• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

A new California law says all operating systems, including Linux, need to have some form of age verification at account setup

erek said:

“California's Age Verification Bill Passes with Linux Exemption Intact​

EditorDavid 2 hours ago		12
California's age-verification bill has passed in its legislature — but with its open-source carve-out intact, reports the blog Linuxiac: Back in May, we reported that California lawmakers amended Assembly Bill 1856 to carve open-source operating systems out of the state's upcoming age verification requirements. Three months later, that exemption survived the legislative process intact, and the bill has cleared both chambers of the California Legislature... sending the measure to Engrossing and Enrolling, the final legislative preparation stage before it can be presented to Governor Gavin Newsom...

For operating systems that are covered, AB 1856 builds on California's Digital Age Assurance Act, which is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2027. Under the current text, when an operating system runs on a device and includes an account setup feature, its provider must offer an interface that asks the account holder for the birth date, age, or both, of the device's primary user during account setup. The operating system must then be capable of providing a digital age signal to covered application stores and application developers through a reasonably consistent real-time API. Instead of exposing a precise birth date, the signal identifies one of four age ranges: under 13, 13 through 15, 16 through 17, or 18 and older... Covered application stores must request the signal from the operating system and make it available to developers.”
Click to expand...
So then is Android excluded? Or because it is owned by Google...
 
MrGuvernment said:
So then is Android excluded? Or because it is owned by Google...
Click to expand...
apparently not the mainstream androids that are more than simply an open source project compiled, those are excluded, so samsung-google-etc... phones android, it is the entire distribution model that must be under full open source principles to get the exemption uder AD 1856.

https://www.tomshardware.com/softwa...he-gpl-mit-bsd-and-apache-licenses-are-exempt
Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android remain fully in scope, with age collection required at account setup from January 1, 2027.
Whether SteamOS is in scope isn’t yet clear: its Arch-based system components are open source, but Valve distributes the image alongside the proprietary Steam client. GrapheneOS, which in March said it would refuse to comply with age-verification mandates, is distributed under open-source MIT and Apache licenses and now falls outside the law’s scope entirely, though Brazil’s Digital ECA still applies to it.
 
LukeTbk said:
apparently not the mainstream androids that are more than simply an open source project compiled, those are excluded, so samsung-google-etc... phones android, it is the entire distribution model that must be under full open source principles to get the exemption uder AD 1856.

https://www.tomshardware.com/softwa...he-gpl-mit-bsd-and-apache-licenses-are-exempt
Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android remain fully in scope, with age collection required at account setup from January 1, 2027.
Whether SteamOS is in scope isn’t yet clear: its Arch-based system components are open source, but Valve distributes the image alongside the proprietary Steam client. GrapheneOS, which in March said it would refuse to comply with age-verification mandates, is distributed under open-source MIT and Apache licenses and now falls outside the law’s scope entirely, though Brazil’s Digital ECA still applies to it.
Click to expand...
It's so stupid that they need to specify would OS isn't exempt. Throw out the law already, it's stupid.
 
DukenukemX said:
It's so stupid that they need to specify would OS isn't exempt. Throw out the law already, it's stupid.
Click to expand...
disagree, the law is not stupid at all, inspired by good expert it seem to be.

Best place technologically wise to do this to protect privacy and user experience (as a state that generate a lot of revenue from the industry and want to protect it)... OS level, for the regular Apple, android user that use a credit card linked to their account they will never known anything changed....

Much better than the Texas, australian and others laws that are less influenced by the industry and care way less about the customer/user experience consequence and do not care about privacy implication like this one do.
 
LukeTbk said:
disagree, the law is not stupid at all, inspired by good expert it seem to be.

Best place technologically wise to do this to protect privacy and user experience (as a state that generate a lot of revenue from the industry and want to protect it)... OS level, for the regular Apple, android user that use a credit card linked to their account they will never known anything changed....

Much better than the Texas, australian and others laws that are less influenced by the industry and care way less about the customer/user experience consequence and do not care about privacy implication like this one do.
Click to expand...

No law, which demands my operating system know who I am, is concerned with privacy. This, not unlike cameras everywhere, is all about hoovering up as much data as possible.
 
MrGuvernment said:
So then is Android excluded? Or because it is owned by Google...
Click to expand...
The answer as with many things is it depends.

Base Android (AOSP) is excluded because it's distributed primarily under Apache 2.0. Most community custom ROMs will qualify for the exclusion. However, proprietary versions like Samsung's One UI most likely won't qualify to be excluded.

The Pixel used to qualify under GPLv2. However, Google has made moves in recent months to make the Pixel source code harder to obtain, putting it under possible violation of GPLv2. It may signal that Google intends to move their Pixel line away from the open license model and therefore won't be excluded in the future.
 
LukeTbk said:
disagree, the law is not stupid at all, inspired by good expert it seem to be.

Best place technologically wise to do this to protect privacy and user experience (as a state that generate a lot of revenue from the industry and want to protect it)... OS level, for the regular Apple, android user that use a credit card linked to their account they will never known anything changed....

Much better than the Texas, australian and others laws that are less influenced by the industry and care way less about the customer/user experience consequence and do not care about privacy implication like this one do.
Click to expand...
The law is not good, it requires everyone to prove their age, it is the slippery slope to associate all internet activity to an end user and collect more data and info (i do not care what is already out there...)

The law is a push by Meta and others to move liability OFF their platforms so they can do what ever they want, and then blame the "OS" if it gave an age token that did not fit, which will then force the next law to be ID must be uploaded and verified (by Persona and other breached providers) before you can even use your device.. we know how that will then go.

Again, this law has NOTHING to do with protecting children, it is about moving liability OFF Meta and others, so they get a free pass, just like the recent court decision to settle with Meta for another slap on the wrist fine...
 
Ididar said:
No law, which demands my operating system know who I am, is concerned with privacy. This, not unlike cameras everywhere, is all about hoovering up as much data as possible.
Click to expand...
If you have world control.

If you have california and big tech, you see all around the USA and the world laws to force age verification and built by parents-regulator that either do not know much or care much about privacy issues.

California care a lot for its product-company to stay popular and has a lot of lobby pushing for the best technological solution, this where you have at OS level generate unique anonymous tokens by the OS for each demander making tracking really hard to do is the obvious and best place to do it, if you are to do it. California and law has no control if age verification will occur, that is a fact it is already occuring all over the world, so if you care about privacy and a good user experience, you whish that your law will become the model the rest of the world follow, protective move by big tech.
 
MrGuvernment said:
Again, this law has NOTHING to do with protecting children, it is about moving liability OFF Meta and others
Click to expand...
Yes that why that type of laws keep control into parents hands, allow anonymitiy, hand so on... something that would actually not allow child to use big tech product even if their parents (because it make meta responsible over the parents) do not mind would require a long list of stuff I doubt people complaining about this version to do it proposed by this law would prefer.

MrGuvernment said:
it is the slippery slope to associate all internet activity to an end user
Click to expand...
But this law is one way to avoid this (versus the other laws in the world that do what you are describing), with the California proposal you must make unique tokens that has nothing to do with each othres for every individual third party that ask you for a age category, to make it really hard to use this as a way to associate all internet activity to an end user, that what using your local OS make easy instead of a third party website signup or other possible alternative.

Both the crypto and asking for age group instead of birthday help to do this, it is well written by actual expert consulted with privacy in mind. And for about all case here, the OS-Apple/Google combo already know who you are (and has your credit card info linked to the account), it is not adding info there.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top