I’ve been posting this in other threads too and while the OS angle is huge, and worth picking a fight with, I haven’t seen any coverage over how this goes after developers too.

I think this is an attack on ALL open-source.

These bills are written by people who are clearly or maliciously tech illiterate and don’t understand either the terminology or the practical impacts. And of course it’s wrapped in ‘what about the children?!’

They include definitions like (paraphrasing; not quoting a specific bill, but New York, Colorado and California do this):

• “Application” is any software application that may be run on a user’s device – so … EVERYTHING.
• “Application Store” is any publicly accessible website or similar service that distributes applications – so … also everywhere, such as GitHub or GeoCities.
• “Developer” is a person who writes, creates or maintains an application – so if you have a github repo, or you’ve posted a binary or perhaps even a script somewhere recently, you’re a developer.

And then require both developers and operating system providers to handshake this age verification data or face financial ruin. I think the original intent or appearance of intent is that the store developer needs to do the handshake. I’m not a lawyer, but I can’t imagine these definitions aren’t vague enough that they can’t be weaponized against basically anything software.

I have a github account, and have contributed to “applications”. As I read them, these bills pose a serious threat to me if I continue to do so, as that makes me a “developer” and would need to ensure the things I contribute to are doing age verification – which I don’t want to do.

I think that even outside the surveillance aspect, the chilling effect of devs not publishing applications is the end-goal. Gatekeeping software to the big publishers who have both the capacity to follow the law and the lawyers/pockets to handle a suit. These laws are going to be like the DMCA 1201 language (which had much much more prose wrapped around it and was at least attempting to limit scope), which HAS been weaponized against solo devs trying to make the world better.

I fully expect some suit against multiple github repo owners on Jan 2, 2027.

I’ve emailed the office of Buffy Wicks, the author of the California bill, with similar details as the above. I haven’t yet identified the authors of the NY and CO bills, but I’m working on that too. If you live in one of these places, please contact your state officials and tell them this is a bad idea – and if you don’t live there, keep an eye on your state bills.

The OS angle is huge, and worth picking a fight with, but I haven’t seen any coverage over how this goes after developers too.

I think this is an attack on ALL open-source.

These bills are written by people who are clearly or maliciously tech illiterate and don’t understand either the terminology or the practical impacts. And of course it’s wrapped in ‘what about the children?!’

They include definitions like (paraphrasing; not quoting a specific bill, but New York, Colorado and California do this):

• “Application” is any software application that may be run on a user’s device – so … EVERYTHING.
• “Application Store” is any publicly accessible website or similar service that distributes applications – so … also everywhere, such as GitHub or GeoCities.
• “Developer” is a person who writes, creates or maintains an application – so if you have a github repo, or you’ve posted a binary or perhaps even a script somewhere recently, you’re a developer.

And then require both developers and operating system providers to handshake this age verification data or face financial ruin. I think the original intent or appearance of intent is that the store developer needs to do the handshake. I’m not a lawyer, but I can’t imagine these definitions aren’t vague enough that they can’t be weaponized against basically anything software.

I have a github account, and have contributed to “applications”. As I read them, these bills pose a serious threat to me if I continue to do so, as that makes me a “developer” and would need to ensure the things I contribute to are doing age verification – which I don’t want to do.

I think that even outside the surveillance aspect, the chilling effect of devs not publishing applications is the end-goal. Gatekeeping software to the big publishers who have both the capacity to follow the law and the lawyers/pockets to handle a suit. These laws are going to be like the DMCA 1201 language (which had much much more prose wrapped around it and was at least attempting to limit scope), which HAS been weaponized against solo devs trying to make the world better.

I fully expect some suit against multiple github repo owners on Jan 2, 2027.

It was 2002-ish.

A much younger korazail saw how my friends were leaving highschool, going to different colleges and foresaw they would continue to spread out after that.

He had an idea of building a website to help keep track of friends so we could keep in touch despite physical distance and enable networking; a blend of Facebook and LinkedIn.

I was a CS major and built a forum and database architecture that my local friend group used for a little bit to chat, but we were all still mostly local and it didn’t seem super useful, and while always on Internet was a thing, I didn’t have it and my server needed to be online to use my application.

A few years later, Facebook.

I wonder sometimes how the world would be if I’d promoted my idea, figured out how to host it outside my bedroom, etc. I might have also just been a Myspace or live journal, but maybe I’d have gotten there first…

I don’t think I’d be a megalomanic asshole, but I can’t prove it.

Tiny caveat: If the “windows tax” is less than the cost of building the device by parts – which it might be – then buying a new XBox Series X 360 Box X Box 360 One and installing linux on it might be a cost savings for a consumer… assuming no signed OS fuckery.

I’d wager that women are taught to be aware of their surroundings for safety and men just don’t ever get told, so unless there’s an experience that teaches them, they tunnel vision.

