HN

Comments (95)

• svillar
  This is equivalent to China’s Digital ID without branding it as such - because such branding would fail.They are laying the foundation at the infrastructure layer to build a Digital surveillance net, look at the pieces with the eye of an Architect -https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/15/banks-citizenship-data-colle...Andhttps://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/8250...
• jim_lawless
  Related HN post "Ageless Linux- Software for humans of indeterminate age" :https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47381791
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  bloppe
  > The term “operating system” means software that supports the basic functions of a computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device.> The term “operating system provider” means a person that develops, licenses, or controls the operating system on a computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device.So excited to see the GNU vs. Linux debate finally land in court.
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  xt00
  Do we know who is funding this? is this one of these things where Meta doesn't want the responsibility for this, so they are pushing to have the OS have the responsibility or something like that?
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  Dwedit
  People lend phones or computers to kids. The age associated with the user account means absolutely nothing.
• anthk
  Salvage old free as in freedom distros. Learn about i2pd and tunneling Usenet/IRC and Email (even cool online Nethack/Wesnoth/FreeCiv gameplays over it, any turn based libre game will work).There are some Usenet servers (text content only, no binaries, all illegal crap it's cut down by design) listening under I2P servers. By design enforcing any cross-pond law it's impossible.Learn about NNCP in order to tunnel messages over it, really useful for asynchronous connections such as Email and Usenet: https://nncpgo.orgAlso, learn connect to a Pubnix and to use Usenet/IRC/Email/Mastodon services (tut it's a TUI Mastodon client) from remote servers. Make their own law obsolete across the world.Try free Biltbee servers over IRC too, these can be connected even from DOS IRC clients and thus any age enforcement for FreeDOS it's by design unenforceable. Ditto for old Amiga, RiscOS and such old releases which are unsupported. And banning retro computing would make the several civil right unions sue the state (and the judges) like crazy for huge amounts of money. Even META too as being the main lobby instigator.Claim your freedoms back.
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  yabutlivnWoods
  Tim Apple argued it was a violation of their engineers and managers free speech to make them engineer back doorsWonder if they will stand up against this on the same groundshttps://www.apple.com/customer-letter/
• drivingmenuts
  I can already smell the exceptions - some companies will be exempted from these restrictions due to "national security implications", or, more realistically, "we distracted the President with a golden gewgaw and a bribe".
• pkphilip
  This is yet another underhanded attempt at making digital id mandatory. Child protection is just the trojan horse.EU also released their age verification legislation. Notice how closely they are timed.https://www.dw.com/en/eu-chief-urges-bloc-wide-push-on-age-v...Pure coincidence?It is all going according to plan.
• jmholla
  So this bill creates a commission to ensure that the information cannot be stolen or breached from operating systems, but says nothing about how the applications querying this information must protect or leverage it. I basically requires that any application get to know a user's birthday, as long as it's "necessary". What a fucking joke! I'm so sick and tired of this bullshit.Direct link to the bill: https://docs.reclaimthenet.org/parents-decide-act-os-age-ver...Edit: Oh, and the commission gets to make up the rules on how ages should be verified. So, prepare for a whole other level of PII leakage that isn't even captured by the text of the bill.
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  greyface-
  So, who's gearing up to sue the FTC for a declaratory judgment that this is unconstitutional?
• dizzy9
  An utterly insane idea for a law.Age verification inherently means identity verification. There's no way to prove your age without first proving that you are YOU, either by showing your face or authenticating with some third party authority, usually government or a corporation.The idea that you should be locked out of using your own computer until you do this is utterly insane. What problem does it solve that existing parental control tools don't? A generation of parents already trust their babies with iPads for this reason. And what of the millions of Americans who don't have current ID?
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  ranger_danger
  That means porn sites won't require me to independently verify my age right? Right?
• abdelhousni
  All this fake good intent to prevent another TikTok which was the only media which transmited the reality on the ground during the Gaza genocide. And its aftermath in the youth mind and in the University campuses. Fascists and industrialists have to take control, again, of the minds. (See oligarchy's appetite for social and media companies)
• ChrisArchitect
  Discussion on the bill source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47772203
• kotaKat
  Glad to see that Elise Stefanik came out of fucking hiding in NY-21 to dump this stupid "parents decide" bill on us when she couldn't even be assed to help her constituents over the past several months when one of the main hospitals in her district is bankrupt and closing.Last time we saw her anywhere near here was her "farewell tour" when she was supposed to go be Trump's UN stooge. Haven't seen her up here since.Glad to know we get to die up here for on-device age verification for everyone else.
• asxndu
  [dead]
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  vscode-rest
  Writing like this is frankly so exhausting. I don’t think anyone not already in the choir could make it through.
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  AnIrishDuck
  I have a kid. All I want is the ability to put a "there's a baby driving" bumper sticker on their devices. And to have pornhub et al steer around them.I'd suggest that this is actually a pretty common desire from parents. We don't want to collect your IDs. We don't want to install spyware in your webcams. We do want a way to signal there's a kid driving a device.This article is long on hyperbole and short on facts. I gave up about six paragraphs in, being far more informed about what the author feared about this legislation than its actual content.Sure, if it would mandate ID harvesting, I'm against it. If it requires biometric verification, no. But if we can just have a way to put bright orange vests on devices that require special treatment... That doesn't feel invasive to me.I'd prefer to cut all the "think of the children!" charlatans off at the pass. Your kid got traumatized by some crazy hyper porn? Why the heck didn't you flag their device?
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  hackinthebochs
  The breathless fearmongering over an age field on account set up is just completely over-the-top. This is probably the least bad out of all possible ways to implement age checking. The benefit of this is that it can short-circuit support for more onerous age verification. The writing has been on the wall for some time now: the era of completely unrestricted internet is coming to an end. The question is how awful will the new normal be? Legislation like this is a win all around, a complete nothingburger. We should be celebrating it, not fighting it tooth and nail.The tech crowds utter derangement over this minor mandate is truly a sight to behold.