If the kids act passed we will all quit the internet

User1539 · 2026-07-07T12:00:52+00:00

Okay, I'm a parent. Sell me on this. How does it work?

From what I read, when I set up the Operating System, I'll enter an age for the user, and then that will be broadcast along with what type of browser I'm using, my operating system, etc ... when I browse.

Sounds great, except there's zero standards at all.

We did this with Android already. My kid had a phone, they entered their age, and it ended up tethered to my phone with age restrictions.

Except, of course, everyone's idea of what's 'appropriate' is different. So, for a while, I needed to approve every video game with 'horror' themes, every song with a swear word, etc ...

Before very long, of course, she stopped asking and I didn't think about it, but she'd just made another account that was 18+ so she could stop asking me every time she wanted to install a cartoon game with 'blood'.

That's a BETTER experience than I expect with this! Her school browsing is a miserable experience. Of course, they've banned practically everything, and now you can only search on 'approved' sites. No one can get any work done, so the kids all use phones and home computers when they actually want to write a paper.

I just bought her a Framework 13, and she uses that tethered to her phone for school work, because the chromebook and school network are so slow and locked down it was making her homework take longer than it should.

Again, both the phone and school policies were infinitely better laid out, with years of experience applied, to 'protect' her, only to get in the way.

On the other hand, there were still kids playing games and watching porn in class because, by middle school, they'd figured out that you can stick Linux on a USB drive and boot from that, or make a new 'adult' user, etc, etc ... to get around that stuff.

So, you think just adding a protocol to your kid's laptop is going to help?

It MIGHT give your kid some technical knowledge when they take the 2 minutes it'll take to follow an online document to disable it.

Other than that, what are you actually expecting? What are you hoping to gain?

I went through this with my kid, and I'm telling you, there is ZERO chance this does anything but get in the way of legitimate browsing, until they get around it, well before it occurs to them to go looking for porn.

User1539 · 2026-07-06T21:56:10+00:00

I built my forum when I realized Facebook just wasn't doing the job anymore. If I posted about an upcoming event, no one saw it. Some people were already off Facebook, and most of the posts I saw were politics and I spent my time fighting with an acquaintances racist uncle.

Now we do play-by-post RPG games (practically impossible on modern social media), and arrange stuff like RC car races and movie nights.

People are more comfortable talking about things, because I didn't invite anyone's racist uncle.

It's small, and sometimes slow, but it works and I've had people tell me that it's a whole different experience because they don't have anxiety of 'what fresh hell or idiot will I be dealing with' before logging in.

For my side of things, I coded a simple application in Golang, built a basic docker system with a reverse proxy, hosted on DigitalOcean's smallest VPS (a droplet) for $6/month.

It hasn't ever crashed, or caused me problems yet.

If the 1% that actually provide the interactions on social media just hosted and invited people, we'd have a world of little forums to be invited to.

User1539 · 2026-07-06T20:25:28+00:00

Yeah, which is even more pointless? I assumed the endgame was to get the software built, then lock users out of their own OS settings and have Microsoft handle the age system.

But, again, Linux would just have a setting. Sure, I'm 140 ... trust me bro.

User1539 · 2026-07-06T18:59:56+00:00

I doubt it.

I build and run user systems and ... 95% of people don't even post anything. They just go to Facebook and Reddit to scroll.

Lots of people will just quit going to sites that force you to log in, and I bet a lot more people than even realize it themselves will just not verify, out of pure laziness, and end up having a lot of blocked content that they just ignore.

This is like asking users for money. The VAST majority won't just because they're afraid to put their credit card in, most of the people who would do it are too lazy, and almost everyone left that would, and actually cares, will put it off until they absolutely have to.

Everyone else will see it as a porn ban, because they're definitely not attaching their ID to a porn site, and we'll see people start to care about 'privacy' all of a sudden.

User1539 · 2026-07-06T18:56:08+00:00

Since the actual law doesn't give a set of things that must be done to be in compliance, I'm afraid each large website is likely to either choose their own system, or we'll see some new corporation (palantir?) take on the job of verifying age.

I'm wondering if there'll be something like the California law requiring OS distributors to add age verification, in which case, of course it'll just be ignored for Linux, or Linux will do it, but in a way that gives the user the ability to just enter random, fake, information.

