> The OS could require the parent to manually update it.
How is their age verified?
At some point one of two things is required:
1) A promise that the user is a certain age
- Which puts us exactly where we are
2) Official identification is used to verify age
- Which creates a PII nightmare
That's it. There's only those two options. You may not believe #2 is going to be a privacy nightmare but we're already seeing it happen with Discord/OpenAI/LinkedIn and everyone else that uses Persona[1]. They aren't doing the minimal security things and already aren't doing what they claimed (processed on device, then deleted). This "hack" couldn't happen if that was true
The difference here is it can be set by the parent on the OS and locked. Requiring sudo equivalent to change.
The way it is now, there's nothing stopping a (18-) user from logging out of a 'parental control enabled' account and making a new account without those controls on any service from Facebook to Steam. So the only effective option at that point is to entirely block that app or service.
This gives more power to parental control software. And yeah moves the responsibility from the service to the parents, which is what the services want cuz COPPA and other similar laws.
But you do bring up another issue people aren't discussing. That the default setting is under 18.
So we protect the children from adults by... having no way to actually verify someone is a child?
The problem is less kids getting access to porn and more pedos getting accounts to spaces designed for children. Places like Club Penguin or very famously Roblox.
Here's the problem, you can't verify children. They don't have identification in the same way adults do. And worse, if we gave them that then it only makes them more vulnerable!
Then we have the whole problem of a global internet. VPN usage is already skyrocketing to circumvent these policies.
So the only real "solution" to this is global identification systems where essentially everyone is carrying around some dystopian FIDO key (definitely your phone) that has all your personal information on it and you sign every device you touch. Because everything from your fridge to your car is connected to the Internet.
But that's a cure worse than the poison. I mean what the fuck happens to IOT devices? Do we just not allow them on the internet? That they're assumed 18+? So all kids need to do is get a raspberry pi? All they need to do is install a VM on their phone? On their computer? You might think that kids won't do this but when I was in high school 20 years ago we all knew how to set up proxies. That information spread like wildfire and you bet it got easier as the smarter kids put in the legwork.
This is a losing battle. It's not a cat and mouse game it's While E Coyote vs Road Runner.
We're on HN FFS. If there's anywhere on the Internet that the average user is going to understand how impossible this is it should be here. We haven't even talked about hacking! And yes, teenage script kiddies do exist.
These policies don't protect kids, they endanger them. On top of that they endanger the rest of us. Seriously, just try to work it out. Try to create a solution and then actually try to defeat your solution. Don't be fucking Don Quixote.
> But you do bring up another issue people aren't discussing. That the default setting is under 18.
Some things do that. This law doesn't have a default. If the admin sets all the user accounts to 18+, then the users are stuck with the setting being 18+.
> I mean what the fuck happens to IOT devices? Do we just not allow them on the internet?
Sounds pretty good to me.
But yeah they need a different handling of some manner. Maybe a "give no access to anything age-gated" category, though is that really different from under-13 in practice?
> So all kids need to do is get a raspberry pi? All they need to do is install a VM on their phone? On their computer? You might think that kids won't do this but when I was in high school 20 years ago we all knew how to set up proxies.
Just delaying unrestricted access to high school would already solve most of the problem.
> These policies don't protect kids, they endanger them. On top of that they endanger the rest of us.
They do not. Some totally different system could endanger people, but this one doesn't.
Really? Be a bit more serious now. There are a lot of things that connect to the internet, and not just for stupid data harvesting reasons. I gave other examples. I think you can understand that this gets pretty hairy pretty quickly. If you don't, then dig in deeper to how the networking is done. You're an older account so I'm assuming you actually understand computers.
> They do not.
They definitely do. I explicitly stated how that happens too. If you want me to take you seriously you have to respond with something better than "trust me bro".
There is no evidence that these companies are actually handling that data properly. There is a lot of evidence that they are handling it improperly. That data being leaked does in fact, endanger kids.
I'm also unconvinced these things even achieve the goals they claim to be after. Which is keeping pedos away from kids. i.e. the reason I said you're missing the point. So either it is not achieving that goal, or lulling people into a false sense of security. Imagine if Roblox was saying "we don't allow adults on the platform" and so now all the tech illiterate parents and kids think their kids are exclusively talking to other kids. That's just a worse situation than now.
> They definitely do. I explicitly stated how that happens too. [...] data being leaked
Again "Some totally different system could endanger people, but this one doesn't."
Any system that has companies handling personal data and able to leak it is not the system this kind of law talks about.
> false sense of security. Imagine if Roblox was saying
In that situation, Roblox is the problem, not the law.
