Age verification is incompatible with the internet • Hacker News Board

Re: Age verification is incompatible with the internet

#121

Post by phantom784 » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 5:19 PM UTC

whythre wrote: post #75

phantom784 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus, a minor could use their friends' devices. Their parents may not have set up any controls on those devices.

If that is the worry, then bad influences won’t be stopped by some shitty internet-wide age verification. Teens can bully each other with their cameras, or words. If their peers are the problem, no amount of government playing internet cop will help.

I don't think that age verification is a good idea. But I don't think the counter-argument that "parents can just monitor their kids' devices" really holds water - there's still plenty of ways around it.

Re: Age verification is incompatible with the internet

#122

Post by miellaby » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 5:33 PM UTC

Beyond all the hystery around this topic, I feel like blocking porn site to minors is a reasonable requirement and it can be done with no privacy concern neither on the site side nor on the government side. It's a straightforward usage of basic crypto tools.

Says: - the porn site creates a challenge and send it to the browser. - the browser goes to the governmental service where one uses tax ID or the like to prove age. The service returns a challenge answer encoded with the government private key - the browser goes back to the porn site with the answer. The porn site uses the public key to decode the governmental response and validate it does correspond to the challenge.

As I see it, theres no PII that the site can get, no history leak on the government side, no excessive centralisation, nothing frighting really.

Do I miss something?

Re: Age verification is incompatible with the internet

#123

Post by ianburrell » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 5:44 PM UTC

andreareina wrote: post #84

anonzzzies wrote: post #79

A lot of countries (like NL, ES, PT, BE,…) have state owned APIs which have a central login (with 2FA) could easily just return yep or nay when asked; is this person over 18. Without violating privacy by the porn site and not anymore violating at least than the gov site already does or doesn’t in your opinion. The site wouldn’t have to know anything about who you are; it would work like 3dsecure. I am not for it but…

So now the government knows you're visiting this particular site.

The API doesn’t need to include the site. The identity site just needs to verify age and return token that can be passed to site.

Lots of identity protocols like OAuth have the provider do the redirect so they know the site. Which makes sense cause they want to validate the site. But it works to have the app do the redirect. They end up passing the token to the sire.

Re: Age verification is incompatible with the internet

#124

Post by NoZebra120vClip » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 5:51 PM UTC

harimau777 wrote: post #103

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parents can achieve this without resorting to an atmosphere of paranoia and control. If parents foster transparency, trust, and open communication with their children, where no secrets are kept and children are not afraid to discuss difficult subjects with parents, then a lot of problems are already solved, or nipped in the bud. Minor children really shouldn't have an expectation of privacy while they're out on the b…

I think that it's worth keeping in mind that that isn't always possible. For example, with foster children it is not unlikely that experience with previous parents have already given a child baggage that will make that strategy much less successful.

You're right, I mean, why should a parent even bother establishing candor, trust, and communication with their children when it is just soooo harrrrd, give up already!

Re: Age verification is incompatible with the internet

#125

Post by dragonmost » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 6:08 PM UTC

dmm wrote: post #8

JohnMakin wrote: post #4

Parents and caretakers have the ability to restrict children’s content on any device a child has access to. The burden should be on them to ensure their child is not consuming porn. It shouldn’t be everyone else’s problem that people are unwilling to parent their children.

> any device a child has access to. That's not the world we live in today. Stores local to me will sell a (terrible but internet capable) phone for $35 to anyone. So you are proposing moving the age verification to the device purchasing stage?

If the kid is smart enough to get a "throwaway" device to circumvent parent supervision what makes you believe he won't be able to circumvent gouvernement internet oversight? Even China and North Korea can't prevent their citizens from doing so.

Re: Age verification is incompatible with the internet

#126

Post by grayhatter » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 6:34 PM UTC

miellaby wrote: post #122

Beyond all the hystery around this topic, I feel like blocking porn site to minors is a reasonable requirement and it can be done with no privacy concern neither on the site side nor on the government side. It's a straightforward usage of basic crypto tools. Says: - the porn site creates a challenge and send it to the browser. - the browser goes to the governmental service where one uses tax ID or the like to prove a…

> Do I miss something?