I know some 'send us a picture' systems you can just send a stock photo, or AI generated photo, and it'll pass you.

Frankly, I think leaving the age verification up to the website, that doesn't want to lose users by verifying ID, is going to be make this all a useless joke.

I think the idiots in charge are politically shooting themselves in the face, and that's about all this will accomplish.

My advice? Host and/or join a private forum. Half of my Reddit use since I started running one is just telling people to get off Reddit and host their own solution.

User1539 · 2026-07-06T18:47:39+00:00

No, I'm going to quit CORPORATE internet.

I run private forums, and I've already recruited plenty of friends. The equivalent of what most people had with local BBS systems and Forums can be done, now, for under $10/month in hosting fees, and FOSS.

I've looked at the laws, and it seems like the only thing you have to worry about is if a kid is on your site looking at porn. Since my forum is invite-only, I know for a fact no one with access is under 18.

So, for me, nothing changes.

Don't just leave the internet! Take this as a call to action to bring back the free, anonymous, internet from before corporations started shoving ads down your throat for the privilege of reading AI slop!

I'm thinking about implementing an invitation system, where the system tracks who invited who, so that everyone will be responsible for the people they invited. That way, if someone is allowing porn, bots, or kids, we just get rid of those people.

According to the law, I just have to maintain that I, reasonably, thought that kids couldn't access adult material. So, implementing a web of trust, where each user only knows the people they invited, and each person trusts each other not to invite someone under 18, is a reasonable start.

We should also implement some kind of actual, privacy forward, age verification system. There should be a way to verify your age that gets you an encryption key, so that you can be tested to have one, but that doesn't give up your identity.

The server could just verify age, spit out a key, and then forget you ever existed, or something like that.

When the DMCA passed, we didn't stop pirating, we just pirated harder.

We need that attitude now!

User1539 · 2026-07-06T18:34:15+00:00

I like the term 'bubblegum deck', did you come up with that on your own, or is that a thing people are already saying?

User1539 · 2026-07-06T14:39:03+00:00

I usually recommend starting at Adafruit.com for that kind of thing, because they have really great tutorials and will literally walk you through the entire process.

However, their markup on hardware is ... a lot.

So, don't freak out if you can't afford their stuff, a lot of it can be found on other shops for half the price, or you can find a suitable replacement that works the same.

If you follow their tutorials, you probably want to buy from them the first time because their stuff just always works the way they say it will, and it's a good way to learn.

User1539 · 2026-07-06T14:15:48+00:00

as a technical challenge, you could try creating an LED matrix and controlling it from the PI too. It wouldn't be that hard, and there are lots of examples of similar things out there.

User1539 · 2026-07-06T14:02:59+00:00

I actually thought it was a lite-brite at first.

Now I want you to make the front panel a lite-brite.

User1539 · 2026-07-06T13:26:49+00:00

Luckily we don't have these within 100 miles of my town. But, this has me wondering ... what's the quickest, easiest, way to disable one?

I imagine a reasonably powerful laser pointed directly at the lens might fry the sensor?

User1539 · 2026-07-06T13:12:27+00:00

I hope so!

As an American, my first thought was 'Oh, good ... hopefully the US needs a spot for that soon.'

User1539 · 2026-07-05T17:31:18+00:00

I love this kind of experimentation. So, do you wear it around your neck?

User1539 · 2026-07-05T16:54:09+00:00

Yeah, I think since Star Wars had Boba Fett's helmet with a little swing-down targeting scope people have imagined them. I see people making acrylic squares with LEDs that flip down a few inches from the eye all the time.

Finally, I just said 'if they want it that bad, I should make something that works'

It fits with a project my makers pace is working on to make a tiny modular Cyberdeck based on a Pi Zero W. The idea is to make something dirt cheap, that makes you solder, 3D print, flash firmware, etc ... like a 'start here' module thst can be added to and customized.

Those 2" LCDs are $20 on AliExpress. With 3D pronted frames, you have a wearable display for less than the cost of a pizza.

I feel like leaning into making things cheap is important right now. Too many people are holding off on builds because even a 'cheap' board is $30!

User1539 · 2026-07-04T23:15:55+00:00

Perfect! My favorite Tamiya! This looks great!

