Well, in some cases, they really are asking for ID, but in most cases, they’re not, and you actually think there is no ID. But this just shows the innocence of the normal person, because the average person doesn’t understand technology and doesn’t realize that you can be tracked and your identity attached to everything you do on the internet, even without overt ID presentation. And when the government starts to require it, I’m telling you folks, abuse will follow. There will be bad consequences. Just recently, Congress introduced a new bill, H.R. 8250, which is called the Parents Decide Act, another frankly misguided bill that shows a complete misunderstanding of technology.

This is another version of the California law requiring operating systems to store age verification. The result of this, no change for your kids, but a permanent verifiable device identity available for private parties to track all of us. These kinds of laws basically rubber stamp the tracking done by Big Tech as a requirement for daily use. So Big Tech loves this. But these features permanently diminish our privacy, and it’s about time you became aware. So stay right there. Everything starts with the Fourth Amendment. For U.S. citizens, we are taught about the various elements of our Constitution, and one of them is the Fourth Amendment.

Just to remind you, the Fourth Amendment is the right of people to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures without probable cause. This, by the way, is constantly abused now with the once again regular renewal of the FISA 702 provision in the law, which allows for warrantless surveillance and abuse to apply to U.S. citizens. I made a call to action video about this to tell your representatives not to approve this, and I failed. It passed once again. But to frame this for you, the historical reason for the Fourth Amendment is to prevent the abuse of power.

The warrant is required for normal searches and seizures, so no single government authority can just willy-nilly take your stuff without some justification of a potential crime being committed. The problem is that in today’s world, the commodity that has bypassed the Fourth Amendment is your information. You see, when your information is taken by private parties, it is no longer the government taking them. So big tech freely collects your location information 24-7 and tracks your every click on the internet, and then associates this with some identifier which can then point directly back to you.

The effect of this is chilling. If any action you do on the internet is attributed to you, then free speech can result in jail time as is already proven to happen in the UK today. Free speech isn’t really free. This is the unfortunate effect of modern technology. Free speech isn’t really an act of freedom, because someone can attribute a normal person’s statements to a permanent historical record, then most people will just prefer to remain quiet and not give a public opinion. Thus giving credence to the mantra, I’ve got nothing to hide. In reality, you purposely already hid what you want to say, so publicly you have nothing to hide, but you did hide something.

You might think this is not a problem if you happen to support what some particular government leader is doing right now, but as history shows, this is abused by all politicians. So what’s agreeable to you today may not be agreeable in the next political administration. Ininformation about your actions can be used against you in employment, in banking, even public social media shaming or cancellation. And the consequences in non-free countries is even more extreme, like jail time or worse. We can speak without fear if we have pseudo-anonymity, besides what I think is private information.

You don’t have to know what I’m thinking. But it is important for the public to hear all opinions as that gives people the choice to believe or not to believe and their reactions will be balanced. When the opinions are suppressed, the result is really nothing short of a psi-op. My manipulation of the masses, as you never really see the full story, a very common technique used by repressive governments. Where is this ID check? What starts as just tell us your age quickly becomes cryptographically enforced device tracking. Depending on the type of content, many laws now require many forms of identity to access certain websites.

For example, porn sites in some jurisdictions will require a facial scan. But this isn’t limited to porn. Facial scans are now standard with apps like Discord. And if you refuse to do a facial scan, the alternative is an actual government ID. The most common form of ID is actually your phone number. What is not understood by most people is that when some sites require a phone number for two-factor authentication, it is not really for the purpose of security, but for identity reasons. This is the common method used for ID by sites like Facebook and Discord.

You may not understand the connection, but the phone number is attached to contact lists which are collected by Big Tech from all your friends and your name, address, even birth dates are captured and stored into a big giant free address book obtained freely from normie users. What is even less understood is that the phone number is often stored in your credit reports. And with Big Tech access to credit report databases, they can easily find your actual identity and match it to the name and location you provided on their platform. What’s worse, even a simple thing as using common apps on regular production phones allows third parties to collect your location information and then use that to acquire your home address.

