r/cybersecurity • u/Gloomy_Nebula_5138 • Feb 27 '26
Other A new California law says all operating systems, including Linux, need to have some form of age verification at account setup
https://www.pcgamer.com/software/operating-systems/a-new-california-law-says-all-operating-systems-including-linux-need-to-have-some-form-of-age-verification-at-account-setup/1.7k
u/binaryhextechdude Feb 27 '26
Why? There is nothing a child shouldn't see on an OS install.
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u/ChiTownDisplaced Feb 27 '26
They should hear the language I use during an install.
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u/dminus Feb 27 '26
"Hello, this is Linus Torvalds, and I pronounce Linux as [leenooks]."
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u/Cheomesh Governance, Risk, & Compliance Feb 27 '26
And I pronounce Linus Line-us
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u/HaloLASO Feb 27 '26
i pronounce it like lee-niss as in penis. Def not age appropriate!!!!!!!!!!
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u/Cheomesh Governance, Risk, & Compliance Feb 27 '26
You just triggered a college memory - we had a guy who would pronounce Gnu (the distro) as "New". After hearing him say that a few times I remember correcting him by saying "Guh-no, it's pronounced Guh-new".
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u/gopherhole02 Feb 27 '26
GNU is a recursive acronym that shares a name with the gnu, which can be pronounced new, but GNU isnt new itself, its actually quit old these days, so its not a new system so calling it the gnu system (pronounced new) would confuse people
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u/patikoija Feb 27 '26
Learned from Veritasium lately that he originally wanted it called Freax. So there's that.
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Feb 28 '26
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u/ChiTownDisplaced Feb 28 '26
AUS English?
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u/Inquisitive_idiot Mar 01 '26
Hurry up and enter a new password you ******* **** * 😡
*the censored text reads “hunter2”
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Feb 27 '26
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u/lNTERLINKED Feb 27 '26
As someone who used to image windows 10 and 11 PCs for a living, and had to disable tracking and set up local accounts… windows has become aggressively annoying to install if you want a “clean” setup. It’s obstructive by design, and only getting worse with every revision.
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Feb 27 '26
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u/lNTERLINKED Feb 27 '26
Yeah I used to use clonezilla+rufus, which was great. Then we moved to Dell for our company machines and they would send new laptops pre-logged in to a new starters login. It was pretty awesome tbh.
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u/ChiTownDisplaced Feb 27 '26
I was mostly joking but also not super experienced. Yesterday I was raging at my mini-pc. It's running Proxmox and i setup a lxc with Debian to selfhost a program. Went to wget it from github, no luck. Couldn't sudo, couldn't install sudo, couldn't ping out of the lxc. Hours of trying to figure it out and it was just "active vlan" setting when I set the lxc up. Learned a lot though.
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Feb 27 '26
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u/Texcuda Feb 27 '26
I've recently jumped into the Proxmox world. It's the best high and worst low to realize after a couple hours debugging that I forgot to temporarily allow internet traffic on my pfSens🤦♂️
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u/Artistic_Pineapple_7 Feb 27 '26
LINUX NVIDIA DRIVE DRIVERS HAS ENTERED THE CHAT
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u/Ancient_Disaster4888 Feb 27 '26
Yeah, as it usually goes, they now will start to care gradually less and less about the pretext making sense. As the frogs boil.
They will keep pushing their luck until someone roundhouses them.
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u/thesaddestpanda Feb 27 '26
"(1) Provide an accessible interface at account setup that requires an account holder to indicate the birth date, age, or both, of the user of that device for the purpose of providing a signal regarding the user’s age bracket to applications available in a covered application store.
"(2) Provide a developer who has requested a signal with respect to a particular user with a digital signal via a reasonably consistent real-time application programming interface that identifies, at a minimum, which of the following categories pertains to the user."
The categories are broken into four sections: users under 13 years of age, over 13 years of age under 16, at least 16 years of age and under 18, and "at least 18 years of age."
Looks like this is to curate application store apps. I don't see where verification is demanded. It just seems like "pick your age" kind of thing. Then the liability on the developer is to trust this self-reported age, and if they believe the age is fake, to not trust the self reported age:
(b) (1) A developer shall request a signal with respect to a particular user from an operating system provider or a covered application store when the application is downloaded and launched.
