PrivacyThis is unacceptable. And I’m sick of all the fucking workarounds to maintain basic privacy.
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.
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.
Open/libre source opetating 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.
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!
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.
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.
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 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. :::
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.
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...
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.
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.
Pretty sure China doesn't have laws that demand your age.
"S-SHUT UP DANKIE."
🤣
Sigh, guess it’s time to bust open a pre-code copy of ‘How to build Linux from scratch’
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.
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.
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
take my children out of school if they are forced to do face scans or give any ID
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
You should do that regardless, who's in his sane mind would trust his kids minds to the gov
Children don't usually have ID. You only need to provide ID to prove you're an adult.
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.
Australia has age verification to access social media, with an age minimum of 16. I've heard other countries are thinking of following.
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.
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
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.
bust open a pre-code copy of ‘How to build Linux from scratch’
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?
i'm going to switch to devuan since systemd already pre-complied wo anyone commanding them to.
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"
Devuan, AntiX, and MX Linux all seem worth a look for people wanting to avoid systemd. More are listed here:
https://itsfoss.com/systemd-free-distros/
https://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 nonguix repository so I don't think Stallman would approve of how I lead my life (with all the pros and cons that come with that).
Into the wilds I retreat.
Shadow tech anarchist culture, here we go.
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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"
Oh well back to C64
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 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.
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.
If it does it will be the last thing it does
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.
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.
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.
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
Basically the plot of https://analognowhere.com/
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
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:
- Any Google account verified 18+ gets full web access.
- Any Google account 14-17 gets mildly restricted access.
- Any Google account 9-13 gets heavily restricted access.
- Any Google account 8 and under or anyone without a Google account is locked out entirely.
.... 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.
No. But you CAN stop providing any online services to free software.
Good news, I already don't do that. But lots and lots of people do without any company involved at all.
G already has been
Are you just not going to explain what "G" is?
Linux can't stop that
It...doesnt have to?
Good news, I already don’t do that
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.
If everything gets gated behind strong attestation, then all those things become off limits to Linux
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?
So you think everyone will just abandon free software?
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
No? I sure don’t.
You sure do. I don't think you quite realize the possible implications.
So you think everyone will just abandon free software?
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
Self-reflection?
Quick, get out of now while you're still normal.
snickers in arch linux
Giggles in Gentoo.
Doubtful. The only Windows computer I have is the work laptop and they're unlikely to be worried about making corps verify their ages.
