This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I feel like I wanna walk away from the internet for my personal life.
The second problem is just how much has moved online for example processing documents (your passport etc) same as when you have issues there’s no number to ring the store.
So it’s not like we are totally able to. We need to turn it back to how it was. They said use the internet because it made life efficient. We need to take that back.
This has been a long time coming, a perfect example of the frog in in the pot; well, the water is boiling now.
I will not comply with any of this. No website or service or app or app store is getting my ID. I know I wont be the only one, and the system has removed so many manual ways of doing things that those of us who refuse will bring the system to a grinding halt. It will not be easy and life will be made more difficult for us, but it will also be for them.
We must all resist this in every way we can.
It’s gonna have to be that way. I saw something here the other day saying they couldn’t check a parcel delivery without an app. Someone suggested emailing daily for an update. I aspire to be that petty.
I had to have a friend help me because a company I bought from only did customer support through Instagram.
Be the vanguard. It will take groups of people intentionally trying to live disconnected to figure out a way and have businesses start supporting it. The internet is becoming a liability as much as an asset.
I've been posting this in other threads too and while the OS angle is huge, and worth picking a fight with, I haven’t seen any coverage over how this goes after developers too.
I think this is an attack on ALL open-source.
These bills are written by people who are clearly or maliciously tech illiterate and don’t understand either the terminology or the practical impacts. And of course it’s wrapped in ‘what about the children?!’
They include definitions like (paraphrasing; not quoting a specific bill, but New York, Colorado and California do this):
And then require both developers and operating system providers to handshake this age verification data or face financial ruin. I think the original intent or appearance of intent is that the store developer needs to do the handshake. I'm not a lawyer, but I can't imagine these definitions aren't vague enough that they can't be weaponized against basically anything software.
I have a github account, and have contributed to "applications". As I read them, these bills pose a serious threat to me if I continue to do so, as that makes me a "developer" and would need to ensure the things I contribute to are doing age verification -- which I don't want to do.
I think that even outside the surveillance aspect, the chilling effect of devs not publishing applications is the end-goal. Gatekeeping software to the big publishers who have both the capacity to follow the law and the lawyers/pockets to handle a suit. These laws are going to be like the DMCA 1201 language (which had much much more prose wrapped around it and was at least attempting to limit scope), which HAS been weaponized against solo devs trying to make the world better.
I fully expect some suit against multiple github repo owners on Jan 2, 2027.
I've emailed the office of Buffy Wicks, the author of the California bill, with similar details as the above. I haven't yet identified the authors of the NY and CO bills, but I'm working on that too. If you live in one of these places, please contact your state officials and tell them this is a bad idea -- and if you don't live there, keep an eye on your state bills.
These bills are written by people who are clearly or maliciously tech illiterate and don’t understand either the terminology or the practical impacts.
They're paid by people who understand all of this very well and will profit. That's the whole reason this exists.
I can’t imagine these definitions aren’t vague enough that they can’t be weaponized against basically anything software.
Yes, that's the point. The more vague the "laws", the more control.
It's why libs have been lobbying for state control of "social media". It's a meaningless term that represents state control of all social interactions. That's the actual goal.
I get really upset when there's this association between "the libs" and "non-authoritarian voters". I've not done and don't support lobbying for state control of social media.
I fully agree that there are shitty people elected as democrats.
I could go on a whole mile-long monologue about this, but I won't do it here. I'm aware of the various definitions of liberal and I don't want to talk about that -- I'm using the US scope of the two parties that can actually matter: Conservative/Republican vs Liberal/Democratic. [If you Identify as Liberal in the US, you're probably actually Socialist, but the media hates that word, so we don't use it]
The short version is that the PEOPLE want things to be better; the voters called "the libs" want things to be better. Not enough of us are engaged at the low-level to fix this and I think it'll only take a few of us to do the grass-roots remix that the conservatives did as the tea party, and fix the situation with the democratic org that will both win us elections (if we get anymore) and cut out the rot.
Gotta start local though. If you're mad, join your precinct and choose who votes in the district, etc. Don't wait for November and then be mad at your choices. Primaries are over for 2026, but you can influence choices for local offices in 2027 and other state and national ones in 2028.
Don't just be mad at your options, help make the options better. And 'Both Sides'ing is either malicious or at least detrimental:
"Oh, the system is fucked. Guess we'll keep aiming for the dystopia! We can't possibly change the system!"
What if we just rm -rf all the pedophiles instead?
