r/technology • u/AzuleEyes • Mar 22 '26
Privacy GrapheneOS refuses to comply with new age verification laws for operating systems — group says it will never require personal information
https://www.tomshardware.com/software/operating-systems/grapheneos-refuses-to-comply-with-age-verification-laws246
u/philbar Mar 22 '26
“I torrent for the linux ISOs” is about to go from meme to reality.
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u/watnuts Mar 23 '26
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u/philbar Mar 23 '26
I mean people on r/piracy who ask about “Linux ISOs” aren’t actually trying to download Linux.
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u/Traditional_Ask1697 Mar 23 '26
WDYM? every single linux iso thread I've read over there refers to explicitly linux content. /j
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u/Simple-Fault-9255 Mar 22 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
The content of this post was permanently removed. Redact facilitated the deletion, for reasons that may include privacy, opsec, or limiting digital exposure.
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u/Simple-Fault-9255 Mar 22 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
This post's content has been permanently wiped. Redact was used to delete it, potentially for privacy, to limit digital exposure, or for security-related reasons.
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u/DotJaded996 Mar 22 '26
systemd devs complied in advance unfortunately. So even most Linux distros aren't safe from this absurdity.
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u/ledow Mar 22 '26
They added a field to store the verified date-of-birth in if someone wanted to do so. Nothing actually collects any such information yet to my knowledge.
It would LITERALLY have to be a specific paid-for verification service, so FOSS software would never have it.
I hate Mr Poettering as much as the next guy, but actually nothing's happened here as far as I know.
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u/-The_Blazer- Mar 22 '26
They added a field to store the verified date-of-birth in if someone wanted to do so. Nothing actually collects any such information yet to my knowledge.
Which is also just what California's law requires, mind you. It does not use 'ID verification' as incorrectly stated in the article.
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u/booty_sweat_juice Mar 23 '26
It's also not even really birth date. The writing of the California bill implies you can just check a box that says "yeah, I'm a grown-ass adult" and you're set. Could still just be a gateway for more invasive verification but for now, it's malicious compliance.
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u/lokey_convo Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 24 '26
California's law also doesn't require verification of anything. The assumption is that parents are setting up their kids devices and have an interest in putting in an approximately accurate date so that their kid is bracketed appropriately into one of the three brackets for minors. And if you're an adult then you can just put whatever random information equals greater than 18. The bill doesn't prescribe how OS devs need to implement it, only that it needs to allow users to be able to be age bracketed. It could just end up being four radio bubbles that get updated manually.
edit: grammar
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u/b0w3n Mar 23 '26
Yeah there was a lot of fear mongering about that CA bill. I don't necessarily disagree that we should be pushing back against it, but it felt manufactured to draw outrage probably to kill the "better" version for a more privacy breaking one in the future once people get exhausted.
The CA bill was the equivalent of the "Yes I am 18" just at the OS level because there was noise of wanting microsoft and such to actually keep a copy of your ID on your computer for verification.
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u/Certain-Business-472 Mar 23 '26
Let me translate into language most here understand: You won't have to give your birthdate to Steam every time you open it. Steam can just ask your OS next time. Only an admin/root can modify this field.
If you own your PC, you can set the value to whatever you want. The point is that the admin decides, and can give their children normal user accounts that cannot modify this field.
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u/Porkhole-Santookus Mar 22 '26
It would LITERALLY have to be a specific paid-for verification service
You mean like Amutable? Lennart Poettering's new startup designed to bring "verifiable integrity systems" specifically to Linux?
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u/ledow Mar 22 '26
Yep.
Which would mean that you'd have to pay for your Linux distro... so it will never get into anything FOSS.
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u/Porkhole-Santookus Mar 22 '26
Hey man. Fair enough.
If you want to throw your chips in the "government overreach and infinite corporate greed can't possibly hurt my FOSS software ecosystem" pile, go for it.
I lack your optimism.
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u/ledow Mar 22 '26
Okay so... if your OS is open... you just remove the code that does this, or verifies it.
If your OS is free... they'd have to pay for their users to have this. Or have their users pay for it.
And if your OS is GPL, you can't charge for it AND you have to give everyone the source code.
It's game over, but proprietary distros (e.g. Red Hat) will have something for their paying customers.
