• 4am@lemmy.zip
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    19 hours ago

    This is fucking BAD you guys. Like, we’re being dog walked into a fucking wall here.

    Major Big Tech companies (and their Fortune 500 partners, and the smaller businesses they support) are ALL going to be asking for age verification for all their SaaS “cloud” offerings and be required to do so by law.

    If Linux is exempt from these laws then these services which we may all still be dependent on in some form or another will not work with Linux, since it doesn’t verify age.

    You won’t be able to bank or watch Netflix on Linux anymore and it will destroy adoption just as it’s going mainstream.

    • antianarchist@sopuli.xyz
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      12 hours ago

      I think you are confusing something. A tech company running proprietary code can and will ask for age verification. It does not matter if the user runs Windows, Linux, iOS, GrapheneOS.

      The law here makes sure that services, which are basically also open source, are not required to do the age verification check.

      So, you install Windows? Age check. You install Linux? No age check. Before even opening a browser. Then on Linux you open Netflix? Age check.

      So I fundamentally saw this actually as a good news.

    • TehPers@beehaw.org
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      18 hours ago

      The law requires the OS to ask the age and provide it to applications, not verify the age. Linux can provide the same API with a static value or “no age” signal if needed.

        • TehPers@beehaw.org
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          12 hours ago

          What if an asteroid flies into the Earth and splits it in two?

          Edit: I’ll add more now that I can sit down and focus.

          Age attestation has existed for longer than I’ve been alive. Every service with an age requirement (must be 18+ to view, must be 13+ to play, must be 8+ with parent permission or 18+ to play, etc) used user attestation. The law is stupid because:

          1. Age attestation doesn’t restrict. It only exists for services to cover their own asses legally.
          2. Age verification would be required to restrict access, but age verification costs money that MS/Apple/Google/etc wouldn’t make back (maybe MS but Android and Mac OS are free).
          3. Linux exists and can bypass it all anyway and often isn’t subject to CA’s laws.

          This law isn’t age verification. It’s just politicians being technically illiterate imbeciles.

        • 4am@lemmy.zip
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          17 hours ago

          You’re right we should ignore the takeover of technology from our very hands into the paws of oligarchs who will make it unobtainable so they can build their datacenters with it and once all the consumer brands have dried up they will sell us dumb terminal tablets and we will rent all software from them in the cloud, by the month.

          I’d ask you to come back and tell me how right I was in say 5-10 years but a) there’s no guarantee they will succeed and b) if they do succeed, none of us will be allowed here in the first place

          • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            17 hours ago

            Seeing this as a conspiracy against Linux users and not just patching badly written state level legislation is tin hat territory. If I’m not on the internet and using Linux in 2036 then I’m dead, and it’s not because I starved in the street after being unable to access my bank account on a Linux.

          • TehPers@beehaw.org
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            13 hours ago

            What does this have to do with an exemption for Linux on a shitty OS-level age attestation law…?

            The law is stupid for many reasons, among them being that Linux devs aren’t often even located in CA or subject to its laws, and that people can just lie about their age. Corporate takeover of technology doesn’t really have anything to do with this.

          • heartSagan5@lemmy.zip
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            16 hours ago

            Man, this is some Fahrenheit 451 shit, where we’ll be in our “entertainment room” and books will be burned

      • 4am@lemmy.zip
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        17 hours ago

        The 2-4% of us who actually daily drive Linux will stand firm but it depends on how far the mandate goes. If you can’t access ANY financial, entertainment, or pron website without OS level age checks, how many of us will really want to do all our banking on paper?

        The real plot is to stop “line go up” for Linux. They know they can’t control it, but they also know if they just kill it outright then they will make enemies.

        Will normies install Linux if they can’t get on their banking website? Teenagers will say it sucks if it can no longer log into Steam. When grandma can’t verify to Gmail that she’s been an adult for the last 60 years she will want “the Windows” back.

        Intelligence agencies don’t want to make big, sweeping, draconian moves; that’s how you get social unrest (ask them how they know). They’re trying to boil this frog.

        • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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          4 hours ago

          “The tighter your grasp, the more systems will slip through your fingers.”

          Right now crypto is pretty much only for libertarians and money laundering.

          Video piracy is pretty much only for people who can’t stand a little bit of ads.

          Porn sites just ask if you’re over 18 and then show you whatever you want.

          Increasing the barrier to exit allows these services to enshittify further, but also gives normal people an actual reason to switch.