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We now live in an age where software controls the user, instead of the other way around. It is now an instrument of surveillance and control, instead of liberation.
Age verification is a violation of the user’s rights of the highest order, and using “protecting children” as a justification is a disgusting and egregious hypocrisy.
This is the end of digital privacy.
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Before the internet became de rigueur, more or less. So much of this kind of top-down-control culture has oozed into the PC world by showing up on phones – those always-on, internet-connected devices – first.
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I don’t think the ownership of telecom was the important bit. It was the fact that, before 1996 or so, most PCs were not connected to the internet 100% of the time.
The security implications of pervasive, persistent internet connections meant software vendors had genuine security reasons to push frequent updates. That situation, with vendors pushing constant changes in the name of security, wound up offering vendors a lot of influence they didn’t have before.
This is exactly how, to choose just one familiar example, Microsoft is pushing users to have internet-validated Microsoft accounts, even to log in to their personal computers at home. “Want the security updates that come with Windows 11? You’ll have to let us watch you.” Which is just the way phones have been for longer.
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Don’t really know what they’re talking about. Software has existed as an industry longer than it was a community. And the industry pushed back hard on the idea of software freedom in the early days.
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Anyone who has installed and set up an OS knows this is both dumb and criminally dangerous.
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This program would likely need to to be on start up, it’s another vector for data imput, this can be done wrong a lot of dif ways because of those two points alone.
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yes but it would have to be verified on a outbound server to make sure its real, otherwise you could use any old copy/fake or dead person. yet another path for attack and forces you to be online to access your pc.
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Can we just ask the user: Are you in California?
If yes: say something like “this system doesn’t support age verification and can’t be used in California” and then do nothing (even let the user try the prompt again)
If no: make the account normally and continue the device setup
Yeah I’m not doing that
At least this one only requires a dialogue box to ask you what age you are when making a user, but this is still a violation and a slippery slope.
That’s the point.
God, these stupid fucks probably can’t even change the time on a microwave.
While they are stupid, they are aware of what they are doing. There is no way all of this is happening without a clear agenda.
And that agenda is the destruction of all social change and democracy. They basically want to make the internet even more stripmalled than it already is. Barring people from any online service unless it is 100% approved by them and also collect information on everyone and everything around them.
One thing this is making me realize is just what a good thing we had. I remember people told me in the past (even early-mid 2000s) that anonymity on the internet is a myth. While kinda true even then, I had no fucking idea just how little these people would know about you and your online activities in the past. Even without a VPN and all the cookies and shit it is remarkable how much anonymity you actually had.
So…how much tech will come out of silicon valley when Linus refuses to comply?
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Can you be any more of an insufferable douchebag? Any time you bother to chime in you rival even paid Russian trolls
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Because no one pirate OSs, right?
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Can I ask a question here without being flamed?
Isn’t this the best option? The reason to push this onto Operating systems is because they could in theory do the verification completely client side without involving a remote service.
And if applications can then just use that age check API provided by the OS it would greatly increase the privacy of these types of features.
(I’m not at all trying to say I support these sorts of checks, I’m just asking this under the assumption that these age gates are here to stay)
People really need to bring up the idea of fake IDs when talking about this age verification crap. Not like something some people will do, but something you all should do. They want you to feel iffy about giving out fake credentials and they want people to use real names online. This idiot said as much. Don’t comply with them, lie to them.
