A must read thread from @sleepyowl, particularly for anyone laughing off the "oh they're trying to enforce age verification at an OS level, well I'll just change my open source operating system settings"

[fname@kamloops.social]

@cwebber
If we’re permitted to buy hardware at all:

Les Orchard (@lmorchard@masto.hackers.town)

It's probably alarmist, but this has me thinking: What if governments and bastard oligarchs actually manage to reverse the personal computing revolution of the last 50 years? Nothing in tech is inevitable, not even individual practical access to hardware. https://マリウス.com/hold-on-to-your-hardware/

Hackers.Town (masto.hackers.town)

@sleepyowl

[abmurrow@hachyderm.io]

@cwebber @sleepyowl Yeah, the total refusal for some folks in FOSS to take this seriously because of a pinky promise in open licensing is going to make us sleep walk into this if we're not careful.

I think it's pretty easy to put up your blinders and refuse to acknowledge our individual shortcomings.

Most of us are software folks-- this will be a hardware based lock in. Many of us software people struggle with hardware issues and many of those simply cannot be sidestepped with a clever hack.

Just look at the ongoing issues with Nvidia drivers, Wayland support, LibreBoot, and standing community conventions like GUIX's tacit refusal to run on anything with proprietary drivers to get a taste of the absolute uphill slog we will all face if the community has to contend with this kind of low-level issue everywhere all at once.

The thing that drives me nuts too is that, although I suspect some issues on the internet can be solved with clever legislation, I don't think this is the way to do it. AT ALL. This whole thing feels like it was drafted by desperate polititicians who succumbed to a flashy tech bro slide deck and marketing pitches without a single thought to security, maintainence, economic impacts, etc. Like. Y'all. You have massive data centers filled with Linux boxes that some unlucky sod is probably going to get saddled with plugging their own biometrics into just to run a load balancer for the DMV. Does that feel sustainable?

Its the SaaS equivalent to legislation-- slap a bandaid on it and when people complain, blame them.

I don't live in either of the states where they're discussing this and my elected legislators are the "stick my fingers in my ears and yell real loud" types. What can I do now to help prevent this from being adopted? Are there any advocacy groups throwing their hat into the ring that we can rally behind?

[kevinrns@mstdn.social]

@cwebber @sleepyowl

Let ALL the Democrats in California know, they will be primaried, until they are gone. GONE.

Rescind the law. Veto the law, primary the Democrats.

#california #democrats #caldems #ageVerification #fascism #screamingAngry #fools #jackasses

[brokar@mastodon.social]

@cwebber @sleepyowl

Microsoft isn't trying to force the usage of UEFI and TPM for nothing by only allowing online accounts and Bitlocker is enabled by default and only optional on Enterprise editions and servers.

And the day may come where hardware vendors sell only hardware where UEFI and TPM aren't optional anymore and enabled by default. That will be the tipping point.

I sincerely hope this is just a dystopian thought.