So, OS-level age-gating is going federal, which will effectively kill your rights to device ownership and what’s left of free speech and expression.
Enjoy your free speech while you still have it because this is a clear attempt to erase that right.
SOPA never died, it just went into hiding until time to reemerge, and now’s that time, this is basically SOPA in a save the kids trenchcoat.
still have no idea how they will implement this, with phones that can be rooted or running something like lineageOS or others.
But in any case, I am glad I am not from the US.
This is how the democrats lose the next election.
GJ snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Again
The app “5 calls” is free, free of ads, and free of tracking. It will provide you with the phone numbers and emails of your representatives and senators. It will also provide you scripts so that you can speak directly on each potential topic. You can also set up daily, weekly, or monthly notifications to remind you.
They can’t even arrest the pedophiles in government but they want to mass surveil us for everything.
Those are not contrary, but complementary things.
Yea so you quit taking badly about the pedophiles in government.
I see how this is bad from a privacy standpoint, but how does it affect device ownership?
I would argue it does not directly or obviously impact device ownership. However, to the best of my knowledge, it would be the first time that the US Government has publicly required a specific set of features for consumer software.
To make matters worse, this is an Operating System level requirement, which means it has more permissions than any other piece of software you run. Every device you run today has an Operating System of some kind, so this bill could impact all devices.
So, I think the conclusion that you no longer own the device stems from the fact that it has software on it doing things and collecting information you did not approve. For normal people, there will be no way to avoid it. Tech savvy users will of course find ways to dodge it unless there are enforcement mechanisms and penalties that are sufficiently punitive.
Definitely not a path we should be going down if we actually cared about freedom, much less privacy. Not to mention, this opens up the whole “slippery slope” argument for more direct government control over software.
To make matters worse, this is an Operating System level requirement, which means it has more permissions than any other piece of software you run
That’s not a given, it could easily be implemented as a normal application with normal permissions, that the OS starts when needed.
It could be a dangerous path indeed, giving the government full access to your phone. I’m not sure the bill says that though.
But I think most people already do… A huge bunch of apps collect everything they can on you; tiktok used to be the worst. I wouldn’t trust a government less than a private company.
I dunno, maybe forcing companies to put (or remove) specific features on their software could set an interesting legal precedent: it could be used to stop companies from pushing features people don’t want or designing apps with dark patterns.
Yeah, you are right that we already have huge attack surfaces from apps on phones and the phones themselves.
I also agree some regulations and/or laws that prevent companies from engaging in their shady practices and dark patterns would be great if they were enforced and were not simply used to prevent competition by the large companies. I won’t hold my breath though.
If you don’t control it, you don’t really own it. Modern cars can be remotely disabled on the whim of the car maker. Is it really YOUR car if someone else can cripple it or completely disable it without your permission?
It’s already the case with your phone if you use OEM OS: manufacturers can do pretty much whatever they want remotely.
Now it’s the turn of the computers: either it has a “compliant OS” (remotely controllable by 3rd party), or you will be cut off a growing part of basic use.Probably in the sense that you are basically at the mercy of a company that can shut you off of you computer, phone or (depending how far this goes) car.
Ok but isn’t it already the case anyway? How would age verification make it easier?
This is absolutely not the case, and has historically never BEEN the case.
Think of your computer like an old CD player. If you own the player and the CDs you can play them. Forever. NOBODY else gets a say. You can’t be stopped. That’s what ownership MEANS. It means YOURS. Not right now - not a license - not until you don’t get a security update - not “as long as you don’t try to play CDs we don’t like on it”… it means until either you or it physically DIE.
This is how EVERY SINGLE THING you own should be, and every single instance where that is NOT the case is one where something has been stolen from you - every bit as much as if I walked into your house, picked it up, and walked out with it. If my taking something from your house and walking out pisses you off, so should this. I have no idea how to make “I have paid money for something to then have it taken away from me” more anger inducing than it should already be.
It is not always the case today. For instance you can now use Linux on your computer with a local account called myaccount, not tied to your identity in any way. That, by the way, used to be the case with Windows too, until Microsoft killed local accounts not too long ago.
In an age-verification world, if a Linux distro wants to do age verification, you would have to connect to a third party that can certify your age somehow; I haven’t read enough on this to know for sure, but I can’t think of a way to do it without telling that third party who you are, uploading your id or similar privacy-unfriendly things.
Now, that third party has acquired a power on your ability to use your device that they don’t have today.
Then your OS will have to store you age (and hopefully only that) and share it with any of the installed apps that need to verify it, which opens its own can of worms
I’m not sure, but it could erode it when someone else decides if you’re old enough, or maybe later have no convictions, or maybe you’re a reporter the government doesn’t like, and you can’t even verify into the devices you own.
I’ve seen a lot of people saying how this will be unenforceable and so isn’t something we need to worry about.
Except this could be enforced. Google came out with a proposal a few years ago for a method of validating the a request came from a “trusted” (aka, signed and with secure boot enabled OS), ostensibly to combat bot traffic. They dropped it after push back, but it still provides a blueprint for how this could be enforced.
https://github.com/explainers-by-googlers/Web-Environment-Integrity
If web platforms are mandated by law to enforce something like this then the web could be effectively restricted to only approved operating systems. There could still be a dark web, but with the weight of the law behind it, once anything gained momentum access to it could be shut down at the service provider layer.