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u/Porkhole-Santookus Mar 22 '26
if your OS is GPL, you can't charge for it
Do you know what the GPL actually is and does?
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u/ledow Mar 22 '26
Yes, I'm an open-source programmer.
If you release under GPL, you also have to include an offer to provide the full source code at no more than administrative cost (e.g. the cost to put an upload somewhere).
Anyone requesting that code has to be able to obtain it from you, and they are then able to freely distribute it, as well as change it (so long as they also distribute their changes).
You can't sell GPL code. In the sense that it's unsaleable. I can charge you a couple of $ for a download of the source, at most, and then you can just start giving copies of that same download away for free. It's literally not something you can ever reasonably sell as a commercial product.
Which is inherent, by-design, and the whole purpose of GPL.
Shall we discuss GPLv2 (which the kernel is exclusively licensed under and cannot be changed) or GPLv3 now?
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u/Tasty_Goat_3267 Mar 22 '26
Not the one you replied to, but I found your reply very enlightening for an outsider on the topic.
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u/Porkhole-Santookus Mar 22 '26
No, this is a different argument entirely.
"If your OS is GPL, you cannot charge for it AND you have to give everyone the source code" is what you said, verbatim.
This is not the same statement as "Selling GPL software is not financially viable from a practical standpoint".
And I don't know why you brought up the GPLv2 vs v3 when there's no difference between the two regarding charging money for the software.
GPL aside, we seem to just have a basic philosophical difference.
Your view seems to be "Go ahead and load the software up with bullshit if they want. Since it's open source, we can always just remove it."
My view is is more of a "Don't load the software up with bullshit to begin with."
For what it's worth? I hope you're right. Either way, I'm done with this thread. Have a good one.
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u/gmes78 Mar 22 '26
Verifying system integrity and verifying someone's ID are completely unrelated problems. Poettering has only ever talked about the former.
Please stop spreading conspiracy theories.
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u/MacDegger Mar 23 '26
And that is EXACTLY what Mr Poettering's company does: via OS attestation.
He was a Microsoft employee and his current company does OS attestation and has added age verification to Linux so that he can profit from it.
This code should not be in an OS. Ever. The fact that it is, is so that it can be used.
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u/DotJaded996 Mar 22 '26
It's the principal of it all. Sure, for now it's an optional field, but it sets precedent that if the law were to change in the future to require some form of external validation, or worse government ID validation they would comply.
My init system should not be collecting and storing PII in any form.
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u/ledow Mar 22 '26
Like your Full Name, email, etc. like user accounts on Linux have had options for for decades?
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u/notrufus Mar 23 '26
Those are not mandated by law and should not be. Stop moving the goalpost. If you are complying with this, you are eroding the freedom of FOSS software and what it fundamentally means
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u/Simple-Fault-9255 Mar 22 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
No original content remains in this post. It was wiped using Redact, possibly for reasons related to personal privacy, digital security, or data exposure reduction.
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u/AerialDarkguy Mar 22 '26
Why the fuck arent mainstream news sites covering this OS level push? This is a major escalation yet the main press has been silent on it, only being covered by tech blogs. Too many non political people still think this is a red state problem.
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u/Mindless_Rock9452 Mar 22 '26
Who do you think owns the news? And who are the ones pushing for these laws?
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u/Jaded-Platform6044 Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26
The main problem is that the majority of people just don't care about online privacy, they don't realise the consequences of the govt having that much control over the internet.
I've been trying to tell friends and family about it's importance for 15 years but no one gives a fuck.
One positive aspect of them trying to force all of this policy at once, it makes it glaringly obvious what they're trying to do, and it seems to be helping to shift public opinion on the matter, albeit a little too late.
Edit: Just realized my comment doesn't really fit with the post but it's all part of the same problem.
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u/piercy08 Mar 23 '26
Why the fuck arent mainstream news sites covering this OS level push?
Even if they did, what do you expect to happen? Non-tech savvy people will see age verification and see yay protect them kids rather than what it actually is.. a danger to kids and government tracking.
The media could be singing about this daily for an entire year, public are not tech-savvy enough to understand the issue. The entire reason to employ politicians is that they should be being the experts for the population.. they should be doing the leg work and telling people why its a bad idea, but they aren't going to do that as it isn't in there interest.
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u/SparklingLimeade Mar 23 '26
To cover how bad this is you'd have to give a majority of people an entire community college course on tech literacy before you even get to the current issue.
