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Comment by csense | Hacker News Reader

I've taken trips to California in the past for both personal and professional reasons. I'm seriously reconsidering whether I'll do that again in the future.

What happens if I bring a laptop with an "illegal" OS without this unwanted "feature" into the state? Will I be denied access to public wifi in hotels and restaurants? Or will it grant me access, but snitch on me -- make a call to the state police to come deal with someone with an illegal laptop? Will I be forced to install a different OS while a police officer watches? Will my laptop be confiscated and destroyed as contraband? Will I be thrown in a California prison?

I don't want to take a risk and find out.

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All of those worries you list are extreme and unreasonable and ruled out by spending two minutes reading the bill: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

The only remedies listed are:

> 1798.503. (a) A person that violates this title shall be subject to an injunction and liable for a civil penalty of not more than two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500) per affected child for each negligent violation or not more than seven thousand five hundred dollars ($7,500) per affected child for each intentional violation, which shall be assessed and recovered only in a civil action brought in the name of the people of the State of California by the Attorney General.

And there are several other provisions that further narrow the circumstances under which this law could be enforced.

If your personal computer is not being used by a child, and you're not distributing software to children or devices used by children, then there are no circumstances under which your actions could violate this law.

Those worries are ruled out... for now. Laws can be amended.

Then never go anywhere because eventually there might be a law there you disagree with. This is such a stupid argument.

But wouldn't the creator of the Operating System be liable instead of the person who actually brought it into the state?

This law only applies to people distributing an operating system. It has nothing to do with what you personally use.

It also applies to application providers. The law requires them to have their applications ask the OS how old the user is whenever it is downloaded and launched.

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