This shouldn’t be dismissed as a threat because it’s “unenforceable”, because it is.
I mean… What’s easier, implementing an unpopular APi into your already production ready service or blacklisting a country from making requests to your reverse proxy?
Personally I would choose the latter. Enough blowback from people will likely get this overturned.
EU has dumped similar legislation out however, they recently have had a poor streak in regards to legislation involving digital privacy.
You assume commercial apps will choose to lose the US market rather than comply.
Big techs are all ready to comply with chinese authorities in order to get in! Apple did. Facebook tried repeatedly to get a pass, offering complete access to chinese authorities.
Corporates will just do whatever makes more profit.
Commercial software publishers will bend over backwards no matter what.
Selfhosting folk have it significantly easier and I’m sure a lot of people rely on small obscure websites.
It’s worth writing your reps!! There’s usually an easy way to contact them via their website
Does me tapping my order into a self-service kiosk at a restaurant count as “using” the operating system that it is running on?
Like, I feel like this is going to be really difficult to enforce, and big business might actually push back against it if they think it will hurt their bottom line, but my god can we stop with this nanny state internet surveillance bullshit already? The government is too stupid to actually protect anyone with this dumb law because there will always be loopholes and workarounds.
You’re missing the point.
1.Few will work around it, which will make anyone working around it de facto suspicious.
2.That law can also be weaponized as an intended side effect: all dictatures have vague un-enforcable laws for the sole purpose of making sure anyone and everyone is somewhat guilty of something. That eases considerably arbitrary arrests: there WAS a lawful reason, every single time!
To paraphrase someone:
You need to win every time. I need you to lose only once.
Anyone thinking that this won’t pass this time, or next year, or the year after that or the year… They will push this as a new thing, wrapping the same bullshit lies in a new paper each time…
Eventually it’ll pass, it always does. All they need is patience
The only possible cou ter to this is to enshrine the right to own a computer and internet access into your constitution or something like that.
You need to win every time. I need you to lose only once.
We Europeans are well aware because of the Chat Control that they are trying to push here.
We have to be vigilant and fight every fight.
Never give up.
we’re due for a modern re-framing on rights and personal autonomy.
but we might need to design it fully as local coops and roll over the epstein-class in order to get it enshrined.
if you let them change it, they’ll, (as obtusely as possible,) re-phrase everything to not actually accomplish what it was supposed to.
we need big changes, and we need them yesterday, because the future is here and it’s fucking us all up. the only people with the time and social placement to affect change are the ones that have been coddled into that position through either nepotism or corporate interest. yadda.
still need voter reform… hopefully the next people voted in specifically on voter reform don’t just go “oops actually we weren’t for that at all, hee hee.” (canadian liberal party are also just the backup conservatives i guess)
and my god, there should be some accountability for directly lying to and misleading the voter base. the number of USA politicians i see that can’t answer a fucking question is embarrassing to anyone thinking they don’t live in a fascist state.
like, those promises, or statements, or blatant intentional incompetence should come with some form of accountability. if i fuck up too many lattes i have to live on the street, but politicians can laugh in your face after doing fuckall and taking your money.
generally anyone willing to take a position of power to hugely affect all of our lives and well being should be scared shitless for betraying their voters so blatantly.
more than anything we just need a whole new damned system which is built on modern science and not hundred years ancient aristocracy. it is possible. the only reason it doesn’t seem feasible is that the people with power and influence have been spending a weird amount of their excess ensuring that the system doesn’t enable or benefit anyone outside of the epstein class.
yadda yadda rant rant, i’m tired.
The only possible cou ter to this is to enshrine the right to own a computer and internet access into your constitution or something like that.
Our constitution? They’ve got that thing hanging from a nail in the shithouse.
Tell your reps that this bill doesn’t get a chance to breathe if they ever want your support in future elections.
Or a parent could, I don’t know, just parent their own kids instead of expecting the government to.
I got so many downvotes last time I suggested this, it was just comical to me how many people get pissed at the implication that they aren’t watching their kids, while not watching their kids.
Why not both?
I fully expect the government to pull this shit, but I’ll parent my kids not to tolerate it.
The government is there to give us the tools to parent our kids, not to actually parent them. Give us free and open internet, but have training on how to be a diligent parent.
https://resist.bot/letters/fd7cadb3-b762-4c84-a6b9-164d3a2fc00a
Consider also writing to congress in addition to calling.
“Parents Decide Act”
Yet text of it has basically nothing about parents in it, just government data collection lol
As a parent I am deciding not to comply.
that’s just another American Value, naming bills as sarcastically and ironcally as possible
A tradition that started with bill of “rights.”
And written by a Democrat. They really have become useless. First they regularly forget that they are opposition for a reason, and now they even betray their voters with the most stupid law humans can cook up.
And written by a Democrat.
They are literally never your ally. A lot of us refuse to accept that we have 2 parties that don’t give one solitary fuck about us because it means we have no say whatsoever in our government, but Democrats prove time and time again that this is the case.
The most we get are a handful of “representatives” that somehow managed to beat AIPAC and all the corporate interests that buy the rest of them, but that handful isn’t enough to actually force meaningful change or to prevent the worst from happening. :(
I don’t think they think they’re an opposition party, and they certainly wouldn’t oppose mass surveillance. They never have.
They’re bought and paid for by basically all the big industries just like the GOP.
