Hopefully this will start happening more and more, we need the old school Hacker mentality here. Stand up in the face of oppression and refuse to comply, make work arounds, force the issue. The...
Hopefully this will start happening more and more, we need the old school Hacker mentality here. Stand up in the face of oppression and refuse to comply, make work arounds, force the issue. The this the final battle for online freedoms and it is imperative for the future of a free humanity that we must win. Online anonymity is essential for freedoms of all kinds, we must have a place where people can speak their minds without oversight. I cannot stress how important this is.
Open source software is in a unique position to give the middle finger to the law, our corporate overlords will never help us. Hopefully things can be stopped before we have to look towards a new underground pirate internet. I for one will never comply with online ID or age verification, I will stop using services that require it, no matter how important to my life. I will switch to full time TOR usage if that is what needs to happen to remain anonymous. If the Dark Net needs to become the main internet, then so be it.
I'm a little confused, because a lot of these laws seem to be based on the honour system, just asking users to input their birthdate. Basically the same as clicking the "I'm over 18" button on...
I'm a little confused, because a lot of these laws seem to be based on the honour system, just asking users to input their birthdate. Basically the same as clicking the "I'm over 18" button on some websites. Don't get me wrong, these laws are an awful overreach of privacy, and probably a majority of people are going to use their real birthdate, but I don't think it'll compromise the privacy of anyone who puts any amount of thought into it.
I was born on January 1st, 1970, just like everyone else.
It's a stepping stone. The technical framework doesn't yet exist for these systems to verify this data with a database in real time reliably with anything other than the honor system right now....
It's a stepping stone.
The technical framework doesn't yet exist for these systems to verify this data with a database in real time reliably with anything other than the honor system right now.
But this is just the first step while those systems get built, or to justify them to be built. In a couple of years lawmakers will argue exactly what you're saying "But anyone can enter any age. That's not good enough, we need to verify them against a real database!"
In fact, that's exactly what happened in Texas with Pornhub.
It's the boiling the frog analogy, slowly turning up the heat too slow for the majority of people to notice.
Also keep in mind the same EXACT people trying to pass this, and I literally mean like literally the same exact group of lawmakers in California, are also passing 3D printer laws requiring 3D printers to have the ability to report on what's being printed to the DOJ or to detect gun parts. How long until they apply the same logic to computers or e-readers?
Mark my words, within the next 10 years or less, lawmakers will use things like CSAM or crime as justification to force operating systems to detect and report what's on them to the government, both phones and computers.
I said it before in the thread about 3D printer monitoring software, and I’ll say it again here: This type of monitoring software is a fourth amendment violation, and should be challenged in court...
I said it before in the thread about 3D printer monitoring software, and I’ll say it again here:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
This type of monitoring software is a fourth amendment violation, and should be challenged in court as unlawful, at least in the US. If there is software that detects (read: “searches”) information on a personal computer about a person or their digital files (read: “person, papers, or effects”), then provides it to the government, that should be unconstitutional.
The California age verification law is a bit slippery, because the government isn’t actually the one requesting the information for age verification, but what does that mean? That government can’t make those requests to a machine without a warrant? At a minimum, if the situation escalates to require verification against a database, that should be considered an unwarranted search.
I agree with you, but somehow lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have seemingly gotten to the point they don't even care anymore because there's no one to hold them accountable anymore. Like...
I agree with you, but somehow lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have seemingly gotten to the point they don't even care anymore because there's no one to hold them accountable anymore.
Like who's going to hold the lawmakers accountable for constitutional violations when the supreme court has currently also gotten to the point they're basically cosplaying upholding the constitution, but are really making judgement calls based on their gut feelings and not actually the constitution, and taking advantage of disruptive bureaucracy when their gut opinions don't align with the constitution?
Even IF the supreme court disagreed and ruled against it, even then who will hold the lawmakers accountable? We have no referees with any power to call foul, that was the biggest lie of society that the government has learned in recent years. It was supposed to be the voters holding their representatives accountable, but now the voters are unreliable because of all the misinformation, propaganda, and the manufactured apathy.
This entire society is built on social contracts that are currently falling apart.
Also the shrinking ratio of representation an individual in the United States has had since the Reapportionment Act of 1929, where the house was capped at 435 seats.
It was supposed to be the voters holding their representatives accountable, but now the voters are unreliable because of all the misinformation, propaganda, and the manufactured apathy.
Also the shrinking ratio of representation an individual in the United States has had since the Reapportionment Act of 1929, where the house was capped at 435 seats.
