Your Computer Might Demand Your Age Soon, No Matter Where You Live
PCMag UK
Your Computer Might Demand Your Age Soon, No Matter Where You Live
New state laws are pushing age verification into macOS and Windows. By 2027, logging in might require a facial scan or government ID.
This is unacceptable. And I’m sick of all the fucking workarounds to maintain basic privacy.
We need to collectively abandon tech that insists on any of this. I post about this often, but I’ll say it again: this will come with discomfort; you need to be okay with that temporarily.
These ghouls cannot withstand weeks / months of boycott. They simply can’t, daddy earning reports and the shareholders won’t allow it.
ID required for computer use in general has to be my line in the sand and that scares the fuck outta me. I have no idea how to make ends meet for the people who depend on me, if I have to walk away from computers, but there has to be a line somewhere.
The problem is that they made people addicted first. This is like saying “Everyone, we need to boycott heroin until they stop cutting it with fentanyl!”
What we need is to take over the government and enact and enforce laws against this. Hopefully by voting.
Its like the first thing in my post “this will cause discomfort”
I didn’t say it was going to be easy at all, its going to be hard, but with some conviction in the values / morals informing your reason for protest its actually easy after that initial week is over.
Edit: its also infinitely easier to enact change like this in your own life than to smash a grand slam with a “government takeover.”. Not saying that wouldn’t be great, but let’s start with the things we have control over.
Also, you can just do both; vote and boycott…
Pick up fpv drone flying as a hobby. Try out fiber optic drones.
Hopefully not by voting. I absolutely loath peoples misplaced trust in bureaucratic mechanisms. If you want something done you do it, I’m not going to vote for someone in one of the pre-approved parties, just for them to give 40 reasons why it’s unreasonable. You are never allowed to vote when it could actually create change, remember that.
Run for office, then. And if that isn’t possible, then it’s time for more radical measures.
Voting won’t fix everything, but there is a good reason voter suppression exists and why most people had to have their right to vote fought for.
Run for office and do what exactly? Okay, I guess i could potentially win something at a county or city level. Great. Then I propose things, and shucks all my proposals get turned down because more bureaucracy. “We can’t do that, what with the state laws and such” I’ve literally watched this song and dance at many a city council meeting, often involving someone that I personally campaigned for!
What an absolute fucking waste of time it was for me to have even tried. I did everything the way I was supposed to, but I’m now almost 10 years into this, and I’ve got exactly nothing to show for it. Some of you might be happy doing this charade until you’re 80 years old, but not me. Take your pragmatism, utilitarianism, whatever word of the day you decide to use to justify opportunism and shove it where the sun don’t shine.
Sheeeit, I live in a state where we directly voted for a particular thing, like overwhelmingly the public said “yeah, do things this way for fuck’s sake!”
And the legislators? They said “we don’t think that’s in your best interest, actually, so no, don’t think we will”. And that was the end of that. (Actually not really, they did similar stuff with a couple other things too, including screwing our teachers enough to get them to organize a bit despite how heavy their workloads already are, damn was I eager to help with that!).
Voting to solve problems. Lol!!
spoiler
Dear reader, if this is you, you don’t have to begin anew the tired recapitulation of the arguments - I do vote, like a chump, every chance I get, while also knowing we simply cannot vote our way out of this, that has been engineered (and continually is!) to never happen.
Thank you for the clarification in the spoiler. It makes your argument way stronger.
We’ve lost organizational power in this country because the pedophile class has been destroying even slightly liberal third spaces. Christian coffee shops talks politics everyday, no one bats an eye. But god forbid a business support a queer person, then everyone will boycott that business because theyre doing politics.
Find your local third spaces that kinda support you, and build a community of spenders and force the third space to support you more.
What do you think can be done for more and better third spaces? I’m at an almost total loss but damn do we need them. And people can tell, even when they don’t quite have the words to describe that need, they sense the lack for certain.
I think one of the first ways is to show up. Like if a place is hosting a drag show, recognize that they’ve lost customers, so now you need to show up for the drag shows AND during regular hours.
If its somewhere you want to be a third space, then be friendly. Engage in conversation. If you’ve been going for a while, welcome new people to the space.
Third spaces don’t have to be businesses, they can be parks, libraries, and the likes. Those are a bit easier to start your community in. Make a post on a local Facebook page, “I’m going to be at this park doing this. Every Sunday at 1PM, join me.” Then show up. The first event will likely only have 2 or 3 people show up. That’s normal. Keep it up, be consistent, and don’t get down when no one shows up, do it again. People will come when they realize they’ve missed out. Make sure people know they missed out, take pictures, make it look busy.
