[SeanDav]

Except compulsory age verification in Linux is now becoming a real threat. Some Linux distros are actively against this but many are not seemingly interested in fighting it: CachyOS, Ubuntu, Fedora and others.

Age Verification is the thin end of a much bigger wedge in "open" OS's

[sunshine-o]

Yes time to wake up.

I really believe most "open source" big projects have been compromised long ago. We have saw all those "Foundations" taking them over with all their governance, bureaucracy and goal which do not make any sense at the first look.

One example is Fedora, which is part of "The Digital Public Goods Alliance" [0], "a multi-stakeholder initiative that accelerates the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals by facilitating the discovery, development, use of, and investment in digital public goods."

The Digital Public Goods Alliance has about every governments as member plus all the usual suspects: Gate Foundation and co.

All the leaderships have usually no background or experience in open source or even computers but are just magically placed there. But you can't say anything because they are mostly women.

You read the goals and roadmaps of those foundations and find out it has nothing to do with software or open source. It is basically there to control those projects and then have them implement all the age verification, digital id, etc.

So yes this is not a surprise all those projects are now all in absurd features such as age verification.

- [0] https://www.digitalpublicgoods.net/

[account42]

Yes, all the code of conducts pushed onto open source projects, often by outside actors or novice contributors backed by a mob, has been mostly about replacing people who care about the projects with people who care more about following rules and will do what they will be told.

[akimbostrawman]

the current law requires no verification at all simple attestation, you could put in _any_ age. it also does not effect linux distros as a whole, only distros in jurisdictions with the laws.

[SeanDav]

Sure, for now... I simply don't believe it will stop at "simple attestation", because we all know that simple attestation is practically useless, but once the various distros accept this "trivial" inconvenience, "Age verification 2" with harsher requirements will soon be on the way.

I would be ecstatic to be proved wrong on this, but experience tells me that is not likely to happen.

[imglorp]

We all know it's not about age, it's about user identity. As above, it's clearly a wedge so it's not rhetorical to observe more invasive and controlling features are coming.

[BizarroLand]

I wouldn't be surprised if it is being done to help microslop and AI companies lock in their profit margins.

Right now, if a handful of tech companies crater they'll take the whole world's financial systems out with them, so the government could easily be made complicit in any scheme they can conceive of to bolster their finances.

[pocksuppet]

Simple attestation is very useful for the case where a parent gives a child access to a computer and wants that computer to block porn. That's the use case everyone is clamoring for, and asking the root user "how old is this user?" solves it in a simple, open, privacy-preserving way. Everybody wins, except the teenager who wants to watch porn. If this were not legally mandated, everyone would support it as a useful feature, but since it is legally mandated, we have to get angry about it.

[SeanDav]

This has got very little to do with children - that is just the excuse that sounds good. "Think of the children" is a rhetorical tactic that anyone who wants to get unfettered access to your data rolls out whenever they can. It is a tactic that unreasonable people use to influence reasonable people, because it is so difficult for a reasonable person to argue against without coming across as uncaring and/or bigoted.

[pocksuppet]

If it was an excuse to get your data there would be some data-getting involved. It may be hard for you to believe, but lots of people really do want parental controls that actually work and are bound by the force of law.

[SeanDav]

This is likely the first step, and in itself is not much of a concern but only if it stops there, which it almost certainly will not. The next step, where the government argue that simple attestation is not secure enough to protect the children, and now we need to show a government ID is when the true damage starts.

This is a little like the joke: "Madam, would you sleep with me for 1 million dollars?", to which she replies "I would". "Madam, would you sleep with me for 1 dollar?", to which she replies, "Sir, what sort of woman do you think I am?" To which he replies "We have already established what sort of woman you are, now we are just trying to establish your price!"

By agreeing to this initial Age Verification, companies are establishing that they are willing to implement checks on age for their users, now we will see just how much more they are willing to do - all to protect the children of course.

[trinsic2]

Yes that may be true, but parents are being misguided by efforts that are trying to control aspects of data.

If you, as a parent, make yourself open to this attack, you will find that you are making us less free of a society by expecting others to parent for you.

[account42]

If you think you are anyone can stop motivated teenagers from watching porn then I have a bridge to sell you. That is such an absurd goal that you really should be asking what the real motivations for this are.

[pocksuppet]

If you think you are anyone can stop motivated teenagers from getting alcohol then I have a bridge to sell you. That is such an absurd goal that you really should be asking what the real motivations for [forcing liquor stores not to serve minors] are.

[OkayPhysicist]

Literally the entire purpose of the law California passed, which Linux is responding to, is to preempt such laws: If someone says "we need identity verification because think of the kids looking at porn", it's now trivial to say "we already solved that problem, without deanonymizing everyone on the internet".

[account42]

That's how these things always go. No one is ever asked to build the whole thing, just provide one more brick.

[Pay08]

I thought community projects (as opposed to the corporate Fedora and Ubuntu) are exempt from such laws.