Crazy stuff that is not really obvious to normal users that have nothing to hide. Fortunately, there are ways to circumvent these using privacy techniques, which I discuss in many other videos, but new rules are making this more difficult. OS verification is a different level. Now government officials are pushing age verification to a different level, and the effects are much more serious than any of these politicians realize. For example, the new proposed HR 8250 Parents Decide Act and California’s AB1043 don’t just ask for a simple self-reported age. They require operating systems to collect birth date or age info and pipe a real-time age bracket signal to every app that asks for it.

But here’s what the average person and most politicians miss, the attestation infrastructure. Attestation is already built into modern operating systems. Windows has TPM 2.0, Android has hardware-backed key attestation, and Play Integrity. iOS has the secure enclave. These cryptographic mechanisms were designed exactly for this to let a remote party verify with mathematical certainty that the response coming from your device is genuine and hasn’t been tampered with. So why would Apple, Google, or Microsoft rely on some easily spoofable self-reported value that creates massive liability for them? It’s common sense. They will use the strong hardware-rooted attestation that already exists.

That turns a simple I’m Over 18 checkbox into a cryptographically signed proof tied to your device identity. This is not optional for Big Tech. Using anything weaker exposes them to fines, lawsuits, and a regulatory hammer if someone lies about their age and bad things happen. So they’ll do what any rational company would do, tie the age signal to the existing attestation system. And that’s where it gets dangerous. Because now you’re not just telling the OS your age, you’re creating a permanent, verifiable device identity that apps and services can trust. And that identity is controlled by the OS vendor.

The same company is already tracking you 24-7. And just to be clear again, this is not a feature of Linux or AD Google OS. But this is a centrally managed validation system which puts Google, Apple, or Microsoft in the middle of the validation process. When the government mandates what values are stored on the OS and that apps must then react to these values, then basically the government is also mandating that Big Tech be in the middle of the transaction. This is already the dangerous part of the TPM chip feature in Windows and the security chips in both Android and Apple devices.

These hardware-based encryption schemes basically become proof that you are actually running an approved OS. And if you’re not running an approved OS, then you can’t deliver an attested age signal. Therefore, apps will be forced to fail to run for you. The biggest group that will experience this will be people using Linux and AD Google Android OS. Since these systems are not connected to a central HQ, then there is no validation or attestation capability. In order to do attestation, there will be a record of the device identity. Thus, we have the ID problem and that is now attached to the use of popular operating systems.

For example, to demonstrate the difficulty here, currently you can still use a local account on Windows so that you do not have to identify your machine to Microsoft. Otherwise, to utilize attestation, you are forced to log in with a Microsoft account on Windows, an Apple ID on Apple devices, and a Google ID on Androids. Thus, you are forced to identify yourself at the device level and this is also tied to factor authentication. I already mentioned earlier with the phone number. If apps require an attested age signal, then the apps will not run when using a Microsoft local account or a non-logged Android.

This basically says log in properly with a proper ID or your apps will not work. Again, to repeat, without a login, cryptographic attestation processes cannot work. So identities and age signals cannot be provided. Open source and privacy focused systems be damned. So the main group that will be forced to suffer are systems that don’t require an identity to access the Internet. And just to make sure you understand how this is abused, when you log into Google from any device, whether iOS, macOS, Android, or even Windows, then Google can track every click you do on the Internet.

And both Apple and Google track your locations 24-7. Google even publicly calls their tracking database the Google Sensor Vault and has been featured as a source of location data in multiple court cases. But open source operating systems like Linux or a Google phone OS have no identity. It also doesn’t have a centralized collection of locations. So currently the only way to preserve our privacy is to use some open source operating system. But with these forced ID rules like the OSH verification, apps will be required to function only if they have a way to verify age.

Or to restate it for you, it ensures that open source operating systems cannot be used for mainstream apps. It basically relegates these systems as specialized devices not made for everyday use. You’re already seeing some effects of this. Many of you that have a Google phone are seeing various messages saying, this app doesn’t work on this device. And this is an indication that the app is relying on attestation features, specifically on Android. It means the app requires play integrity, which is the attestation engine of Google. Tech illiterate politicians need to stop creating bad tech laws.

