Apparently this will include Linux…
Holy shit west is fallen 🥀
Let that sink in.
Seriously, please let that sink in! I desperately need my plumber to fix that sink once and for all
Sorry but I don’t think the article text backs up the title?
The claim is that they have to enforce age verification, but the quoted law says:
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 for the purpose of providing a signal regarding the user’s age bracket to applications available in a covered application store.
Doesn’t this just mean it needs to ask for an age at setup, so e.g. parents can set it up with an age and they can automatically be restricted?
I don’t see anywhere actual verification is required, if you’re setting it up yourself then just lie?
Honestly, this sounds like my preferred path if we are gonna do anything.
The way this is written, it would just be a case of entering your age or DOB at account creation, which wouldn’t be so bad. Indeed, this would be the kind of parent-empowering solution I’d like to see, since it kind of assumes the admin of a device (who sets up user accounts) is an adult who will enter the correct info for their kids.
Of course, there’s always the concern they might try to push for adding 3rd party age attestation after the fact, with this being the thin end of the wedge. And it’d be a bit of a pain for the various linux distros to organise a compliant solution even IF it’s just adding a new parameter to useradd and the associated “age signal” API for applications to query.
“Lets fight ICE” also “you need an id to use your laptop and be verifed by big tech to use it” Worse then clowns. Fucking traitors
I see a dipshit lib, I downvote. Fuck this guy.
turns on VPN
Oh no, anyways.
If they’re ever ignorant enough to ban VPNs we’ll be fucked.
Fucking stupid. What now, everyone adds a script to enter 04/01/1984 for every continuous integration pipeline? Every kubernetes cluster has to include an age automation? Idiot politicians should not draft policies about shit they have no clue about.
Politician: The lowest form of life on earth (lower than slime mold… sorry for insulting slime mold).
They produce nothing of value, never have and never will, true sociopaths, total liars, elitest narsacistc parasites and oxygen wasters and generally evil…
I wish one could implement “mental-age verification”. That way almost all politicians on Earth would be blocked from important technologies.
Put the square peg in the square hole.
Gavin Newsom is such a fucking tool.
Tbf every single politician is.
And are they going to require ID to verify birth dates, or is this just going to be a drop down menu? If the latter, I’m pretty sure everyone’s birth date is 1/1/1901. I’m so tired of this surveillance shit masquerading as “save the children” nonsense. I hate to say it, but this is a parenting problem and if your kids are more tech-savvy than you are, they WILL find a way around these safegaurds.
I’m pretty sure everyone’s birth date is 1/1/1970
FTFY
yeah good luck with that, lmao. this is 100% unenforceable. and even if a distro does opt to comply (ubuntu, most likely) all one has to do is jump ship to another one that’s given this law the finger.
How is it unenforceable?
Real question
I’d say it’s probably easy to investigate avenues they’d have to enforce it. Like how would they make Canonical, a British company, enforce age verification on Ubuntu, a product they give to users for free?
There’s no contract, no transaction, no legal entity need be involved in the process.
This operating system contains code known to the State of California to cause cancer or reproductive harm.
Too bad that reproductive harm doesn’t work eliminating the birth of politicians
No one is going to enforce this. It’s political theater, and will in no way protect children.
Easy enough to send threatening cease and desist letters to distro maintainers that may not have a penny in savings. This is a huge gift to Apple and Microsoft that probably had enough of Linux hoarding in on their market share.
Well… don’t live in rogue nations then, I guess?
Were that to happen, I imagine it would be a relatively simple matter to move everything out of state, or even out of the country if need be.
Apple and Microsoft are both rather large Linux customers. On desktop, they sell their operating systems, but both of them use a lot of Linux in the enterprise. Apple more so, but Microsoft is no slouch.
So define Operating System. Are embedded systems Operating Systems? Coz that’s going to cast a rather wide net.
I can’t wait for my microwave to ask me to take off my glasses, face the camera, and turn my head slowly from left to right.
You are right that operating system is not defined. But the definition of operating system provider is this: “(g) “Operating system provider” means a person or entity that develops, licenses, or controls the operating system software on a computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device.” (emphasis mine)
Which should clearly exclude embedded devices.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1043
good lord, not even the solar powered four-function calculators are safe!
Selective enforcement. Basically if they want to do shit to you they will prosecute you, otherwise they won’t bother.
And what about all the operating systems that already exist and are no longer maintained? Who is responsible for that. Microslop gotta update Win95 to add age verification?
I use DosBox to play MS-DOS games that I played as a kid, those didn’t ask you to enter any credentials whatsoever. I guess they’re illegal now.
Omg… You would have to verify every single VM. Would docker images count or not? Might be enough to push me to properly work out how to use that instead of VMs…
hey, Leisure Suit Larry had a really tough 3-part questionaire to seperate adults from minors.
