News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on I traced $2B in grants and 45 states' lobbying behind age‑verification bills. Parent comment

Re:I traced $2B in grants and 45 states' lobbying behind age... by pc86 on Friday March 13, 2026 @12:55PM (#47366845)
Do you know what the word "infrastructure" means?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:I traced $2B in grants and 45 states' lobbying behind age... by gzread on Friday March 13, 2026 @01:00PM (#47366911)
Do you know what "total surveillance" means? It doesn't mean a checkbox for over 18
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:I traced $2B in grants and 45 states' lobbying behind age... by pc86 on Friday March 13, 2026 @01:08PM (#47366997)
I can't tell if this is a troll or not.

OS-level ability to verify the age of the person using it absolutely provides infrastructure for the OS to verify all sorts of other things. Citizenship, identity, you name it. When it's at the OS level there's no way to do anything privately on that machine ever again.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:I traced $2B in grants and 45 states' lobbying behind age... by gzread on Friday March 13, 2026 @01:22PM (#47367167)
I agree that a checkbox for if the user is over 18 opens the door to a checkbox for if the user is a citizen and even a textbox for the user's full name (which already exists on Linux so you better boycott Debian now!). I don't see how such input fields are "total surveillance".
[ Parent | on HN ]