> So what do these laws even solve?! I'm serious
If widely implemented, a parent can set a single toggle and then the accounts their kids make will all be appropriately restricted.
It wouldn't replace direct checks from the parent on what their kids are doing, but it would greatly reduce the risk profile. And making it simple and built-in means that non-tech-expert parents can set it.
>> Be a bit more serious now.
> The serious answer is in the next line.
> ...
> Again "Some totally different system could endanger people, but this one doesn't."
>> If you want me to take you seriously you have to respond with something better than "trust me bro".
I do have a hard time taking you seriously
> If widely implemented, a parent can set a single toggle and then the accounts their kids make will all be appropriately restricted.
People keep telling you option 1 is the correct one, and that it's not actually useless.
You keep describing privacy problems that only exist with option 2.
This law is not option 2. Stop interpreting people as if they're badly defending option 2. They're not.
> HOW
They take an OS where only admins can change the age setting. They set the age on a non-admin account, which they give their child access to. The OS passes the age setting along to programs, which pass it along to services that need to restrict behavior.
This is not the same as how it works today. It's impossible for a parent to do this today. The best they can do is try to keep track of every account their child has and dig through the settings manually.
Heard exactly the same thing about VPN use (kids won't know how to set up a VPN). Then Australia age verification kicked in, and VPN use went through the roof [0]
And, of course, the response so far has included similar thoughts as the UK about banning VPNs [1]
> All the games that use kernel anti cheat have the simulation running on the server.
There's an exception with fighting games. Fighting games generally don't have server simulations (or servers at all), but every single client does their own full simulation. And 2XKO and Dragon Ball FighterZ have kernel anti cheat.
Well I'm just nitpicking and it's different because it's one of the few competitive genres where the clients do full game state simulations. Another being RTS games.
Not sure if they are considered anti-cheats, but there are some measures to detect usage of input devices like XIM that allow keyboard and mouse inputs which allow for superior aim over controllers.
Well it's definitely not game developer written kernel anti-cheat on consoles.
The requested info is age range, not actual year born. So that's actually giving too much info, and could be breaking the law. Especially because 18+ is a completely valid range.
"Cool characters with sick abilities beating each other up" is vague enough to describe any genre. It doesn't even describe gameplay. Could be anything from singleplayer (or co-op) beat 'em ups. Or a hack n slash like Dynasty Warriors . A turn based JRPG like Final Fantasy with flashy abilities like summons fits that description.
Anyways, to me the things that make fighting games difficult and fun are what differentiate them from beat 'em ups, which get pretty boring quickly.
I don't disagree that combos are not fun to learn, but I don't know what you could replace it with. Removing it would turns games into punch, punch back, kick, kick back without any risk or counterplay. Adding blocking/countering would have to be more complicated than just "hold block" to keep it interesting and would require memorization all your opponent's moves too. I'd say Tekken 8 already has this problem especially with King's chain grabs. So lots of games are going for auto-combos to make comboing easier instead.
I actually did play Skullgirls and Street Fighter 6 in a way without learning combos for a character. It's pretty easy with a zoner, and plenty of players hate playing against that too.
Yeah, that's why I like that games are doing auto-combos instead.
I also enjoy rhythm games, but they're different combos. Especially for the learning process: you're really not punished for dropping combos in rhythm games, and you can keep playing as if you didn't drop it (unless you're going for the full combo of course). That's really not the case for fighting games, requiring you to restart to the beginning of the combo each time. And in a multiplayer game, it gives your opponent an opportunity each time.
Yeah, I kinda want to install on my LG V60, which no longer gets updates. But it breaks the dual screen on the phone, which is one of the unique features about this phone.
> why incorporate it instead of just having proper moderation and/or private servers?
No one wants to become a moderator, they do it out of necessity. So it's pretty much the other way around: a lot of anticheats were, and are, originally developed by community members for private servers (because you're not deploying a 3rd party anti-cheat onto first party servers). BattleEye was originally for Battlefield games. Punkbuster for Team Fortress. EasyAntiCheat for Counter Strike. I even remember Starcraft Brood War 3rd party server ICCUP with a custom 'anti-hack' client requirement.
You still see this today with Counter Strike 2 private servers Face-IT: they have additional anti-cheat not less. Same with GTA V modded private server, FiveM have anti-cheat they call adhesive.
And then game developer saw that players are doing that, so they integrate the anti-cheat so that players do not have to go downloading/installing the anti-cheat separately. Quake 3 Arena added Punkbuster in an update for example.
I've seen some bad some SaaS that management insists is an integration they need and no one else provides. I can easily see some vibe coded projects replace them.
No one says it has to be automatic. The OS could require the parent to manually update it.
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