[fangpenlin]

There's an obvious theme with lawmakers in California—they pass laws to regulate things they have zero clue about, add them to their achievement page, cheer for themselves, and declare, "There! I've made the world a better place." There are just too many examples. For instance:

- Microstamping requirements for guns—printing a unique barcode on every bullet casing (Glock gen3 cannot be retired, thus, the auto-mode switch bug cannot be patched...)

- 3D printers should have a magical algorithm to recognize all gun parts in their tiny embedded systems

- Now, you need to verify your age... on your microwave?

At this rate, California should just go back to the Stone Age. Modern technology is simply not compatible with clueless politicians who are more eager to virtue-signal than to solve any actual problems or even borther to study the subject about the law they are going to pass. There will be more and more technology restrictions (or outright bans on use) in California because it's becoming impossible to operate anything here without getting sued or running afoul of some overreaching regulation.

[SllX]

The incentives are all wrong. You can serve up to 6 two-year terms in the Assembly or up to 3 four-year terms in the Senate, but regardless of which combination you do, nobody in the California legislature can serve more than 12 years combined across both Houses of the legislature.

So we don’t have professional legislatures with long-term electability incentives or leadership goals, we have a resumé-building exercise that we call the legislature. They’re all interchangeable and within 12 years, 100% of it will be changed out.

[roenxi]

> So we don’t have professional legislatures with long-term electability incentives or leadership goals

Raises an interesting question of who is less popular, the Californian government or the US Senate. The experiments with long-term professional legislatures have generally not been very promising - rather than statesmen it tends to be people with a certain limpet-like staying power and a limpet-like ability to learn from their mistakes. In almost all cases people's political solution is just "well we didn't try my idea hard enough" and increasing their tenure in office doesn't really help the overall situation.

[ajnin]

That's a non sequitur. Creating long-term professional politicians is not going to create legislators competent in the various domains they legislate on. It's going to create politicians competent at being elected long term, whatever the means.

[skissane]

It is interesting that this is a mainstream existing thing in the US (at the state level), but more of a fringe proposal in the rest of the English-speaking world.

I think the answer may be that the difference in political systems (parliamentary vs presidential) and party systems (less two-party but with greater party discipline) solves many of the problems term limits are intended to solve in completely different ways.

Maybe a better answer would be for US states to adopt the parliamentary system? Although there is some debate about what the "republican form of government" clause means, it arguably doesn't rule out parliamentary republicanism, and Luther v Borden (1849) ruled the clause wasn't justiciable anyway. Added to that, the widespread practice in first half of the 19th century, in which governors were elected by state legislatures, was de facto the parliamentary system. I don't think there is any federal constitutional obstacle to trying this – it is just a political culture issue, it currently sits outside the state constitutional Overton window.

While you could adopt the Australia/Canada model of a figurehead state governor/lieutenant governor with a state premier, I think just having a premier but calling them "the governor" would be more feasible

[modeless]

Your solution to politicians being out of touch with reality is to let them remain in office longer?

[zdragnar]

And yet, term limits are something many people want in the hopes that it will solve some of the problems in Washington DC.

There, the professional legislators can't get anything right either.

Do you think there's a middle ground of increasing the term limits to, say, 18 or 20 years?

[martin-t]

> professional legislatures

That should not be a profession.

Decisions should be made by people who are the most informed about the subject matter. By definition you cannot have someone who is the most informed about everything.

[api]

Long term tenure won't help. Look at the Federal government. Eventually you end up with a hospice center as your legislature.

[9x39]

I’m more curious in the genesis of these laws, whether their sponsors received written suggestions or ghostwritten bills, etc. as a form of parallel construction.

It seems all at once, everywhere that many groups that have a vested interest in forcing precedent and compliance of non-anonymous access across the computer world. It smacks of something less-than-organic.

[carefulfungi]

I was curious about your question and googled. Here's the legislative history of the law: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm....

Reading the first analysis PDF:

> This bill, sponsored by the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children and Children Now, seeks to require device and operating systems manufacturers to develop an age assurance signal that will be sent to application developers informing them of the age-bracket of the user who is downloading their application or entering their website. Depending on the age range of the user, a parent or guardian will have to consent prior to the user being allowed access to the platform. The bill presents a potentially elegant solution to a vexing problem underpinning many efforts to protect children online. However, there are several details to be worked out on the bill to ensure technical feasibility and that it strikes the appropriate balance between parental control and the autonomy of children, particularly older teens. The bill is supported by several parents’ organizations, including Parents for School Options, Protect our Kids, and Parents Support for Online Learning. In addition, the TransLatin Coalition and The Source LGBT+ Center are in support. The bill is opposed by Oakland Privacy, TechNet, and Chamber of Progress.

