As I was one doing the "nerd harder" directly, with inadequate funding, almost no staffing, I have to wonder why you keep thinking I don't understand the challenges.
Again, you are demanding a 100% solution. For the third time, again, such solutions are not possible. Stop trying to frame it as such and see it as a "Best Endeavor" effort. Trust me, you'll sleep better. I know I did.
This wouldn’t even require changing browsers for a child to evade; my kids would just open the debug console and do a “change in place” on the response.
Turning off developer tools is trivial and the same sort of browser setting that needs to be controlled with an age limit. Simple solution is don't let kids use your account, make them an account with out administrator rights.
showed him how to set up a proxy server in Windows to bypass the school system’s filters so he could access sites he needed.
Well, that's an issue someone should raise with IT. I know I had to chase a few of those sorts of proxies down a few times until we started downloading the same list of open proxies the kids found (traffic analysis helped there) and adding them as a a local block list provider.
However, a proxy doesn't really enter into the situation here. Again, children usually cannot afford to purchase the platforms they use. Parents need to set up those platforms before giving it to the child (or pay someone else to do so. But really, how hard is it to enter month and year of a birthday?) Deploying this to schools is a browser setting, and enforced at the platform level like any other setting using their chosen mechanism. If a school can't afford IT people to set this up, well, Universal Access funding doesn't cover salary last I looked, and right now I can't recall where we got public funding for some of our IT crew. I know the network admin was paid via E-RATE (Texas), and the security gal was paid for by another public fund other than the O&M budget.
I didn't spend the time required to try to sort out PICs from cat memes when I searched. RSACi, (Recreational Software Advisory Council) was simply a different type of RIAA and MPAA. If you want gates to keep your kids out of things, then you're going to have to appoint gate keepers, there is simply no avoiding it. However, to accommodate your point, adding another header or combining it with the council that came up with the rating is also trivial and doesn't break an age only header.
People seem to think it means “at least 18 years old” in the USA—and, by extension,
Agreed. But requiring an analysis of each individual's level of maturity and responsibility is more effort than 99% are willing to set forth when they are not stakeholders in the issue. So simple chronological age becomes the inescapable lazy way out. Observe that most jurisdictions (not simply the US) have mechanisms to emancipate minors at need.
And again, the point here is not to force a top down solution, simply invite the stake holders to rise to the occasion. Apache, lighthttpd and nginx servers need no mods, simply configuration. Browsers are a trivial software change, and most alternatives are simply ports of the base code from others. No, it's not a 100% solution. The only question is if it's worth pursuing a 80%+ answer, and if so, how to start.
So your idea is basically to use an even less effective, software-based V-Chip, which Congress mandated and few people ever used?
If you'd like to put it that way, I can't refute you. How Clipper framed the solution is a different light than this framework.
Clipper was designed as "Keep bad stuff out". What I'm thinking of is simply that the server either says nothing at all, (no restrictions) or that there is content commonly thought (by who is a valid question there) that below a particular age (What ever it is) is inappropriate for that age group. What happens after that is device (which parental units purchase for their kids) dependent.
If you are concerned enough to want to restrict the browsing habits, then preventing the installation of software would be higher on the list to control than internet browsing.
Unix (or Linux) is excellent at implementing usage controls for the past 30 years. Android isn't too bad either, and I have no idea in iOS, so you may be correct there. Windows, meh. You don't get what you paid for.
As to the clipper chip, I'm wondering why people didn't pick up on the fact that most kids cannot afford to purchase their platforms. A parent needs to do that for them. The clipper chip was designed to try to prevent anyone, not just kids, and failed at... well, almost everything. The dirty secret here is that Dad was afraid he wouldn't be able to play his porn VHS. Don't laugh. I was an adult at the time. It came up. And while what I proposed does have the weakness that it takes a concerned parent to make sure things get set up, it does not impact those that are adults and purchase their own hardware.
And there are no mandates here. I'm against that. If a parent doesn't want this on their system, simply do not turn it on.
Sorry, but this is the “nerd harder” solution. For this to be an effective proposal, you need to bring to the table the details that make it, as you put it, “competent”.
As a 45 year veteran of at scale (meaning something north of a few thousand servers) technology, I think I am likely more aware of the technical details than you are crediting me with. And I will hasten to add that experience is simply another way to go wrong with confidence, but it "should be" a tiny bit harder for me than for one with less experience.
You vastly underestimate the intelligence of children, who have all the motivation in the world to work around your solutions.
As a twenty year veteran in K-12, I think I am likely somewhat aware of the inventiveness of children and their parent's economic need to work three jobs, inability, unwillingness, laziness, or substance abuse issues that make it possible for their child to get up to mischief.
For a simple example: Not all browsers will implement your solution.
They don't need to. Only the one's the parental unit allows on the device they purchase for their child.
