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Comment by aposm | Hacker News Reader

I'm now pretty convinced that this is the best argument for persuading non-technical and non-internet-privacy minded people why this is a problem. It's hard to explain all the technical factors that make it impossible to implement without compromising privacy... but it's pretty easy to get them to understand the real intent. If you start them thinking through what mechanisms would make sense _if_ the original premise truly was protecting kids from content they aren't ready to see, it's easy to arrive at that answer, and equally easy to see why "everyone must provide their ID so we can verify their age" probably comes from other motivations.

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> "everyone must provide their ID so we can verify their age"

but that's not this law. This law requires self-declaration by whoever creates the accounts on the device.

and that's as useful as self-documenting "i am over 18" or "over 21" for things that require that, without any document checks.

this is a way to get something legal on paper, the rest of the stuff (patches, if you will) comes later. This asserts that age is important enough to force an operating system to comply, this opens the door.

> and that's as useful as self-documenting "i am over 18" or "over 21" for things that require that, without any document checks.

No OS I'm aware of allows non-admin users to add new users to the system. Parents that care about these sorts of things don't give their kids admin access to their computers.

> the rest of the stuff (patches, if you will) comes later.

Unless the legislation allows for such patches through non-legislative process, patches to legislation generally happens on a ~20 year cycle in my experience.

Maybe. I give kids more credit than most people on here, i guess. All it takes is one moment for the kids to see the password, guess the password, or whatever. if there's a physical key involved, parents sleep.

A determined kid will find a weakness in the pursuit of freedom.

also nintendo's OS lets users add users to their heart's content. At least i haven't found a way to stop a toddler from adding 6 avatars....

All I claimed is that as passed it is more effective than a "check this box if you're over 21" on forms. Not that it was fool-proof. I don't think any legislation would be fool-proof. Certainly not the privacy-destroying "upload your ID", which this isn't.

You can't add Nintendo Online accounts without being the account owner. I have a Nintendo family plan, I'm the only person that can add or remove accounts to the online access service, and i decide whether each account is an adult or a child. For offline accounts like kids can make locally, its obviously irrelevant

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