[tzs]

This law doesn't do anything that prevents non-anonymous access. Here's how you would access things anonymously if you bought a new computer that implemented this.

1. When you set up your account and it asks for your birthdate, make up any date you want that is at least far enough in the past to indicate an age older that what any site you might use that checks age requires.

2. Access things the way you've always done. All that has changed is that things that care about age checks find out you claim to be old enough.

The only people it actually materially affects on your new computer are people who cannot set up their own accounts, such as children if you have set up permissions so they have to get you to make their accounts.

Then if you want you can enter a birthdate that gives an age that says non-adult, so sites that check age will block them.

From a privacy and anonymity perspective this is essentially equivalent to sites that ask "Are you 18+?" and let you in if you click "yes" and block you if you click "no". It is just doing the asking locally and caching the result.

[bikelang]

> It seems all at once, everywhere that many groups that have a vested interest in forcing precedent and compliance of non-anonymous access across the computer world. It smacks of something less-than-organic.

I think you’ve nailed it here. How many of these people campaigned on this issue? Where were the grassroots to push this? Where did this even come from?

Somebody, somewhere - with a heck of a lot of money - wants to see this happen. And I don’t think they have good intentions with it.

[elfly]

Conservatives discovered a cheat code to get: (a) people to have to identify on the computer everywhere and (b) control what they can do with and without this identification.

Of course they are copying the play everywhere.

[almosthere]

Death threats mainly. Personally I think it would be easier if they just made it so that platforms ran a tiny LLM against the content that will be posted - determined if it is a death threat, then require them to be identified before it's posted, then it would solve a lot of these problems.

TLDR: Evil people be doxxed internally not everyone.

[AceJohnny2]

> There's an obvious theme with lawmakers in California

You can remove the in California

[shitlord]

Policies enacted elsewhere usually don't have the Brussels Effect.

[ActorNightly]

The California part is partially to highlight the fact that its a very liberal state and this is the kind of laws that liberals pass, but people fail to realize that all of these laws come from Republican lawmakers, as there are plenty of right wing people in California.

[almosthere]

Young people generalize everything and end up not solving problems.

Older people have already seen all the patterns, and realize you have to focus on specifics, and that helps clean up the general issue.

[_blackhawk_]

this

[SllX]

Yeah but let’s not and say we didn’t.

[SunshineTheCat]

> they pass laws to regulate things they have zero clue about

While you are correct with this statement in this context, I would say it applies to most things in government in general.

The vast majority of lawmakers have zero experience solving any real world problems and are content spending everyone else's money to play pretend at doing so.

The reality is, most government "solutions" cause more problems than they solve, after which, they blame their predecessors for all the problems they caused and the cycle continues.

[wredcoll]

> The reality is, most government "solutions" cause more problems than they solve

The "reality" is that propaganda heavily encourages you to ignore the government successes and only focus on the failures. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine who benefits from that.

[ericb]

I see Massachusetts as sort of the non-insane liberal counterpoint to California.

Things work here and nobody seems to be passing the "oops my unintended side effects and clueless regulations messed things up horribly." Or, if they do, it is at something like 1/10th the level.

We didn't start warning label spam everywhere. We don't have weird propositions that are causing run-away housing prices. There aren't bar codes on our 3d printers, or cookie banner requirements on every website. Well, ok we do, but that nonsense all came in from other places.

We did pass laws to lower PFAS/PFOAS. That seems reasonable. Government can work.

[alistairSH]

most government "solutions" cause more problems than they solve

Zero basis in fact. We’re in the wealthiest nation on the planet. Most of us live better than any previous generation. To claim all that success is completely in spite of government is ridiculous.

[Hammershaft]

It's true, and yet there are real market failures that even a very ineffective government can improve on dramatically, like innovation & research output via basic science.

[palmotea]

> - Microstamping requirements for guns—printing a unique barcode on every bullet casing (Glock gen3 cannot be retired, thus, the auto-mode switch bug cannot be patched...)