I can't find any information on 3D printers needing to report anything to the government - only that they prevent (somehow) the printing of guns. If you have any links, I'd appreciate it. I...
This type of monitoring software is a fourth amendment violation, and should be challenged in court as unlawful, at least in the US. If there is software that detects (read: “searches”) information on a personal computer about a person or their digital files (read: “person, papers, or effects”), then provides it to the government, that should be unconstitutional.
I can't find any information on 3D printers needing to report anything to the government - only that they prevent (somehow) the printing of guns. If you have any links, I'd appreciate it. I absolutely agree that reporting to the government is a step too far, but if it's just about prevention is it meaningfully different than laws preventing scanners, editing software, and printers from doing anything with images of real currency? I would understand if you think those laws shouldn't exist either, but they've withstood several court challenges.
There have been several bills proposing laws like this, see the previous discussion here. I see your point that it does not report to the government, but if it’s software mandated by the...
There have been several bills proposing laws like this, see the previous discussion here. I see your point that it does not report to the government, but if it’s software mandated by the government to prevent an individual from performing an action after a search has been performed, I fail to see how that is still not an unwarranted search and enforcement as a result. I am not a lawyer, but I think the reason so many people feel so uncomfortable about these changes is because they are a hair from rights violations at a massive scale, and nobody seems to be framing them as such.
I think it's a problem of framing in this case. Almost the same exact outcome could be achieved with basically the same processes, but instead of asking for a person's age, the setup is designed...
I think it's a problem of framing in this case. Almost the same exact outcome could be achieved with basically the same processes, but instead of asking for a person's age, the setup is designed around parents doing the initial setup of a child's device. Basically all it needs to ask is something like "Do you want to set adult content restrictions on this device?" and then the 'boiling the frog' issue will be less about "but anyone can enter the wrong age" because that's not what it's framing it as, but instead it will be 'but XYZ websites etc. are still accessible even in content restricted mode'. And when kids get ahold of devices that aren't in content restricted mode, it places it back into the parental realm. That's not an issue that requires sophisticated technical skills as far as responsibility for a parent goes, because the law gives them an option to reduce technical overhead and place content restrictions on their child's device, it's up to the parent to control what physical objects their child gets ahold of.
Now the issue in that scenario will be what the crackdown would entail to follow up on services that don't oblige by the flag, but that's also true even in this age framing of the law. How draconian will they go and what will that look like to force services to respect that content restriction flag?
This is one of the better workable solutions, instead of requiring adults to prove their age through draconian tracking and identification methods (Nothing sounds more 1984 to me than having to...
This is one of the better workable solutions, instead of requiring adults to prove their age through draconian tracking and identification methods (Nothing sounds more 1984 to me than having to show my face to my phone where either a cryptic AI or another human verifies my age/identity) we provide parents with controls to be able to switch their child's device into a 'child mode' or something similar. The problem again as you mention becomes how do you enforce companies to abide by these flags? Either you setup a Great Firewall to block services that will not comply (like services that operate out of other countries without these laws) or the whole thing is a joke.
Well the current incoming laws that are imposing these demands onto OSes to ask about age also have this problem. I think we all know nothing is foolproof, and a kid with enough resources and...
Either you setup a Great Firewall to block services that will not comply (like services that operate out of other countries without these laws) or the whole thing is a joke.
Well the current incoming laws that are imposing these demands onto OSes to ask about age also have this problem.
I think we all know nothing is foolproof, and a kid with enough resources and determination is likely to bypass most restrictions. Hell, that's true in the analog comparative of what is attempting to be accomplished here. Restricting sales of cigarettes and alcohol to people with government issued IDs that show they are of the appropriate age has never 100% stopped all kids from drinking or smoking.
If you could assume competent and altruistic entities existed, what would likely be a decent compromise for this situation would be that devices set in 'adult content restricted mode' would use DNS servers that filter out adult content, with the theoretical competent and altruistic entity being the one that sets up those filters. At least initially anyhow, I think this could be similar in efficacy to what restricting sales of alcohol and tobacco are in the offline world. It's not going to stop everyone, but it would likely stop enough. I'd say the real problem with this idea is that I presupposed it on a theoretical entity that isn't real and the political challenges of who controls that filter and what not are the inhibitors.
Your fears are well founded, because that's exactly the case. Heritage Foundation is the architect, and Meta is a vehicle of lobbying and consent manufacturing. Exodus Cry is also involved. The...
Your fears are well founded, because that's exactly the case. Heritage Foundation is the architect, and Meta is a vehicle of lobbying and consent manufacturing. Exodus Cry is also involved.