Lastly, I think non-profits, like animal shelters, political organizations, etc. need to be opening reasons for people to visit them. Animal shelters, I think should open pet stores or have a space for dog training - so that local dog owners can meet other dog owners and raise their dogs better. Political parties should have bars/coffee shops so that people have a social third space to be, talk, and advance their party.
This was a great answer, thank you.
Bingo. Voting does absolutely nothing & has never solved anything. All you’re doing is replacing corrupt politicians with more corrupt politicians in which the majority of them are bought & paid for & are handpicked by their wealthy donors.
It’s one of the reasons why I left the Democrat party in late 2022 & became politically homeless & turned to Anarchy.
The real answer, is something like grassroots. Civil disobedience. General strikes. A riot. A revolution. Those are what will spark real change. Voting is an illusion of choice. A sham. A fool’s errand.
You’re right that grassroots is the answer. But voting is still part of the solution.
We’re needing broad change, everywhere. Don’t want Flock in your neighborhood? City council. Don’t want a data center in your neighborhood? City council.
City council is a body of what 7 people? That can immediately impact your daily life. If your town is banning Flock, and data centers, and doing a good job, then your neighboring towns will too.
And it really doesn’t take that many people to sway the outcome of a city council election.
But here’s where it gets scary: the pedophile elite has been destroying liberal leaning 3rd spaces for the past 10 or more years, while propping up right wing third spaces. Every single Christian coffee shop is a breeding ground for Nazism. The challenge in getting a city council that works for you, is creating a community that works for you.
And every single person that goes to the Christian coffee shop will stop supporting the local business that supports the queer community, “because they don’t do politics.”
Vote from the ground up. Promote local leaders. And while you’re voting for them, vote in a way that will at least delay fascism till your local leader has the experience to compete with the shitheads like Schumer.
We’ve been voting all this time while they dreamed this up in some island. It’s unanimous and worldwide. Get real.
Fuck off with your defeatist bullshit. Get in the streets and help protest
You could read that again without assuming I was being defeatist. Not much more I can say.
So abandon everything then?
No, just tech that demands age
which is going to be all tech legally required to :(
I grew up in a time of technology being a liberating force that helped us live in a society more firmly based on individual rights.
I no longer live in that world.
No it won’t be all tech, that’s just giving into FUD. People run servers out of their house, people write software. People used to use websites Joe Shmoe wrote and ran in his basement. If you choose to use things like meta and google it is exactly that, a choice. Tor network, I2P network, Gnutella, freenet, usenet, torrenting, these are and always will be options unless the entire internet infrastructure is burned to the ground.
You’re not limited to tech that complies with laws.
All tech?
Not doubting, just hoping for a little more sanity.
Sigh, guess it’s time to bust open a pre-code copy of ‘How to build Linux from scratch’
I fucking guess. I am at the point where I will take my children out of school if they are forced to do face scans or give any ID in order to participate and learn. I’m almost at the point where I would rather lose my job than comply with this
don’t know where you live, but here in the ol’ U of K, schools have been doing that sort of thing for over 20 years! I was appalled when I first heard about it, and I think it was from a friend whose kids had to give fingerprints. “Oh yes I know - big brother, but it’s so convenient” was their attitude.
It is appalling, but I could see parents from 20 years ago being less concerned than now. Of course back then they weren’t aggregating user data to today’s level, at least I don’t think.
What bothers me too are things like Palintir. Like, I don’t want my kid in some massive police database before they even turn 12
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Children don’t usually have ID. You only need to provide ID to prove you’re an adult.
I’m 100% not convinced that it will stay this way. This, to me, is a push towards ID verification. Age verification is a first step. To me, it feels more like a step towards building an infrastructure to track any user
I’m inclined to believe that infrastructure already exists (both state intelligence services and corpos like Meta), this is about being able to use it in the legal system and getting people to self censor.
For normal activities this absolutely exists, and when you are just being you on the internet, a nation state could easily track you down.
However, it’s exploitable and avoidable. Probably not entirely, but if you want to you can make their life difficult.
They won’t stop until your digital identification cryptographically signs every packet you send, I guarantee it.
It won’t but that’s the way it is now.
My country provides ID from birth.