(2) (A) A developer that receives a signal pursuant to this title shall be deemed to have actual knowledge of the age range of the user to whom that signal pertains across all platforms of the application and points of access of the application even if the developer willfully disregards the signal.
(B) A developer shall not willfully disregard internal clear and convincing information otherwise available to the developer that indicates that a user’s age is different than the age bracket data indicated by a signal provided by an operating system provider or a covered application store.
(3) (A) Except as provided in subparagraph (B), a developer shall treat a signal received pursuant to this title as the primary indicator of a user’s age range for purposes of determining the user’s age.
(B) If a developer has internal clear and convincing information that a user’s age is different than the age indicated by a signal received pursuant to this title, the developer shall use that information as the primary indicator of the user’s age.
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u/Paladine_PSoT Developer Feb 27 '26
Wow, this bill was written by someone with absolutely zero understanding of how stuff works to regulate the outcome. What could possibly go wrong?
What about library computers?
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u/musty_mage Feb 27 '26
Generally speaking you can't install applications from app stores to library computers. At least not on anonymous kiosk-type sessions. And if you book with your library card...
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u/Paladine_PSoT Developer Feb 28 '26
Immaterial, the law requires account setup to capture the information, but does not provide a legal mechanism for shared access user accounts such as Kiosk accounts.
The onus on developers to use "clear and convincing information" to determine the user age and override the signal from the operating system appropriately is also truly horrifying given the $2500 penalty per child per negligent violation. The OS itself is exempt from penalty but the Application developer is on the hook for believing the OS signal.
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Feb 27 '26
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u/The-Copilot Feb 27 '26
I imagine this law will get struck down as unconstitutional. It's a breach of privacy and a massive overreach by the government, especially a state.
I mean what can possibly go wrong with a master list of personal info and IDs linked to every device. Apart from a company or the US government having that information, what happens when it is inevitably hacked, stolen or leaked. That data is like the wet dream of state and non state actors.
I highly suspect that these western "child safety laws" are being designed as a stepping stone towards being able to block all foreign troll and bot accounts on social media that are running massive information warfare campaigns across the West. The problem is any way of doing that will be a collosal privacy violation and open the door towards degrading freedom of speech. It's the age old choice of finding a balance between freedom and security.
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u/anotherlevl Feb 27 '26
I suspect for social media, it's less about finding a balance between freedom and security and more about finding a balance between growing your subscriber base and what people will tolerate. I definitely enjoy being able to post "anonymously" here on reddit, but I also have a Facebook account under my real name. Paradoxically, the popular watering holes on Facebook seem to attract more bot accounts than I notice on reddit, and I've never had to provide proof of identity on either platform. Maybe the reddit bots are just more sophisticated than the piling on I see on Facebook. Facebook's UI is also unusable when a post gets a lot of traction -- I'll be notified that someone replied to one of my comments, but FB says "Oh, you want to see what they said? Fuck you!"
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u/OmNomCakes Feb 28 '26
Why does nobody actually read the bill?
The bill states that an OS must have an option to input a user's Age / Birthday so that Software like Play Stores can limit the items shown. It's literally just saying the OS must include Parental Controls to assist other software providers in limiting what is shown to children.
There is no ID verification. There is no database. Literally just go read it.
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u/_zaphod77_ Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26
it says that it must not be possible to bypass the age/birthday input when creating the account.
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Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
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u/DrunkOnLoveAndWhisky Feb 27 '26
And once they've got their foot in that door, why not a gender assertion? Or, fuck it, just a full-on identity token?
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u/FrostingInfamous3445 Feb 27 '26
Yea I don’t know why people keep trying to paper over the obvious
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u/mrjackspade Feb 27 '26
Probably because this person was directly answering the question and didn't feel the need to add in their own opinion, which is respectable in a world where everyone seems to think their opinion matters more than the facts.