The Project 2025 text also interchangeably uses the term "pornography" to refer to "LGBT people existing." And this is reflected in many of the state-level bills that have been implemented.
But laws enacted by other states and Minnesota HF 1434 go further than the Texas statute. Rather than restricting young people from accessing sexual content, these proposals expand what the state deems “harmful to minors” to include any speech that may reference sex, sexuality, gender, and reproductive health. But young people have a First Amendment right to both speak on those topics and to access information online about them.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Congress shall make no law. Not "some people don't have a right to view things," not "but these things are different," not "except in case X or Y." Congress shall make no law. The governments of the United States are forbidden from passing any law that hinders people from speaking, publishing or accessing instances thereof. Anything else is unconstitutional, and must not be allowed to stand, regardless of what good or ill intentions people are intent to pave the road to hell with. It will be weaponized against you sooner or later.
If we can't manage to protect that most basic level of constitutionality and agree on its value, then I'm ready to start pushing for laws requiring churches verify the age of people and ensure no minors are exposed to their harms. They should probably use face scans and save copies of photo IDs for that too.
Even if it's not totally legislated in like that, I could still see states like Texas utilizing the abortion targeting tactics against LGBT+ content. To a certain extent, it's up to the providers...
Even if it's not totally legislated in like that, I could still see states like Texas utilizing the abortion targeting tactics against LGBT+ content.
To a certain extent, it's up to the providers to determine whether their content is 'adult' or not, and they're going to do so based on legal liability. I don't know the specific California or Colorado laws in terms of what is considered adult content or where they draw the line, but I know all of these laws have varying ways of defining it so it will likely end up being that those hosting or distributing the content will end playing it safe. But reddit is a good example where there is access to adult content on there, but it's not considered a pornographic site, and some legislation has rules like 50% of the content or whatever being adult content makes the site pornographic or something along those lines.
In any case, what I'm saying is that I expect states like Texas with their anti-abortion tactics, will simply try to use the workaround of just suing everyone for everything that someone could argue is adult content, and then everyone will just end up playing it safe. I could see that being a reality that will force LGBT+ content into restrictions, with the threat being that if you don't do it, you'll get sued in Texas by some backwards ass fuckface.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who will get this joke/reference, but I wanted to specifically call out my appreciation for it. I have a great enjoyment for jokes that require just a bit of...
I was born on January 1st, 1970, just like everyone else.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who will get this joke/reference, but I wanted to specifically call out my appreciation for it.
I have a great enjoyment for jokes that require just a bit of technical knowledge in a subject area to appreciate. This really hits that nail right on the head. Thanks for the genuine laugh out loud.
Yes. “Unix dates” were stored in a 32 bit number which will overflow in 2038 and become the minimum value or cause other problems. Year 2038 Problem - Wikipedia
Yes. “Unix dates” were stored in a 32 bit number which will overflow in 2038 and become the minimum value or cause other problems.
I'm speaking to the much bigger picture of the barrage of age verification laws popping up around the world. Age restrictions on social media, porn, app stores. Bans on VPN's are being discussed....
I'm speaking to the much bigger picture of the barrage of age verification laws popping up around the world. Age restrictions on social media, porn, app stores. Bans on VPN's are being discussed. Countries will have to put up their own versions of The Great Firewall to block sites that will not comply. Free and Open Source software is fundamentally incompatible with these policies, being made by large groups of volunteers and not monolithic companies. Secure Boot and hardware being locked to software in the name of security. It feels like its closing in on all sides, all over the world. We will probably be more successful if we resist every step of the way.
Hopefully this will start happening more and more, we need the old school Hacker mentality here. Stand up in the face of oppression and refuse to comply, make work arounds, force the issue. The this the final battle for online freedoms and it is imperative for the future of a free humanity that we must win. Online anonymity is essential for freedoms of all kinds, we must have a place where people can speak their minds without oversight. I cannot stress how important this is.
Open source software is in a unique position to give the middle finger to the law, our corporate overlords will never help us. Hopefully things can be stopped before we have to look towards a new underground pirate internet. I for one will never comply with online ID or age verification, I will stop using services that require it, no matter how important to my life. I will switch to full time TOR usage if that is what needs to happen to remain anonymous. If the Dark Net needs to become the main internet, then so be it.
I will not comply.
I'm a little confused, because a lot of these laws seem to be based on the honour system, just asking users to input their birthdate. Basically the same as clicking the "I'm over 18" button on some websites. Don't get me wrong, these laws are an awful overreach of privacy, and probably a majority of people are going to use their real birthdate, but I don't think it'll compromise the privacy of anyone who puts any amount of thought into it.