Biometrics are only collected around 5 years old, and only for the indicators, while signature only is requested around 7, after pre-school or first year of literacy.
Photo is taken with days or weeks. The state, all of us, recognize everyone as a citizens and their rights from birth.
I didn’t say anything about having ID. I said you only need to submit ID to get access to adult content.
Not really.
I got surprised a few months back with a shopping site requesting age verification. Of all things.
What site? Were they selling adult products?
A small scale site in my country. And I was trying to purchase ropes, for making dog leashes.
Australia has age verification to access social media, with an age minimum of 16. I’ve heard other countries are thinking of following.
Won’t help much when the internet requires devices be verified by Google Play or equivalent to log into any accounts or do anything.
I guess maybe you can paint pictures and self-host things on your DIY OS, but the stuff web like banking etc that integrates you into society won’t be accessible.
I don’t even have Google Play, so not an issue
One cheap shitty android phone for adulting, the PC and main phone for existing. But they might come for that too eventually.
Short term, that’ll help. Long term, it won’t.
Sure, you can do that. Then what? If every single site requires a secure attestation from an identity service before you can use it, you re boned. Want to shop? Bank? Social media? Check the gd weather? If the site won’t serve you w/o a strong identity proof, then linux won’t save you. Linux will be an island.
IDK if it’ll get that far. But it isn’t that far fetched. Already today, I estimate 50% of site I try to use won’t answer me if I totally block fingerprints and use a VPN. I’m talking mundane shit, recipes, car repair info, w/e. If I remove my privacy protections, they work fine. Nothing stops that from happening to any OS that deosn’t prove a trusted ID attestation.
On those sites, have you tried VPN + ad blocking?
That’s more or less what I do most of the time. The more roadblocks you put up for the tracking and data broker companies, the more the site is likely to block you.
There are lists of VPN endpoints you can just whack into an apache or nginx config. That’s becoming more and more common for sites, over time.
i’m going to switch to devuan since systemd already pre-complied wo anyone commanding them to.
Devuan, AntiX, and MX Linux all seem worth a look for people wanting to avoid systemd. More are listed here:
itsfoss.com/systemd-free-distros/
systemdfree.com/#distros
(FWIW, I think systemd’s age data collection is optional, at least for now. It’s not clear which Linux distros will implement/adopt it by default.)
no mention of guix on a systemd less distro list is crazy. not that i use guix, and im fine with systemd as a nixos user, but it feels like guix is the anti nixos. the richard stallman version of nixos with all the pros and cons that come with that
I run mine with the
nonguixrepository so I don’t think Stallman would approve of how I lead my life (with all the pros and cons that come with that).This is such a weird stance given the actual change that was made. No actual age verification, no external communication of any kind. All that got added is a number field. The ability to store a number labeled “age” for user accounts. That’s it.
There already is a field for first name and last name. You can leave them blank as well (most probably do). If any software requires a number to be there, just enter 99 or whatever. Unless this gets severely worse this is such a nothing-burger.
I’m not happy about any step into that direction either, but pick your battles (or hill I guess). This certainly is a weird one.
“As a frog, you should wait until the water is already boiling before you hop”
i came here to say this but with WAAAY MORE words – well done!
i think the fact that this community is so averse to admitting that this is a trend and the second such example of the foss community pre-complying w the epstein class’ expectations speaks to an political ideology to refuses to accept that fascism is here.
I’ll have to give Devuan a look! I’m planning on a server style project next time, so I shouldn’t be crushed too hard by any peculiarities of the init system(s) I try
i chose it because there’s not much to look at – it’s just ordinary/vanilla debian without systemd.
Linux so far is mostly exempt and it’s the big corporations like Microsoft, Apple, and Google who actually want it so they can sell that info and use it for ads. For Linux, just consider it one more criteria for choosing your distribution if it comes around. If the distro adds it as a requirement for install, then move to another. Fortunately there are lots of good ones these days.
Get fucked Illinois.
Their gun laws are insane too
If by “insane” you mean barely adequate, then I agree.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Illinois
“Inane” not “insane”
Whats the difference
They are two different words, with distinct meanings.
Yea I thought someone might Tell me but nvm ig
No, s is.
goddammit of ALL the states, why IL???
As a European I didn’t know much about Illinois, weird place, ¾th of the whole state live in the metropolitan area around and in Chicago.
