A small set of people are merging changes to various Linux components to make sure every application knows your birth date.

[goss@c.im]

Lobby the fools that inflicted this on you

[gringlegrif@mstdn.ca]

@praetor @artemis @smn @wwahammy meta is the machine behind the curtain. They want an easier way to track people across the Internet to sell ads. For a few million dollars, they'll get it apparently...

[praetor@mstdn.social]

@gringlegrif @artemis @smn @wwahammy *sigh* I should have known. Only something this sleazy could come out of Mark Zuckerberg's office. Why can't hookers just come out of his office instead. It's always this bullshit.

[gringlegrif@mstdn.ca]

@praetor @artemis @smn @wwahammy someone on Reddit figured it out.

Reddit User Uncovers Who Is Behind Meta’s $2B Lobbying for Invasive Age Verification Tech https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/reddit-user-uncovers-behind-meta-154717384.html

[praetor@mstdn.social]

@gringlegrif @artemis @smn @wwahammy Well, if Europe (as usual always the over-acheivers...can't wait till I move to Norway) has zero knowledge identification technology, and Meta is behind this not wanting that...pretty easy to surmise why they want it. I fucking hate advertisers and marketers. I really, really do. We used to beat up the marketing kids in college.

[gullevek@famichiki.jp]

@wwahammy @jwz In my life time we went from no computers to computers for everyone to tech lord controlled you don’t own anything but must rent everything way too fast. This is all fucking bullshit

[powerfromspace1@mstdn.social]

@wwahammy Yikes these public safety types are going to far

[praetor@mstdn.social]

@gringlegrif @artemis @smn @wwahammy I don't know how old you all are, but when they released Windows XP with the call-home feature...people started pirating Server 2003 that didn't have that. Could run games, etc. I'm a server dude, this can't be put into server OSes. it would never pass a whole slew of regulatory requirements for server operating systems. I'd start calling my laptop a server

[mahadevank@mastodon.social]

@wwahammy apart from security fixes I don't see any earth-shattering reason to improve these modules, so is a security-fix only maintainable version possible?

[wwahammy@social.treehouse.systems]

@mahadevank sure, anything is possible.

[lispi314@udongein.xyz]

@Spirit @wwahammy Dylan sure glows

[wwahammy@social.treehouse.systems]

@lispi314 @Spirit I'm not sure I understand what you mean

[lispi314@udongein.xyz]

@wwahammy @Spirit That I'm accusing him of being part of a conspiracy with state surveillance?

Fed or friend of feds.

[wwahammy@social.treehouse.systems]

@lispi314 @Spirit I honestly doubt he is. I think he genuinely thinks he's protecting FOSS from being destroyed. He just doesn't see that he's doing just that.

[jnfrd@berlin.social]

@praetor @artemis @smn @wwahammy it’s not beyond stupid. It’s beyond evil.

This is not about kids. This is about total surveillance.

[wwahammy@social.treehouse.systems]

@jnfrd @praetor @artemis @smn it's definitely evil but I also think it's pretty stupid. These legislators basically created a mess with an impractical bill which literally every one them thought was cut and dry.

The result is the same, of course.

[tiotasram@kolektiva.social]

@ShadSterling @wwahammy @artemis @smn I actually think that the license change and/or a website note saying "don't download this if you're in $jurisdiction" is an excellent response.

It's not like CA or the UK or Brazil can actually police who downloads what OS, and it removes legal liability* from the distro without actually affecting access or changing the code to support surveillance. The distros *do* need a way to avoid legal liability.

If in the end this leads to a situation where most Linuxes are officially banned in most of the world but people routinely ignore that ban, that's a good thing actually because it trains people to ignore bad laws. If some jurisdictions escalate to more invasive measures that target users, that's where you'll actually find a political base to resist this.

* I'm not a lawyer, but I have seen decent-sized orgs go this route.

[praetor@mstdn.social]

@wwahammy @jnfrd @artemis @smn it's really both. And it's really not practical. Like, I've decided to go down memory lane and do some C stuff. I might write my own OS. Oh, C-27 now has age verification, fine..ASSEMBLER! Oh, that has age verification too. Well, it's masochism but raw instructions it is....on a fucking 486. These things never go well for the people wanting them. In my 25 year career...the nerds always win. Always.

[jnfrd@berlin.social]

@wwahammy @praetor @artemis @smn having unclear laws may sound stupid but they are the perfect weapon for the authorities. They can be used as a lever to destroy people and organizations opposing governments. Even if you win in court, you’ll have to waste huge resources to defend yourself, resources most people and organizations do not have.

[praetor@mstdn.social]

@jnfrd @wwahammy @artemis @smn I think there is a difference between nebulous and ridiculous. You can enforce nebulous. You can't enforce ridiculous.