> It isn't the kernel's role to verify ages

of course it's not, but this has been already floated

if we stuck to what makes sense, nothing of this would have been even proposed - making sense is not something legislators are necessarily bound by

and if we're talking of enforceability, plenty of people can be targeted and will be targeted if things follow this path, it's not like the main developers controlling the different systems in Linux - for instance - are anonymous

take for instance System76, they're not even remotely in charge of the OS their computers run, but they know that 1) they may either leave their users with a nerfed connection if age signals are implemented at the browser protocol level, or at the application level and 2) they may be made responsible and liable for every computer they sell without those provisions, like it's going to start happening in Brazil in a few weeks

plenty of people are possible attack vector for governments, and the very threat will cause an effect

does anything of this make sense? no

but it doesn't mean there is no present danger, just because your jurisdiction has not issued concrete threats yet or because you mean you can tell lawmakers you use OSS and therefore their laws don't apply to you

the only thing they need to make "unverified" devices illegal is that the mainstream are all already corralled into "verified" systems, and you'd be effectively marginalised