Yeah thats how populations work everywhere, majority of people are in the cities. Europe, as well as the entire rest of the planet is like that.
[deleted]
I will not comply. I do not care how hard it makes my life. This is a line in the sand I will not cross. If a social media asks me to upload my government-issued ID, that’s the end of that social media. If a computer asks me to use my government ID to use it, that’s not a computer I will use. The only online service I can see that would need my government issued ID is my bank. And that’s only because they are required to collect it in order for me to have an account. Everything else can go fuck right off.
The only thing I’m most worried about is losing my job over non compliance. I can handle not participating in society. But if that’s what it takes to draw the line, I’m really considering it now and finding an alternative way to live. It’s dumb that this can even be allowed. But at this point, it’s obvious that the top just wants wage slaves to exploit in every way possible. I can’t imagine my kids growing up like that, ya know? It’s got to stop
Monero jobs.
Great find, thanks
Wait, what did we miss here?
Open/libre source operating systems won’t. No matter where you live. As long as all purpose computers exist.
Enjoy not being able to use your bank, major websites, email, online shopping, pay utility bills, do basic and required civic functions online (that require alternatives of driving long distances and/or waiting on the phone for long periods of time), etc because your open source operating system doesn’t pass the attestation check.
Maybe not long after Google, Cloudflare and others will just block you behind anti-bot defenses because you don’t pass such a check and only bots would not pass such a check.
Hiding on Linux is not a solution to a legal problem. It’s at best punting.
This stuff is either defeated or you’ll enjoy living as a hermit cut off from society with your perfectly private, perfectly offline computer.
What I’m about to say, I say only as an alternative in conjunction with fighting legislatively: It’s time many of us alter our behaviors to accommodate these crackdowns. Not as a matter of subservience, please don’t think I mean it that way, but as a matter of practicality and survival. Make cash withdrawals when possible to pay for goods and services. Transition back to paper bills. Separate from computers where you can, while also understanding that the places you can’t, you’re just going to have to deal with the bullshit. Resist where practical, if only for your own sanity.
Well said. A lot of the freedoms we enjoy are a use it or lose it scenario. For example a business is more likely to stop accepting cash if only 1% of their customers use it, so I still use it even though I would often prefer my card.
How about you shut up with your defeatist bullshit and help push back
If general computers are outlawed, only outlaws will have general computers.
I use an open source browser with a hardware TAN generator for banking. I pay with an NFC card. All the websites I care about work with open standards. Fuck the rest. I am perfectly able to run my own email servers. If online shopping requres proprietary bullshit they lose me as a customer. My bills are direct debit. No, there are no basic and requred civic functions that must happen online. I simply walk or go there to do that in person.
I am already frequently blocked by Cloudflare because I use an always on VPN and only open source tooling. I simply cease to use such services.
You are correct that the proper solution to fascism is to go away or to kill them.
Besides, less facebook means more sanity. Nothing real happens in 99% of cyberspace.
Edit: so, my bank freaks out if I vpn through Santiago, lemmy.world freaks out if I vpn through Brussels.
That does sound enjoyable. I wouldn’t consider that a hermit though, quite the opposite. Going out in my own neighborhood and doing things sounds much better than all that other crap. That is actually being part of society.
I am not sure this is the negative you think it is. If my electric company and bank wont give my an avenue to simply pay bills (I hate online bill pay already) and I don’t have to spend hours trying to talk to an AI chat bot online for costumer support, I am not sure I care that much.
If my bank is uninterested in serving me then maybe I need to change banks. Fuck them. I know you are going to say they will all be this way. Ok set up my own, I have gotten around this bullshit before.
I already to deal with a lot of this. I am not allowed to interact with a lot of places due to region bullshit when I am working remotely in various countries. It is already annoying.
I just use a wok laptop and desktop for that stuff. My laptop and phone block everything and those are the items that travel. Not perfect but better than nothing.
To protect the children, of course.
See, it’s very important that every minor online tells everyone they’re a minor, so predators know to stay away.
That’s if i’m thinking of the same proposed California law from some months ago that looked like it was written by someone who doesn’t know what a computer is.
Currently, the age requirement is attestation. You click through an age gate.
So essentially its the same as most social media, which currently requires you are over 13. Kids have long learned to lie about their age to set up social media accounts.
Laws may get passed to require an ID check or confirmation, but at that point that’ll require telling the device (and its corporate masters) your identity and I think that’s going to interact with privacy rights.
