I think this is why some people on mastodon, say "Eat the rich"

Or think violence is needed to deal with them.

It no doubt is the wrong way, but I wonder if there is even a right way at this point.

This disturbs me greatly.

Honoring the GPL, you can create surveillance free software, but you are then braking the law.
Honoring the surveillance law, you brake the GPL license agreement.

Now, I am not a lawyer, but it looks that these surveillance laws are making the GPL license and thus free software, illegal.

Update. On second thought of the above:

Using any system without restrictions is illegal in the jurisdiction of these laws.
Now only age, next ID, bio-metric, etc, verification.
Now minor sensitive sites, next any sites declared not suitable for you or plain illegal.
For now you are allowed to build and run an unrestricted system only for yourself. Isolated from the internet.
Next, you will only be able to illegally smuggle in computing parts capable of allowing free software.
Now you can establish a free ¨dark¨net. Later?

FSF will sue anyone braking the GPL.
Any restrictions developed in a free software system to comply with these laws, brakes the GPL and cannot be distributed as free software.
But these are likely going to be open source software!
But are they free software?

What is then the point of developing such open source freedom restricting software?
Only with these law compliant non-free systems you will be allowed to run free software in a restricted mode (LOL).
For personal use only, IF you ¨choose¨ to and never exercise your GPL freedoms.

So this is what it has always been.
A battle for freedom.

They haven't released any app to begin with. They have a "reference implementation of the Age Verification solution" that you can build yourself for Android and iOS if you're interested in making a proper solution yourself.

https://github.com/eu-digital-identity- … -wallet-ui
https://github.com/eu-digital-identity- … -wallet-ui

But hey, who cares about the facts these days anyway. It seems to be more important to write articles that generate clicks and money.

The US version at least, if bill HR 8250 and its Senatorial equivalent pass, would mandate age verification (i.e. ID verification, not just attestation) at the OS level

It is certain that the rest of the world (if they are into age restrictions at all) will adopt the same methodology. Once there is an age field in the OS which any website can interrogate (or even must interrogate), it can and will be employed anywhere.  OS makers are not going to produce different versions for different regions, with and without the age field, in fact Microsoft, Google and Apple will welcome this method of extending their snooping of their users. They already have the infrastructure for it, like the now compulsory Windows accounts with the mothership.

Whether the bill will pass, not clear. It has bipartisan sponsorship, and like KOSA and numerous other such bills it will probably gather wide bipartisan support despite being very unpopular with the public. KOSA did fail to pass... But now it's been resurrected too, and it has support even from some officials who are normally against such surveillance and censorship measures. And there is no question that it would be signed into law if passed, and probably deemed legal by the Supreme Court as well.

The upshot is that for people in the US, it would allow them to be surveilled online much more easily regardless of their choice of websites or OS platforms. Circumvention wouldn't be impossible (people routinely bypass China's Great Firewall, of course it can be done) but the bar would be considerably higher for most users.

Edit: as far as the European version, pwned is pwned. If a mandatory app is easily hackable, then you can be spied on through it whether you are using Farcebook or Webring.

My cynical side says that's the point. As with end to end encryption, everyone must be pwnable at the hands of the state.

This is just going to bring back webrings and BBS's, and that's a good thing.

https://cybersecuritynews.com/eus-age-verification-app/

The arrogance of professional revolutionaries from the European Union announcing a groundbreaking application for the Union and the entire WORLD showed what clowns they are!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VRRriyDKKk

This Is Not the End of Linux Freedom!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5RA4PzrEl0

https://systemdfree.com/#manifesto

It seems more and more people are starting to see that we were right all along.

https://linuxiac.com/federal-bill-would … entire-us/

EU - age verification app ready as Europe moves to curb children's social media access

https://www.reuters.com/world/eu-age-ve … 026-04-15/

It seems that we are doomed.