I was born on January 1st, 1970, just like everyone else.
It's a stepping stone.
The technical framework doesn't yet exist for these systems to verify this data with a database in real time reliably with anything other than the honor system right now.
But this is just the first step while those systems get built, or to justify them to be built. In a couple of years lawmakers will argue exactly what you're saying "But anyone can enter any age. That's not good enough, we need to verify them against a real database!"
In fact, that's exactly what happened in Texas with Pornhub.
It's the boiling the frog analogy, slowly turning up the heat too slow for the majority of people to notice.
Also keep in mind the same EXACT people trying to pass this, and I literally mean like literally the same exact group of lawmakers in California, are also passing 3D printer laws requiring 3D printers to have the ability to report on what's being printed to the DOJ or to detect gun parts. How long until they apply the same logic to computers or e-readers?
Mark my words, within the next 10 years or less, lawmakers will use things like CSAM or crime as justification to force operating systems to detect and report what's on them to the government, both phones and computers.
I said it before in the thread about 3D printer monitoring software, and I’ll say it again here:
This type of monitoring software is a fourth amendment violation, and should be challenged in court as unlawful, at least in the US. If there is software that detects (read: “searches”) information on a personal computer about a person or their digital files (read: “person, papers, or effects”), then provides it to the government, that should be unconstitutional.
The California age verification law is a bit slippery, because the government isn’t actually the one requesting the information for age verification, but what does that mean? That government can’t make those requests to a machine without a warrant? At a minimum, if the situation escalates to require verification against a database, that should be considered an unwarranted search.
I agree with you, but somehow lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have seemingly gotten to the point they don't even care anymore because there's no one to hold them accountable anymore.
Like who's going to hold the lawmakers accountable for constitutional violations when the supreme court has currently also gotten to the point they're basically cosplaying upholding the constitution, but are really making judgement calls based on their gut feelings and not actually the constitution, and taking advantage of disruptive bureaucracy when their gut opinions don't align with the constitution?
Even IF the supreme court disagreed and ruled against it, even then who will hold the lawmakers accountable? We have no referees with any power to call foul, that was the biggest lie of society that the government has learned in recent years. It was supposed to be the voters holding their representatives accountable, but now the voters are unreliable because of all the misinformation, propaganda, and the manufactured apathy.
This entire society is built on social contracts that are currently falling apart.
Also the shrinking ratio of representation an individual in the United States has had since the Reapportionment Act of 1929, where the house was capped at 435 seats.
There is no isle in the US. And definitely not after Citizens United.
I can't find any information on 3D printers needing to report anything to the government - only that they prevent (somehow) the printing of guns. If you have any links, I'd appreciate it. I absolutely agree that reporting to the government is a step too far, but if it's just about prevention is it meaningfully different than laws preventing scanners, editing software, and printers from doing anything with images of real currency? I would understand if you think those laws shouldn't exist either, but they've withstood several court challenges.
There have been several bills proposing laws like this, see the previous discussion here. I see your point that it does not report to the government, but if it’s software mandated by the government to prevent an individual from performing an action after a search has been performed, I fail to see how that is still not an unwarranted search and enforcement as a result. I am not a lawyer, but I think the reason so many people feel so uncomfortable about these changes is because they are a hair from rights violations at a massive scale, and nobody seems to be framing them as such.
I think it's a problem of framing in this case. Almost the same exact outcome could be achieved with basically the same processes, but instead of asking for a person's age, the setup is designed around parents doing the initial setup of a child's device. Basically all it needs to ask is something like "Do you want to set adult content restrictions on this device?" and then the 'boiling the frog' issue will be less about "but anyone can enter the wrong age" because that's not what it's framing it as, but instead it will be 'but XYZ websites etc. are still accessible even in content restricted mode'. And when kids get ahold of devices that aren't in content restricted mode, it places it back into the parental realm. That's not an issue that requires sophisticated technical skills as far as responsibility for a parent goes, because the law gives them an option to reduce technical overhead and place content restrictions on their child's device, it's up to the parent to control what physical objects their child gets ahold of.
Now the issue in that scenario will be what the crackdown would entail to follow up on services that don't oblige by the flag, but that's also true even in this age framing of the law. How draconian will they go and what will that look like to force services to respect that content restriction flag?