I don't know much about guns, but I assume that would be on the hammer? Couldn't you remove that "microstamping" by lightly filing down the hammer or just using it a bunch and causing some wear?

[marssaxman]

For most modern guns, it would be the firing pin, also called the "striker". Nobody manufactures microstamped guns, but if they did, the striker is a $20 part you can replace in ten minutes - or you could just spend half an hour on target practice at your local range, because 200 rounds are apparently enough to wear the etching down to illegibility.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

How long until we have to scan our assholes to use the coffee machine?

[genxy]

Do you have a term sheet?

[4k93n2]

we might as well just do a coffee enema at that point

[nipponese]

It's not a coincidence the equally clueless citizens are asking for these laws. Like in business, sometimes it's better to do "some thing" when you're not smart enough to do the right thing. Maybe you get there, maybe you don't, but inaction is not looked upon kindly.

[shevy-java]

I've not met anyone privately who would be in support of this.

There is a layer of indirection at work here. Fake-democracy.

[pennomi]

What citizens are asking for age verification? I have met exactly ZERO people who want this. It’s only the authorities who want it.

[michaelbrave]

I'm still in the process of having to write letters to lawmakers about the stupid 3D printer law, now I'm going to have to write letters for this stupid thing too. Like how hard is it to take a day to have a conversation with someone that just knows a little bit about these things, a hobbyist even. The minimal amount of question asking, hell they could even ask an LLM and it would still give a better answer.

[WaitWaitWha]

i did not even think of that! As the current law reads, will smart devices with OSes require age verification? Many IoTs are just tiny Linux versions running on a small processor. This makes all smart GE washing machines, dryers and refrigerators illegal in California.

come to think of it, maybe there is something good about this law. :D

[RobotToaster]

Not just that, but the the copy of Minix in the intel IME of every intel processor.

Not to mention all the printers, routers, etc that run freertos/thread x/vxworks.

[dataflow]

> Now, you need to verify your age... on your microwave?

What part of the bill makes you think this would apply to a microwave? https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

And what part makes you think you need to verify your age, as opposed to just specifying it? Nobody is requiring any verification. The only requirement is on there being an interface for you to input whatever age you want to input.

[burnt-resistor]

Not just 3D printers but all subtractive CNC machines too.

[lazide]

Frankly, look at how hard it was to make a sten. Even just a lathe and a welder is likely sufficient.

[rustystump]

There is a name for it, feel good policies and cali is not unique.

People who dont understand the problem must pass a solution that makes people feel good. Clean needles, homeless hotels, etc. If they dont make things worse, that is a win.

[interludead]

The irony is that the only entities capable of complying are the large centralized platforms

[Aerroon]

I'm starting to get more and more behind the idea that maybe lawmakers need to be legally accountable for bad laws that they make.

[hintymad]

So essentially California is becoming more and more like EU? It's curious to see how it pans out. Maybe EU's model turns out to be better than a more laissez-faire world like the US. Who knows.

What's even more curious is that the California voters seem not care at all. As long as the government can collect more taxes with more altruistic slogans, the voters will stay happy.

[shevy-java]

Which EU law mandates age verification on my personal computer at home exactly?

[Bender]

Modern technology is simply not compatible with clueless politicians

He may be our next president and this becomes an executive order.

[wtallis]

> Now, you need to verify your age... on your microwave?

Anyone buying or selling a microwave with an app store deserves this mess.

[mikestew]

Downvoter (and GP) didn't RTFA. This is addressed in the parts of the law TFA quotes.

[harrall]

No it’s a mindset thing.

Some people think all problems should be fixed with regulation.

Some people think all problems should be fixed with free market / responsibility.

California and liberals tend to lean to the former. A place like Texas and conservatives tend to lean to the latter.

I think both camps are crazy because it’s a case-by-case basis where you need to consider second and third order effects. But man talk to a die hard regulation supporter or die hard free market supporter and you just want to say “the world isn’t just simple rules like that.”

[randomNumber7]

Technology is currently worring for a lot of people so the moronic response is to simply reject it.

[michaelteter]

You can single out California, but I assure you there are asinine laws on the books in most states.

What it takes to become a “successful” politician is typically not what it takes to define good policy.

[pklausler]

Democracy rewards mass appeal, and that in turn encourages demagoguery and gives a platform for stupidity. It's been an unavoidable problem with the system since Athens.

[dongguanxianhao]

The printer spyware has an interesting backstory.

