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by akimbostrawman1 days ago |
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upvoteby SeanDav1 days ago|
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Sure, for now... I simply don't believe it will stop at "simple attestation", because we all know that simple attestation is practically useless, but once the various distros accept this "trivial" inconvenience, "Age verification 2" with harsher requirements will soon be on the way.

I would be ecstatic to be proved wrong on this, but experience tells me that is not likely to happen.

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upvoteby imglorp1 days ago|
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We all know it's not about age, it's about user identity. As above, it's clearly a wedge so it's not rhetorical to observe more invasive and controlling features are coming.
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upvoteby BizarroLand16 hours ago|
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I wouldn't be surprised if it is being done to help microslop and AI companies lock in their profit margins.

Right now, if a handful of tech companies crater they'll take the whole world's financial systems out with them, so the government could easily be made complicit in any scheme they can conceive of to bolster their finances.

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upvoteby pocksuppet1 days ago|
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Simple attestation is very useful for the case where a parent gives a child access to a computer and wants that computer to block porn. That's the use case everyone is clamoring for, and asking the root user "how old is this user?" solves it in a simple, open, privacy-preserving way. Everybody wins, except the teenager who wants to watch porn. If this were not legally mandated, everyone would support it as a useful feature, but since it is legally mandated, we have to get angry about it.
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upvoteby SeanDav1 days ago|
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This has got very little to do with children - that is just the excuse that sounds good. "Think of the children" is a rhetorical tactic that anyone who wants to get unfettered access to your data rolls out whenever they can. It is a tactic that unreasonable people use to influence reasonable people, because it is so difficult for a reasonable person to argue against without coming across as uncaring and/or bigoted.
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upvoteby pocksuppet1 days ago|
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If it was an excuse to get your data there would be some data-getting involved. It may be hard for you to believe, but lots of people really do want parental controls that actually work and are bound by the force of law.
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upvoteby SeanDav1 days ago|
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This is likely the first step, and in itself is not much of a concern but only if it stops there, which it almost certainly will not. The next step, where the government argue that simple attestation is not secure enough to protect the children, and now we need to show a government ID is when the true damage starts.

This is a little like the joke: "Madam, would you sleep with me for 1 million dollars?", to which she replies "I would". "Madam, would you sleep with me for 1 dollar?", to which she replies, "Sir, what sort of woman do you think I am?" To which he replies "We have already established what sort of woman you are, now we are just trying to establish your price!"

By agreeing to this initial Age Verification, companies are establishing that they are willing to implement checks on age for their users, now we will see just how much more they are willing to do - all to protect the children of course.

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upvoteby trinsic21 days ago|
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Yes that may be true, but parents are being misguided by efforts that are trying to control aspects of data.

If you, as a parent, make yourself open to this attack, you will find that you are making us less free of a society by expecting others to parent for you.

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upvoteby pocksuppet20 hours ago|
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If you oppose minimal, sensible parental controls, you open the door to whatever someone can jam down our throats that also happens to implement parental controls as a side effect.

If you oppose the law to force liquor stores to deny service to minors, but people are still upset about minors getting alcohol, you have no right to be surprised when the next proposal is to ban alcohol for everyone, and you have no right to be surprised if it passes.

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upvoteby account4222 hours ago|
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Worse, they are making society less free for their children - the parents themselves will be either dead or too old to care by the time the consequences are in full swing.
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upvoteby account4222 hours ago|
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If you think you are anyone can stop motivated teenagers from watching porn then I have a bridge to sell you. That is such an absurd goal that you really should be asking what the real motivations for this are.
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upvoteby pocksuppet20 hours ago|
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If you think you are anyone can stop motivated teenagers from getting alcohol then I have a bridge to sell you. That is such an absurd goal that you really should be asking what the real motivations for [forcing liquor stores not to serve minors] are.
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upvoteby OkayPhysicist1 days ago|
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Literally the entire purpose of the law California passed, which Linux is responding to, is to preempt such laws: If someone says "we need identity verification because think of the kids looking at porn", it's now trivial to say "we already solved that problem, without deanonymizing everyone on the internet".
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upvoteby account4222 hours ago|
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That's how these things always go. No one is ever asked to build the whole thing, just provide one more brick.
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