I learned in the USENET days to adopt a handle, to keep my meat identity separate from my online identity. We’re going to have to learn that again.
I2P and onion don’t need it
forbidden fidget toy
that’s a butt plug with built-in rectal warmer
My collection of hoarded media waits eagerly if this forces me to say goodbye to the internet outside of work obligations
Work is an interesting point. Maybe working with a computer (a till, a barcode scanner, a stock checker, a multimeter) will be the thing that gets people scooped up and compliant first - even if you are using a work device, on a work network, on the business premises. If you want the $10 an hour: “gotta scan your ID, or you can’t activate the wafflegrill”
Exactly. Hoard now, watch/read/listen later (and now as well).
I’m tired of this notion that society must protect children from reality. If parents want to raise their kids in stupid sheltered worlds, that’s their stupid fucking choice and should go no further than their choices for their kids. Sheltering children is a stupid concept. Parents should be explaining the crazy shit kids will see and give them a healthy way to absorb the bad in the world not trying to act like it doesn’t exist. We shouldn’t have to bend over backwards to capitulate to their idea of how a kid should be raised. I shouldn’t have to give up my privacy to prop up their fantasy. Personally, every kid I’ve seen be sheltered ends up a more fucked up adult. The world is fucked, kids should learn how to live in it.
I’m waiting for the selfie required logins. Right now, you log into YouTube or anything else with that user base and they want a selfie and a phone number. YouTube even asks for your address. You can skip. For now.
Oh, yeah. Like those memes with selfie logins to unlock a toilet or fridge.
You log in and then the AI agent will summarize what you’re watching and contact the authorities in case it flags you suspicious? How dystopian!
Sorta feels like iOS Face ID played a role in normalizing this for the general public
Selfies always read as less secure to me. Possibly problematic on bad days or Halloween.
Fingerprint or tapping a code makes more sense.
The real workaround is using Linux. Age verification isn’t truly enforceable in Open Source software
It’s likely that we’ll get block if on Linux unless if the OS has a token for that check.
But I agree with you, Linux is the way to go. Windows will end up being a surveillance camera first and foremost, especially if you couple the “age” check with the cloud integration.
The Linux exemptions in Cali and Colorado bring up something else if that gets followed on a broader scale: Can’t apps and services just start blocking Linux and start specifically demanding Windows or Mac?
In principle? Yes. It could become a complete cryptographic attestation chain.
I don’t think we’re right on the edge of that rn. But years or decades from now? Who TF knows.
I could easily see things like Discord, Meta, Google, Reddit, and Twitter doing this if it came to that, for instance.
And nothing of value was lost.
Imagine a world where everyone is connected via brain implants. Reality is fully augmented and thoughts are bought and sold while being carefully screened for violations. Only individuals with enough credits can be free in their own minds. What makes us human gets lost as we progress into the singularity.
If they can identify it, sure. But OS fingerprinting is not perfect through a browser, and can be tricked pretty readily.
My work programs from back when I was in accounting, uh, none of them work on Linux. They haven’t even started working on Linux versions.
It’s likely. But I don’t know how much of an effort would be for a Linux based OS to have a pre-made token for that kind of thing.
Pretty sure China doesn’t have laws that demand your age.
“S-SHUT UP DANKIE.”
🤣
Do you ever talk about something else? China knows everything about everyone, from your age to the last time you gooned
couldn’t be more sour could you 🤣
Stallman calls this “Service as a Software Substitute” (SaaSS): users operate weak “thin clients” while the real computing happens on someone else’s server. He argues this creates dependence and oppression because users cannot control, inspect, modify, or reliably access the software handling their data. He develops this argument in “What Does That Server Really Serve?” (2010).
Stallman was right!
……about software at least.
If it does it will be the last thing it does
What are you supposed to do with work laptops and such that get passed around? Head of IT supposed to submit their ID for each one?
Things will just get worse if we don’t do something concrete, like organizing protest marches and petitions, going on strike, and similar.
Quoting from an episode of Slow Horses: “heavy on hashtags, light on results”.
Sad thing is, is that the majority of people are too lazy, cowardly, propagandized & weak-willed. We need to be like the citizens like Hong Kong & Sri Lanka from riots against their governments (& Nepal as of recently when their government tried Identity Verification).
We need to be putting the blame towards the World Economic Forum for introducing this bullshit & our corrupt governments for kowtowing to them.