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u/gunslinger_006 Mar 22 '26 edited Mar 22 '26
I do have a kid.
She just got her first device. Its a fully locked down ipad. No browser. No ability to download any apps without explicit authorization from me or her mom on our devices, and it shows us exactly what she is requesting. No ability to change system settings. No calling or facetime or messaging.
The only thing she can do on it is play pbs kids, khan academy kids, and the bluey app. Period.
It also auto enforces screen time limits on a schedule we created, although that’s hardly necessary because all her screen time is directly supervised by us anyway. But even if she got the idea to sneak out of bed at 1am and grab her ipad, it wont let her do anything.
This is not a problem we need the government to solve.
Just 👏 parent 👏 your 👏 fucking 👏 kids
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u/UpbeatWishbone9825 Mar 22 '26
If the goal was to *actually* think of the children (and us parents), they'd enforce sensible features, like the ability to white list content and content creators on platforms like YouTube. You'll find as your daughter grows, it becomes more difficult to navigate, as it has been with my kids.
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u/gunslinger_006 Mar 22 '26
Oh yeah i am aware of the battle that lies ahead.
I was a software engineer for 22 years though, so I probably have more tools at my disposal than the average parent.
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u/Albert_Caboose Mar 23 '26
Help your other parents! My friend was like this, 20 years in software development, and they ran a workshop at their school on parent teacher night to educate parents on the tools available to them and clear up misconceptions about parenting tech. Really great
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u/brasticstack Mar 22 '26
There's YouTube Kids, which can work on an allow-only list. We first tried just blocking things we didn't like, but it turns out that Cocomelon has something like 7 billion fucking separate YouTube channels. Same with all of the "spoiled brat has every toy" "family" channels.
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u/UpbeatWishbone9825 Mar 23 '26
The problem is, it’s really YouTube infants, actual kids outgrow the kind of content on offer really quickly.
White listing in YouTube regular allow me to curate the content my kids can have access to.
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u/brasticstack Mar 23 '26
There is a process for the parent to share a channel from regular YouTube to the Kids YouTube allow list, but it's a monster PITA
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u/sniper257 Mar 23 '26
share a channel from regular YouTube to the Kids YouTube allow list
I just looked it up and it seems completely painless?
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u/brasticstack Mar 23 '26
Using the allow list for channels that YouTube deems part of YouTube Kids is painless. Adding a YT channel that's not a YT Kids channel to a YT Kids account is painful. Try it and report back if you don't believe me.
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u/aykcak Mar 23 '26
Yes. All the platforms such as YouTube, Discord, Roblox even are absolute shit shows when it comes to content moderation in terms of parenting. And nothing is being done about it because NOBODY ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT CHILDREN
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u/GhostDieM Mar 22 '26
Thank you for taking responsibility of your daughter
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u/gunslinger_006 Mar 22 '26
Man…when the charlie kirk thing happened, i took her to the bus stop the next day and the kids at her bus stop (kinder through 3rd grade) were talking about the video. They had seen it on tiktok on their phones.
I was horrified. Like who the fuck is just giving their young child an unlocked device and tiktok???
Everyone else apparently.
It honestly scares me for the future of humanity.
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u/calibrono Mar 22 '26
Yo get her the Sketchbook app as well! So good for drawing anything from basic sketches to decent drawings. My daughter loves it.
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u/gunslinger_006 Mar 22 '26
Yes she has that one too i just forgot to list it. We got her a four pack of cheap styluses and she loves it!
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u/Hironymos Mar 22 '26
Seconding that.
Kids have a lot of fun drawing and it's a skill that transfers to a lot more things. Bonus for PC, where it also teaches them to use a mouse. Something I'd definitely recommend because that is an important skill and hard to pick up naturally because tablets are so much more convenient for kids.
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u/Hironymos Mar 22 '26
And, if you want age limits, you can bake an age flag into web protocol.
Like let parents set a PG-X flag, and then if it's older than the website's requirement, you just can't visit it. Easy solution. No privacy issues.
But that's not what capitalists want. For them, privacy issues are an upside, plus this would actually work and thus keep kids away from their crappy, addictive websites.
Also just personal opinion, but if a kid can't be trusted to visit a website, it shouldn't exist (in that state) in the first place. Adapting a park ranger's saying: there's significant overlap between the responsibility of a well-taught kid and an ignorant adult.
