We are dealing with the case of slow escalation of war on privacy. With more and more States joining in this war it might as well as become a nation wide criminal offense
3 Likes
Ok sure. A nationwide criminal offense. Except not a federal law. Nor a criminal statute. But otherwise yeah
1 Like
States have worked with large OS providers to create these laws and they are certainly happy taking your personal (and credit card) information. That it directly and adversely impacts their competitors, such as FOSS, shows it to be an anti-competition endeavor.
3 Likes
This is the attitude I hope to see. Don’t capitulate to your oppressors. Resist
Quite right.
4 Likes
I have been saying stuff like this for years only to be called and treated like again and again a fxcking conspiracy theorist. I used to enjoy being proven right, but lately it has become deeply depressing. 
For the 0.00001% of developers who will actually listen this time instead of capitulating: the antidote is locally hosted AI. Look up llama.cpp. Fight machine with machine. Bring at least 32 gigarams.
That’s the other problem. One solution is to hide behind Tor/I2P completely, leaving no traces of your use of any OS. But then that just makes anonymity networks more of a target, and as far as I know it’s game over when those go away. 
We’re getting fxcking squeezed out of the internet.
Oh boy, the noobs of the darknet are going to love this one. The last time I used Tails was a couple versions before their merger with Tor. I just knew such centralization was bad news. Now we all know precisely why.
Then it doesn’t have to be free. “Free” has always been fundamentally unsustainable and maybe it’s time to do away with it. I would be willing to pay a subscription fee for updates and support if that becomes the only way to compute with dignity.
Besides not having your maintainer sent to prison, another benefit of having anonymous devs is they can’t be blackmailed, coerced, or gag ordered nearly as easily. So, potentially less backdoors. Hell yeah I’d pay for that.
1 Like
Qubes-certified hardware uses that strategy to some extent. On NovaCustom’s website, selecting Qubes OS as the operating system on Qubes-certified models comes with a one-time fee of €120, and Dasharo Pro Package is a non-recurring subscription for Coreboot + Heads support for those models:
1 Like
I just re-read the bill and found out it’s entirely laid out source code design for the age bracket data/signal for the applications necessary needed for their AI usage. Specifically, 1798.501 is the only needed thing to be implemented at developers’ discretion in which defined the variables in 1789.500 for your code. I laughed so hard that I found out it’s a designer code. Also, software engineering angle is the best angle to read all California laws to be understand in thorough details in your mind.
1 Like
1 Like
(g) This title does not impose liability on an operating system provider, a covered application store, or a developer that arises from the use of a device or application by a person who is not the user to whom a signal pertains.
The end is clear from the bill.
Note: I am not a lawyer, but reading comprehension is, in fact, a requirement to pass California English Proficiency Test.
1 Like
That’s a specific policy statement. I’m not sure you want to make it. I think it remains to be seen what Qubes decision will be, no? They might wait to see what Fedora decides before making a statement, or crafting a policy. Theyt may choose to base around a different distro. (I wonder what SUSE is thinking about all of this).
Also there’s architecture to consider for Qubes that complicates the matter. If the compliant API calls go from any VM to dom0, that’s more centralized. But the alternative is, what? Setting up the age verification and API in each template? In each VM?
One way or another this is going to be a problem for Qubes.
@adrelanos Do you know what Whonix’ position is going to be? Probably hard to say, since I don’t think we even know what Debian has decided.
1 Like
Here is an idea:
A buggy implementation of age verification, so that it does not work correctly. Nobody can sue you for bug, especially considering the “NO WARRANTY” clause in GPL (and not only in it).
1 Like
Before I give any moral assessment of this discussion, I’d better say something useful:
Why don’t you just add age verification on the OS download page? When a user lands on the download page, a pop-up window appears asking them to enter their age: above or below 18. If the user enters an age above 18, they are allowed to download. The OS itself will then have a built-in mechanism by default that indicates that the user is over 18. Or, if they really need you to specify a specific age, let the OS always indicate a uniform age of over 18. The main thing is that the user doesn’t enter anything in the OS itself, but confirms their age on the download page.
P.S. There is a saying in Russia: “The severity of laws is compensated by the non-obligation of their implementation.” Not sure if I translated correctly but hope you understood. Perhaps you Westerners, out of old habit, as always, overestimate the power of laws?
2 Likes
[… 3 lines elided]
GrapheneOS devs to Californian politicians: punch sand
We’re under no more obligation to filter the internet for California than we are to do it for China. Neither blocks access to the GrapheneOS website or services. If California wants to block access to those then they’re welcome to pass a law implementing their own Great Firewall. The most action they could get from us is replacing Los Angeles and San Jose servers with Las Vegas or Seattle
This is the attitude I hope to see. Don’t capitulate to your oppressors. Resist
This is the proper stance.
2 Likes
And now the lyric part:
- After rereading the entire discussion, I still don’t understand: why the f*** should we even give a s*** about what’s accepted somewhere in California? Or even in all of United Dumbf*ckistan.
- All this descussion reminds me a joke in Russia: “The government once passed a law requiring citizens to show up on Saturday at a designated location to be raped with a strap-on. So people started signing up for strap-ons as early as Friday, so they could skip the line on Saturday and get out early.”
