[omnimus]

This is not entirely true. I don't have much details but I know people who started to work on two separate free software projects aiming to make supported mobile OS. These projects couldn't get funding before but they do now. Afaik it's still a battle with AI companies lobbying that soverign AI is much more important than mobile OS but there is some growing interest. Imho i don't even think some linux based alternative to Android would be that hard to pull off but it's the hw companies that will be skeptical to build hw for such OS. I would have to be some govs puahing it as secure gov devices first.

[AnthonyMouse]

Which is all well and good, but who is going to use those projects if the law requires them to use Android or iOS for age verification?

[izacus]

"The law" requires no such thing and there's nothing preventing those new OSes form providing proper security signals.

But is DOES require work - and it's much easier to complain than to put in work.

[AnthonyMouse]

> "The law" requires no such thing

It requires age verification and provides code whose development was subsidized by the government, which third parties the user doesn't control will use, that creates a dependency on those platforms.

> there's nothing preventing those new OSes form providing proper security signals.

A network effect, far from being nothing, is a barrier the height of a mountain.

The purpose of attestation is to lock out competing platforms. It security value is a joke. Devices pass attestation with known vulnerabilities and fail it for being competitors, even if the competitors have better security.

Offering to make attestations nobody accepts is a farce. The problem to be solved is how to run existing software that was originally written for other platforms when the new platform is new and doesn't have enough users for third party developers to specifically target it, which is the exact thing that can't do. And without that it can't get enough users for third party developers to specifically target it.

[izacus]

> The purpose of attestation is to lock out competing platforms. It security value is a joke.

This is kind of your... opinion man.

In reality pretty much all security sensitive applications require attestation from their side.

[AnthonyMouse]

And what security value does that provide, when millions of attestation-passing devices have public unpatched LPE vulnerabilities? Anyone can get one and run arbitrary code on it as root. It's completely worthless for actual security. Worse, it does the opposite, because a newer third party ROM that patches those vulnerabilities would fail attestation, preventing honest users from updating their device and thereby leaving them vulnerable.

What it does do is require you to get one of those devices instead of a competing device or OS, thereby locking out competitors but not attackers.

[roundabout-host]

It requires a government-authorised "age verification" "app", but it does not require that it is accessible through standard protocols, so that it can work on any platform. In practice, the governments will only make it available for Android and iOS. Plus, you cannot have a free OS providing "attestation"; "attestation" is incompatible with root access and modifying the OS.

[hnisnotbenign]

Yes, it is much easier to ignore the unelected bureaucrats than to jump through their ridiculous hoops.

[UqWBcuFx6NV4r]

See, you’re just saying what they’re saying, but with emotive, thought-terminating language. Again, it’s easier to complain. Have you been living under a rock for your entire life? Have never ever been involved in a decision being made about certain “blessed” vendors, and the decision is being made for legitimate technical reasons, not “ridiculous” ones.

If you’re the sort of person that’s unable to distinguish between something that’s legitimately unjustifiable/ridiculous, and something that just upsets you, then you do you, but don’t bring this here pretending that it suffices as a discussion, because it doesn’t.

[hnisnotbenign]

What?

[omnimus]

I think the asumption being if there is gov backed mobile OS govs would also support their app ecosystem there. That's kinda the point of funding alternative free mobile OS?