Teaching situational awareness seems to be something that is lacking. Similar to critical thinking, I believe that there are skills we sometimes just don’t get taught by our parents or natural experiences. These are things we hopefully learn over time, but having them called out while we develop isn’t happening (I blame screens, but it’s nuanced).

I tend to monologue to my kids when doing routine things, like loading the dishwasher (There’s a big bowl over there that I need to save room for…) or driving (I can see a car on the on-ramp, it will want to be where I am in a few seconds, so I’m adjusting my speed); just pointing out things around me that have either a real impact or a potential one and why those items came to my attention.

The fun part is that these cameras are not owned, operated or property of your local jurisdiction. They are hardware/software as a service. IANAL, but I think Flock would have to sue you.

I have not personally de-flocked anything, but my local area doesn’t have any that aren’t tied to a business parking lot.

If some show up, I can’t imagine a 5 minute walk with a hat, face mask and a can of spraypaint wouldn’t be sufficient to disable one without risk. Might need a stool.

When I was a kiddo in the 80s, pistachios and other shelled nuts were commonly a winter holiday thing and I rarely ate whole nuts otherwise. I think peanuts, almonds and cashews are the exceptions, but they were almost always without shell. It’s been a few decades, but I remember having red and green (default, I guess, but maybe dyed green as well?) pistachios at Christmas and having to fight with the shells to get them out. They were the tastiest and I didn’t care much for walnuts, chestnuts or pecans.

Searching about ‘red pistachios’ also suggests it was a way to hide lower quality nuts. I’m not fully convinced about that, though, because I remember red dyed things tasting terrible as a kid. I don’t think most modern red food coloring tastes bad, but it used to. The amount of dye that made it on to the edible portion may not have affected the nut’s flavor too much, though.

All that to say: It could have been a marketing gimmick?

I agree that technically, this is almost impossible to implement. To begin with, traffic can be tunneled through a variety of protocols. I used to evade my school’s filtering by tunneling over https, which was a form of VPN for the purposes of this discussion. It would be a game of whack-a-mole at best in order to identify ‘rogue’ VPN traffic out of the giant pile of normal encrypted sessions. Duration, maybe, but then the VPN software could just establish a new session to a new endpoint every random amount of time; VPNs become more expensive and slower, but don’t go away.

Outlawing encrypted traffic altogether would break so much of the internet that it will never happen.

I’m a little tin-foil-hat about this right now, but I think this could be an anti-worker policy at least as much as it is anti-privacy. We keep talking about how all companies are using VPNs. What if this is being pushed to force all remote workers give up their privacy as a way to urge people back into offices. Company XYZ says, “You can still work remote, but the law says you’ll have to do a biometric scan of your face every time/week/month in order to use the VPN.”

And if companies get exempted somehow… then I’ve got a great idea for a new startup: “EnVeePee is a company which pays literally nothing to our contractors, and we expect them to be online for hours a day working really hard for us. We also expect them to contribute to the monthly pizza party.”

I’m a big fan of the ‘what the duck’…‘*fuck’ kind of texts. They always make me laugh.

The problem is that nowadays even ‘quality’ brands are willing to cut costs and make cheap shit because they can rely on brand recognition; or a quality brand is bought by another company and enshittidication ensues.

Nothing is made with pride anymore, it’s all made for profit.

Agreed. For anyone not already following Louis Rossmann, he’s a right-to-repair guy on an anti-surveilance arc and is always posting good information that will make you seethe.

His city tried to buy Flock cameras and he organized enough resistance that they cancelled… but then they are trying again a while later, assuming the scrutiny is off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MiLiQ6olkI

Ring will do the same thing.

Microslop, Meta, Google, et al will get their hands slapped when they are too proud about how they are fucking you, and then will issue a retraction, but only long enough to let the anger die out before doing it again more quietly.

This really should be the first go-to.

Old goods? Assign liability to the food bank and let them handle sorting.

Tossing perfectly edible food in the trash because it’s no longer pretty and (acknowledging) I won’t buy it, it is just insane.

I try to buy bruised food when I can because I know others won’t. a wrinkly bell pepper, cucumber, or zucchini will be exactly the same once I chop it up and put it in my meal.

These same snowflakes were singing ‘despacito’ almost a decade ago.

I hear that. My local ABC store doesn’t scan my ID, though I don’t see a future where they don’t eventually scan every time; and my local grocery store scans occasionally, but not always.

I can’t just not buy age-verified products, though, because sometimes it’s cold medicine or a prescription. **

Back to the original thread, this is not a Discord problem, this is a privacy problem. We need to push back on data capture in general and tell legislators that privacy is important to all people, even those who buy booze.

** could we make little sneaky stickers that obfuscate the barcode enough to prevent it scanning? The cashier would likely revert to visual inspection without the data retention: face matches photo, age is good, override.

