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Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

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Re: Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

#131

Post by iso1210 »

WinterMount223 wrote: post #90
iso1210 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine you are visiting hacker news, and for some reason you have to prove your age, but you don't want HN to know who you are, nor your age identity site to know you're going to HN One way to do this off the top mf my head would be HN issues a unique number (say 4096 bit) to you when you create an account You send that number to your identity provider along with confirming proof of age The identity provider signs t…

That sounds better if you don’t trust the websites but worse if you don’t trust the government or the central checker.

The central checker knows you've proven your age, but not where you've proven it.

As someone else points out, you send a message to your ID provider 17 requesting the minimum required fields and an anonymous token provided by HN, the ID Provider returns that (over18=yes, token=1234567....) which is signed, you then send the returned payload to the server you're asking, saying "I used Identity provider", and HN (assuming it trusts your ID provider) can confirm that.

HN knows the IP you're connecting from and the identify provider (say the Austrailian government)

The Austrailian government doesn't know where you're connecting to, just that you are trying to prove you are over 18. The unique random number HN provides confirms it's not someone else's token, but it doesn't link to HN

I assume there's a proper standard which does this

Re: Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

#132

Post by int_19h »

mikem170 wrote: post #97
zo1 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's the case, then we should be able to do a referendum for legislation this "big" to go through, right? I'd argue that the lack of a robust, accessible and easy form of referendums means we're not fundamentally different to a dictatorship.

I admire Switzerland's system, where the people can petition for a referendum to delete any law they don't like. This forces the politicians to negotiate with motivated minorities before creating new laws. Instead in the U.S. we allow rich people and corporations (who are not voters!) to give money to politicians. In most other democracies this is illegal and considered to be corrupt.

Swiss system also allows people to pass any law that they like. For example, the infamous law banning construction of minarets.

I'm also not sure how this is supposed to help minorities (motivated or otherwise), since the referendum is country-wide.

Re: Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

#133

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

inter_netuser wrote: post #57
rabuse wrote: post #37

Almost every invasive thing in our lives is because of "think of the children".

somehow i don't think the invasive measures will go away with artificial placentas and factories that pop out healthy and ready 25-35 year old professionals/drones. what will we think of then?

…A very different approach to the dating scene?

Re: Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

#134

Post by int_19h »

simion314 wrote: post #95
flerchin wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it could come in via user agent. I would worry that governments would then attempt to regulate and lock down browsers such that Free Software is no longer viable, or even legal.

I think most of us know that clicking "I am 18+" is a joke, governments will eventually look into this and not because politicians want to make it harder for them to access this pages but because activists and religious groups will put pressure on them (I seen with my own eyes religious people exiting from a party because the leadership allowed gays to have a parade in the city, and if in your region/country there ar…

Any open source solution would be trivial to disable, by definition. Hence OP's point that pursuing this to its logical conclusion means banning F/OSS.

(See also: Vernor Vinge's "Rainbows End")

Re: Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

#135

Post by Broken_Hippo »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #98
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but some countries, like the US, don’t have a national ID system This is.. not quite true. Social security numbers are used this way (even if they aren't intended to be such a thing) and passports are essentially a national ID system. My passport is the only valid ID that I have - of course, I live outside the US and have to have the nearest US embassy renew it. (I don't qualify for Norwegian IDs yet, and my immigrat…

An American passport ID number changes every ten years, causing lots of problems when foreign banks (like Chinese ones) try to use it as a stable ID number. Source: personal experience.

I've had absolutely no issues with it here in Norway, but Norway gives folks a number much like a SSN, which is used more widely than a SS# in the US alongside a picture ID.

Re: Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

#136

Post by gruez »

dudul wrote: post #84
rabuse wrote: post #37

Almost every invasive thing in our lives is because of "think of the children".

You can sometimes substitute with "to fight terrorists" if you need to vary your discourse a bit.

Or more recently, "to fight anti-vaxxers"

Re: Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

#137

Post by Broken_Hippo »

cr1895 wrote: post #122
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but some countries, like the US, don’t have a national ID system This is.. not quite true. Social security numbers are used this way (even if they aren't intended to be such a thing) and passports are essentially a national ID system. My passport is the only valid ID that I have - of course, I live outside the US and have to have the nearest US embassy renew it. (I don't qualify for Norwegian IDs yet, and my immigrat…

> passports are essentially a national ID system Not very helpful as a national ID if they are a relative rarity

That is only because the average person is priced out of it, honestly. If I remember correctly, it cost around days work if you make minimum wage.

Re: Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

#138

Post by jmole »

dessant wrote: post #123
numlock86 wrote: post #72

> Australian government forces Google to soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content There, I fixed it. I'm getting tired of every headline trying to bash on Google/Facebook/etc. for clicks.

Age verification is already mandated in the EU, and when you provide your credit card details to Google's age verification system for YouTube, they create a payments profile for you without consent. The Google account is set up for purchasing services across all Google properties, without needing to provide further payment details. Google is exploiting the requirement for age verification to set up Google accounts fo…

Or, they’re using the only consumer-focused credit card verification system they have (google pay), and “prevent users from using their credit cards” was never on the roadmap…

Re: Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

#139

Post by MereInterest »

dessant wrote: post #123
numlock86 wrote: post #72

> Australian government forces Google to soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content There, I fixed it. I'm getting tired of every headline trying to bash on Google/Facebook/etc. for clicks.

Age verification is already mandated in the EU, and when you provide your credit card details to Google's age verification system for YouTube, they create a payments profile for you without consent. The Google account is set up for purchasing services across all Google properties, without needing to provide further payment details. Google is exploiting the requirement for age verification to set up Google accounts fo…

Isn't that a pretty straightforward violation of the GDPR? Consent to track somebody's personal information requires the data subject to be informed as to the use of the information, and personal information may not be used outside of the usages that were consented to.

Re: Google will soon ask Australian users to show ID to view some content

#140

Post by dimitrios1 »

ludamad wrote: post #80
dimitrios1 wrote: post #79

I used to believe, at least in the early days, that these tech companies were successful in upholding the values of freedom of expression, speech, and exchange of information, subsequently the values that the early internet itself formed around. They were anti-authoritarian. Now it seems they willingly accept being pushed around, succumb to any request to compromise its values in the interest of shareholder value, an…

The problem is that the more a company wants to draw a line in the sand against a government, the more it must be a monopoly of some kind otherwise be replaced by someone who doesn't

I find the reverse to be true. It is only when a company becomes a monopoly does it begin acting in this way. It becomes hellbent on maintaining that monopoly.
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