Your riposte would be “include all such browsers in the censorship regime”,
You anticipated me badly. Again, a child usually cannot afford their own devices. Parents need to either take responsibility for raising their child, inflicting their particular moral choices themselves or pay someone that can. If they can't afford the service of setting it up and don't wish to do it themselves, that is their choice as well.
and you would immediately be in a rabbit hole (or arms race) that you cannot possibly win
Which is very likely why I didn't jump down that rabbit hole. In fact, reference the 20 year stint in K-12 and I have at least one story for each year where I explained these very facts, patently (no one was murdered, despite my inner warring emotions) explaining this point.
As for inducing adult content sites to include the header in the first place, in my other twenty years after K-12, I've rarely come across sites that would not willingly place the header. Those that don't, we drop back to the simple stand by of blocking lists the parental units apply (or pay to have applied) to the device destined for the child.
An old maxim: Perfect is the enemy of good enough. If it's good enough, trivial to implement, then lets go with an even only 80% solution until someone smarter and better funded, more intelligent, than an aging reprobate like myself can manage.
As I've posted in the past, and sorry to harp on it, I have proposed age verification using a server header and a browser setting. If there is something wrong with this rubric, point it out.
Server says in the header block (First thing that gets returned before any content) "This site is intended for X age". That is a simple setting. No programming required, just a string to be added to the return.
The user's own browser has a setting that simply doesn't show the content if the user is too young. Since kids can rarely afford their own devices, parents get to act as gate keepers by configuring the device before giving it to Johnny. This does require some programming (more secure), either in the browser or in a script manger add on (not very secure).
No, it doesn't stop everything. Will it stop 95%? Likely. Will it stop 80%? I think so, given a competent software implementation. "But but but kids will crack it!" - see competent. It can't be impossible, but it can be difficult.
I don't see any obvious flaws, but then again, I'm not always correct either.
I think it's a good compromise until one of three things happen:
1. People stop thinking it the job of the world to raise their kid.
2. Americans stop freaking out over sex and going to the bathroom.
3. Someone else proposes a less invasive, more free choice.
But this is so obvious, it is an inescapable conclusion that those that want to "protect the chiiiiillllllldddddrrrreeeennnnn!" are actually seeking to control adults, and don't really give a shit about the kids as long as they get what they want (power).
If one lives in an apartment complex or "townhome" or condo, very likely you are forced to pay (to the property, not the cable company) a cable bill despite your personal objections to it, no matter how vehement. The previous HOA tried to pass a regulation requiring cable and paid through HOA fees. They tried the same thing with lawn care too.
And no TEA-1, or TAA-1 (can’t be bothered to check), was never meant to be secure. The US would not have allowed international distribution of the standard (side effect of encryption standards being developed while the US considered selling any encryption that couldn’t be broken by an 8088 the same as trafficking nukes).
It took 25 years before people even knew that they got sold shoddy goods.
Oh, TETRA was supposed to be secure?
How amusing. No one with more than a few seconds of experience actually thought that. What they said would be different. Threats about saying too much too loudly were frequent to those in the tech community that were dumb enough not to see how the wind blew without having to be explicitly told.
If anyone technical thought TETRA was secure, they were quickly and quietly disabused of that misconception. Anyone too dumb to see it when it was blatantly pointed out should have had their commercial class FCC license revoked. It likely would be somewhat redundant; they they were that dumb, respiration was a bridge too far.
For years and years, TETRA decoders were available. I think the best I saw was a Raspberry Pi with two software defined radios. Pretty slick, cost under $150 and about 20 minutes to get working.
It's not the Internet's job to raise your bastard anymore than it's my job if you live next door to raise it. Though they doubtless would be happier and better educated if I took them away from you.
so you’ll understand that we’ll refuse paying out the life insurance
Sadly, that is already standard procedure in some instances. During COVID, a small number of accidental indemnity claims were denied unless there was a negative COVID test. The "logic" was if they were infected, they died of an accident precipitated due to illness, thus were not covered for enhanced accidental indemnity. In no few cases, they tried to escape any indemnity at all. Or so I'm given to understand. All I was supposed to do was pull the data from the servers, not analyze the case. I didn't look at the data past ensuring it was what I was assigned to get though. None of my business, what I don't know I can't even talk about it in my sleep.
Right-wing internet commentators who have been critical of TikTok amplified the misinformation. “Four people have died from TikTok’s latest challenge,” tweeted conservative influencer Ian Miles Cheong in a tweet that received 4.7 million views. “ … And those are just the four police know of.”
It's the wrong wing blovisphere lack wits still. This isn't simply an unfortunate lapse. One of their less endearing traits, right behind their violence and death threats to any that dare to state an opposing viewpoint using facts and evidence.
There is, however, a real problem with deaths in America that they don't really want to start a conversation on.
