this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2026
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This has gotten me especially curious about Tails.
when major websites start doing this weird browser or os based signature verification, tails isn't going to work very well on them anymore. using the internet without your signature will probably be about as fun as it is to browse with tor right now
generate a new signature with some fake history for every site you visit
that is not going to work
That's what I was afraid of, and that sucks because using Tails could mean avoiding prison or worse for journalists doing certain work.
journalism is dead
It’s a solution that seems so divorced from reality… I don’t quite understand how the expectation is reasonable, unless the goal is to force complaints to surface from the OS developers so that they can refine future versions of the law with more accuracy.
Because Linux distributions can be created free-willy. Just check out Linux From Scratch, Gentoo, etc. Same with live boot from USB, same with stripped down server distros like Alpine — you have the same issue.
Linux isn’t a product in the same way that other products can be regulated. It would make more sense if they defined clearly who this law actually targets, being something that is actually enforceable; something like this:
That at least makes some sense. In a way, it only targets PC distributors and porn distributors. The end user could still do whatever they want, but porn distributors may not serve content to them without the functionality described.
I don't want to be "that person", but here's how it could play out...
The "free-willy" distros would not fulfill the "trust" requirements needed to pass the "certification process". You can still use them, but think of it like running custom firmware on your cellphone: you're not going to be able to access your bank, but somethings will still work.
Larger distros (Red Hat, Ubuntu, etc) would pay to pass the "certification process", but this would come by making certain concessions:
Then with theses concessions, your PC world be deemed "reliable" to perform the necessary age verification and have this confirmation passed through your browser to your favor porn site.
It's like M$ secure boot on steroids. Speaking of which, we really ought to have our entire computing ecosystem less dependant on the wills of like 10 companies
Damn, that sounds like gunk. I’ve been so exciting about the day and age when phones reach the same level of customizability as a PC. Little did I know, they want to phoneify the PCs instead.
Yeah, I have wanted my phone to be more like a computer for a long time, not the other way around! This timeline sucks.