I strongly disagree. There are no kids in my household, and no one else ever uses my devices, so the idea that I need to prove that I'm not a kid for me to be able to pay bills or file taxes on a stock device is ridiculous.

▲

armchairhacker 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

"Age restriction" can be implemented where stock devices are completely unrestricted. For example, just with better parental controls and education: children don't have access to property, so the parent takes their device and enables the parental controls, but you own your device so leave them disabled.

And this wouldn't affect Linux or FOSS: on a child's device their parent installs either a proprietary OS or a FOSS with parental controls, but again, on your device you install whatever you want.

	▲	saghm 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		That's not what the comment I responded to was proposing: > Maybe even enable age restrictions by default, block replacing the OS or the firmware, and only allow it once the age was confirmed. Having an extra hurdle before installing Linux would be an awful secondary effect for this type of regulation independent of whether the check itself is already objectionable (which I always obviously think it is, although obviously plenty of people also don't)
	▲	6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

▲

delusional 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Is anyone proposing age verification to file taxes? I'd hope you already have to provide some sort of stronger proof of identity to file a tax return anyway.

▲

saghm 6 hours ago | parent [-]

That's exactly my point; websites that already have absolutely no threat from having kids access them are literally unavailable due to the operating system put up a block that isn't necessary due to a hypothetical kid using the device to access an entirely different hypothetical website. The regulation is absurdly overbroad for what it's trying to actual protect against.

▲

delusional 6 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't know what regulation you're talking about. Nothing of the sort is being proposed in the part of the world PHK occupies.

	▲	saghm 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The comment I was responding to said this: > A sensible regulator would leave some responsibility to the parents, but require restrictions for consumer devices (smartphones, laptops). Maybe even enable age restrictions by default, block replacing the OS or the firmware, and only allow it once the age was confirmed. If you think that this statement is too broad for this thread, I don't understand why you only have issue with my direct response to it. It seems like your issue is with the parent comment I replied to for not being on-topic enough.

▲

dash2 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't understand the force of that argument. Where is the "so" coming from?

▲

saghm 6 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't understand what's hard to understand. Regulation that affects people and devices that have no risk of being used for the purported thing that's supposed to be protected against is not well-scoped.

▲

dash2 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Obviously if the government knew that you had no kids, they wouldn't need to check it. How do you propose they find out, without asking you to prove it?

	▲	saghm 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> How do you propose they find out, without asking you to prove it? How do I propose the government know if I have kids? I'm pretty sure they already know that I don't?