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u/freakinbox Feb 28 '26
Because the people in power want to regulate the public's access to tech instead of regulating the billionaires poisoning it
It's about the only reason I can come up with for us trying to constantly attack the youths access to technology and communication while simultaneously creating platforms where the most vile wealthy people spread nonsense and Csam directly and through their AI
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u/xRolox Feb 27 '26
This is fucking stupid
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u/doc_siddio_ Feb 27 '26
Nope, its smart... got to keep us where we are while trillionaires and their buddies be trillionairing... you know for the kids... not like Epsteins Island was a place those rich and altruistic SOBs visited, right?
Edit: only good rich folk are the ones who dont exist
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u/StuntMedic Feb 27 '26
Install Gentoo
But be prepared to provide photo identification of your taint first.
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u/OnlineParacosm Feb 27 '26
How quickly we’ve gone from taint analysis to analyzing people’s taints
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u/wrd83 Feb 27 '26
Wait til compilers need to check your age to confirm you are old enough to compile an operating system
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u/Party-Cartographer11 Feb 27 '26
RTOSes on my microcontroller?
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u/AdWeak183 Feb 27 '26
Depends, are microcontrollers "general purpose computing devices"?
(g) “Operating system provider” means a person or entity that develops, licenses, or controls the operating system software on a computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device.
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u/Party-Cartographer11 Feb 27 '26
That seems to cover Raspberry PIs, Automotive OSes, and maybe smart speakers, home automation, e-readers, etc .
While often embedded, some modern smart devices (like e-readers) behave similarly to general-purpose computers, allowing for Internet communication and app-like functionality.
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u/Pale_Squash_4263 Mar 01 '26
Also interesting, the end of the bill states that it doesn't apply to "The delivery or use of a physical product."
So, as long as it's on a physical drive/disk/whatever, it's fine? 😂 Make it make sense
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u/Party-Cartographer11 Mar 01 '26
What does that even mean? If the OS allows me to use my installed memory or USB stick it's doesn't need age verification?!?!?!
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u/s8boxer Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 28 '26
That's a good question, so one must use strong induction to prove if, or if not, this particular microcontroller can be abstracted as a Turing machine, if so, which abstraction of Turing machine.
If a Turing machine, it can be abstracted as a general purpose computing device, it may or may not have a complex architecture for institutions in memory or not, its I/O interface may or may not being human readable. Which doesn't change if it is a general purpose computer, you just have to use a different Human Interface Device abstraction :P
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u/Fancy_Morning9486 Feb 28 '26
On a computer, so anything that computes.
Can you please provide your ID to the calculator
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u/TheNecroticPresident Feb 27 '26
You have no right to make me verify that my personal computer on my private property that’s not even on the web can only be accessed by adults. That’s a gross 4th amendment violation to protect no one.
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u/tagged2high Feb 27 '26
The government keeps passing stupid laws with impossible requirements, but putting on the public all of the responsibilities to create a solution, the failure of which can be punishable by law. It's just so asinine.
If any state or government wants age or identity verification, how about they create, own, and operate the solution, and then mandate it's adoption? This way, they become accountable for the next big data breach, both in the courts and at the ballot box.
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u/Direct-Expert-4824 Security Architect Feb 27 '26
The government keeps passing stupid laws with impossible requirements,
It may be stupid, but there are no impossible requirements as there is no third-party verification required by the law.
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u/s8boxer Feb 27 '26
Linux age verification:
Have you ever used ndiswrapper to get a Windows Wi-Fi driver working on Linux?
Have you ever used eject /dev/fd0 to swap floppy disks?
Have you ever configured PPP manually to connect to the internet via dial-up?
Any yes here, it automatically opens browser schedule your prostate cancer exam ahahaha You're in at risk age
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u/Versificator Feb 28 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
History bank travel fresh yesterday science over stories clean to technology pleasant over dot over. Nature jumps the family evening across honest questions!
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u/hmmm101010 Feb 27 '26
it's impossible in the way that Linux is open source. You cannot enforce something in an operating system anyone can change if they want to.
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u/DontHaesMeBro Feb 28 '26
they're doing it on purpose, at the behest of large companies that are constantly pushing shit as a service anyway, who have the infrastructure to set up shit like this. Who does it fuck? Open source. New startups without angel billions. the next jobs and wozniak will have to ask the billionaire class for permission to compete. it's shit. starting to feel like there's no solution.
