[jmholla]

A lot of the comments in here seem to be focused on mobile devices, but this law applies to basically every general computing device.

Here are the definitions from the bill in a more reasonable order than they are presented there:

> "DEVICE" MEANS ANY GENERAL-PURPOSE COMPUTING DEVICE THAT CAN ACCESS A COVERED APPLICATION STORE OR DOWNLOAD AN APPLICATION.

> "COVERED APPLICATION STORE" MEANS A PUBLICLY AVAILABLE INTERNET WEBSITE, SOFTWARE APPLICATION, ONLINE SERVICE, OR PLATFORM THAT DISTRIBUTES AND FACILITATES THE DOWNLOAD OF APPLICATIONS FROM THIRD-PARTY DEVELOPERS TO USERS OF DEVICES.

> "APPLICATION" MEANS A SOFTWARE APPLICATION THAT MAY BE RUN OR DIRECTED BY A USER ON A DEVICE.

> "DEVELOPER" MEANS A PERSON THAT WRITES, CREATES, MAINTAINS, OR CONTROLS AN APPLICATION.

The law applies to Operating System providers that runs on such a device:

> "OPERATING SYSTEM PROVIDER" MEANS A PERSON THAT DEVELOPS, LICENSES, OR CONTROLS THE OPERATING SYSTEM SOFTWARE ON A DEVICE.

Basically every Linux distro falls under this. Never mind the fact that OS providers don't really have control over where you run their code. If my device doesn't have a network card, does that mean my OS can skip this?

This also is not privacy preserving. It does require the device only report what age bracket a user belongs too, but on a long enough time frame, anyone currently under that age of 18 has their age accurately disclosed, often down to their birthday.

Worse, all applications MUST query this information every time it is run, regardless of whether or not age is at play. Every time you run grep, grep needs to know how old you are:

> A DEVELOPER SHALL REQUEST AN AGE SIGNAL WITH RESPECT TO A PARTICULAR USER FROM AN OPERATING SYSTEM PROVIDER OR A COVERED APPLICATION STORE WHEN THE DEVELOPER'S APPLICATION IS DOWNLOADED AND LAUNCHED.

Now, oddly, user is defined to be minors:

> "USER" MEANS A MINOR WHO IS THE PRIMARY USER OF A DEVICE.

But, the way the law is written, the implementation necessarily applies to everyone.

[floralhangnail]

I envision a dystopic future where the only legal personal computers are diskless Chromebooks that cannot save files to be viewed offline and that only boot via network, requiring a blood sample and a retinal scan to successfully Secure Boot.

[iberator]

or mandated remote desktop into goverment owned mainframe :) hehe

[casey2]

It's just another in a long list of intentionally broad laws designed to make everything illegal. They shot themselves in the foot though. Since

(6) "DEVELOPER" MEANS A PERSON THAT WRITES, CREATES, MAINTAINS, OR CONTROLS AN APPLICATION

The user is a "developer" so they can just send themselves an implicit age signal without modifying any software.

[gzread]

Is a ~/.userIsOver18 flag compliant?

[jmholla]

I doubt it. This bill has extremely deep problems.

The constrain of a "real-time application programming interface" has no legislative priors and little concrete technical merit. This requirement on its face requires that all operating systems provide some level of guaranteed response time, as a real-time OS would. But what that guarantee is, is unspecified. Not to mentions the reasonably consistent part.

But, such a file may not necessarily exist. And given that the onus is from operating systems and not those running the operating system. The existence of a file (or lack there of), is not a sufficient guarantee.

Further, this provides only one bucket the law requires. The file(s) in question MUST be more nuanced with the law as it is written.

The real fuckery of this bill: it pretends to be privacy preserving and to protect minors, but the only people whose personal birth date information can be leaked by its implementaiton are minors.