>This is a great solution to the stated problem. The issue is that nobody is actually trying to solve the stated problem. This is a terrible solution to the real 'problem' which is the lack of surveillance power and information control.

So on the Sony consoles I created an account for my child and guess what they have implemented some stuff to block children from adult content on some stuff.

So if Big Tech would actually want to prevent laws to be created could make it easy for a parent to setup the account for a child (most children this days have mobile stuff and consoles so they could start with those), we just need the browsers to read the age flag from the OS and put it in a header, then the websites owners can respect that flag.

I know that someone would say that some clever teen would crack their locked down windows/linux to change the flag but this is a super rare case, we should start with the 99% cases, mobile phones and consoles are already locked down so an OS API that tells the browser if this is an child account and a browser header would solve the issue, most porn websites or similar adult sites would have no reason not to respect this header , it would make their job easier then say Steam having to always popup a birth date thing when a game is mature.

When one clever teen figures it out, they will share it with 80% of their friend group, making that number 80% and not 1%.

Let's go back to parenting: yes, world is a scary place if you get into it unprepared.

When one teen figures out how to get alcohol without ID, 80% of them will.

From https://www.edgarsnyder.com/resources/underage-drinking-stat...:

  > Nearly 75% of 12th grade students...have consumed alcohol in their lifetimes.

and

  > 85 percent of 12th graders ... say it would be “fairly easy” or “very easy” for them to get alcohol.

So, yes?

100% law enforcement is harmful: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47352848

That's why I suggested kernel enforced security (simple syscall) that applications could implement and are incredibly hard to spoof / create tools and workarounds for, but I got downvoted to hell.

Permission restricted registry entry (already exists) and a syscall that reads it (already exists) for windows and a file that requires sudo to edit (already exists) and a syscall to read it (already exists). Works on every distro automatically as well including android phones since they run the linux kernel anyway. Apple can figure it out and they already have appleid.

For linux we have the users and groups concept, the distro can add an adult group and when you give your child a linux a device and create the account you would just chose adulr or minor , or enter a birthdate. No freedom lost for the geeks that install Ubuntu or Arch for themselves and we do not need some extra hardware for the rare cases where a child has access to soem computer and he also can wipe it and install Linux on it. Distro makes can make the live usb default user to be set as not adult. Good enough solutions are easy but I do not understand why Big Tech (Google and Apple) did not work on a standard for this. (maybe both Apple and Google profits would suffer if they did)

Definitely the latter, exploiting kids (roblox) is very very profitable.

Three states now implement this solution that you just called a great solution, and most of HN still hates it. Are they seeing something that you're not? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47357294

Psst I was talking about zero knowledge proofs. Read twice before talking.

Can't see where you said that. You definitely commented about parental controls.