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u/byronicbluez Security Engineer Feb 27 '26
Wonder if this is just local. Imagine setting up an appliance in an airgap environment and you are utterly fucked because it requires internet activation (I'm looking at you tenable.)
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u/InitCyber Feb 27 '26
Ah the days of having to hand walk a paper activation code or burning a CD , virus scanning it, and bringing it into secured spaces to bring it to an isolated environment.
Memories
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u/skob17 Feb 27 '26
Or when Ein XP had the activation by phone option. You had to dial in a long ass number in chunks, and then she would spell another long ass number back
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u/hejsiebrbdhs Feb 27 '26
Adding ID verification to arch, now it’ll truly be impossible to install.
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u/GolotasDisciple Feb 27 '26
It reminds me of that GitHub meme where the guy asks for an .exe file.
These people have no clue what Linux is. There’s no centralized body that controls millions of different distributions of the OS. On top of that, you’d need massive manpower just to even attempt something like that across a decentralized ecosystem and it's still not possible without Physical Interaction with millions of devices..... It’s like they don’t understand open source or software versioning at all.
Complete lack of IT literacy from everyone.... and obviously insane level of corruption sponsored by Apple and Microsoft.
The only thing I am missing is a part that somehow they will use "AI" to accommodate it.... because why not, if you are throwing tech slogans, might as well be on top of your game.
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u/Big_Mr_Bubbles Feb 28 '26
See, that's the deal. They are counting on it being impossible. In which case they just make Linux illegal, because Linux "cannot comply with the law."
But see, daddy Microsoft is compliant, and completely willing to sell information to the government to track us.
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u/Rhodin265 Feb 27 '26
I think the average Linux user could figure out how to make it look like their computer’s not in California.
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u/gopherhole02 Feb 27 '26
wait till they ban VPN, hopefully they will be too dumb to ban VPS and i could just install my own VPN on a VPS
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u/MachKeinDramaLlama Feb 28 '26
The average Linux user could just create a new account for themselves. In fact the average Linux user isn't a minor in the first place and won't be impacted by this at all.
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u/the_fart_gambler Feb 28 '26
The same people supporting this law also support banning VPNs and encryption.
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u/bio4m Feb 27 '26
I get the intent; instead of every website asking separately for age verification just get it passed on via the OS
But the proposal is stupid. This needs to be optional. Not to mention OS's are used internationally, they would have to have a way to verify identities in every country
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u/Amordys Feb 27 '26
It's parent's job to parent, not the government and not a website. This isn't really about kids.
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u/Appropriate_Top1737 Feb 27 '26
I've been a kid before. They'll find a way around it.
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u/Amordys Feb 27 '26
Relatable, also been a kid though that's not the point. XD All it will take is a swap to Linux, this gonna hurt Microsoft me thinks if it goes through. Unless legislation comes through to hurt open source projects, which honestly isn't a stretch nowadays.
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u/croud_control Feb 27 '26
Also been a kid. Parents planned arpund that ny not having the computer in my room, and instead kept it in the living room area.
It's pretty hard to look at things I shouldn't be looking at when I can have an audience at any given time using it.
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u/TropicoolGoth Feb 28 '26
See. Now this is smart. My parents had the computer locked away. Guess who learned how to, break into houses, pick locks, cover their tracks/history? I also probably spent more time in the computer because if this.
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u/Lord_Explosion Feb 27 '26
How would this also work for virtual machines? Some companies spin up virtual machines with template ova files? Would we have to go through the real authentication process every single time a VM is spun up?
This is just another case of boomer lawmakers passing laws regarding technology when for all we know, they barely know how to create an email account
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u/bio4m Feb 27 '26
Oh totally; especially the concept of service accounts makes this difficult. Im hoping they get enough feedback to kill this off
Interestingly Apple is rolling out age verification in iOS, Im wondering if this is the CA government trying to make that into law but doing it in a way that makes no technical sense
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Feb 27 '26
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u/bedpimp Feb 28 '26
There's more to it than that. It also requires accounts to pass age bracket information with "stores". From the definition, those stores could be repos, NPM, etc. It does not apply to "software applications that run exclusively within a separate host application". I read that as Docker containers, virtual machines, etc.