This is one of the better workable solutions, instead of requiring adults to prove their age through draconian tracking and identification methods (Nothing sounds more 1984 to me than having to show my face to my phone where either a cryptic AI or another human verifies my age/identity) we provide parents with controls to be able to switch their child's device into a 'child mode' or something similar. The problem again as you mention becomes how do you enforce companies to abide by these flags? Either you setup a Great Firewall to block services that will not comply (like services that operate out of other countries without these laws) or the whole thing is a joke.
Well the current incoming laws that are imposing these demands onto OSes to ask about age also have this problem.
I think we all know nothing is foolproof, and a kid with enough resources and determination is likely to bypass most restrictions. Hell, that's true in the analog comparative of what is attempting to be accomplished here. Restricting sales of cigarettes and alcohol to people with government issued IDs that show they are of the appropriate age has never 100% stopped all kids from drinking or smoking.
If you could assume competent and altruistic entities existed, what would likely be a decent compromise for this situation would be that devices set in 'adult content restricted mode' would use DNS servers that filter out adult content, with the theoretical competent and altruistic entity being the one that sets up those filters. At least initially anyhow, I think this could be similar in efficacy to what restricting sales of alcohol and tobacco are in the offline world. It's not going to stop everyone, but it would likely stop enough. I'd say the real problem with this idea is that I presupposed it on a theoretical entity that isn't real and the political challenges of who controls that filter and what not are the inhibitors.
I fear that once the age restrictions are in people like the awful folks behind Project 2025 will push to make all LGBT+ content "adult".
Your fears are well founded, because that's exactly the case. Heritage Foundation is the architect, and Meta is a vehicle of lobbying and consent manufacturing. Exodus Cry is also involved.
The Project 2025 text also interchangeably uses the term "pornography" to refer to "LGBT people existing." And this is reflected in many of the state-level bills that have been implemented.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/03/rep-finke-was-right-age-gating-isnt-about-kids-its-about-control
Congress shall make no law. Not "some people don't have a right to view things," not "but these things are different," not "except in case X or Y." Congress shall make no law. The governments of the United States are forbidden from passing any law that hinders people from speaking, publishing or accessing instances thereof. Anything else is unconstitutional, and must not be allowed to stand, regardless of what good or ill intentions people are intent to pave the road to hell with. It will be weaponized against you sooner or later.
If we can't manage to protect that most basic level of constitutionality and agree on its value, then I'm ready to start pushing for laws requiring churches verify the age of people and ensure no minors are exposed to their harms. They should probably use face scans and save copies of photo IDs for that too.
Even if it's not totally legislated in like that, I could still see states like Texas utilizing the abortion targeting tactics against LGBT+ content.
To a certain extent, it's up to the providers to determine whether their content is 'adult' or not, and they're going to do so based on legal liability. I don't know the specific California or Colorado laws in terms of what is considered adult content or where they draw the line, but I know all of these laws have varying ways of defining it so it will likely end up being that those hosting or distributing the content will end playing it safe. But reddit is a good example where there is access to adult content on there, but it's not considered a pornographic site, and some legislation has rules like 50% of the content or whatever being adult content makes the site pornographic or something along those lines.
In any case, what I'm saying is that I expect states like Texas with their anti-abortion tactics, will simply try to use the workaround of just suing everyone for everything that someone could argue is adult content, and then everyone will just end up playing it safe. I could see that being a reality that will force LGBT+ content into restrictions, with the threat being that if you don't do it, you'll get sued in Texas by some backwards ass fuckface.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who will get this joke/reference, but I wanted to specifically call out my appreciation for it.
I have a great enjoyment for jokes that require just a bit of technical knowledge in a subject area to appreciate. This really hits that nail right on the head. Thanks for the genuine laugh out loud.
The great part about being born on Jan 1, 1970 is that I'll be 0 again on Jan 19, 2038
As someone who mostly gets the joke: Is the 2038 date just when we run out of bits to store the "seconds since 1969" in a single integer?
Yes. “Unix dates” were stored in a 32 bit number which will overflow in 2038 and become the minimum value or cause other problems.
Year 2038 Problem - Wikipedia
Gotcha. Thanks for confirming!
I'm speaking to the much bigger picture of the barrage of age verification laws popping up around the world. Age restrictions on social media, porn, app stores. Bans on VPN's are being discussed. Countries will have to put up their own versions of The Great Firewall to block sites that will not comply. Free and Open Source software is fundamentally incompatible with these policies, being made by large groups of volunteers and not monolithic companies. Secure Boot and hardware being locked to software in the name of security. It feels like its closing in on all sides, all over the world. We will probably be more successful if we resist every step of the way.