Mastodawn

RE: https://social.treehouse.systems/@wwahammy/116264430375745593

US government in 1996: strong encryption is a munition and you can go to prison for years if you export

FOSS engineers: hey so only use this if you're in the US but we'll give instructions for how to do it otherwise 😉

California in 2026: we're passing a law that allows the AG to sue OS providers in civil court if they don't implement age verification in order to restrict Apple, Google, Facebook and the worst companies in the world.

FOSS Engineers: OMG THEY MIGHT COME AFTER OUR LINUX LAPTOP VENDORS WHO HAVE LIKE 3 TOTAL CUSTOMERS WE SHOULD HAVE IMPLEMENTED AGE GATING YESTERDAY I PROMISE WE'RE NOT CHALLENGING YOUR AUTHORITY GOVERNOR NEWSOM

Eric Schultz 2d ago

And to be clear, I'm old enough to remember when strong encryption was a munitions, I'm speaking about these actions from first hand and near-first hand knowledge

Aslak Raanes 2d ago

@wwahammy There where books with source code https://www.amazon.com/PGP-Internals-Philip-R-Zimmermann/dp/0262240394 to circumvent export restrictions.

Pgp: Source Code and Internals: 9780262240390: Computer Science Books @ Amazon.com

Pgp: Source Code and Internals: 9780262240390: Computer Science Books @ Amazon.com

Si Dawson 2d ago

@wwahammy That was the one tattoo I've seriously considered getting.

@sidawson @wwahammy my Canadian University's Computer Club had t-shirts made 😅

@wwahammy the old encryption export controls are exactly what this age verification stuff made me think of too

@wwahammy wait, like actual war material?

Monokeros 2d ago

@wwahammy My signed copy of Applied Crypto agrees with you

Tilton Raccoon 2d ago

@wwahammy Yeah, I started my career in 1995 and this is accurate. We never used to be this obsequious.

Philip Mallegol-Hansen 2d ago

@wwahammy When I started at Google in 2016 I had to sign a bunch of export control paperwork because I *might* be able to find some encryption algorithm somewhere in the VCS I guess.

Esme Povirk 2d ago

@wwahammy To me, age verification means someone actually checks. AFAICT this leaves it entirely up to whoever configures/admins the device. Which still sucks, but I feel like this puts it more on par with the thing where websites ask for your birthdate and all it does is teach kids to lie about their birthdates.

Strategically, I'm not sure where I should fall on this, because while it's just as ineffective and misguided, it avoids some of the worst harms and might displace more harmful laws.

Dogiedog64 2d ago

They can pry my age data from my fucking corpse at this rate. I ain't giving it up for this shit. Fuck 'em.

Eric Schultz 2d ago

@dogiedog64 I agree. But no Linux desktop user should ever be asked that and have it used against them to use Linux.

Wulfy—Speaker to the machines 2d ago

NAME AND SHAME
These so called "#FOSS" developers

silverwizard 2d ago

@n_dimension @wwahammy github.com/systemd/systemd/pul… it's really bad

userdb: add birthDate field to JSON user records by dylanmtaylor · Pull Request #40954 · systemd/systemd

Stores the user's birth date for age verification, as required by recent laws in California (AB-1043), Colorado (SB26-051), Brazil (Lei 15.211/2025), etc. The xdg-desktop-portal project is addi...

GitHub

Si Dawson 2d ago

@wwahammy This seems VERY suspicious, to me. (see, eg those doge asshole kids)

@wwahammy I still don't understand how the flawed assumptions are supposed to be handled. And they're basic. What age is a web server OS install going to enter when they have no direct human user, just system accounts? What age is expected to be entered for multi-user systems, especially when users have differing ages? None of this makes sense.

Eric Schultz 2d ago

@r0k the dipshit governor brought some of this up when he signed the bill. No one has a fucking clue, it it will have to be amended which everything I've heard is that it will be. And there's still going to be many lawsuits.

@wwahammy yeah, I don't understand the concept of signing a bill into law while saying it needs to be amended before the law goes into effect. That's the kind of thing you do while it's a bill before it turns into law. They're all inept and Meta is pulling the strings.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_billion_in_nonprofit_grants_and_45/

Eric Schultz 2d ago

@r0k in the totally craven sense, the law passed unanimously so there's no gain for him to veto the law and get attacked for "not protecting the kids!" if it's just going to go into effect anyways.

I don't agree with his decision but that's probably why.

Mr. Kane 2d ago

@wwahammy ffffuck no to this

@wwahammy I still want to know what age one should put for “root”?

Eric Schultz 2d ago

@revk that is a good point, there's no exemption for root.

@wwahammy 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC

Eric Schultz 2d ago

@revk totally. But technically, the system should probably ask what root's age is on first boot.

@wwahammy are any of the devs even in California?

I remember illegal numbers (it was not that long ago actually) when people went out of their way to meme in the face of law.

@pointlessone i get the impression these are corporate devs astroturfing

and this highlights exactly why FOSS and capitalism are incompatible

because there is no Freedom under capitalism

Cassandrich 1d ago

@bweller @pointlessone @wwahammy The guy who did these PRs looks like he's trying to get hired by DOGE 2.0.

bimbo savant (cow arc)2d ago

@wwahammy lots of "reasonable people" just following orders 🙄

@wwahammy For real, sometimes I wonder if there is a chunck of FOSS dev that came from Windows world and never left behind that mindset.
I look at you, Red Hat...

Unfortunately, without extra workforce would be hard keep up with the projects either... hmmm.

Cassandrich 1d ago

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@dalias/115010611094788311

@iswyrm @wwahammy There absolutely are and that's where almost everything wrong comes from. I've been saying this for at least 2 decades.

Cassandrich 1d ago

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@dalias/115010632923848294

@iswyrm @wwahammy Like,

@dalias @wwahammy The usrmerge matter already made me wonder "did we had not standards about what was supposed to use directories inside root"? 🤔
They had to clean up because a lot of people gone "fuck that, I go Yolo" without thinking to much why this structure was there first...

Li ~ Crystal System 2d ago

@wwahammy @wizzwizz4 more vlc media player shipping deCSS so you can fucking play DVDs on linux and less "but its illegal!!!11 i have to let the state control my every action forever before they even ask me too" .. ugh

Moses Izumi 1d ago

@wwahammy
>OMG THEY MIGHT COME AFTER OUR LINUX LAPTOP VENDORS WHO HAVE LIKE 3 TOTAL CUSTOMER
They'd probably have more if they built their things around coreboot-compatible ITX boards, instead of just rebadging Clevo and Tongfang's stuff.

(same goes for the hucksters at Framework, along with the used car salesman known as Purism)

Moses Izumi 1d ago

@wwahammy
(point is that FOSS is supposed to be an outlet for the ideas that Big Tech is too conformist/captured/straight-up calcified to work with)

Ratsnake Games 🔞1d ago

@wwahammy the infrastructure for enforcing the law on the internet has scaled up *a lot* during those last 30 years, i'm afraid

pancakes🔜Bed 1d ago

@wwahammy at least theyre making public records of their collaboration for when this is all over

@wwahammy Yeah, "don't comply in advance of being threatened" is apparently not a rule some people have ever encountered.