--
mass murders as of 2023-07-20:
AL Killed: 12 Wounded: 62
AR Killed: 11 Wounded: 18
AZ Killed: 7 Wounded: 17
CA Killed: 54 Wounded: 142
CO Killed: 4 Wounded: 29
CT Killed: 3 Wounded: 5
DC Killed: 3 Wounded: 34
FL Killed: 36 Wounded: 85
GA Killed: 23 Wounded: 72
HI Killed: 2 Wounded: 3
IA Killed: 1 Wounded: 3
ID Killed: 4 Wounded: 0
IL Killed: 28 Wounded: 126
IN Killed: 7 Wounded: 32
KS Killed: 5 Wounded: 22
KY Killed: 13 Wounded: 17
LA Killed: 24 Wounded: 106
MA Killed: 1 Wounded: 10
MD Killed: 15 Wounded: 95
ME Killed: 4 Wounded: 3
MI Killed: 20 Wounded: 55
MN Killed: 8 Wounded: 27
MO Killed: 20 Wounded: 51
MS Killed: 13 Wounded: 76
NC Killed: 28 Wounded: 80
ND Killed: 2 Wounded: 3
NE Killed: 1 Wounded: 3
NH Killed: 3 Wounded: 5
NJ Killed: 13 Wounded: 38
NM Killed: 10 Wounded: 12
NV Killed: 0 Wounded: 4
NY Killed: 5 Wounded: 40
OH Killed: 23 Wounded: 84
OK Killed: 13 Wounded: 17
OR Killed: 2 Wounded: 6
PA Killed: 21 Wounded: 81
RI Killed: 3 Wounded: 1
SC Killed: 10 Wounded: 39
TN Killed: 36 Wounded: 58
TX Killed: 65 Wounded: 173
UT Killed: 8 Wounded: 0
VA Killed: 8 Wounded: 30
WA Killed: 8 Wounded: 20
https://massshootingtracker.site
I'm not an attorney. So I really should not be lawyering. I prefer a Lawyer doesn't computer (less they know how, with proof of education and evidence of real world experience) so I owe it to return the consideration.
In my non-lawyer view, it's a difference of what I have (a key, a face, a voice or fingerprint, a blood level alcohol) verses what I know (the elements of a crime).
The US government is prohibited from forcing me to make their legal case against me by requiring that I recite anything I know about the elements of the crime I commit. If they can't do it without my help, they don't have a good enough case to put me in prison.
They is yet another example of Magic Computer Pixie Dust. Give a wild, carefree dance while throwing that magical "With a computer" dust around and suddenly the world is topsy turvy and the old rules and bylaws are meaningless. Utter, complete, stinking to high Heaven, full quill B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T. I wish people (And courts!) would STOP thinking merely sticking "With a computer" on it changes any damn thing.
That said, my memory is going because of an illegal habit I have, so I can't remember that damn password. The habit that affects my memory? Why, it's a crime.
You can't make me tell you. If I could remember what it was.
I can't imagine why you think your disdain for this fora was important enough for us to be informed of it. To put it kindly, I'm sure 99.99% of us couldn't care any less what you think.
Feel free to return the sentiment. We won't care any way.
Is a non-compete clause even enforceable if you are fired?
I imagine things like customer lists and company confidential information would. Employment vis-a-vi skill set in an industry you are trained in isn't enforceable anywhere, for any reason from what I understand. The usual restrictions apply as I don't lawyer. I'd purchase a licensed opinion before relying on my possibly flawed understanding.
Age verification
As I've posted in the past, and sorry to harp on it, I have proposed age verification using a server header and a browser setting. If there is something wrong with this rubric, point it out. Server says in the header block (First thing that gets returned before any content) "This site is intended for X age". That is a simple setting. No programming required, just a string to be added to the return. The user's own browser has a setting that simply doesn't show the content if the user is too young. Since kids can rarely afford their own devices, parents get to act as gate keepers by configuring the device before giving it to Johnny. This does require some programming (more secure), either in the browser or in a script manger add on (not very secure). No, it doesn't stop everything. Will it stop 95%? Likely. Will it stop 80%? I think so, given a competent software implementation. "But but but kids will crack it!" - see competent. It can't be impossible, but it can be difficult. I don't see any obvious flaws, but then again, I'm not always correct either. I think it's a good compromise until one of three things happen: 1. People stop thinking it the job of the world to raise their kid. 2. Americans stop freaking out over sex and going to the bathroom. 3. Someone else proposes a less invasive, more free choice. But this is so obvious, it is an inescapable conclusion that those that want to "protect the chiiiiillllllldddddrrrreeeennnnn!" are actually seeking to control adults, and don't really give a shit about the kids as long as they get what they want (power).
Silly person
It's not the Internet's job to raise your bastard anymore than it's my job if you live next door to raise it. Though they doubtless would be happier and better educated if I took them away from you.
Oh, another day ending in "Y" do we bother with them?
Terry Doughty's crisis momemnet
Doughty is having an existential crisis realizing that the 5th circuit, crazy whack jobs that they are, remonstrates with "Whoa up! Not that crazy!"