And this is the effect when buzzwords like save the children or this really badly named bill, the parents decide act are made to make us think they’re solving some problem. And I’ve stated this before, a 1% problem is now being made into a 99% problem. Forcing government to manage OS behavior, particularly for tracking is dangerous because the consequences are not understood beyond the buzzwords. Last year, the biggest deal was client-side scanning. Basically the EU was pushing to pass a law called chat control, which was again created to push the OS into scanning your content on device and then report on your activities to authorities.

The purported reason was to protect the children from illegal images called CSAM. But the effect of this is that some device is always watching from your shoulder and checking to see what you do and then squeal to authorities when needed. Unfortunately, again, without understanding the technology, politicians don’t realize that client-side scanning cannot be limited to illegal images. It can be used as a surveillance tool to watch anyone for any purpose. Fortunately, chat control was not passed in the EU, though some version of it passed in the UK. However, these can still be overridden today by using an open source OS like Linux.

The problem is that the new laws basically force people to use a normal OS to function in everyday life, since an OS without attestation is destined to fail from the California Age Verification Law. Even without the HR-8250 passing in the US Congress, it is too late as California already passed the law, and I will tell you right now that no app maker will spend the time to figure out what state to belong to. That is easily spoofed by a VPN anyway. So the apps will just institute a global rule requiring global attestation of age from approved OSes that can provide attestation.

Linux users? The Google OS users? Sorry. You’re using those to protect your privacy and not be subject to 24-7 location and internet surveillance? Sorry. Let’s check your ID. This is the new world with security chips having a unique device identity and being forced to use an OS that reveals that identity. We’re not basically being forced to use an ID for every internet action. They’ll start with just an age signal, but because attestation is already built in, it quickly becomes an unspoofable device ID. You’ve got nothing to hide? Great. They’ll check it every time you open an app.

Currently, this is justified by the need for an age signal, but don’t worry. You’ll all have nothing to hide, so it won’t be too long before a full identity is stored on the device and it will be required by law. And no, you won’t be able to spoof it because of the cryptographical capabilities of attestation. This is going to get worse, and until people stop claiming they have nothing to hide, this will never stop. Ever since the millennial generation came of age, the population has treated personal information as different from leaving your windows or doors open at night.

There are now dual standards of privacy. Data versus physical privacy. But there’s no difference. Privacy is privacy. Stop saying you have nothing to hide. Demand better from your politicians and use privacy tools today. Folks, I’m continuously searching for products and companies that can help us in our privacy quest. As this video already shows, it’s a constant battle because parties out there are actively trying to limit our ability to have privacy. First of all, to provide a platform for discussion where you can debate or discuss privacy issues, please join us on Braxme and share your knowledge about privacy or learn from others at a more advanced stage than you are.

To support this channel on the store on Braxme, we have products that are available that we’ve created to provide privacy solutions. We have Braxmail for identity protected email. We have Brax virtual phone for anonymous numbers to stop identity tracking. We have bytes VPN to protect your IP address and DNS data. I’m also introducing you to BraxSim unlisted, a privacy focused no-KYC sim solution. Watch out for this on the Braxme site. I will provide a link to the signup page for the service when it is ready. On the hardware side, we’ve been creating hardware solutions.

These are being quad funded on indiegogo.com and managed by the sister company BraxTech.net. Brax Technologies Inc. The Brax 3 phone is now on its second batch and is now shipping. And the new Brax open slate is the new Android and Linux tablet, which is expected to ship in the fall. If you want to learn more about these products, please go to BraxTech.net and they are sold on indiegogo.com. And another announcement is that Brax Technologies, which builds the hardware products, will be accepting investors very soon via regulation CF shares. So stay tuned for that.

Thank you again to those who support us on Patreon Locals and YouTube memberships. Your kindness is appreciated and encourages me to carry on. See you next time. [tr:trw].

See more of Rob Braxman Tech on their Public Channel and the MPN Rob Braxman Tech channel.