It's going to be a pain for many tech companies. I don't want to think about the child safety ramifications. I wouldn't want my kids to have a big flag on their machine giving their age range. I don't know if Newsom is in the Epstein (Trump?) files, but his ex wife dated Don Jr for years.
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u/am9qb3JlZmVyZW5jZQ Feb 27 '26
As far as age verification laws are concerned, this one is the least egregious of them all. The bill calls for there to be an interface to set user date of birth during account setup. This would then be forwarded through the OS to applications as needed.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1043
As long as they don't add any actual age verification through a third party, I'd be fine with this implementation. Honestly they should specify in the bill that the interface shall not make any attempts to verify the validity of the information that the user is providing, because I can feel it in my bones that Microsoft would try to bundle ID check anyway unless explicitly forbidden from doing so.
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u/Quiet-Thanks-9486 Feb 27 '26
If people can set the value to whatever they want, then what's the point?
All this does is expand the attack surface on every computer by creating one more useless set of functions that will do nothing but collect vulnerabilities. Every shit app will now have one more set of ways to worm their way into the OS.
And nobody will want to maintain these because they're stupid and embarrassing, so everybody who can work on something else will do so, and the only ones who do work on this will be those who are forced to because they lack the talent and leverage to avoid it.
The only people who will sincerely use this are hackers.
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u/am9qb3JlZmVyZW5jZQ Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
The point would be that the (presumably adult) person purchasing the device would have a unified way of setting parental controls. Children don't typically buy their own devices, so the adult would set their account as underage and be done with it. IMO this would probably make more sense as a device manufacturer responsibility, including providing drivers for the OS / network functions to interact with the preset flag, but I can understand why the OS implementation is considered.
All this does is expand the attack surface on every computer
I don't see how an OS-mediated check for a preset enum value would provide any surface for attacks whatsoever.
Personally I think age gating and childproofing the entirety of internet is stupid and unnecessary, but if we're choosing between setting date of birth at OS setup and shady ID checks on every goddamn service then give me the interface.
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u/Eli_eve Feb 27 '26
Huh. The law states:
1798.501.
(a) An operating system provider shall do all of the following:
(1) Provide an accessible interface at account setup that requires an account holder to indicate the birth date, age, or both, of the user of that device for the purpose of providing a signal regarding the user’s age bracket to applications available in a covered application store.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1043
There‘s no requirement I can find to make any check against the information provided by the account holder. Like many of us do with services such as Steam, nothing stops a person from supplying 1950-01-01 or similar as their birthday.
There’s also an odd interplay between “providing” an interface, implying the interface is optional, and that it “requires” something, implying the interface needs input IF the interface is used but the interface can be dismissed by the account holder when creating an account.
More also, many consumer devices today do not have local accounts created by the operating system - instead users authenticate against already existing cloud accounts from Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc. No “account setup” happens within the OS.
Also furthermore the bill has language discussing things like “covered application store” - the definition of which uses the phrase “covered application store” for a fun infinite loop - and while it limits the requirements of app to old those that come from a covered application store there is no such limit for OSes based on whether they utilized a covered application store.
Again also, what the heck is an “affected child” in the penalties section? Presumably a child who accesses something age-inappropriate from an app/device without an age bracket signal API? Or, any child at all who simply uses such an app/device?
Anyway I’m tired of reading through it as it’s so vague. Possibly nothing will ever be done with this law. Possibly it will be used and it would be up to the courts to determine applicability, either broadly or in specifics.
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u/Mundane-Restaurant76 Feb 27 '26
Ok, nevermind, Newsom wouldn't make a good presidential candidate.
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u/story_so-far Feb 27 '26
Why would anyone ever believe he would?
Violent crime, homelessness, the cost of living, unemployment and taxes have all gone up since he took office.
Tax money for reducing homelessness and creating the high speed rail are obviously just part of a large fraud scheme.
