Colorado, Illinois, and New York could join the list if their proposed age verification bills pass.

MidnightBSD, a FreeBSD-based desktop operating system, has quietly updated its README to reflect a new geographic restriction. The project has added a clause that bars residents of any country, state, or territory with OS-level age verification mandates from using MidnightBSD

  • TheSeveralJourneysOfReemus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    61·
    11 hours ago

    how this would actually be enforced; maybe the official website and download mirrors for MidnightBSD will be out of reach for people in those regions. Of course, a tech-savvy crowd who uses MidnightBSD will know how to bypass such an embargo. It makes you wonder how effective such age verification laws are. Oh wait, some of these so-called public servants are also pushing for VPNs to be banned.

    As it stands these laws are unenforcable, and plenty of businesses would be impacted. First, think of the meaning of ’ internet connected device, with an operating system '; such vague definition. Is a modern fridge, sensor or monitoring system supposed to verify the age of any user that comes in touch with these? Impractical. Second, any commercial activity has computers running everything. These computers are not registered for any single user, but for the activity as a whole. The emplyees may insert a code when they operate the computer (emplyee - Id within the business) but that’s it. Office complexes would be decimated by this stupid setup. And there comes the VPN ban. Again, plenty of businesses rely on vpn and private networks. Once again, this is quite possibly unenforceable without ruining the backbone of the infrastructure we collectively use. People writing laws like thes are quite possibly unable to understand how it runs. The lack of technical knowledge is staggering.

    Also what about SERVERS ? What are we supposed to do?

    • 001Guy001@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      4 hours ago

      They will either give special permissions to relevant businesses (maybe an expensive Super Premium Golden Access), or use selective enforcement to only go after people/businesses that don’t comply to their overall authoritarianism and pose too much of a risk to the status quo.