Here we go. Mass surveillance in every computer in the USA.
- Permit signals to include age verification methods that minimize data disclosure, including the use of verifiable credentials and zero-knowledge proofs,
Any kind of credential has to uniquely identify a user. They will track who you are, where you go, at all times, on every computer, by law.
- Establish a device-level age assurance framework requiring operating system providers to collect a user’s age during operating system account creation or from existing account holders,
- Require operating systems to convert a user’s age into privacy-protective age brackets—under 13; ages 13–15; age 16; and age 17 or older—rather than sharing the user’s exact age or date of birth,
- Create a secure, real-time operating system signal that applications, browsers, application stores, and covered websites must request and use as the primary indicator of a user’s age,
- Require children under age 17 to link their operating system account to a parent or legal guardian account and allow the user or linked parent or guardian to view the child’s age bracket data,
- Establish a process for resolving conflicting age information, including user notice, an opportunity to correct inaccurate information, and distribution of an updated age signal,
Any kid in the world will figure out how to either make a fake user, or spoof the signal to apps to say they're 17. Virtual machines in the browser, remote display to a VPS, VPNs, proxies, etc, etc. One kid at school will figure it out and every other kid will get it from them. They have near unlimited free time and lots of motivation.
- Prohibit developers and covered website operators from requesting more age information than the standardized signal or sharing age bracket data with third parties,
- Impose data minimization requirements limiting the collection, retention, use, and combination of age-related information, including prohibitions on using age bracket data for profiling, engagement optimization, or targeted advertising,
- Prohibit the transfer of children’s personal data to data brokers, while preserving contextual advertising that does not rely on personal data or behavioral profiling,
- Include competition safeguards preventing operating system providers and application stores from imposing more restrictive age-related requirements on third-party applications or using age bracket data to disadvantage competitors, and
I'm sure all websites/apps will respect that. As we know silicon valley is extremely law-abiding.
- Establish enforcement by the Federal Trade Commission and State Attorneys General, including civil penalties of up to $2,500 per negligent violation and $7,500 per knowing or intentional violation, which may be multiplied by the number of children affected,
- Create a national baseline that preempts only conflicting State requirements while preserving Federal or State laws that provide protections at least as strong as the Act.
As we all know there are never any loopholes for companies to use to evade regulatory limits.
Require sites that may have content not appropriate for small children to have RTA headers. [1] Require mainstream browsers to look for the header if parental controls are enabled. Don't even try to block teens, a futile and pointless effort that will only push them underground and even further away from monitoring. Parent decides when small children are mentally ready for mature content then give them a normal device account. Many HN discussions are in linked article. Set a future timeline to do this instead of trying to do it right now so that app/devices developers can ensure a properly sandboxed child account can not be bypassed by the best red teams. Teens can and will bypass anything.
Parents should parent their children and not make it everyone else's problem. This is a social and political problem, not a technical problem with a technical solution.
- Teach small children how to identify and report a chomo. AI must attempt to determine the risk and escalate to humans. If the risk is real AI takes over the conversation using social engineering and browser NITs to ID the groomer whilst simultaneously giving the child something fun to do.
- If a platform facilitates grooming give them 8 hours to fix it or their domains and IP allocations are seized forever even if they are a fortune 50. 4 hours for second vector and so on. Too many clients is not excuse. AI can have an army of angry virtual moms watching every interaction. If the company board members or executives try to lobby their way out de-naturalize or conscript.
- Put the groomers in GenPop and tell all the guards they are chomo's to reduce recidivism.
What problems? The bill says it's to "Protect Children Online" from "accessing age-inappropriate content". What counts? What doesn't? Doesn't say.
Maybe it's the stuff that's already illegal for minors, or where minors are required to be segregated. Well if the law already requires online businesses to follow those laws, what the hell is this bill for?
Online businesses can already verify ID or ask for age at sign-up. They don't need an extra layer of technology shoved into the OS. This new OS-level control does not add anything a company couldn't add itself. What it does do is enable the government and corporations to track every individual, on every site they go to.
The other thing this bill does is indemnify online businesses so they don't have to protect kids. When a predator makes an account on their computer that says they're 13, they can now sign up for an account on Roblox as a 13 year old. When they abuse some kids, and the parents sue Roblox, Roblox will say "not our fault! the account said it was a 13 year old. blame someone else."
And how can you actually prevent every child from accessing any age-inappropriate content? It's so overly broad it's like saying "Protect Children In The Streets". You can't protect every child in every street at all times, you would need a police officer every 50 feet on every street in the world. Hence why we require parents to protect their own children. Until they go on the internet, that is.
The bill says parents "deserve the peace of mind" that their kids are "shielded from inappropriate and harmful content". There's no way to ensure that in general. But there is a billion-dollar industry of parental control software, so parents can already protect their kids when they're on the internet. Afraid of them meeting a predator on social media? Don't let them on social media (it's good for them anyway). Not sure who they're messaging? Install a keylogger/screengrabber. There's thousands of tools on the market to manage kids' online activity. This bill just pretends kids are safe, so parents can avoid their own responsibility.
