Comment by marcus_holmes
6 days ago
So, you whitelist Kid Internet sites, and you have a DNS server that handles Kid Internet.
And everything else is Adult Internet, and there are many DNS servers that serve Adult Internet.
You sign your household router up for Kid Internet, and it ignores Adult DNS servers, and only routes according to Kid DNS, is that right?
I can think of about 50 ways around this already, but let's assume we're not talking about anyone with any knowledge of how the internet works. So the entire household is signed up for Kid Internet, and there's no way an adult can view an Adult Internet site from this household, is that right?
Well most DNS can be done per-device, just like in an IT setting. For example look at iOS. The device controls DNS, so set up little Timmy's iPhone to do Kid DNS.
That sounds an awful lot like this proposal, right? Well yes and no. No because this would actually work. Just letting the iPhone say "im a kid" does fuck all, because all the websites we're targeting with that will just ignore it.
And of course there are ways around this. Wanting a solution with no ways around it is dystopian. But is it a better solution than this? I think yes, it is.
So we're locking a per-user DNS choice in?
If Little Timmy signs in then OS chooses the Kids DNS, but if Uncle Bob signs in then it chooses the Adult DNS?
As you say, I can see a few ways around this ;)
Again, this feels like it just moves the responsibility for everything onto the parents, without meaningfully giving them any control. If something screws up and Little Timmy gets to see some boobies, who gets blamed? Is it the OS provider, the hardware provider, or the parents? Did the parents actually configure this themselves? If so, who taught them how to do that? Or did they buy the machine pre-configured? So does the vendor take responsibility?
> So we're locking a per-user DNS choice in?
Sure, or per-device, or per-network, or per-organization. It depends on how each particular person wants to implement it.
> As you say, I can see a few ways around this ;)
Yes, notably less than the current proposal. Which, again, will just straight-up not work.
> f something screws up and Little Timmy gets to see some boobies, who gets blamed?
I think this really hit the nail on the head. None of this is about solving problems or helping little Timmy. It's about accountability management.
If we implement the OS syscall, then Meta gets to point their grimey finger at someone else while they continue to fuel genocide in Myanmar.
> Did the parents actually configure this themselves? If so, who taught them how to do that? Or did they buy the machine pre-configured? So does the vendor take responsibility?
Well, um, both. You can configure your router, sure, or your Linux computer. But I imagine a new iPhone would just come with a checkbox you can check at account creation time. Again, very similar to this proposal, except it works.