A Spanish venture-backed firm is developing some vaporware called Print&Go and has convinced the NY DA's office that it'll permanently solve the Luigi problem.

The best part? This company is drooling at the possibility of getting a permanent rent-seeking license for printers they didn't design, for nonexistent vaporware software that reduces its capabilities.

They frame it as "enhancing 3D printer capabilities," the way a slaveowner would frame putting chains on a slave's wrists as an "employee retention innovation."

Is everyone involved with promoting this software and these laws lying? Of course.

https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/02/08/any-user-who-has-a-3d-p...

[idle_zealot]

What I'm reading of this law is that it requires OS developers to require users select their age (really their age bracket) when making a user account, and an interface for applications/websites to read that user-provided field. I.e. not age verification, but just a standard way to identify if a user is on a child account. If that understanding is correct, how is this bad at all? It's a way to put to rest people's concerns and pearl-clutching over children accessing adult content without every individual app and service provider contracting with Palantir to scan you and guess your age. Instead they can just read the IsAdult header and call it a day. What's the cost to user-freedom? You have to be presented a Date of Birth field or I Am an Adult / Teen / Child selector when setting up a device... a thing that every operating system impacted by this law already does.

[hilsdev]

Why should it be law? I am a developer in California, and a long time Linux nerd. If I were to release a hobby on my GitHub for fun, without age verification, am I now subject to fines? Imprisonment? Why should their be a legal requirement?

[heavyset_go]

It's not enough to just accept the age signal:

> (3) (A) Except as provided in subparagraph (B), a developer shall treat a signal received pursuant to this title as the primary indicator of a user’s age range for purposes of determining the user’s age.

> (B) If a developer has internal clear and convincing information that a user’s age is different than the age indicated by a signal received pursuant to this title, the developer shall use that information as the primary indicator of the user’s age.

Developers are still liable if they have reason to believe someone is underage, even if the age signal says otherwise.

The only way to truly minimize that liability is forcing users to scan their faces and IDs, that is why age verification systems are already implemented that way.

[MangoCoffee]

How is this good at all for a free society? You are basically making a "what about the children?" argument. its the parent job to protect their children. why should anyone suffer this b.s.?

[bawolff]

All the better to do targeted advertisments and underdeveloped minds!

[amelius]

At least they did not invent cookie banners.

[Joker_vD]

Yeah, the commercial firms invented them all on their own just to keep tracking customers and oversharing whatever data they gather with random third parties while still getting to complain about stupid laws that require them to do so [0].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46521179

[eleventyseven]

Headline is wrong, and you didn't read the article. There is no verification requirement. You are a bad HN poster and should feel bad.

All this does is require the user to select a non-verified age bracket on first boot. You can lie, just like porn sites today. I thought HNers wanted parents to govern their children's use of technology with these kinds of mechanisms.

> There's an obvious theme with lawmakers in California—they pass laws to regulate things they have zero clue about, add them to their achievement page, cheer for themselves, and declare, "There! I've made the world a better place."

There's an obvious theme with HN posters about politics—they make cheap drive-by comments about regulations they have zero clue about, based on articles they haven't actually read, cheer for themselves, and declare, "There! I've shown why I'm smarter than all these politics people."

[gatlin]

> All this does is require the user to select a non-verified age bracket on first boot.

This is the age verification requirement which you rudely and incorrectly said doesn't exist. Nothing is done with the data (for now) but age is in fact verified on the assumption that the user doesn't lie.

Instead of lengthy condescending missives about the behavior of other users, you should instead write "I'm sorry for being negative and bringing down the quality of discussion."

[Joker_vD]

> Microstamping requirements for guns

Eh, sounds kinda reasonable. Ammo already has unique serial numbers embedded in the butt of every cartridge (in some countries, not sure about the US), and guns do leave somewhat unique marks on the bullets upon firing so... sure, why not. Surprised it took that long TBF, the necessary technology has been commercially available since the early 90s, I think?

> 3D printers should have a magical algorithm to recognize all gun parts in their tiny embedded systems

Yeah, this one's seems unnecessary. Is weapon manufacturing without a license a crime? If yes, then whoever 3D-prints a gun can be prosecuted normally.

> Now, you need to verify your age... on your microwave?

Or on your gas stove. A travesty, really: I was taught how to operate a stove when I was in the second grade and never burned any houses down, thank you very much.

