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We have 4 days to contest KYC being required by internet services

federalregister.gov

261–270 of 395 posts

Re: We have 4 days to contest KYC being required by internet services

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a strawman. It won't be a checkbox, of course...

> That's a strawman [..] OK, I'll bite. How exactly are [US] domestic users of services supposed to prove they don't need to prove their identity? EDIT: it reminds me of the Common Travel Area (between Ireland and of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland), which has some glorious inconsistencies. For instance that nationals of Ireland and the UK travelling between those two countries do not need a…

KYC stands for Know Your Customer, and is a core regulation in banking. So we can pivot off that and work through what a bank does to verify your identity.

I signed up for a Mercury bank account a few months back for my Delaware corporation without talking to anyone, so I'll use that as a template.

I can't remember the exact steps, but tl;dr submit a passport photo / driver's license photo and a photo I take in the app itself. If it was a not-US passport, then they'd dig into a full verification, not just a quick manual check of "is that face the same as the passport/license, is the passport/license ID # valid, and are the photos edited"

Re: We have 4 days to contest KYC being required by internet services

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skimming the regulations, this does not seem right. All IAAS providers (which is everyone who allows customers to run custom code, so it includes any web host like Dreamhost) to verify the identity of foreigners who open an account. This would seemingly entail the service provider needing to verify everyone's identity, in order to figure out who is a foreigner and who is not. In other words, if you want to run your o…

Tbh this is fine by me. It's about time the US stop being the center of the world for internet infrastructure.

i’m reading through the contrarian takes here and thinking, “yeah i’m kind of ok with that?”

this would make it much trickier for bad actors to get away with everything from online ai scams to swatting. i could live with that.

Re: We have 4 days to contest KYC being required by internet services

#264
post #242
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legally, it means exactly that - the government wasn't allowed to do X, but they said the magic word "emergency", and now they are allowed to do X as much as they want, until they decide they are done. Of course, this means they were always allowed to do X, it's just that the public will eat it more easily if instead of saying "the government can take your freedoms anytime" they'd say "the government can't take you f…

What you describe is the abuse of the power. In the list of US emergencies 80% are sanctions (which qualify as emergencies I would say bc they would not work), 15% real emergencies and the there are the ones which start to be controversial. All what I am saying is: it is a tool for an government. Governments do things wrong. They wrongfully arrest, invade countries, collaterally murder, take bribes, etc. That is dail…

Well, yes it is - but it's completely legal abuse and the society seems to be willing to tolerate it (and much worse abuses, evidently - like total warrantless surveillance absent any proof it's actually useful for anything except partisan political squabbles). I wish the courts and the parliament would be willing to do something about it, but they aren't, and they aren't, because most of the society seems to be fine with it. Sad.

Re: We have 4 days to contest KYC being required by internet services

#265
post #2

Submission Statement: We have exactly 4 days to leave comments to the Federal Government of the United States of America contesting the requirement of KYC by internet service providers. This law is not conducive to a free internet/society.

This is not about Internet Service Providers. This is about Infrastructure as a Service providers, e.g. AWS, Linode, Azure, GoDaddy, etc. See https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2024-01580/p-46 for their definition. Misrepresenting what this is about is not helpful.

im not sure i understand are customers of AWS/Linode/Digitalocean now required to submit passport/drivers license to host a blog or website?

Re: We have 4 days to contest KYC being required by internet services

#266
post #21

Skimming through the article, it seems like the extent of this is to require IAAS (Infrastructure) providers to verify the identity of those who are using their services to train AI. It's an attempt to stymie sanctioned or malicious actors, from training AI and especially from hopping between services or using aliases to continue training on their model. It seems a bit benign and I don't understand the parallels othe…

> Is it that it's a slippery slope or perhaps I'm being naïve in regards to the scope?

This. Also, it won't stop malicious actors. Setting up a LLC to mask your true identity is cheap and easy. Not to mention that providing a fake identity or pretending your are not a "foreign person" is also cheap and easy.

Re: We have 4 days to contest KYC being required by internet services

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People's desires are the foundation of all so-called systems. Take away the people and nothing gets done. Or were atoms the foundation? Or thinking? Or maths? Or law? Or take away black holes and nothing gets done? Ranking interdependent systems is nonsense. Reductionism and false arguments don't help much either.

You can make people do just about anything for money. Nothing else even comes close except ideology in a distant second place.

Are you trying to argue that money is more important than banking? But that banking was the most important thing? Your logic elludes me.

Or maybe you have a manipulative world view? What is more important - money or power? If you have power do you need money? Is power equivalent to money?

"Money" is a means of exchange, and in some contexts it is a status signal.

Money is a measure, not an ends in itself. People want the money to do something with: the something is faaaar more important than money. Find me a person with money, and I will easily find ten things they would prefer.

Anecdotally:

My friends don't value money above other things. Other friends could easily take nearly all my money if they chose to (I put myself into very submissive situations). I don't work because I don't need more money.

Perhaps I live in a different world than you.

The people I know all have complex desires, and few of my friends are concentrating on making money (and the smartest friends I know don't make money their central goal). I do have a couple of friends who try to make money and they seem to do it quite well without too much difficulty.

Have you tried to offer money to people? If it is so critical then people would take it. My experience is that a few do but many don't. I've offered large amounts to acquaintances that haven't taken it (perhaps with or without hooks).

(Slight edits for clarity).

Re: We have 4 days to contest KYC being required by internet services

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not benign as far as I can see. There is an implication that its purpose is to allow providers to start writing reports on foreign users training LLMs (which, incidentally, I'm not condoning either), but in the process it requires every American IaaS has to start implementing KYC folly. No one wants to send in selfies and their passport just to start a Digital Ocean droplet.

I'm curious if the spammers will find a way around this. I would actually like to be ID'd by a provider if that also meant they had no un-ID'd customers. I'd expect their IP range would start to get a pretty good reputation.

The spammers are criminals. They'll just use ID scans and info from data breaches of other companies. Requiring more companies to collect them makes it even worse because now there are more places to exfiltrate them and it makes it easier for criminals to commit identity theft against financial institutions etc.

There are also non-"criminals" who are more than willing to use their actual ID for the sort of things that aren't strictly illegal but will still get your IP space on a bunch of block lists when they can make a buck doing it, so it wouldn't solve the problem even if it could actually identify all of the customers.

Re: We have 4 days to contest KYC being required by internet services

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make people do just about anything for money. Nothing else even comes close except ideology in a distant second place.

Are you trying to argue that money is more important than banking? But that banking was the most important thing? Your logic elludes me. Or maybe you have a manipulative world view? What is more important - money or power? If you have power do you need money? Is power equivalent to money? "Money" is a means of exchange, and in some contexts it is a status signal. Money is a measure, not an ends in itself. People want…

Yes, I pay people do to work on difficult and annoying computer systems. Nobody would want to do this job for free.

Re: We have 4 days to contest KYC being required by internet services

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's a strawman [..] OK, I'll bite. How exactly are [US] domestic users of services supposed to prove they don't need to prove their identity? EDIT: it reminds me of the Common Travel Area (between Ireland and of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland), which has some glorious inconsistencies. For instance that nationals of Ireland and the UK travelling between those two countries do not need a…

KYC stands for Know Your Customer, and is a core regulation in banking. So we can pivot off that and work through what a bank does to verify your identity. I signed up for a Mercury bank account a few months back for my Delaware corporation without talking to anyone, so I'll use that as a template. I can't remember the exact steps, but tl;dr submit a passport photo / driver's license photo and a photo I take in the a…

You seem to be conceding the point that they would be forced to invade the privacy of their US customers in addition to just foreign ones.
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