Let’s hope other states follow suit…

    • Ildsaye [they/them]
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      2121 days ago

      More of a non-loss, sort of. Digital ID being normalized in any respect is still a loss for everyone.

    • bandanawearingbanana
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      720 days ago

      I’m not so sure. Probably they will block Linux users from certain sites. Not exactly what I’d call a win.

  • @[email protected]
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    3621 days ago

    My tinfoil hat is telling me they’ll do this to make an outlaw of Linux and block it from services and sites. I hope my hat is wrong.

    • @[email protected]
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      720 days ago

      Keep that tinfoil hat close, I have a feeling Digital identification laws and ReadID technologies are actually moving the internet away from user anonymity, enabling a framework where users can be tied to real-world identities and easily sanctioned.

      Make a post on the internet that someone objects to? boom, you just lost access to all your bank accounts.

      I mean people connected to Peter Thiel are already bragging how they would love to do that

    • Alaknár
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      320 days ago

      It’s physically impossible to “outlaw Linux”. That would mean outlawing the entirety of “The Cloud™”.

        • Alaknár
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          120 days ago

          How would you even legislate that? “You can only use Linux if you’re a registered business”? And how hard is it to register a one-person business in the US?

          “You can only use Linux if your business has over X number of employees”? So make a non-profit business that “hires” anyone who wants to use Linux.

  • @[email protected]
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    2821 days ago

    Wait… So if Linux doesn’t have the api (sorry, the “signal” 🙄) how will sites that require it respond? What does it mean to be “exempt” - every user is considered to be an adult?

      • @[email protected]
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        21 days ago

        Ehhh, honestly I’m thinking it’s more likely they’ll block you. That’s how these things tend to go in this age.

        Kind of like how more and more of the Internet just outright blocks vpns.

        • djdarren
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          1721 days ago

          This is my growing experience of using GrapheneOS.

          Mostly everything works just fine. But certain apps don’t, because they’ve made a choice to use Play store integrity. And there are more and more of them, including the UK government ID app. So I can’t use my phone to verify my identity because I use a version of Android that’s more secure than Google’s.

          And yeah, I can see it going this way with Linux. If you can’t be verified using macOS, Windows, or ChromeOS (or whatever the new thing is) tools, then you become a second class digital citizen.

            • djdarren
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              821 days ago

              And why we need people who can hammer it home to our political classes that it’s vitally important not to be stuck in an Apple/Google/Microsoft trap.

            • @[email protected]
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              520 days ago

              It’s very easy, a lot of these huge platforms are just corporate adware and military/intelligence propaganda machines, creating something real with real people will blow it out of the water.

              • just another devA
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                120 days ago

                It’s not quite realistic to get feature parity with the huge platforms just on a volunteer basis though. And you might not care about 90% of the features, but that in turn means less adoption, which means less software, less possibilities.

                I mean, I too would want all the best things without any of the downsides, but that takes a Huge amount of effort. And I don’t see how we can realistically get there without money.

  • @[email protected]
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    921 days ago

    Linux is now the backbone of everything. It you mess Linux up, so many things will break. They realized this finally.

  • @[email protected]
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    20 days ago

    A game I payed long ago in my mobile requested me last week age verification.

    Game lost…

    • @[email protected]
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      720 days ago

      I’m old enough to remember the Leisure Suit Larry series that used age verification by asking questions that kids probably wouldn’t know (obviously this was long before the internet).

  • @[email protected]
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    820 days ago

    Sensible laws? That’s not the world I grew up in. What the hell is happening.

    Punish users. That’s the only way they’ll learn.

    • @[email protected]
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      921 days ago

      A new malaphor minted in the wild!

      The two expressions you merged were:

      • death knell for (thing)
      • the final nail in the coffin for (something)
      • @[email protected]
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        21 days ago

        “The final death in the coffin” would have some… interesting implications in a couple ways

        Edit: also “death nail” means Microsoft started smoking

    • Alaknár
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      220 days ago

      Linux users are incredible in their belief that issues of privacy, security, or data autonomy will push the masses away from what they’re used to (OSX/Windows, Facebook/Reddit, etc) and towards better options (Linux, Lemmy, Mastodon, etc)

      No, mate, absolutely nothing is gonna happen to Windows. It’s gonna be perfectly fine. If we’re lucky, there will be a 1-3% dip in user base towards Linux, but there’s exactly 0% chance for a mass exodus that would make the upper management stop and think for a second.

      • @[email protected]
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        220 days ago

        I think they were assuming that people would use linux to dodge these restrictions. Ex. a teen who can’t use a site on windows/ios might boot linux in an attempt to make it work. But as others have pointed out, it’s more likely that sites will just blanket-flag a linux useragent as being used by a child to be safe. And then a linux user changing their useragent to get around this will then be hw attestation challenged like any other OS. So yeah, it’s just going to make it more inconvenient to use an open system.

  • chgxvjh [comrade/them, he/him]
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    621 days ago

    AB 1856 doesn’t explicitly say that repos aren’t app stores, but a store’s main obligation under the law is to request an age signal from the user’s OS provider and pass it to developers; an exempt open-source OS produces no signal.

    So what’s the outcome of that? Are covered applications and application store to treat users as children when they don’t get a signal from the OS?

  • @[email protected]
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    319 days ago

    That might well be the best thing that any government could possibly do to drive open source adoption.