“software can’t just ignore laws it doesn’t like” it literally can.

[losttourist@social.chatty.monster]

@MrBerard @perigee @zzt

"What event down the line would you actually oppose?"

I can think of several places where I'd say a line had been crossed:

• any requirement by a distro to make adding that data mandatory (easy to resolve, simply switch distros)
• any requirement by a distro to provide external verification for the arbitrary collection of digits that gets stored in a DoB field

The verification I think is key. As an example, the UNIX adduser command has prompted for things like "Real Name", "Phone Number", "Room Number" for decades. Nobody actually provides that information. This, honestly, is not conceptually different.

[mrberard@mastodon.acm.org]

@losttourist @perigee @zzt

Hahaha 'room number' is brill. They stopped shy of 'name of your frat'!

See, I had a hunch that verification was the real tricky point.
But when this does happen (because it will), not having this DB field verified will mean plenty of stuff can't be done on the alt. distros which do not have it.
Which is not a dichotomy that can be induced if the move was resisted upstream of that?

Or is this an externality, like the problem is w/ services mandating verified age?

[mrberard@mastodon.acm.org]

@losttourist @perigee @zzt

Like 'as long as we will have VPNs and jurisdiction where age verification isn't mandatory, we don't have to worry about the creep of online services being age-(meaning ID) gated?

[mrberard@mastodon.acm.org]

@losttourist @perigee @zzt

Just to inject some levity with a glib comment, maybe I won't matter, as surely a simple cognitive test will be able to sort people who entered secondary education after 2023 from the ones who don't?

I guess annoyingly, this doesn't work once brain-rotten kids are all adults, but I'm sure by then there'll be another cognitive thalidomide whose exposure test will be able to de facto tell age.

[bria@nerdculture.de]

@zzt
I tend to disagree

Most of the "computer fuckers" are against the censorship and enforcement of such law.

But systemd , push by RedHat and Poettering (which have done no good software, remember pulseaudio...) has, I don't know how, a big influence in many distribution board.

Systemd was adopted/forced by distribution even with a big opposition and not being technically sound when adopted.

All the pr to remove this code of "age" into systemd was shoot down by the same.

[ratsnakegames@mastodon.social]

@zzt i wish some major Linux vendors just had the gender-neutral genitalia to say "if this law passes we'll withdraw from the US market".

[anhedonie@chaosfem.tw]

@losttourist @zzt @MrBerard you can't call yourself a LGBTQ+ ally and defend one of the fundamental building blocks of worldwide queer youth censorship, that's not how it works my dude

[weirdwriter@caneandable.social]

@zzt I wish I could boost this a billion times! Thank you for all of this!

[exception@mastodon.savvy.ch]

@zzt Let's just block California on all download pages and mirrors of all distributions. Then the can age verify all day.

[kwramm@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@zzt <insert stupid non enforcable US inspired EULA terms in software sold in the EU>

[trisweb@m.trisweb.com]

@losttourist @zzt @MrBerard if it’s so pointless then let’s not do it

[mabande@mastodon.social]

@zzt "It's just a column in a database" said someone at IBM back in '33

[mrberard@mastodon.acm.org]

@anhedonie @losttourist @zzt

How fundamental do we go in the building blocks? Cause by that token, it is the very existence of the concept of date of birth that's fundamental here.

This is just a question of how low in the stack of fundations-superstructure intervention is appropriate to protect privacy and free access to information.

[hakona@im.alstadheim.no]

@sabik Came here to say this . A "J" in the upper right corner of a filing card can't hurt. Social security , employment , inmates , all kinds of records had that convenient open space.
@zzt @jwz

[perigee@rage.love]

@MrBerard @losttourist @zzt my tone is cool. I'm not proposing accepting a slipshod solution because "it's not that bad". It's going to start not that bad and become terrible because we gave it an inch and it will take a mile. As others have said, now is the time to oppose it. Not when it's gotten a foothold.

[mrberard@mastodon.acm.org]

@perigee @losttourist @zzt

Okay. But why does this moment constitute the foothold?

Isn't the problem political rather than technological? All jurisdictions are moving towards age verification systems that are problematic enough without having OS level DoB verification, if we stop the Linux thing (which admittedly seems very out of sync with the philosophy), these are still there.

Sure, it's better if the Linux thing isn't, all things equal, but the foothold is a sociopolitical one?

[rootwyrm@weird.autos]

@hakona @sabik @zzt @jwz there's a reason the Venn diagram of eugenicists, "race scientists," AI boosters, and people who insist code is just 'incrementing variables' is just a circle.

[zzt@mas.to]

“software can’t just ignore laws it doesn’t like,” I said, tapping the icon on my phone that summons an unlicensed taxi

[zzt@mas.to]

“software can’t just ignore laws it doesn’t like,” I said, while employed by a company that pays for residential proxies

[zzt@mas.to]

“software can’t just ignore laws it doesn’t like,” I said, from a linux system that can play and encode MP3s