• 4 Posts
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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: July 31st, 2023

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  • No, it is bad.

    Suppose it’s used to verify your age when visiting Pornhub. How is Pornhub going to trust the user’s computer didn’t lie about the user’s age? A “just trust me bro” sent by the browser isn’t going to suffice; teenagers would find a way around that.

    Thr attestation will have to be cryptographically signed by some trusted party—and that’s either going to be the government, or the operating system vendor.

    If it’s the government holding the signing keys: the website can now verify that you’re a resident of $state in $country and use that for fingerprinting and targeted advertising. And what if your country doesn’t participate, or if Pornhub doesn’t trust the signing keys used by the government of Estonia? Tough shit, no porn for you! It would be impractical to manage all those keys, though, so why not instead leave it up to the operating system vendor?

    If it is left the operating system vendor, it’s going to end up being exactly the same as Google Play Service’s SafetyNet “feature”. If you’re not using an approved operating system (a.k.a. Windows, MacOS, stock Android, iOS) you’re not visiting Pornhub. Or a banking app. Or applying for jobs. Etc.

    This bill is a poison pill for device ownership and FOSS operating systems being handed to corporations on a silver platter.
















  • Yep. When talking to Russians who emigrated away from Russia, you will find plenty of stories just like your sister’s friend’s one.

    What the tankies idolizing the country seem to not realize is that living there as a national is oppressive. Your standard of living depends on staying in the good graces of the government—good graces that can quickly be lost by appearing to go against them.

    The United States government is working its way towards that at an astonishing pace, but saying Russia has more freedoms is a complete delusion.