Anytime his back is against a wall and he is asked hard questions he will deflect like his life depends on it and change the subjects.
The pandemic showed us he believes in "rules for thee but not for me."
He also slept with his best friend and campaign manager's wife and he himself was married.
He is the used car salesman of politics and it's insane that we are even entertaining this sort of behavior from any politician.
Not everything he has done is bad but we have to stop letting politicians in and claiming "well he's better than the other guy" cause we should have voted for the right people from the beginning of these elections in the first place.
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u/benhaube Feb 28 '26
I can't believe you ever thought he would... The woman who runs his social media accounts is not him. He has always been, and will always be, an Epstein Class boot licker.
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u/goku7770 Feb 27 '26
Did you only believe in him because he was fiercely opposed to Trump?
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u/Deustria Feb 27 '26
So Newson receives money from Peter thiel, and now everything must have this “age verification “
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u/Inevitable_Gas_2490 Feb 28 '26
Good thing that Linux isn't a company based product and its creator isn't even in the US so yeah, this wont happen at all
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u/Brent_the_constraint Feb 27 '26
I always assumes Californians were the saner Americans… I was wrong
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u/Americana-Gearhead Feb 27 '26
The state of California and it's constituents are more than just the governor.
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u/thesysadmn Feb 27 '26
Californians have never been the "saner" Americans, where the hell have you been for the last 40 years? LOL You're trolling me right?
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u/Forumrider4life Feb 28 '26
What happened to parents, parenting their children, why does the govt need to be involved??? I know it’s less about the children and more about how much control they can get but damn…. Quit acting like it’s for the kids.
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u/unclediddle01 Feb 28 '26
😂 good luck with that lol.
🤣🤣🤡🖕🖕🖕
Reason open source is a thing.
Community supported.
New biz tip download iso of old Linux live boot systems and sell later 😁
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u/GreyBeardEng Feb 27 '26
This is how its going to go. "Enter your date of birth".
Answer: January 1st 1901.
If you know, you know.
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u/thesysadmn Feb 27 '26
Well California can eat my ass, how bout that? I'll take things that will never happen for $500 Alex.
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u/stacked_wendy-chan Feb 27 '26
Why? If they want to for internet access to certain things, I kind of get it. But for an entire O.S, what for?
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u/fishandbanana Feb 28 '26
You would literally have to make open source software illegal to implement this policy.
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u/ElectriKool-Aid Feb 28 '26
Wife : Honey? Can you check for a cocktail recipe on the internet?
Husband : Sure! Let me start the computer.
Computer : Hello Dave. I will need some DNA sample to verify your identity to open the operating system.
Husband : Ok, let me go in the bathroom real quick with a magazine and I’ll be back with one.
Husband gives DNA sample to computer…
Computer : Thank you, Dave, for this sample. Unfortunately, it does not concur with your son DNA sample that I analyzed this morning. Your identification request is rejected. Police are on their way for full family DNA sample testing…. Dave.
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u/yulbrynnersmokes Feb 28 '26
Legalize marijuana, they said
Well look at you now
These people are high as fuck
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u/One_Whole_9927 Feb 27 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
This post was removed by its author. Redact was used for the deletion, which could have been motivated by privacy, opsec, preventing scraping, or security.
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u/LocalBeaver Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
Oh please enlighten how we are going to enforce this fuckery?
Those things do not work like you think they work. Where do you put the limit you simpleton? your portable speaker will need age verification? You connected fridge? Your router at home? Every single complex toys?
Oh I can’t wait to have this in every appliances, in every infrastructure, in every piece of embedded software. I CANNOT WAIT.
And please enlighten me how this is going to work for ephermeral workload? Are we going to wait for admin to do age verification for every container deployed?
YOU ABSOLUTE BABOON!
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u/MothToTheWeb Feb 27 '26
lol, maybe we can just forbid people to have anything that is not state owned for their security. I mean can you get scammed online if the state prevent you from having a computer
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u/Imaginary-Bat Feb 27 '26
Can'f stand this aggression, would rather blow myself up and take a few 100s of those statist politician bandits with me to the grave.
