So this morning I had to go to my mother’s house for IT support as one of her monitors wasn’t working. I plugged the power cable back in to the back of the monitor and the problem was solved.
I’m not sure the level of IT support I provide is high enough to get blamed for anything 😆
I just generally try to avoid letting people know how technically savvy I am. I’d rather not do basic tech support for everyone I know.
At first I thought "well, an AI to help you get through hard parts sounds like a selling point for some people. Then I realised that Xbox is gonna be branded as the n00b console and people will tease owners for choosing the system that does it for you.
Nano say so at bottom but so does vim if it thinks you’re trying to exit.
Just one team working on Teams, and they are doing their best to make it worse.
I for one encourage them, it apparently needs to be even worse before my work will consider changing
TBH this sounds to me like something specifically intended to not be an Australian-like solution, which they could have copied.
I am not sure what’s required of a bare bones Linux install (general computing device) that has access to a package manager (application store)!
Yeah perhaps. Or that “account” doesn’t really need to bw what we think of as an account.
Could it be covered, but they would still have to ask? It says if it wasn’t done at setup it has to ask, so perhaps an account-less OS would still be expected to ask for an age and provide it when asked?
Nah I don’t think it does. You don’t really get that because the intent of a law is important in court cases.
Mobile phones are specifically covered:
(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.
Windows doesn’t ask at install, and also this law requires them to ask for already set up accounts too.
This will make it a lot more visible.
Nah it seems it doesn’t apply to physical devices (except general computing devices as mentioned elsewhere)
(f) This title does not apply to any of the following:
(1) A broadband internet access service, as defined in Section 3100.
(2) A telecommunications service, as defined in Section 153 of Title 47 of the United States Code.
(3) The delivery or use of a physical product.
(3) seems to imply the OS that runs your switch or gas pump isn’t included. But I see nothing in the law that clarifies servers or any CLI only interface, or even any OS that doesn’t have accounts.
Where do you quote “reasonable” from? The only part of the law with that word is referring to a different, already existing law (or the bit about reasonable technical limitations causing the wrong signals sent in the API).
Ok I did it, I read the full text of the law, and you’re right.
The existence of Linux or anything not big tech and the broad range of options within seems to be ignored. Does a CLI only OS need to provide a GUI for its “accessible interface”?
On a different note, I did see the last point here:
(f) This title does not apply to any of the following:
(1) A broadband internet access service, as defined in Section 3100.
(2) A telecommunications service, as defined in Section 153 of Title 47 of the United States Code.
(3) The delivery or use of a physical product.
(3) seems to imply the OS that runs your microwave isn’t included.
I think the next bit from the article I didn’t quote explains that:
“(2) Provide a developer who has requested a signal with respect to a particular user with a digital signal via a reasonably consistent real-time application programming interface that identifies, at a minimum, which of the following categories pertains to the user.” The categories are broken into four sections: users under 13 years of age, over 13 years of age under 16, at least 16 years of age and under 18, and “at least 18 years of age.”
I think the idea is that you would say that under 16s can’t use social media. Then you’d enforce this not with the horrendous Australian strategy of having everyone IDed, but instead you would enforce it by having an API that websites and apps could use that would tell them the age of the user.
So basically:
Windows might already have parental controls within Windows, but it’s the ability for apps and websites to know the age (or in this case age range) that is the important part.
I much prefer this than handing over ID.
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.
Make sure you visit in a browser aince apps wouldn’t have implemented an in development feature.
Even better than a coin flip is asking this what to do then doing the opposite!
Well of course, they have all those clothes from when they had a baby and they got clothes thrown at them! It took us years for enough people we know to have babies for us to get rid of all the baby clothes!
They had me up to Windows Home Server. I don’t think I want one of those. It sounds dangerous, I wouldn’t let that in my house.
Oh shit you’re right, it does do that!
For others, here’s what I did:
Thanks for the info, these were exactly the questions I had!