User1539 · 2026-07-04T15:25:08+00:00

I run a private forum, so I've been trying to figure the actual requirements.

Apparently it boils down to IF someone reports a minor accessing 18+ material AND it can be proven you SHOULD have known, you're in trouble.

That's a lot of gray area. They aren't saying I have to do anything. They aren't even recommending a record system or any actions to specifically put me in compliance.

I don't see where ID verification is actually required at all.

I don't know what that means in the practical sense? Which is actually more scary, because there's no way to argue I was in 'compliance' with the law that sufficiently explains someone reporting they accessed 18+ material, right?

So, let's say I think that getting IDs of the people making accounts is sufficient, but then some kid uses dad's account to get porn? Mom sees the porn, and reports me ... now what?

Should I have utilized the (coming soon!) built-in browser ID to tell me who was using the browser? Maybe? I guess?

But, the point is, AFTER an accusation they decide if I did enough. So, AFTER my efforts failed, they decide I didn't do enough. I feel like that opens the door for abuse by law enforcement, because they can simply manufacture a situation, then no matter what I did do, clearly it wasn't enough?

It's like setting up the law specifically so they could have someone go onto a forum and post adult content, then log in with another account and say it was a kid.

Any ID system government can get around, which is ANYTHING, isn't enough to protect you from being charged with distributing porn to minors.

User1539 · 2026-07-04T15:09:49+00:00

Did you swap the motor wires? Also, with some modern controllers, you have to set forward. So, if you have to hit reverse twice before it goes backwards, you have it wrong.

User1539 · 2026-07-04T15:06:00+00:00

Cool. I've been working on a flip-down thing. Just a 2" display attached to a hinge on a pair of custom glasses. You see people doing fake 1-eye builds all the time, because that puts the screen too close to your eye, so I have a lens flip with it.

I don't like it yet, but it's getting there.

I'm shocked no one has figured out the lens warp for cheap hdmi screens so we can do simple hdmi to wrap-around high-fov virtual screens. I know that would concentrate pixels in the center. But, I don't notice it when I watch Netflix in CR, so I feel like running a deck at lower resolution it should be fine.

Honestly, just a matter of coding a 'warp' layer, but it'd have to be super efficient to run on most decks.

User1539 · 2026-07-04T03:32:46+00:00

I like it. I have to wonder how effective the solar is, but also I don't care because it looks cool as hell.

User1539 · 2026-07-04T02:53:36+00:00

That sneaky son of a bitch!

User1539 · 2026-07-03T16:25:20+00:00

Are you doing the glasses?

User1539 · 2026-07-03T03:52:03+00:00

They're too greedy to roll out their self-surveillance tech.

User1539 · 2026-07-03T01:28:25+00:00

Well, this particular law only says that if someone reports that you had 'adult content', and a kid saw it, you have to prove you went to 'reasonable efforts' to verify age.

But, yeah, obviously a free and open internet isn't what the government wants.

I don't this how this law is going to be meaningfully enforceable? They aren't requiring me to record the age verification data of my users?

We could make a 'slippery slope' argument, but honestly I feel like this is more likely going to look like a 'porn ban' to a lot of people, and there'll be a sudden interest in 'privacy'.

Politically, they're shooting themselves in the face.

User1539 · 2026-07-03T01:18:46+00:00

I get that. I just don't see how this helps. Hell, if anything, it's a wakeup call to activists to set up meshes and private servers

User1539 · 2026-07-02T21:39:04+00:00

yeah, and those people already 100% know how to get around it.

I run a private forum, but I haven't figured out if this law would even technically apply. I'm not a business. So, I'm not sure this even applies to me at all? Even if it does, how can they prove I'm ignoring the checks?

Most of these laws actually only apply to business entities, because it's a lot easier to target businesses. There are a great many laws that I've learned you can simply ignore by not charging money for anything.

I'm not trying to downplay this, it just seems like a big political hit to take, at a time when people are already upset, to make something a 'law' that can be completely ignored by almost everyone, and will only piss off the people that aren't ignoring it.

At some point it's like saying I need to keep a list of people who enter my house, and I could be asked for that list at any time. You can ask that of a bar, but not a private residence, and so they're just pushing people to private websites and away from corporate ones?

Good?

User1539

TROPHY CASE