The Kids Online Safety Act S.1409 07/25/23 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Senator Richard Blumenthal introduced S.3663 last year, the Kids Online Safety Act, and re-introduced it as S.1409 this year. In the next couple days, it will get marked up in the senate, and continue on its merry way. The act is stupid, as most acts of congress are. The name of the act is a manipulation of elemental protective feelings--as most act names are. In reality, they could call this act and so many others, the Give Government Control of Your Life Act. Government doesn't care about children, or humans in general--the evidence of that truth is depressingly overwhelming. Really, I wouldn't have bothered writing about this act (check my gopher hole, writing about this trash isn't a hobby of mine), if it weren't for one disturbing paragraph: "The Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in coordination with the Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commission, and the Secretary of Commerce, shall conduct a study evaluating the most technologically feasible methods and options for developing systems to verify age at the device or operating system level." (Sec. 9a) Emphasis on, "at the device or operating system level". To verify age at the device and operating system level means to verify identity. To verify identity at those levels means to restrict computing device usage to identified individuals only. You might wish to inform me that this is already the case in much of the technology world, to some degree. Can you purchase, activate, and use a phone, without your identity being known? Right now, your identity is known through most of that process, but it is not verified with every use. Can you purchase and activate your Windows PC without verifying your identity? MSFT has been pushing for years to restrict that possibility. Apple device without an Apple account? And yet, can you daily use your device, without proving yourself? Now, the act is only wanting to "study" these possibilities. Not nefarious, right? Just a harmless congressional study, mandated by law. But the fact that they're even willing to discuss such things openly tells me a few things: 1. That the general public doesn't understand anything about technology 2. That the general public doesn't understand anything about privacy 3. That politicians are well aware of the general public's ignorance and are willing to exploit it Yes, I know... these are not revelations. But the fact that we're inching closer and closer to a world where every action, every webpage read, every comment written, is attached to your identity, is a very bad thing. If you haven't read it, see the Lovely People web comic[1]. For S.1409, I've written my Senator (the panacea for the populous when politics are running off the rails). And I'll vote, for what that's worth. Is there more I could do? [1] https://www.hummingfluff.com/lovelypeoplecomic.html