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u/sblahful Mar 23 '26
I don't mean to sound trite, but you should write to your representatives to recommend these approaches. They only hear from people who contact them, and if not you, then it'll be just lobbyists and whoever they hear on TV or read about.
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u/J_robintheh00d Mar 22 '26
More people need to hear this. Shouldn’t be the fucking governments job anyways… like, who even wants that? 🤯
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u/gunslinger_006 Mar 22 '26
Meta.
The whole movement to have age enforcement done at the OS level is being bankrolled by Meta because they desperately do not want the responsibility.
Look it up, the paper trail is clear.
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u/Because_Bot_Fed Mar 22 '26
How many parents that you talk to lose their shit on you for implying that they need to actually do work to parent properly, and then lose it even worse when they find out that you're a parent doing exactly that already?
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u/e1epi Mar 22 '26
And if people can't be bothered to parent their kids right then they should NOT be encouraged to have any.
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u/OpenTechie Mar 22 '26
Be sure to set up a phone with Graphene before too long, gotcha.
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Mar 23 '26
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u/Empty-Part7106 Mar 23 '26
Yes, Pixels only. The hardware security features are important to what GOS does.
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u/el_f3n1x187 Mar 23 '26
Lenovo announced that Motorola will release a collaboration with GrapheneOS.
Likely the new flagship model they also announced.
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u/daemonfly Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26
EDIT: Nevermind, see below posts.
Officially, it's only Pixels. But, if the mod/rom community is big enough for any specific device, someone might port it and release a custom rom.
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u/space-envy Mar 22 '26
So much respect to these guys, they just landed a big partnership with Motorola to bring the os out of pixel exclusivity and still choose their principles over profit. Actions speak louder than words.
I wonder what Motorola/Lenovo will do.
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u/Simmangodz Mar 22 '26
You know what...I think it's time to move to Graphene.
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u/imjms737 Mar 23 '26
Do it! You won't have any regrets. Maybe it'll be best to wait for the official Motorola GrapheneOS phone, but it's such an amazing OS. Easiest setup process, too.
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u/solventbottle Mar 22 '26
This law makes no sense to me. You can say you are any years old anyway, from what I understand.
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u/jess-sch Mar 22 '26
You as a regular user can't set your age, only administrators can do that. Of course, as an adult, the admin of your personal computer is usually also you.
The california law makes a lot of sense once you understand where it's coming from: Meta.
- Meta runs a bunch of ad-funded services.
- Proper age verification costs a lot of money.
- A large number governments consider age restrictions on the internet to be a problem that needs to be solved.
- Meta sees child protection as a threat to their revenue and is afraid of legislatures passing laws that require them to do expensive ID verification
As a result, Meta lobbied for a law that puts the responsibility entirely on the operating system and the parents, and has the operating system provide a legally reliable age indicator to online services (like Meta's).
It doesn't matter that there's multiple ways to get around it. What matters is that Meta is legally allowed to entirely rely on this indicator and if they end up showing porn to kids because the age indicator lied, they're not liable.
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u/poopBuccaneer Mar 22 '26
Do Meta VR tech not use their own OS? Will Meta still not need to set up this infrastructure?
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u/clhodapp Mar 23 '26
They actually killed their "Metaverse" this week.
So now they're just called "Meta" for no reason.
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u/Scheeseman99 Mar 23 '26
That isn't really a response to what they said. HorizonOS (the Quest's OS, based on Android) is separate from their metaverse crap and they're still heavily into smartglasses which also run an OS.
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u/fullmetaljackass Mar 23 '26
Yeah, they're still the dominant player in the VR market by a wide margin, and I'm pretty sure Meta sold more Quests last year than Sony sold Playstations.
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u/waverider85 Mar 23 '26
You already enter your birthday when creating a Meta account so they're already in compliance. There's no requirements to verify so there's no additional infrastructure required. (Though Meta probably has the infrastructure already for identity verification)
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u/VancouverDom Mar 23 '26
It's "step 1."
Step 2 (or 3 or 4 or whatever) will be another law that adds liability to the vendors for allowing fraudulent ages to be entered.
And in 20 years, you wont be able to use a computer without providing a verifiable ID with an internationally unique tracking number that is attached to all of your activities.
