SYSTEM76 ON AGE VERIFICATION LAWS

Summary from the TLDR InfoSec newsletter

Colorado's SB 26-051, California's AB 1043, and New York's proposed S8102A impose age-verification requirements on operating systems that are both trivially bypassable and potentially damaging to open computing ecosystems. The laws rely on self-attestation, which children will simply lie to circumvent. New York's version goes further by requiring third-party identity verification just to use an internet-connected device, effectively eliminating privacy. Linux distributions that decline to emit an age-bracket signal risk delivering a degraded internet experience to their users. The only durable solution is digital literacy education rather than access controls.