It’s even sadder when you consider that SOPA caused a mass blackout protest which ultimately got it hidden away until its chance to reappear and this time maybe actually become law.
No one’s doing any sort of mass blackout protests this time around.
No one has any savings left in case our jobs terminate us after receiving a threatening letter signed by Kash Patel over continuing to employ us after a Flock camera identified us at the protest that the news is reporting was filled with pedophiles mad about protecting children.
It’s more complicated than that. A lot of people simply don’t have the time and energy after work for this.
A mass movement like this is going to need a support network, much like some of the successful ones in the past.
Because it’s all by design. They need to find a way to make time, especially when it comes to their rights. Everyone who fought in the civil rights war for our rights had. And that’s just one example.
[deleted]
Yes, they do. And yes. it is. But unfortunately, because of that, most of them will need some level of support and positive encouragement to do so.
Reply to my other comment towards you from under it, as I’ve deleted the one there.
Also, if you think the Fediverse is gonna be safe from this, then I have bad news for you. Also, decentralized networks in general could be targeted by this sorta thing if what happened to A/I is any indication.
What happened to those Mastodon instances and to A/I is proof that even decentralized networks can be targeted by censorship.
True, the fediverse isn’t immune from oppressive governments having physical access to its servers or users.
It does, however, prevent easy worldwide censorship possible with corporate social media, especially those HQed/hosted in SilV.
It also drives me nuts as a non-American that random states in America can pass laws that I then have to deal with.
I mean I already use Linux but I’m sure I’m going to bump into this somewhere eventually. I think this might be the final straw though, I pretty much don’t use any social media as it is, this might be the thing that just makes me detach from the internet altogether, or as much as humanly possible at least.
Yeah I hear you. Now you got to do a facial scan and fingerprinting and all sorts of other stupid shit. I wonder what the angle is? Are they trying to keep kids off the internet? So now I have to throw my information up there because parents can’t manage their kids?
There are sophisticated algos for fingerprinting. It might take several data points to identify you on the internet. If they have your IP and your date of birth, they only need two.
Oh well back to C64
- FilthyFrank
mine won’t :)
Into the wilds I retreat.
Shadow tech anarchist culture, here we go.
Will someone just hurry up and build a wall around the usa?
Claudia Sheinbaum suddenly sits up in bed, in a cold sweat
“¡Mierda! ¡Teníamos con qué pagarlo!”
We’re building it as fast as we can!
It needs a roof too.
Please don’t give our government more ideas, they might actually do it
The wall is for the rest of the world, the usa had its chance to be decent and chose to be the exact opposite for many decades. Now even with something as revolting as trump, the people still show no sign at all of ever waking up and being decent.
Lol, run a real OS you technotards. I use arch Linux btw.
Cool kids use Omarchy! Go kill yourself!
Scaned ID will never be targeted by hackers in order to set up some massive identity fraud, right? Or even if they try, the vibe coded online verification would be so secured that it is impossible for hackers to steal the datas, for once, isn’t it?
Who could already tell that it would be a massive security breach?
Future keep so big surprises for us ̂ ̂
And I’m sure there’s no chance the info won’t just be sold off to some AI company at the first possible opportunity. Also a reminder that when Musk was doing his DOGE thing they were just dropping into government offices and installing their own servers that do who-knows-what.
It won’t. Ever. Because Linux.
If you think that some asshole won’t be willing to legislate that away, think again. It might be the last refuge, but it is entirely possible to shut that down
Legislate whatever you want, you can’t stop free software.
No. But you CAN stop providing any online services to free software.
G already has been moving toward requiring a “trusted OS” to get past fucking recaptcha. It isn’t rolled out yet. But it could be.
Linux can’t stop that, b/c it can just be blocked from everything if the trusted OS attestation isn’t present.
And hypothetically that reCAPTCHA could also serve as an ID of sorts:
… That could be a pretty effective way to completely lock down the web. And then moving everyone back to time-sharing on rented terminals will be the final nail in the coffin for personal computing. If Big Tech gets their way, personal computing could be killed off by thin clients or terminal apps connected to a rented cloud server.
Good news, I already don’t do that. But lots and lots of people do without any company involved at all.
Are you just not going to explain what “G” is?
It…doesnt have to?
You do it for every single thing you do online. The goal of many govs and big tech is to gate everything behind an attestation requirement. Everything.