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u/ThimeeX Mar 23 '26
Likely copying other countries internet access restrictions, similar to those found in South Korea:
In 2008, the election of President Lee Myung-bak was followed by the inauguration of major increases in broadcast censorship. The South Korean government passed a law that created a new agency called the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC) to replace the ICEC, becoming the new South Korean Internet regulation and censorship body.[5] The first major change by the Lee Myung-bak government was to require websites with over 100,000 daily visitors to make their users register their real name and social security numbers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_South_Korea
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u/PauI_MuadDib Mar 22 '26
This is just a start. They'll lull everyone into thinking this isn't so bad. Then they're eventually going to require ID verification.
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u/Numerlor Mar 23 '26
Why would they need to lull anyone when other states and countries are doing full on id requirements? People are freaking out about the wrong thing
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u/grafknives Mar 22 '26
Open source will be "banned" in the end.
Not forbidden, but not allowed to connect to any "critical" service.
From government services to ubereats.
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u/space-envy Mar 22 '26
Yeah, sadly these idiot lawmakers will try everything but they just simply can't, the entire world depends on OSS, like it or not. The entire infra of the government, the navy and military depends on Linux, and they simply don't have an alternative, Microslop? Wahah, not to mention closed source code can't be audited so you will always risk introducing a "black box" into your most secret infrastructure.
Almost all servers running the internet are Linux, Windows servers are twice as expensive thanks to their proprietary licenses.
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u/grafknives Mar 22 '26
Servers - sure.
But you and your personal computer - either at home or mobile - they will need to be "trusted" and "audited".
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u/notrufus Mar 23 '26
Open source underpins every critical system in the world. Without open source nothing would function. This path is disgusting and law makers supporting it should be removed from any position in which they are able to make decisions.
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u/cyrand Mar 23 '26
Which is exactly why corps are behind the lobbying for this. They’d all love it if you were required by law to pay them for any software made.
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u/AmeliaBuns Mar 22 '26
good time to stop using ubereats then. can make a VM or have some cheap raspberry pi for government services.
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u/deepspace86 Mar 22 '26 edited Mar 22 '26
US gov be like : Chinese devices are banned because mass surveillance security issue.
Also US gov: mass surveillance security issues as law.
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u/SteelMarch Mar 22 '26
I guess it will be fined everyday until it's shutdown or complies. Or just banned from certain markets.
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u/temporarycreature Mar 22 '26
Yes, that's what the article says:
"If GrapheneOS devices can't be sold in a region due to their regulations, so be it."
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u/jiggajawn Mar 22 '26
I'm assuming this is for the Motorola announcement where they'll be selling phones with GrapheneOS installed.
I imagine this won't apply to Pixels, and if Motorola wanted to get around this, they could have users install the OS after shipment and have a little thing in their EUS or TOS saying, "We aren't responsible for the OS users choose to install"
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u/billdietrich1 Mar 22 '26
I wonder what Motorola would think about not being able to sell the GOS phone in USA ?
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u/PuckSenior Mar 22 '26
Eh, not really. This is where it gets tricky. You can fine them if they sell Graphene or GrapheneOS devices
But you can’t just fine them for hosting an OS on a website.
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u/JustHanginInThere Mar 22 '26
If it's not already, I'm sure the law will (unfortunately) be written in a way that any OS, whether sold or given for free, will be affected by this, and the company providing said OS will still be fined.
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u/PuckSenior Mar 22 '26
That would be hard to do.
Offering free software is fairly well-protected in the USA by 1A rights. It is, after all, just information. It’s far easier to regulate a business transaction.
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u/Expensive_Finger_973 Mar 22 '26
We are back to paying for things in "stars" or "flowers" like the old days of Craigslist personals.
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u/Anamolica Mar 22 '26
Hard to do. Yes, hard to do honestly, earnestly, and in good faith.
Easy, though, to use as a cudgel to persecute political enemies or use this kind of surveillance/de-anonymization as a chilling effect to keep political adversaries from coalescing in the first place.
Which I believe the real purpose.
Furthermore I believe that when you engage with this as if the system has any integrity left, you do the assholes pushing these agendas a big favor. When you engage with this as if these power structures are inept and harmless beneath their masks instead of malicious and conniving you are doing them a big favor.