[LooseMarmoset]

The micro stamping law is in no way reasonable because removing the micro stamping from the end of a firing pin is laughably trivial. The only people who won’t do this are people who weren’t going to break the law in the first place.

Even people who didn’t want to break the law might find themselves on the receiving end of law-enforcement if the firing pin wears such that the micro stamping is no longer identifiable.

The micro stamping law does nothing to prevent the flow of guns to people who should not have them, and does everything to prevent the use or purchase of guns by people who can lawfully own them - which is the whole point of a law like this. The people who make these laws are well aware of this.

The age verification law, coupled with the proposed hardware attestation that our good friend Lennart poettering is working on will ensure that anonymity on the Internet is gone. This is precisely what lawmakers are aiming for. And just like the micro stamping law, the intent of the law is not the literal word of the law.

[johnea]

I'm, again, glad to run linux. The distro I run has no affiliated online "account" at all, and I would expect this exempts it from the requirement.

I'm no democrat, although I'm sure as hell no republican, and as a resident of the state, I'm also a routine critic of the California state government.

I agree that a lot of their activities are indeed, performance art in nature.

However I do agree with the identification requirements on guns and ammo.

You can't shoot someone with a computer, no matter what OS you run.

The idea that lethal weaponry is the same as any other consumer product is just not accurate.

[anonym29]

It's about as easy to restrict the proliferation of firearms and ammunition as it is to restrict the proliferation of open source software. Anyone can make functional firearms out of supplies from any hardware store, this is true regardless of how many laws you pass. Look at the weapon that was used to assassinate Shinzo Abe. That was manufactured and used in a country with gun control laws that basically make California's gun control look indistinguishable from Texas. No number of laws have ever or will ever stop criminals with a rudimentary grasp of basic physics and basic chemistry.

You can't put the genie of firearms back in the bottle any more than Hollywood can put the genie of p2p file sharing back in the bottle. Trying to do so is like trying to unscramble eggs. It doesn't matter how valid your desires or justifications for attempting to so are, it's an act of banging your own head against the cold, hard wall of reality.

[jeffbee]

This doesn't have anything to do with democrats and republicans, considering that this bill passed unanimously through every committee and both chambers.

[SoftTalker]

Political office in general attracts the sort of people who like the "performance art" parts of it. It doesn't attract the sorts of people who like "getting things done" because the political process by design moves at a snail's pace, and if you actually solved problems you would remove issues run on in the next campaign.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

> You can't shoot someone with a computer, no matter what OS you run.

No, you can just target-lock them. The computer database (and now, LLM) is probably the biggest threat to freedom in existence. You can keep your popgun. They'll know where it is, and come with bigger ones.

China be doing some pretty heavy-duty damage with computers, but age-gates won't stop them.

[mmooss]

I think they demonstrate a welcome and sophisticated understanding of technology. Their solution to age verification maximizes privacy by not sending any data off the computer besides a simple signal of age category (if I understand the design). They show more sophistication than the parent commment:

> 3D printers should have a magical algorithm to recognize all gun parts in their tiny embedded systems

Color scanners and printers have long had algorithms to recognize currency and prevent its reproduction, implemented with the technology of decades ago. It seems relatively simple to implement gun part recognition today, especially with the recent leap in image recognition capability.

(Rants and takedowns, IME, may entertain fellow believers, but signal a comment that's going to go well beyond any facts.)

[xomiachuna]

3d shape classification is different from matching a set of well-known, mostly fixed patterns (like eurion constellation) necessary to detect currency.

With 3d shapes of non-governmental origin this is at best difficult and at worst intractable. Consider the fact that many parts of a gun can be split into multiple printable pieces to be later assembled, making it very nontrivial to decipher the role of the shape.

With currency, the government has the controls for the supply of the target shape (it can encode hidden signals onto banknotes) and effectively controls the relroduction side (through the pressure on printer manufacturers). But it cannot control the supply of gun-part-shapes (it is not the only source for it), and since the problem is likely intractable - neither can it enforce the control on the 3d printing side.

Paper money being almost non-fungible is a great achievement, but is it as easy to make any mesh nonfungible as well?

[justsomehnguy]

> It seems relatively simple to implement gun part recognition today, especially with the recent leap in image recognition capability

And it's sits fine with you because you are the one who wouldn't pay the price for this "simple image recognition capability". Except you would pay of course, indirectly but at least you wouldn't know for sure so your conscience would feel at ease.