That’s the point. The initial move here is extremely weak attestation. You can just lie to it, or use an OSS OS. But they won’t stop there. If everything gets gated behind strong attestation, then all those things become off limits to Linux. Sure, you can keep using your Linux box in your house. That cannot be stopped. But what CAN be stopped, is your ability to do anything whatsoever with it which requires the internet. Heck, even the ability to get a n/w connection can be gated.
No? I sure don’t.
So you think everyone will just abandon free software?
You’re still out to brunch I see
You still think there are things you can do on the internet that won’t be affected by this
Are you actually naive, or are you being intentionally obtuse?
Free software will no longer work with anything important online for participation in society. Therefore it will never take off. Therefore all consumers will be herded into cloud-streamed software on little baby walled garden tablets and fed AI answers with system prompts instructing the model not to talk about sensitive subjects. What genocide in Gaza? The Gazans are HAPPY about the ceasefire! Trumps name in the Epstien files? Turns out Adam Schiff doctored the evidence, he was never in the Epstien files! America votes for Eric to be the next President! 1000 years Trump dynasty! You’ll never get tired of winning!
Don’t say anything bad though, or they’ll fucking debank you
You sure do. I don’t think you quite realize the possible implications.
Everyone? No. Ofc not. But most home users? Yes. If we ever see strong attestation gating requiring a “trusted” OS, then I expect most who use linux today would abandon it. B/c everything they want to do, won’t work. But it will work with Android, IOS, Windows. Big-tech trusted platforms. Data centers and so on will be able to use Linux… by abiding the attestation reqs.
Ofc it won’t be every single last person or every single use. There are offline uses for computers too. But normal ppl want to use online services with that laptop on their desk. They want to bank. Shop. Use social media. Etc.
I absolutely do not. I don’t think you quite know what you’re talking about.
I’m using Linux. I don’t care what “most home users” do.
We are talking about Linux. Do you not know what Linux is?
At this point I begin to think you are simply a troll.
The point was that if those OSs work for the things normal ppl want to do, and Linux doesn’t, then most ppl won’t consider Linux as a viable platform, and will not use it. Under that possible future.
But you asked, and I am quoting you exactly,
My answer was to your question. It was not about YOU personally. You asked about “everyone”, so I answered. You are welcome to not care what most ppl want. But the capability to deny your linux machine so much as basic network connectivity can happen. If you want to yank the network cable and use it in your house, and you are happy with that, then great.
If you want to engage in a non-troll manner, that’s fine. But I will not reply to troll type responses any further.
Oh, i just had to read further to get my answer, you’re being a shithead on purpose.
You can legislate it to the point that it’s only possible to spread or hand to hand, and doing so is illegal. Hell, they could go a step further and make just having a copy of it within your house illegal, even if it wasn’t installable.
In any real terms, that means the only way to keep a foss os is to build it entirely yourself. Not build it from source, but code the source from the ground up. It would take time to happen, but when enough time passes, both only do the skills necessary to do that fade, but hardware changes being closed would add another layer of difficulty. Look at the pain in the ass that android rom developers have trying to get AOSP going on a given device.
I get it, I get the dream of a dedicated and determined underground keeping Linux alove under an oppressive regime, but it isn’t realistic
I don’t agree. They would have to ban the entirety of free software, in which case they’d take down pretty much the entirety of all software in the process.
Also TOR is a thing.
yeah like all these countries across the world aren’t getting news outside their firewalls lol
Basically the plot of https://analognowhere.com/
You can fine public orgs but it will just go underground unless they permanantly shut off all internet infrastructure which they will not do
As I pointed out, and is already actively underway on mobiles with regards to GrapheneOS and LineageOS, apps and services could always start blocking Linux.
torvalds is pro ai
debian is ai
ubuntu is ai
linux is conforming/selling out
I don’t understand what that has to do with this conversation.
linux no longer looks like it is likely to remain an escape route from all of this bullshit.
How do you figure?
How do you not figure?
LOL that’s not how this works.
“LOL” indeed
This blanket statement does not capture the reality / nuance. They are pro AI in the sense of using it as a tool for development not to shackle the entire human race into a surveillance state.
If Torvalds and Debian are OK using AI and if I were against it, I would at least consider the possibility that may be I’m wrong about it.
Self-reflection?
Quick, get out of now while you’re still normal.
Jensen Huang too, so it looks you have to be pro ai now, I mean Ed Sheeran is probably all up in it, so it must be the goat fam lol
I was going to give you the benefit of the doubt until I saw your responses.
