Think of the Children

[bvdw78]

How is an OS going to be airtight about age verification without it having a fully cryptographically "tamper-proof" path from firmware through to the running kernel? If you're allowed to download, modify and run your modified OS, you're able to neuter the age verification code with probably no more than a single well-aimed line of code.

In an optimistic case that would mean you get FreeBSD, that'll be attested and signed by the powers that be so you can use it to access.. let's say.. certain nature/lifestyle documentary films that require the viewer to be of a certain vintage.

And then there's the OS I compiled from the sources of FreeBSD plus a small tweak, that won't let me do that. And it's not just those films. Banking, shopping, any form of online interaction with any kind of "credible" institution really. It's the kind of foot that instantly breaks the whole door down. I dislike it intensely.

 

[cracauer@]

How is an OS going to be airtight about age verification without it having a fully cryptographically "tamper-proof" path from firmware through to the running kernel?

Right now the age restrictions only kick in for non-root users that have their accounts set up by an adult root user. So you don't have to have an immutable OS.

Of course the local privilege escalation security bugs and the smartness of some young people will get in the way here.

 

[T-Aoki]

I think age verification on OS level is just a harm, unless using OS-side accounts are LEGALLY MANDATED TO BE USED FOR SERVICES RUNNING ON IT.

Otherwise, it's 100% (not lim 100%!) meaningless, as services can be constructed to run as its specific account (per service!) and manage users' accounts by itself, completely unrelated with OS-side accounts.

Age verifications on OS-side accounts CANNOT SAVE CHILDREN, just harms.

 

[hedwards]

All of the AV legislation seems to revolve around the idea of an "app store" being the only model.

Lennart Poettering's new company which claims to be "Bringing determinism and verifiable integrity to Linux systems" is all about verified, attested, whatever you want to call it...

It has been speculated to be just a Microsoft spin off, perhaps due to the numbers of ex Microsofters involved.

Ubuntu, as he points out at the foot of the article, has been working to produce an Apple style "user experience" for many years. Many of these want to remain relevant, perhaps the can smell what's coming...

That's only because even he can't figure out how to get Wayland working well enough to integrate into systemd. Everybody reaches their limit eventually.

It's really well past time that we stopped society in general to raise the children. Some things are just not worth childproofing. I remember when I went online the first time myself that it was pretty much assumed that everybody was either a pedo or FBI, neither of whom were really safe to interact with if you could help it. And that hasn't really changed that much, but somehow people like to pretend like the net is safer now. That being said, I think the risk of anything happening was and is pretty low, as long as you don't do anything stupid and the stupidest stuff seems to do seems to be put online by and for teens, so I'm not sure what the age gates would really even accomplish.

 

[astyle]

In an optimistic case that would mean you get FreeBSD, that'll be attested and signed by the powers that be so you can use it to access.. let's say.. certain nature/lifestyle documentary films that require the viewer to be of a certain vintage.

Optimistic? it's already reality on Windows AND Open Source Operating Systems. Never tried bittorrent on Macs (because I don't use Macs), but I know that uTorrent is available for MacOS...