The point of the article? The idea that I shouldn't have to ask my government for permission to view information/media? The fact that this absolutely will doxx your privacy to the government?

I'm all for, "wont somebody think of the children", but IMO protecting children is a 'solved' problem. When a child runs into the street we blame the parents, we don't install gates down every sidewalk. When a kid is seen riding a bike without a helmet, again, we don't decide that you need to send your government a selfie before the tires unlock.

Sites do have a responsibility to ensure people don't misuse their content. But liquor stores only ask for ID when you try to buy a dangerous substance, they don't make you ask your government for permission.

And that works flawlessly, fake IDs definitely aren't a thing, and I'm sure the same applies to this online ID thing.

Edit: I had 2nd thoughts about this because I don't like to make slippery slope arguments but this one seems worthy of consideration at the very least. Once this exists, all sites dealing with fraud will start to use it. Which Will have a DOS effect on government servers, which means they will try to mitigate it by requiring the requesting site provide a site ID and unique ID for the request. So much for any of the features that people expect might protect some privacy.

Re: Age verification is incompatible with the internet

#127

Post by Barrin92 » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 6:37 PM UTC

creer wrote: post #118

Barrin92 wrote: post #57

This is another article that tries to turn what is a subjective political grievance into a technical discussion. Age verification by id in fairly privacy preserving ways is technically trivial. I've lived in South Korea where this is standard and digital identification is used for everything. My German national id has an eid feature that you can use, for example when buying booze online to verify your age. There's a…

How do the german users expect that "dedicated public company" not to pass on the data? "As provided by law, I'm sure /s"

I mean, yes as provided by law. I live in a civilization, not in a jungle. Same reason I trust that I can eat the piece of meat I buy in the supermarket and it isn't full of salmonella, there's laws making sure it's processed correctly. I trust the law every time I walk across the street intersection.

Re: Age verification is incompatible with the internet

#128

Post by wizerdrobe » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 6:38 PM UTC

stjohnswarts wrote: post #61

o11c wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, but unironically. ... though it probably shouldn't use the same age cutoff as beer. 18 or even 15 would be better. The downside is that - even with mild enforcement - fast food would get even more expensive for people who buy the cheap items which are currently subsidized by drinks.

Where does it stop next? Government telling us that we can't have our small piece of chocolate until we eat all our veggies and Mediterranean menu diet guide?

If were to live in a world where we, through tax-payer funded medical care, one can privatize (caloric) gains and socialize (medical care cost) losses…

Unironically this should be a mechanism.

While I recognize no system is perfect, we would still socialize those born into misfortunes, I see no reason not to mandate intensive regulations. It is immoral to require society to pay for shit decision making.

Re: Age verification is incompatible with the internet

#129

Post by jstarfish » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 6:43 PM UTC

dragonmost wrote: post #125

dmm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> any device a child has access to. That's not the world we live in today. Stores local to me will sell a (terrible but internet capable) phone for $35 to anyone. So you are proposing moving the age verification to the device purchasing stage?

If the kid is smart enough to get a "throwaway" device to circumvent parent supervision what makes you believe he won't be able to circumvent gouvernement internet oversight? Even China and North Korea can't prevent their citizens from doing so.

Prisoners acquire cellphones illegally. It doesn't mean we don't bother enforcing the rule because they can bypass it. We confiscate phones as discovered to disrupt those efforts. We love disruption around here, right?

The point of this is to introduce friction. The goal is not 100% effectiveness and it's a strawman to suggest it is.

Re: Age verification is incompatible with the internet

#130

Post by ttyprintk » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 6:51 PM UTC

bee_rider wrote: post #120

ttyprintk wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you agree with each other. How about: smartphones arrive with a parent lock(*) using a manufacturer code. Flashing an ID or interacting with a (possibly standards-compliant) body reveals the unlock code. (*) Yes, jailbreaking gets around that, but now you’ve circumvented a content-control system, which is a bigger legal problem under DMCA than any legal Internet content.

That sounds like a fine system for a private company to sell to their customers. There shouldn’t be a law about this, though.

I think you both agree on that. Whether “Software and device vendors already provide all the necessary tools.“ is the question.