“Is AI” is meaningless drivel. Software does not become “AI”, and an OS is not and cannot “be” AI.
What you mean is, “Debian devs use LLMs to code”, which has no impact on or correlation to whether Debian will include age or ID verification. No one ordered the devs to use LLMs, so that is not evidence of their “compliance” with authorities, as you seem to imply.
These snarkily-delivered insinuations have no value; they’re not educating anyone about the topic, they’re not arguing anything of substance, they lack basic technical understanding of what they’re criticizing… they’re just a feel-good gotcha for you.
“is ai” is very obviously a simplification, but is also the reality of where they have chosen to go.
The manner in which debian conducted their transition, says a great deal about them.
You were not going to give me the benefit of the doubt, don’t expect anyone who is genuine to believe otherwise. The subject of ai is mainly polar. the majority of people on lemmy are not experiencing their 1st day on the internet.
You’re free to be as cynical as you like.
It’s not a “simplification”. A simplification is still roughly the same meaning. “Coded with AI” and “Is AI” are unrelated statements, not more or less nuanced versions of each other, any more than “Bill is driving a racecar” and “Bill is a racecar” are.
You are ai Bill
Hey, a non-response deflective joke! I see you too went to middle school!
“middle school” is ironic given the post title
It wasn’t a deflective joke, although there is a definitely a joke within it. Some people are just obvious and pointless, so why bother.
snickers in arch linux
Giggles in Gentoo.
In order to protect the children, you have to give us their juicy, delicious personal information. You see, without that scrumptious information that advertisers clamor for, how else are we to know not to show little Timmy beheading videos on our platform? For all we know, that predator is chatting with a 35 year old when they tell them that they’re really mature for their age. There really is nothing we can do if you don’t let us feed your information into the machine.
Yeah, Twitter did already because I connected with a VPN once. Good, no more Twitter then.
People need to fight back! But I guess it’s already too late. They’ve already succeeded in dividing the young people, so there can be no coordination or solidarity. Brainrot is real!
Too early to admit defeat. Young people have their limits, too, and grow more aware of the shortcomings of modern corporate tech than their parents. They are also the first to embrace new circumvention techniques, along with entire new ways of communication.
The battle’s far from over.
I was born in 1900. I said that the first time I entered a porn site and if something I will be consistent all my life.
Use Linux, if you need windows put that shit in a VM.
IMO, we all need to learn QuebeOS… The digital landscape is getting scarier days by days
bet you $100 it won’t?
Well I never intend to upgrade my computer at this point anyway.
What makes you think your device has anything to do with it?
It’ll be Netflix, your bank, the DMV, email clients, forums, reddit, TikTok, Facebook, Intuit products like TurboTax and Quickbooks, various GIS systems, mobile providers, app stores, games, rideshares, food delivery, amazon, twitch, X, they’ll probably make some laws that Lemmy has to be blocked unless they do it, etc.
“We’re sorry, your operating system does not support legally-required methods of age verification. Please upgrade to an Amazon Fire Tablet where everything runs from the cloud and its impossible to do anything except what we allow you. Please drink a verification can.”
I mean I get what you’re saying.
But you estimated my level of spite too low. 🙃 I’m using outdated OS’s; sure everyone argues security, but nobody is going to bother with you when you’re one out of a million, why not just find an exploit for the million right?
As far as what you mentioned, I pretty much don’t use any of that stuff anyway other than lemmy and facebook crap (for international friends). The bank and dmv, lol those idiots just had a major data breach where I live, require an ID already, I go there physically.
A lot of things I do, are done through software and physical proxies.
Whatever requires me to make an account or download a cr’app; I just find something else to do.
I check on whatever info is floating on the web that’s easy to access. As far as I’m known, I’m Japanese, Married to an ex, and live in another state.
At the end of the day, if push comes to shove, I have plenty of other things to do and get done that play these age verification games.
and multiple other internets built on this one, you can use them and slowly move out of these ecosystems. More people that try the easier it’ll be.
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Doubtful. The only Windows computer I have is the work laptop and they’re unlikely to be worried about making corps verify their ages.
No, it won’t. Or I’d just uninstall that package.
Computer: “State your name at once >:(”
Me: “tree fiddy”
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My one hope with all this nonsense is that it will drive people away from centeralized products and toward more open , democratized options ( and that those options will remain excluded from these laws. )… but the world doesn’t normally go the way that I want.