Disgusting
this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2026
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Privacy
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Please explain... If I'm below the age of... Whatever they decide, what will or will not be accessible to me? Like, if I'm below a certain age, will some EU appointed DNS restrict what domains I can reach? Or, since this article is about hardware-bound attestation, are my devices going to prevent me from installing and using certain apps if I'm below the age? I don't understand where the restrictions are going to lie...
Bonus: can't I just buy, say, five phones right now, root them or install custom OSs before shit hits the fan and be happy?
First of all,
I don’t understand where the restrictions are going to lie
Yes. That's exactly the question.
The point of the... excitement around this is exactly the uncertainty. We simply don't know what the EU or national governments of the EU will do with this.
The first problem is that the "hardware bound attestation" isn't just hardware bound, it's specifically Apple and Android's attestation and NOT the more open standard. That means the device that can do this thing, whatever it's going to be "necessary" for, MUST always be an Apple or Google device, with that bit intact. Tbh, I don't really know how much rooting affects this, but I would be surprised if it didn't.
The second problem is that once the infrastructure for blocking access to something and requiring this sort of authentication is in place, it's just a list of targets. It's very easy to add another platform, website, app or anything else behind it.
And the reason for this excitement happening now is that the specification that was given for all this to happen previously only said it should be "secure" somehow, but not detailing the "how". They think they can do it as an implementation detail and pretend it's not a big deal. So it's very clearly something those bastards have tried to be sneaky about.
Can you use rooted phones
No, whatever the point of their efforts is, they will make sure to not leave obvious loopholes like that open.
Doesn't sound like an internet worth using
The services themselves will probably be made to ask for verification and your devices will answer through the age verification app. Since custom mobile OSs (or desktop Linux) won't provide hardware attestation, the app won't work on them and the websites will treat you as underage. The types of services that require age verification aren't specific, they can change based on EU decisions so eventually people not using "approved" OSs may be locked out of most of the internet.
Oh neat, they broke the Internet, since everything is hosted on Linux...
This wouldn't impact the backend of these services, the age checking stuff would run on the client, thus only breaking Linux (barring android) clients.
so eventually people not using “approved” OSs may be locked out of most of the internet
Agree 100%. I hope everyone realizes this! I have seen too many ppl who think, "It's OK, open source will save us". But open source can't. This is a legal and social prob, and needs a legal and social solution.
And you can be damn sure this will infest necessary government services and apps that won't allow you to contact the government in any other way.
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Cool. Have fun trying to enforce it.
even if you are forced to use their stuff for banking, state services and increasingly more?
at best we are looking at having private devices separate from corporate ones. we'd need both devices and services that are ours.
I'm already largely of the opinion this is necessary.
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