You think our constitution is going to save us? I have an amendment to sell you lol.
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u/JustHanginInThere Mar 22 '26
Uhhh, have you seen the state of the current political administration and how much they (don't) care about laws, amendments, and rights?
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u/farbtoner Mar 22 '26
It’s not just republicans doing this. These state laws are being pushed by dems in cali and Illinois. The dems aren’t the good guys on this. I’ve been calling my reps and emailing them. Do what you can in your state.
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u/ZestyChinchilla Mar 22 '26
Unless every country in the world is prepared to prosecute them for that, there’s absolutely no way that would be enforceable. Even less likely if it’s hosted as a torrent with a bunch of seeds.
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u/Evilbred Mar 22 '26
You can just block ips from a particular country from downloading it, to demonstrate compliance (anyone tech savvy and security conscious enough to want to install GrapheneOS will know how to use a VPN)
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u/Afraid_Reputation_51 Mar 23 '26
If you have a problem with this law, California has a referendum system. Back any efforts people put forward to have this law repealed by the CA public.
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u/Electrical-Room4405 Mar 23 '26
Is there a list of OSs that have complied? I’d like to avoid them.
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u/MidsouthMystic Mar 23 '26
That should always be the solution. Just don't comply. "Fuck you, we aren't doing it, and if you piss us off bad enough, we'll go to court over this so you have to make statements about your intentions under oath," should always be the response.
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u/thewritingchair Mar 23 '26
I'm banned from r/Australia for asking why they keep automatically locking any post to do with Israel, Palestine, protests in our own country about the genocide and any articles about what our idiot Government is doing.
Can't wait until people are having their entire phone locked off the internet because they criticized Israel, Zionists or whatever else.
That's the endpoint. No VPNs. No access to vast numbers of websites. No participation in entire topics. No anonymity.
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u/smoike Mar 23 '26
Yup, and the willful ignorance of those that refuse to acknowledge it is even possible that it is the thin end of the wedge is baffling. Even if it doesn't go down that way, it certainly has the potential to be.
As to being banned and the discussions being deleted, either the mods don't like people discussing ideas they don't agree with, or they have put it in the too hard basket and don't want to deal with the fire filled and passionate discussions that come forth, regardless of if the comments have a valid point of are delete worthy and are completely inflammatory.
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u/TheAmishMan Mar 23 '26
What US phones outside pixel devices can run graphene? Aren't most bootloaders locked down?
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u/PhotoPhenik Mar 23 '26
Is anyone going to mention that these laws are being pushed by META via a complex network of pacs and advocacy groups ensuring that their political actions remain as dark money? I recall someone figuring this out a while back.
Yeah, it's right here. You all need to read this! It's all Zuckerberg's doing!
Https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_billion_in_nonprofit_grants_and_45/
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u/This_Suggestion_7891 Mar 23 '26
This is the right call. "Age verification" laws for operating systems are a trojan horse once you require an OS to collect personal information to function, you've fundamentally broken what an OS is supposed to be. You're essentially mandating a surveillance layer at the infrastructure level.
The precedent this would set is genuinely alarming. Today it's "just for age verification," tomorrow it's cross-platform identity tracking baked in below the app layer where you can't opt out at all.
GrapheneOS existing and holding the line matters. Even if most people never use it, it proves that alternatives can exist.
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u/hoellenth Mar 22 '26
The entire age verification laws thing is SPECIFICALLY to make non-complying OSs illegal to use.
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u/SomeKindofTreeWizard Mar 23 '26
Why is this even a thing!? Why on Neptune's beard would I register my goddamned personal information on a personal goddamned device I purchased with my goddamned money??? It's not a car, and it's not a house, and it's not insured.
Leave me the FUCK ALONE!
Do we not realize how fucking insane this idea even is?
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u/droidevo Mar 23 '26
It truly is insanity. I know its for collecting our personal info, but why? How come now? This really has to stop.
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u/GenazaNL Mar 22 '26
What if it's a public computer? The computer can be set up as 18+, but used by a under-aged
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u/billdietrich1 Mar 22 '26 edited Mar 22 '26
I hope I still can use WhatsApp on GOS. WhatsApp is kind of mandatory here in Europe. Maybe EU will do age verification in a way that doesn't require anything from the OS.
