Steve Gibson (18:16)
Or it just could not be plugged into its normal American style outlet where it gets its power. Anyway, thank you again listeners for another entertaining picture of the week. Always appreciate them. Okay, so our first news of the week was inspired by a question I actually received from a listener. It relates to much of our recent discussions about Internet age verification and separately or specifically to its recent escalation, which we've been seeing everywhere to include, as just happened, operating system platforms themselves. Our listeners who identified himself as Fred M. He wrote. Hi Steve, I recently read that freedos was not going to comply with California's age verification requirements. He said, since freedos is the OS distributed with spinrite, I was wondering how this would affect you when the new law takes effect. Thanks, Fred. Okay, so the good news is spinrite is not age restricted content. So I don't think we have a problem, even if we were going to have a problem, which I don't think we would. But his question refers to California's Assembly Bill 1043, and it's unclear to me why this issue suddenly and recently popped up on everyone's radar. But the Internet is currently buzzing about it and our listeners have been sending their questions and opinions to me, which I appreciate. The bill in question was approved by California's Governor back on October 13th of last year of 2025, and it doesn't take effect until the start of next year, January 1st of 2027. So why all of the sudden this awareness of it? Because, I mean, it was a while ago and so I did some looking around over the past month. The only thing that I could find was that the very popular and respected and widely read Tom's Hardware site did post an article about this on March 1st, which sort of seems maybe to have been the catalyst for everyone going, what? What are you talking about? So Tom's hard hardware's headline was California Introduces Age Verification Law for All Operating Systems Including Linux and Steam OS User Age Verified during OS Account Setup. Okay, so mostly no Linux users want a nosy government to have its mitts on their beloved independent open source operating system. And since Linux doesn't have any central control authority, you know, the way Windows does Mac, Android and iOS, they reasoned, Linux users reasoned there would be no way for that to happen. Right, Right. So, okay, since California legislators have also recently proposed, as we talked about, requiring all 3D printers to somehow magically identify and and refuse to print any component that might be part of a handgun, no one knows how that could possibly be made possible either. Unfortunately, our and I say our because Leo and I are both residents of California, our legislators here in California do seem to be having fun asking for things they cannot realistically have. Not that that's stopping them from, you know, asking. So okay, first let's step back and take a look at what this legislation is because it does exist. It was signed into law on October 13th and it is coming into effect on January 1st. That's all happening. The section heading in this bill is Age Verification Signals Software Applications and Online Services. And the sections overview, just the overview of the detailed, you know, point by point, says existing law generally provides protections for minors on the Internet, including the California Age Appropriate Design Code act that among other things, requires a business that provides an online service product or feature likely to be accessed by children to do certain things, including estimate the age of child users with a reasonable level of certainty appropriate to the risks that arise from the data management practices of the business or apply the privacy and data protections afforded to children and, you know, to all consumers and prohibits an online service product or feature from, among other things, using dark patterns to lead or encourage children to provide personal information beyond what is reasonably expected to provide that online service product or feature or to forego privacy protections. And of course, Leo, the other thing that happened just in the last week was Meta and Google with YouTube losing those major cases and there was also one in Arizona I think, which is beginning to hold these, you know, big tech accountable for the design practices in their applications which do exactly what this California Age Appropriate Design Code act says they shouldn't do. So they wrote this bill beginning January 1, 2027, which did get signed in on October 13, they said would require, among other things related to age verification with respect to software applications, an operating system provider as defined to provide an an accessible interface at account setup that requires an account holder as defined to indicate the birth date, age or both of the user of that device for the purpose of providing a signal regarding the user's age bracket to applications available in a covered application store and to provide a developer as defined who has requested a signal with respect to a particular user with a digital signal via a reasonably consistent real time application programming interface, you know, API regarding whether a user is in any of several age brackets as prescribed, the bill would require a developer to request a signal with respect to a particular user from an operating system provider or a covered application store when the application is downloaded and launched. This bill would prohibit an operating system provider or a covered application store from using data collected from a third party in an anti competitive manner as specified. This bill would punish non compliance with a civil penalty to be enforced by the Attorney General as prescribed. Okay, so that's as much of as I'm going to quote from that. So while it's true that details matter, I'll first note that that you know this is like what this bill is asking for is what we've been suggesting Apple with iOS and Google with Android should both somehow manage to provide. And the way this should be done, at least for the use case of smartphones is beginning to take shape. We're beginning to see this manifested in Apple's apparently reluctant incremental movement on this front. The parents or guardians of a minor child should be able to configure the birth date of the user of a smartphone and be able to securely lock that date into their child's device from then on. And I'll say optionally should be able to but like so that the point is the platform would provide the capability, but it should be at their discretion from that point on. Anytime a website, a local application or app store download contains age restricted content and thus needs to obtain age gated permission, they may cause the user's operating system, the user who's the kid may cause the user's operating system to display a clear and or I'm sorry the age restricted content provider may cause the user's operating system to display a clear and uniform pop up asking for an age bracket to be provided if the user wishes to. Again, not automatically, not unless they set it that way, but if they want control if they choose to, they may then allow the operating system to inform the requested application on their behalf whether its user is under 13, between 13 and 15, between 16 and 18 or over 18. Those are the brackets California specifies in which the world seems to have sort of be be settling on. If the user declines to provide their bracket or if their device has not been set with a date of birth, the requesting site will be told that no age assertion is available and should probably not deliver this age restricted content. So what seems right about this is that this solution places the handling and responsibility of their young child's age into the parent's hands, where it should be, not the government, not the os, not the platform provider. The platform provider provides the capability to configure the device to do this if the parent or guardian should so choose. And all it requires of Google and Apple and Apple's, like they're both almost there now, is that they provide the means to accept, lock and protect that decision and provide a uniform platform specific API for making that information available on a case by case basis. Again, if it's been configured to do that to any entity that inquires. And as I said, both companies apparently reluctantly, have been moving incrementally in this direction. So at this point I cannot, given what, what's happening on the legal side and in local and national governments, I can't find any sympathy for someone who complains that this, like what I described, would represent an invasion of an online user's absolute privacy, which is what we see. There's a lot of that on the net. You know, opening the front door of your home, walking outside and down the street compromises someone's illusory, absolute privacy. We live in a world of laws which attempt to protect vulnerable young people by age, gating, where they can go and what they can do, you know, and you know, with the vast resources that are now online, there's a lot of stuff that needs, arguably young people, you know, parents should have the right to decide if that's something that they want their children to have access to. So as a society we're now working to more fully incorporate all of the many facets of the Internet, which are many now, into our daily lives. So to do that responsibly means that a user's age, although it hasn't previously been, it's going to have to be taken into account moving forward. Okay, so, but what happens when we leave the mostly well and clearly and cleanly defined realm of personal use, smartphones, you know, which have per user accounts, things become a lot less clear and clean. And I argue, I mean, I agree with everyone who's upset about California and what this means for Linux, that we're stepping into a huge mess. So here's what Tom's hardware wrote, which may have been, as I thought, the catalyst for this recent upsurge of, you know, interest and outrage. They said California's Digital Age Assurance act, That's Assembly Bill 1043, signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in October 2025, requires every operating system provider in California. And I don't even know like if Linux has an operating system provider. Right.