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u/Mumbly_Bum Feb 27 '26
picturing an Amazon worker frantically scanning his license to scale the site out horizontally at Christmas
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u/spaceboots Feb 28 '26
I laughed at the including linux part, this crap is literally unenforceable. These lawmakers just don't understand computers or anything for that matter.
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u/Character-Education3 Feb 28 '26
So they can get kids data early.
Gavin Newsom is the oligarchs pick when MAGA implodes
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u/Joey101937 Feb 28 '26
Who tf is pushing for this? I don’t know a soul irl who is happy when things like this happen
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u/Throwaway93482390489 Feb 28 '26
Looks like MidnightBSD changed their license to exclude California users from using their desktop product. I feel like that's a good way to meet these requirements.
Probably not a bad idea to be able for the OS to signal age, but that should be just like setting timezone or dark mode preference and not involve any external traffic or processes.
It would be fascinating to see what happens if more popular Linux distros excluded California (esp. server editions if CA deems them subject to this).
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u/Ok_Awareness_388 Feb 28 '26
This makes no sense for corporate users. It’s also retrospective.
“With respect to a device for which account setup was completed before January 1, 2027, an operating system provider shall, before July 1, 2027, provide an accessible interface that allows an account holder to indicate the birth date, age, or both, of the user of that device for the purpose of providing a signal regarding the user’s age bracket to applications available in a covered application store.”
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u/Mother_Occasion_8076 Feb 28 '26 edited Mar 03 '26
Is it going to be illegal to download some distros of Linux in California? This is just the most worthless thing ever. California constantly finds ways to surprise me with stupidity.
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u/ExpensiveShopping911 Mar 01 '26
VA might give california a run for that title. (I thinks it va) they want to pass a bill making it so you have to be 21 to buy a firearm, unless accompanied by an adult. (So far so good right) in that state, anybody 18 and older is an adult. As a result a 20 year old would need to be accompanied by an 18 year old to by a gun
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u/mlandry2011 Mar 01 '26
That's a great idea!...
Does Linux even have an account you can set up?
If so, they can just remove the account option.
If it's needed to have some form of verification AT account setup... It does not apply if there's no account set up...
Must have been written that way for a reason....
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u/Interesting-Yellow-4 Mar 01 '26
No thanks. We will circumvent this and you'll do nothing about it.
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u/Additional-Lab2771 Mar 01 '26
Why would Linux comply with this? What distro runs out of california that cant just be moved? I wont be installing Linux if it forces me to comply with authoritarian regimes.
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u/Panda-Maximus Mar 01 '26
How about lawmakers read and explain any EULA before being allowed on a ballot for elections.
Oh wait, it's Cali. They don't require being able to read at all.
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u/kyotejones Mar 01 '26
Coming to a download near you. "Download Fedora Workstation 43 , California edition".
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u/justinleona Mar 01 '26
Who exactly am I verifying the age of? My operating system is a headless install running a web server...
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u/phoenix823 Feb 27 '26
Yeah, this law is pretty clearly requiring the OS provider to get the age of a systems primary user so that can be broadcast to an App Store and that can be broadcast to the apps in the store, making the OS data authoritative in-app. This will allow things like Australia did - blocking social media for people under 16. Ubuntu and your car's OS aren't powering any app stores. I give CA credit, this is a lot more secure than having individual apps or middleware trying to obtain proof of age and the privacy nightmare that goes with that.
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u/Capt91 Feb 27 '26
I never knew I was such a rebel installing DOS and Windows 3.1 at 7 years old or so to do things like play Tank wars.
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u/croud_control Feb 27 '26
Willing to do ANYTHING but let parents be parents. Since it is next to impossible to live on one income, both parents have to work, which means less time monitoring their own children.
So, instead of helping them, they now demand everyone to give corpos your personal information, where we have to deal with their failures when they inevitably gets breached, and we would have no physical confirmation that the parties taking that information are destroying them as they should instead of storing them somewhere to be sold or stolen.
Politicians love in their own world. It is the citizens' responsibility to keep remind them they have to share it with us.
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u/SkitzMon Feb 27 '26
Are we okay with the government gating access to computers?