This is one of the real root causes of enshittification, particularly around privacy.

Once a product is profitable, the profit needs to be protected. That’s not really a slight against it, just a reality of capitalism. Those developers expect their jobs to persist. Middle management probably wants to keep those developers on staff. C-suite needs number-go-up to keep their jobs (fuck them, but if number-go-down then other people lose their jobs too). Adhering to regulations limits the risk of the government suing the company to oblivion.

Discord has been big enough for a while that it needs to be aware of the legal and political landscape in order to survive. This is just them limiting their risk. It will cost them customers – sort of: I’m gone, and have been since September when they updated their TOS, but I’ve also never given them any money and I’ve never seen an ad other than theirs. I’ve been nothing but a cost, so maybe good riddance?

Discord is not the enemy here. The enemy is congress/parliament and the power grabs they keep enacting. Big Tech has captured our governments and wants our data. The ‘for the children’ angle is such a trope that everyone who isn’t a potato can see through it, and we need to tell our leaders that this isn’t acceptable.

The parenting aspect is a red herring. Nothing about these policies is really to ‘protect the children’. The big tech groups have figured out that they can gate-keep … everything… and require your pii/data to get to it; and that many/most people will give up that data to keep access to their content.

That said, teaching your children about the importance of privacy is becoming as important as teaching them about other harmful online content. “Don’t trust a Nigerian prince, let me know if you’re being bullied, don’t watch porn* and don’t scan your face to get on discord”

* until you’re 18-ish, at which point go nuts, just know it’s all fake.

so… you do want face verification for online interactions?

edit: In-person, for a “regulated” substance - it seems reasonable to require that proof be checked as part of policy, regardless of appearance. There’s no storage (in most cases) and the cashier is the only one who looks at the ID and they are supposed to do it to keep their job. The only place I’ve seen recently where your ID is actually tracked is stuff like sudafed, where buying too much makes you a potential meth maker.

Online, the rule has been “trust me, bro” forever. There’s no person testing you, aside from maybe a paywall to ensure you have a credit card as an age check. Steam is doing the online equivalent of minimal validation and minimal retention that the booze store is.

This is hardly OMGVALVE.

Nothing stopping the transmitter from being attached to a cheap battery and left under the dumpster of a nearby restaurant.

Sure, they can find it, but it takes resources away from harassing civilians.

Someone smarter than me could probably design, or link an existing design, to a cheap assembly that broadcast static and made comms harder for these thugs.

Did you sneak around and do things you were told not to? Probably.

While doing so, did you have the context that you shouldn’t do it? Maybe. Sometimes the learning happens when you get caught, get hurt or have other consequences.

Sure, the answer is education. Tell them that they shouldn’t do <thing> and why. Hopefully, the guilt/shame/pain of doing the thing they know is incorrect will be enough of a deterrent, but adults are fallible and kids cannot be expected to be better at it than adults who also have vices they know intellectually are bad. I don’t want to “completely control” my children, but I do want to prevent harm. Same way we put guard rails at the edge of a cliff.

Just to be clear:

Oh god, they’ll get some access? Like, I can’t completely control my children and they are individuals who have the right to start making choices? Jesus Christ, I’m not going to be able to exert my will over them indefinitely?

Are you recommending that we just sit back and let kids random-walk through tiktok? At what age should algorithm-dopamine-drug-app be allowed? There are studies out there showing that this stuff is harmful to ADULTS and this thread is about known impacts on kids. We prevent kids from smoking or drinking. Why do you think preventing access to social media like this is a step too far?

There’s also a question of age. I’m talking as a parent of a pre-teen. I need these controls where I can get them because the internet is a dopamine machine. It’s a real challenge to limit access to it and my kid isn’t prepared to stop watching tiktok the same way they aren’t prepared to stop eating candy. I can physically limit the candy in the house, but guess where I find rogue candy wrappers? Maybe by the time they are 15, I’ll have taken the training-wheels off, in which case we probably agree.

Finally, there’s an additional context for parents that is cultural context: My kid has never watched squidgames, five nights at freddy’s or stranger things. Many, maybe even most, of his peers have, and that leaves him out of those conversations. There are threads up in this post that haunt me: Am I preventing my child from being able to socialize because I won’t let them play/watch <content> that I think is unacceptable? I don’t want roblox, fortnight, or predatorily-monitized games in my kid’s hands until they are ready.

I recently relented on fortnight. My kid spent about $20 of their money on skins and a battle pass. I asked them recently if it was worth it. They said, “no”. I also recently let them create a roblox account. It took about 2 hours for them to determine the whole game was dumb. I think I’m a good parent.

No shit. I now work from home, but my last cubicle was half that size and had no walls. That’s a god damn luxury cube!