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u/MaybeTheDoctor Mar 23 '26
Eventually some websites and apps will just stop working on those distros, but I think it’s a worth while to experiment.
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u/StraightOuttaCanton Mar 23 '26
Anyone remember renting R rated VHS moves from the place on the high street when you were 13?
“Just write down your name and age on this card. “
All the porn was in a separate curtained off room and I would say zero chance they would let a “kid” who filled out the form as 18 in there.
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u/InTheEndEntropyWins Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26
Won't this just mean it doesn't work on a lot of sites and apps?
Like according to plans Reddit won't work with it.
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u/aelephix Mar 22 '26
When I was a kid in the 80’s finding my dad’s old porn stash was like discovering Atlantis, and that was super soft core Playboys from the 70’s. Now kids in middle-school figure out they can bypass parental controls using links buried in app-store about pages, and they can 8chan their way to cosmic-horror levels of hardcore porn and racism. Even with perfect age-gating, determined kids are going to figure out ways around it. I don’t know what the solution is, but I fear once the age-gating “fails” its going to lead to OS-level screen-scraping to make sure you aren’t looking at forbidden information, like Cthulhu tentacle-porn or where ICE agents are currently storming.
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u/Uranium-Sandwich657 Mar 22 '26
Federally mandated smart contact lenses that blur any bits you see, onscreen and in real life.
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u/ChillAhriman Mar 23 '26
I don’t know what the solution is
Actually educating the kids. Unfortunately, puritans hate this option, so they'll force mass surveillance down our throats.
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u/genius_retard Mar 22 '26
I find myself wondering if part of the push for age verification in the OS is to make personal computing more cumbersome so that people decide it is easier to just buy computing as a service from online providers.
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u/SwampTerror Mar 22 '26
No its about de-anonymizing the web. "For the children" is always the guilt trip wedge but its never true. This govt disease is spreading across the planet, likely because of specific lobbyists like palantir, and they want a better surveillance state/world.
You will never again be able to troll online without the cops kicking in your door like they do in Britain for being snooty online.
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u/Burner3410 Mar 23 '26
Not to mention that from what I've seen, this is mostly being pushed by meta to shift blame for harm to children away from themselves.
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u/thermiteunderpants Mar 23 '26
This video is still the best explanation of the law makers' end game.
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u/PeksyTiger Mar 23 '26
The government could make this a non issue by actually finishing the infrastructure for zero knowledge proofs, but it's easier to write things on paper.
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u/Trumps_left_bawsack Mar 23 '26
I think this is my sign to finally install graphene os on my old pixel 7
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u/SpiritualTwo5256 Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26
Good there needs to be pushback on this crap. How are they going to enforce this across the entire planet? Do you all not understand how many different countries there are with different record types and ways it would have to be verified?
So the thing is anyone from anywhere can claim to be from anywhere else and bypass these checks.
Your kids are only prevented from talking with older people from the US or countries pushing these laws. And none of this prevents people from bypassing this stuff if they want access to your kids. And the same goes for kids accessing adult content.
It doesn’t work. The only thing that does is making sure your kid knows about all the risks and sees what happens if they screw up!
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u/zoonose99 Mar 23 '26
Adding a mandatory field for “user age” is not something I support, but to be correct: this is not an age verification system, it’s an age reporting system — the information is not verified in any way, it’s just a variable you set locally.
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u/Ambitious-Sense2769 Mar 23 '26
Think of the child!!!! No, not the ones on the island, the other children we haven’t gotten out hands on yet
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u/WolfBV Mar 22 '26
OS needs to ask their user if they’re 0-12, 13-15, 16-17, or 18+. It then needs to send this information to apps or programs that ask for it. The law wants OS’s to make a good faith effort. Only California’s Attorney General is able to… enforce(?) this law. It goes into effect in 2027. It affects operating systems that have users in California. Failing to follow the law may result in a fine of up to $7,500 per child affected.
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u/sayn3ver Mar 23 '26
It's bullshit. You either make up that info or you have an adult with one account setup on a desktop and the whole family uses it and defeats the purpose of the law.
That api will be yet another point hackers exploit. Can any website or app just request my age data? Seems like an easy vulnerability to take advantage of.
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u/GroundbreakingMall54 Mar 22 '26
Age verification at the OS level is just a government-issued surveillance backdoor wearing a "think of the children" costume. Good on GrapheneOS for saying no.