This, if anyone doesn’t understand, is about servility before the law. - Cyberpunk fiction: describes a future where tough guys with balls of steel fight for people’s freedom from oppressive governments and corporations. They risk, and sometimes sacrifice, their lives for it.
Reality: Western boys are racking their brains over how to obey the repressive law without losing face as freedom fighters. - Truly, no one can call himself a freedom fighter if he has never lived under a repressive regime and does not know what it is like!
- If you’re going to fight for freedom, you must remain anonymous and unknown from the start. Your website must be on an .onion domain, and donations must be anonymous. If you’re fighting for freedom and everyone knows who and where you are, then you’re fighting for freedom only as long as no one gives a f***.
- If you are going to obey the laws, then at least be under the jurisdiction of the country where the laws are the most freedom-loving and sane.
- A group of kindergarteners are seated around a round table. A pile of candy is placed on it and they are told: “Don’t even think about taking the candy without our permission. Invisible Joe is watching you. If you disobey, he will come and punish you!” - That’s how the law works.
- You cannot be a law-abiding citizen under a dictatorship and still remain free.
- Only those who have broken laws and escaped punishment for it have come to know the feeling of true freedom and the ephemeral nature of all rules.
- Laws only work when they are believed in and when there is someone who obeys them.
- The law exists only in your head.
- You would be surprised to know how fragile and powerless the laws are under the weight of your ego.
- You become like a lion who has tasted human flesh and now understood how defenseless and tender the human is. Now you will never forget this knowledge and will never be the same again.
4 Likes
I don’t see how AI helps here.
Related issues:
As far as I know, there is currently no AI that is Open Source under the Open Source Definition (OSD). So referring to “open source AI” does not really solve this issue, especially since the most capable AI systems are still closed source and proprietary.
The situation has become even more confusing with the introduction of a separate Open Source AI Definition OSAID.
Open Source AI Definition - Lack of Consensus in the Definition by the Open Source Initiative
But this might be getting very off-topic. Feel free to quote me in a separate topic for additional discussion.
Quote Whonix adding age verification? - #24 by Patrick - Support - Whonix Forum
Nothing has been done yet. This is draft and discussion status only.
In case any changes are made, an announcement will be posted here: Follow Whonix Developments
3 Likes
So you didn’t read the discussion carefully. Here is a link for you from the second post:
1 Like
That concerns enforceability of judgements in external jurisdictions.
Fortunately the US unwillingness to allow enforcement of foreign
judgements in the US raises another hurdle.
This will be taken case by case. Whether the law is enforcible at all is
an issue for legal judgement in California, (and possibly in the US).
The obligation to provide an interface for entering relevant details for
a child is one of strict liability. The details are to entered by a
person over the age of 18 when the primary user of the device is under
18. (These and all age related brackets are specific to California.)
Much of the discussion here is fuelled by people who have not read the
bill at all, and do not seem to understand legal principles.
1 Like
Totally agree with everything you said. If Qubes, Whonix, fedora etc… accept to follow the law then linux is dead. We will have no more freedom this will be over.
There will be no more difference between Windows and linux i’m 100% serious. I see a near future where they will make a law to force linux distro (Debian, Whonix, Fedora…) to put backdoor in the system and they will comply because “it’s the law” this is so stupid…
And in my opinion the fact Qubes , Whonix and other os is considering to obey to this law is a shame. A shame for every users who was looking for freedom and privacy under linux.
I still don’t even understand why we are discussing about this… every OS should reply “No we are absolutely not going to obey to this stupid law”
Done.
What they’re going to do anyway if no one comply ? Put devs in jail ?
We shouldn’t care about them.
As someone said in the discussion i would be happy to pay each month a subscription to use Qubes or whatever OS than seeing distro comply with a law like this one.
Just move your servers in China, Finland, Japan i don’t know but at least try to resist this is the bare minimum
1 Like
To any one who wants to continue the discussion, it should be a prerequisite that you actually read AB 1043.
Much of the discussion here is fuelled by people who have not read the bill at all, and do not seem to understand legal principles.
Officially, I have not read it because the link to
is not reachable through Tor browser and I refuse to be informed through censored channels for the convenience of the censor. I also have no obligation to be informed about how “the land of the free” is willing to limit my freedom and that of the whole world because “we are the best and greatest nation in the world”.
Unofficially, AB-1043 is rendered meaningless by the lack of definition of its core subject - “operating system”. It talks about “operating system provider” but does not define what operating system is. This creates room for interpretation. I have negotiated and signed enough international agreements to be careful about any such detail.
(g) “Operating system provider” means a person or entity that develops, licenses, or controls the operating system software on a computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device.
According to this nonsense, every user is also a provider, because he “controls the operating system software” on whatever device. Also what is “general purpose computing device”? Who defines what “general purpose” means? Or is an wrist watch (incl. mechanical) a mobile device - why not? It is a device and it is mobile. Etc.
(h) “Signal” means age bracket data sent by a real-time secure application programming interface or operating system to an application.
Alright. What is “secure application programming interface”? As discussed in various threads on this forum, everyone who understand security knows very well the threat model question, because security needs context to be evaluated in. Otherwise it is just another abstract term with no meaning.
And so on.
2 Likes
Okay, I archived the PDF using gunzip and attached it to this reply:
20250AB1043_92.pdf.gz (93.7 KB)