Fighting back against the Play Integrity API

daunting7512

Hi. I know there's a lot of grim news lately about age verification laws coming for operating systems, but I think it's time the privacy community go on offense for once! I am not a professional lobbyist, but I do have some actual experience with varying levels of success working with city councils and U.S. state level elected officials on issues that severely annoyed me in the past. It's actually not as hard as you think to get elected officials to introduce a bill.

I'm working on a law proposal for something called the "Root User Protection Act" (name may change), that would prohibit mobile app developers from discriminating against users who have modified the operating system on their phone or tablet by either rooting it or installing a different OS. The goal is to prevent the Play Integrity API locked EU digital ID nightmare from happening in America, and ensure that consumers will always be able to bypass OS-level age verification on mobile devices by rooting their phone.

Anybody want to work this with me and help me write the proposed law? Even if this doesn't succeed, I'll count it as a win if we force the child safety lobby to spend money on fighting it while we spend no money at all - asymmetric warfare and all that.

I've got a Matrix group with a few people dedicated to opposing age verification laws and fighting for tech freedom in general. Add me if you're interested (it might take me up to a day to get back to you and add you back):

@constantonlinesyndrome:matrix.org

Johnnyloans

daunting7512 Root User Protection Act

It'd help a lot to change the name to something that sounds like it's obvious everyone should vote yes. Probably something positive.

E.g. age verification on phones law > name it "protect children from predators act"

daunting7512 help me write the proposed law?

I think only a lawyer could succeed at this if it's anything beyond: I'd like for these things to happen.

The-Man

daunting7512 Anybody want to work this with me and help me write the proposed law? Even if this doesn't succeed, I'll count it as a win if we force the child safety lobby to spend money on fighting it while we spend no money at all - asymmetric warfare and all that.

No thank you... Beating the hornets nest with a stick and watching what happens when you force agencies to spend money... then calling it a win.
What could possibly go wrong?

"I've got a Matrix group with a few people dedicated to opposing age verification laws and fighting for tech freedom in general."

More like you want to use the App store on your terms and Google will not let you.

daunting7512

Johnnyloans

It'd help a lot to change the name to something that sounds like it's obvious everyone should vote yes. Probably something positive.

That's helpful advice. Thanks.

I think only a lawyer could succeed at this if it's anything beyond: I'd like for these things to happen.

Well, the last time I got a bill introduced into my state's legislature, I gave a presentation to my assemblymember where I outlined in a very detailed presentation the issues with the current law with examples of where it goes wrong, the specific changes that needed to be made, the rationale for those changes, and gave him a nice presentation summary document in bullet point format. After confirming that my assemblymember agreed with me and this was something that he wanted to do, the assemblyemember's staff took my points from my presentation and turned it into an actual bill. They have consultants they work with on translating legislative intent into actual legalese, I didn't do any of that for them.

I guess I'd like help thinking of edge cases, putting together a presentation on how the Play Integrity API (and similar APIs on other operating systems) are harmful to consumers, enable anticompetitive behavior, infringe on your right make perfectly legal modifications to your own property, etc.

AcclaimSublevel19

While the cause may be good, I think what'll happen is that it won't pass, but you'll draw unnecessary attention on projects like GrapheneOS with whatever consequences that has. I don't think this is worth continuing.

daunting7512

The-Man

Beating the hornets nest with a stick and watching what happens when you force agencies to spend money... then calling it a win.

I disagree. Unless I see evidence to the contrary, the hornets are already attacking us all out. The wave of age verification and anti right-to-own-your-devices laws sweeping across the world is evidence of that. Meta spent more money lobbying for age verification laws than Boeing and Lockheed Martin's lobbying budgets combined.

https://tboteproject.com/

We're already at war. Can we defeat that much money? probably not. But if our freedoms are being taken by these people, at least we can do a fighting withdrawal and force them to expend more resources to take the same, or less ground.