bracket.
Send only the minimum amount of information necessary to comply with this title and shall not share the digital signal information with a third party for a purpose not required by this title.
- Comment on California introduces age verification law for all operating systems, including Linux and SteamOS — user age verified during OS account setup 1 week ago:
I mean yea. If you don’t make a good faith effort to implement this age attestation page and api to allow apps to pull from it. Then yes. You would be liable.
You could of course decide to not provide to residents of California and Colorado. No one is forcing you to provide for either of these states.
- Comment on California introduces age verification law for all operating systems, including Linux and SteamOS — user age verified during OS account setup 1 week ago:
There is not requirement in the bill to prevent users in specific age brackets from accessing certain content or applications.
It simply defines that a method for age attestation (not verification) must exist and that the age bracket data be made available to apps and appstores.
The people who decide what age brackets can access would be the appstores and the developers.
I will concede that using the word “controls” for the OS provider could be misunderstood. What I would assume is that they are meaning control as in the person/entity that provides updates for the system. Ie, MS, Apple, Linux Foundation, Canonical, etc.
- Comment on California introduces age verification law for all operating systems, including Linux and SteamOS — user age verified during OS account setup 1 week ago:
… That is literally what this law does.
When a parent creates the account for their child they specify the age. If the parent decides to lie or circumvent the system and it affects their child then they would be fined.
Just to be clear the law itself says absolutely nothing about actually verifying the age.
- Comment on California introduces age verification law for all operating systems, including Linux and SteamOS — user age verified during OS account setup 1 week ago:
I haven’t seen any devs in the linux space actually write about a real solution but my guess is likely not. Since the law specifies that users are “children”.
- Comment on California introduces age verification law for all operating systems, including Linux and SteamOS — user age verified during OS account setup 1 week ago:
Are they? The law effectively only applies penalties to the parents. If you have not ready the law I highly recommend it. It is very short and says nothing about actually verifying the age of the user. It is equivalent of entering your age on steam or the “are you 18+” questions.
- Comment on California introduces age verification law for all operating systems, including Linux and SteamOS — user age verified during OS account setup 1 week ago:
I think people are down voting you since they actually have not read the law themselves and don’t realize that the law itself says nothing about actually verifying that the age is correct. It is no more than what you said, like steam asking your birthdate before you look at certain games in the store.
- Comment on California introduces age verification law for all operating systems, including Linux and SteamOS — user age verified during OS account setup 1 week ago:
The point of it is actually the exact opposite. With this law the parent would set the age of their child. And if they decide to lie and their child is affected then they could be fined.
The other thing it does is if a platform decides to ignore the age range of a user and it affects a child then they could be fined. But as long as they do best effort then it really only affects the parents.
It also prevent platforms from requesting additional ID verification unless they have confidence that the age bracket of that user is incorrect.
- Comment on An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification 1 week ago:
This was passed and signed last October. Why is this just hitting the news cycle?
- Comment on An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification 1 week ago:
It saddens me that someone who is willing to stand so strongly against a oppressive law would work to discourage discussion about those laws on free social platforms.
I hope you can consider your words next time and we can enter into a good faith discussion over the merits and demerits of any law.
- Comment on An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification 1 week ago:
I appreciate the insight. And you are right, that was my lack of understanding about how it could be struck down in court.
I do want to talk briefly on your point about these other devices where the law might actually apply since I have seen a few people bring up this point.
I the definition of an OS provider the law asserts that an OS is “computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device.” (emphasis mine)
To me this clearly excludes those other types of devices because routers, tvs, etc are not general purpose.
As far as public computers I think that is a really good point and speaks to the vagueness of the law. There is no clear direction on how that works in such a common use case.
Coming from the engineering side as well and I’ve put more time, thought, and effort into project proposals than it feels like they put into this law.
- Comment on An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification 1 week ago:
I fully agree. None of this should be required to operate a computer. We should focus on the parents that give their children free range of the internet without teaching them anything and the school ciriculum which is lacking in this department as well.
To me it feels like the lawmakers have some good intentions with this law, but it was rushed through so quickly that they forgot to ask themselves how this actually would be applied and who they are actually trying to protect.
- Comment on An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification 1 week ago:
Totally a valid point.
Just to clarify I am not for this law. I do not think that this should have been passed. But also the law seems to have some good intentions and I don’t want to jump to conclusions after just reading headlines.
It feels like the law makers want to standardize and restrict how this age verification works without actually providing any guidance whatsoever on how to implement such a system.
I’m curious to see what systems companies come up with and what major flaws they will have (intentional or not) that data collectors will exploit.
- Comment on An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification 1 week ago:
This actually speaks to one of the concerning things about this law. There is a section forbidding developers from collecting additional information (unless they have confident information that your age is incorrect). But there is no such clause for OS providers.
Developers shall not “Request more information from an operating system provider or a covered application store than the minimum amount of information necessary to comply with this title.”
Or
“Share the signal with a third party for a purpose not required by this title.”
This means that discord could not collect IDs or face scans without confidence that your age is incorrect. But windows can still require whatever they want.
But I guess silver lining is that neither of them can sell or even share the data with 3rd parties. Pretty minimal silver lining though.
- Comment on An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification 1 week ago:
That’s a really good point. It feels like they intended for that to be up to OS providers to determine. But really that was the lawmakers’ job to define. My assumption is that this law was rushed.
- Comment on An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification 1 week ago:
No doubt the law is hopeful and leaves out many details in regards to how such a system could/would/might be implemented.
But I am not seeing anything in the law that would be unconstitutional. But I’m not a lawyer so what do I know.
- Comment on An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification 1 week ago:
FYI, I am not a lawyer.
Have you actually read the bill itself? Nowhere in it does it mention any of the things that you mentioned. It doesn’t even mention ID cards at all.
What it does say is operating system providers shall “Provide an accessible interface at account setup that requires an account holder to indicate the birth date, age, or both, of the user of that device”. What we should look out for is that the law does not forbid OS providers from requiring IDs.
It does however require that OS providers “Send only the minimum amount of information necessary to comply with this title and shall not share the digital signal information with a third party for a purpose not required by this title.” (emphasis mine)
I wonder how much this is news outlets overreacting to a proposed bill that is not actually that bad, or if this is some marketing against the bill by some Corp.
- Comment on DVDs are the new vinyl records: Why Gen Z is embracing physical media 1 week ago:
Out of curiosity how do you test your restore? Do you just choose a file and try to recover it from backup? I have a synology NAS that I should backup but haven’t really looked into the complexities of backing it up.
- Comment on Why Are Cars Getting Rid Of Android Auto? 2 months ago:
Not OP. But I’ll give my feedback on why I stopped using android auto.
Let me preface this with most everything in the app is fine. Navigating around the interface is maybe a bit janky but not something that I couldn’t get used to.
The main thing that pushed me away from it is the constant crashing (crash every 1-3 minutes). I understand it to be a somewhat rare issue. But through my research I have not found any way to consistently solve the issue despite finding threads that were posted years ago.
The closest I had come to a solution was to clear some app caches (like Google maps) and that would fix it for the next day or two. But it would always eventually go back to constant crashing. It just became too frustrating to deal with.
- Comment on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 loses Game of the Year from the Indie Game Awards 2 months ago:
God forbid anyone uses anyone else’s art as a reference. /s
The answer to your question is whether they drew the art/wrote the code themselves. Ie. Not tracing or just renaming variables.
- Comment on Cloudflare Global Network experiencing issues 3 months ago:
.*.*?