The idea that one should be forced to verify one's age or identity to use one's own computer absolutely baffles me.
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Perhaps I am some kind of dangerous computer radical these days, thinking that one should be able to buy or make a computer, install one's choice of OSs and software, create a local user account, and get on with one's affairs, privately and without interference.
Quiet enjoyment of one's computer.
* No age or ID verification
* No jumping through hoops to install software, or third parties restricting the software that one can run
* No third party accounts
@neil only Linux, BSD and other FOSS offerings have this experience now, it seems — so that's like 90% of computer users being registered and tracked from their home computers, without even going into what happens on phones and other devices. I was also baffled when I briefly used Windows/MS Word on another computer and needed to log in with an email to leave margin notes as a different user. On LibreOffice I simply need to type in a different name in the setting, but on Word I had to log in through a remote server. Serious overkill.
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@Bishopjoey @jannem @slothrop @neil
The more the world shifts right, the harder I feel I need to push in the other direction.
Free healthcare, UBI, no billionaires...
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@neil I am very concearned about age verification on OS level thing thats on the talks lately. So i am NOT trying to under estimate this threath, ok. Still i have a total noob question here: how could that ever be enforcable?
Somodoby just goes "fuck that!" Makes a linux distro that does not ask any of that shit and puts it out for free.
How can this effect those users?
@Kantikainen @neil There have been death penalties for owning a radio receiver before.
Production of computer hardware is centralized; the network is owned by de facto monopolies everywhere. The present "the computer is the network" approach to nearly everything is extremely vulnerable to the people who own the wires deciding to say "nope".
E.g., you can't buy the hardware and you have to put up a ~half annual middle class salary bond to get a general purpose internet connection.
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@Tak Yes, computers.
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The idea that one should be forced to verify one's age or identity to use one's own computer absolutely baffles me.
@neil Build your own OS and no more verification. -
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The idea that one should be forced to verify one's age or identity to use one's own computer absolutely baffles me.
@neil Haha! got out before this gets a hellthread again! -
@neil Build your own OS and no more verification.
@zer0unplanned A practical suggestion, thanks!
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The idea that one should be forced to verify one's age or identity to use one's own computer absolutely baffles me.
@neil You'll have to prove your age to use DNS soon.
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@neil I have never used my full name when setting up my user on a personal Linux device.
I generally give computers hostnames that do not identify the devices type.
My email addresses to do not include my name nor parts of my name.
My online usernames are unique per site and do not contain references to my real name.
Not that this helps much with device fingerprinting as it is today but I feel I have to try to do something.
Every act of resistance counts.
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The idea that one should be forced to verify one's age or identity to use one's own computer absolutely baffles me.
Also, the assumption of only one user per device
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@RandyNose @neil @slothrop Speak for yourself, I just sound a bit nasal.
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Perhaps I am some kind of dangerous computer radical these days, thinking that one should be able to buy or make a computer, install one's choice of OSs and software, create a local user account, and get on with one's affairs, privately and without interference.
Quiet enjoyment of one's computer.
* No age or ID verification
* No jumping through hoops to install software, or third parties restricting the software that one can run
* No third party accounts
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@neil I do worry that we're seeing the beginning of the end of personal computing, in the sense of being able to own a machine that you control and that does your bidding.
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@hedders Exactly this.
Admittedly, Apple was perhaps already further down the "appliance, not computer" path with iOS than some others, but still...
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@neil I am very concearned about age verification on OS level thing thats on the talks lately. So i am NOT trying to under estimate this threath, ok. Still i have a total noob question here: how could that ever be enforcable?
Somodoby just goes "fuck that!" Makes a linux distro that does not ask any of that shit and puts it out for free.
How can this effect those users?
@Kantikainen @neil whatever you use you act on/in the web
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@jannem @neil @slothrop @dsc There’s a lot of it going about! The first version I ever saw was the one referred to here: From centre right to hard left Given the long-running trend of parties to the right, hard to believe there aren’t even older versions kicking around.

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