THIS GUY IS THREATENING OUR GOVERNMENT
fucking sad but true
In NY:
Nily Rozic has sponsored assembly bill A8893
Andrew Gounardes has sponsored senate bill S8102A
Jacob Ashby has sponsored senate bill S3591
It definitely is. And it's not incompetence or illiteracy, it's the powerful and government institutions coming after all things privacy, anonymity, and autonomy. I had this gut feeling in summer 2024 that they would eventually attack and functionally ban desktop Linux, BSD, GOS, and other privacy tools. I just didn't know how at that point.
They're locking us into their systems, their rules, their information. I implore everyone to look deeper than surface level analyses. If you think they pirated all the information on the global web just to train their AI, you're missing something. It's deeper. My theory is eventually, they will lock all hardware and networking to gather information from their sources, and only their sources. They will hold back real information and access to it, while feeding us only what they want the populous to think.
They want us enslaved to them, in body, in mind, in "spirit", in every way. The rich HATE us and genuinely want nothing but the absolute worst for us. Do not deceive yourself, these people are unimaginably evil and cruel. They want to hunt some of us for sport and feed the enslaved remainder us their delusional version of reality.
This is an attack, it is intentional, it is determined, and it is not stopping unless we stop it.
You gotta stop equating Microslop-owned GitHub with code forges/repositories. The first step is change language to be inclusive to other platfrom while not specially mentioning the proprietary, megacorporate option—such as saint code forge or VCS host. The second step is to create an account elsewhere as you primary spot. Our framing of these things matter, & if you don’t like the state imposing its will on you, the corporate option here is more or less an extension of the state (contributors in Yemen for example will be blocked under US sanctions, bug reporters will be required to agree to the ToS & data collection machine of Microsoft, if the capitalist class doesn’t like your project they will have it removed like Yuzu & yt-download while they will allow state-sponsor gangs like ICE to remain on the platform). Break out of “the network effect”.
wE hAvE +0 $aVe +hE cHiLdReN!!!!!
YoU WiLl hAvE +0 ChILdReN tHiS wAy!
The US has become China 🇨🇳
China will look like freedom once this admin is done reshaping America.
Already does.
US is worse
It seems like they have all the corporation and government overreach without the economic benefit to the common guy. In China it seems like regular folks are doing fine whereas in the US people are having trouble affording basic necessities. Although that could just be my media bias.
I'm 38 years old. I will not verify my age or identity. I'd rather not use the internet.
I'm 6 and I feel the exact same way.
i'm 126 and I, too feel the same.
this will be just as effective as the age checker on steam. Everyone is born Jan 1st. 19xx where 19xx=how far a couple scroll wheels gets you.
You can be old enough with a 20XX year now.
👵🏼
☠️💀☠️
How would this even work for servers? Do I have to claim every one of the 5k servers in our data center as adults?
The only way this can be implemented at the OS level (not the vendor level) is to put in whatever date you want. That includes any notion of scanning “IDs”.
If you want to setup a kid’s account on a phone or pc, then you have the control. If they are smart enough to do it themselves, then hey- don’t hold them back.
My immediate concern is giving sites additional fingerprinting material. The OS better not give away an actual birthdate- when they can option for adult/not-adult, etc. Next concern is moving the age verification to a corporation, at which point the dystopia is real.
Next concern is moving the age verification to a corporation, at which point the dystopia is real.
The state is bad enough. Selling us off to a subsidiary will be just another insult.
I'm so sick of hearing about this, and seeing people who don't want to read get upset.
This is preemptively combating future federal crackdown by allowing Californians to TELL THE OS ANY BIRTH DATE THEY Want. No ID, no pictures of faces.
I'm tired of people falling for this kind of shit every single fucking time.
Authoritarianism is never passed through a bill overnight. It's one step in the wrong direction after another, multiplied N times.
This is a step in the wrong direction. After that you're one step away from "improving the verification" and you would reject that step only if you have nothing bad to hide.
Do you remember when it was only a few cameras to evaluate their efficiency? Now they're everywhere and are to use AI for behavior assessment and face recognition.
It's the same pattern every fucking time!
Didn't read I guess? This goes beyond the Californian bill. The NY bill specifically does not allow this.
Just because there's a workaround doesn't mean its fine for them to do.
It's big brain time!
If they can get age check software onto my Arch system I will be very impressed indeed.
It's not that they will get it on it, it will be you can't access your bank account etc. Without it. Whixh probably means you can't lie either