The bill is not intended to protect children. It's for mass surveillance, and to allow Meta to sell ads to kids without getting fined hundreds of millions of dollars yet again. You wanna protect kids? Lock down their devices. But don't spy on the entire world.
Text of the bill: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/s5090/text
get this shit out of here. No Age requirements at the OS level. This is ridiculous.
Also somehow defines "Operating System Provider" but not "Operating System"?
> The term operating system provider means a person that develops, licenses, or controls the operating system software on a covered device.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/s5090/text/is#lin...
Whoever wrote this is technologically illiterate.
I think it is better to have at OS level then google asking me to upload ID card and all those bullshit crap just to watch youtube.
It would be nice if these website stops all these crap, but I guess in long term it is going to be impossible due to stupid regulations.
Its only going to be impossible if people wont keep fighting even when it seems hopeless.
Here we go. Mass surveillance in every computer in the USA.
Any kind of credential has to uniquely identify a user. They will track who you are, where you go, at all times, on every computer, by law. Any kid in the world will figure out how to either make a fake user, or spoof the signal to apps to say they're 17. Virtual machines in the browser, remote display to a VPS, VPNs, proxies, etc, etc. One kid at school will figure it out and every other kid will get it from them. They have near unlimited free time and lots of motivation. I'm sure all websites/apps will respect that. As we know silicon valley is extremely law-abiding. As we all know there are never any loopholes for companies to use to evade regulatory limits.How else might you solve the problems that this aims to solve?
Require sites that may have content not appropriate for small children to have RTA headers. [1] Require mainstream browsers to look for the header if parental controls are enabled. Don't even try to block teens, a futile and pointless effort that will only push them underground and even further away from monitoring. Parent decides when small children are mentally ready for mature content then give them a normal device account. Many HN discussions are in linked article. Set a future timeline to do this instead of trying to do it right now so that app/devices developers can ensure a properly sandboxed child account can not be bypassed by the best red teams. Teens can and will bypass anything.
[1] - https://nochan.net/b/Internet-Crap/20230829-Think-Of-The-Chi...
Parents should parent their children and not make it everyone else's problem. This is a social and political problem, not a technical problem with a technical solution.
How do you parent predatory adults pretending to be children?
- Teach small children how to identify and report a chomo. AI must attempt to determine the risk and escalate to humans. If the risk is real AI takes over the conversation using social engineering and browser NITs to ID the groomer whilst simultaneously giving the child something fun to do.
- If a platform facilitates grooming give them 8 hours to fix it or their domains and IP allocations are seized forever even if they are a fortune 50. 4 hours for second vector and so on. Too many clients is not excuse. AI can have an army of angry virtual moms watching every interaction. If the company board members or executives try to lobby their way out de-naturalize or conscript.
- Put the groomers in GenPop and tell all the guards they are chomo's to reduce recidivism.
What problems? The bill says it's to "Protect Children Online" from "accessing age-inappropriate content". What counts? What doesn't? Doesn't say.
Maybe it's the stuff that's already illegal for minors, or where minors are required to be segregated. Well if the law already requires online businesses to follow those laws, what the hell is this bill for?
Online businesses can already verify ID or ask for age at sign-up. They don't need an extra layer of technology shoved into the OS. This new OS-level control does not add anything a company couldn't add itself. What it does do is enable the government and corporations to track every individual, on every site they go to.
The other thing this bill does is indemnify online businesses so they don't have to protect kids. When a predator makes an account on their computer that says they're 13, they can now sign up for an account on Roblox as a 13 year old. When they abuse some kids, and the parents sue Roblox, Roblox will say "not our fault! the account said it was a 13 year old. blame someone else."
And how can you actually prevent every child from accessing any age-inappropriate content? It's so overly broad it's like saying "Protect Children In The Streets". You can't protect every child in every street at all times, you would need a police officer every 50 feet on every street in the world. Hence why we require parents to protect their own children. Until they go on the internet, that is.
The bill says parents "deserve the peace of mind" that their kids are "shielded from inappropriate and harmful content". There's no way to ensure that in general. But there is a billion-dollar industry of parental control software, so parents can already protect their kids when they're on the internet. Afraid of them meeting a predator on social media? Don't let them on social media (it's good for them anyway). Not sure who they're messaging? Install a keylogger/screengrabber. There's thousands of tools on the market to manage kids' online activity. This bill just pretends kids are safe, so parents can avoid their own responsibility.
The bill is not intended to protect children. It's for mass surveillance, and to allow Meta to sell ads to kids without getting fined hundreds of millions of dollars yet again. You wanna protect kids? Lock down their devices. But don't spy on the entire world.
Gee, and it can't be a coincidence that this just so happens to cement current surveillance capitalism's preferred business models, right?