[tstrimple]

I've obviously read about how bad adult literacy in the US is, but I didn't realize how many "technologists" were impacted by it. The law is short and clear and doesn't involved attestation or age verification. Yet all these "hackers" claim it does just that. The reading comprehensions and critical thinking skills seem to match the national average.

[hellojesus]

I think most people here are extrapolating the intent behind this law, the triviality with which it can be bypassed by minor account holders, and what that means for the future. Once this law is in effect, it will be ineffectual. Minors that current don't know what VMs are, what live booting is, what keyloggers are, etc. will learn immediately once blog posts start circulating about bypass mechanisms. Parents will then go back to the legislature and say the law as-written sucks, and they will demand better laws, but the only way to get better is to force all devices to authenticate with the isp with a gov-issued id/token to prove the account is not a minor. But the only way to prevent even further workarounds like the OS lying is to force hardware based remote attlestation. And that means the death of general computing and the death of any anonymity.

[gzread]

Most laws are ineffectual. Kids can't drink alcohol but they still can; theft is illegal but I still got your car keys; murder is illegal but people still die. In this one, there's no punishment for bypass, just like there's no punishment for a kid who gets alcohol. Unlike the alcohol law this one doesn't even mandate the use of the child protection features - just their existence.

You know the simple fix to your problem is to mark VMs as adult only apps, anyway.

[hellojesus]

But what happens when a nefarious actor fills the void and publishes a root-kited VM and marks it as safe for children? These restrictions breed black markets that usually cause even more harm.

[gzread]

Same as when a nefarious actor serves alcohol to a minor anyway: they get fined or arrested.

[tstrimple]

> I think most people here are extrapolating the intent behind this law,

This is a revisionist fucking lie. People like you argue against the facts you have absolutely wrong. And when proven wrong you latch onto some tangential argument. But you have no integrity so you pretend it was actually about the other thing and not the thing you actually called out. You don't participate in good faith. You deserve no response in good faith.