Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Protecting Children's Safety Requires End-to-End Encryption

simplex.chat

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 84 posts

Re: Protecting Children's Safety Requires End-to-End Encryption

#51

Post by abofh »

ben_w wrote: post #44
abofh wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once we're at teenagers, then it's still - did you raise them to be aware of the world around them? Did you give them the tools to evaluate safe and unsafe online activity? A kid doesn't accidentally end up addicted heroin unless they have exposure to heroin. Child grooming predates encryption and the internet and relied primarily on trusted people convincing children not to talk. No amount of decrypted internet traf…

I'm not suggesting that we should break crypto to keep kids safe, I'm suggesting that we shouldn't let kids be on the internet at all. Society doesn't let kids vote, doesn't let kids buy alcohol or tobacco, doesn't let them drive or join the army, and doesn't let them watch 18-rated films. I remember being a teenager. I remember the valuable life-lesson we got about not trusting strangers in the form of the police cr…

To be clear, I agree with you in principal - I think unsupervised children on the internet is a horrible idea, I just draw the line short of legislating that.

I'm not looking forward to when mine are old enough to realistically need to start using the internet, and wish that I could put them on dial-up text-mode internet like I grew up on instead of this ad-filled garbage we have today... But that's on me I suppose.

Re: Protecting Children's Safety Requires End-to-End Encryption

#52

Post by kaba0 »

ben_w wrote: post #41
vaylian wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children are smart enough to understand that no stranger except for a doctor should request to see their private parts. Children are smart enough to learn that they should not respond to sharing names, ages and locations when asked about it on the internet. Also: Children are a lot smarter than AI, which is allegedly the super-magical protection against child grooming.

> Children are smart enough to learn that they should not share names, ages and locations with strangers on the internet. I'm old enough to remember when that was the norm. But it's been along time now since Facebook etc. came along, and they spent the entire time since then insisting on a real-name policy and asking us to give details of our age, our location, which school we go to, and post a continuous stream of p…

Any measure? ChatGPT still can’t solve a sudoku, let alone do any form of reasoning. It’s more of a search engine than “intelligence”, while humans obviously can reason and solve novel tasks.

Re: Protecting Children's Safety Requires End-to-End Encryption

#53

Post by ben_w »

kaba0 wrote: post #52
ben_w wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Children are smart enough to learn that they should not share names, ages and locations with strangers on the internet. I'm old enough to remember when that was the norm. But it's been along time now since Facebook etc. came along, and they spent the entire time since then insisting on a real-name policy and asking us to give details of our age, our location, which school we go to, and post a continuous stream of p…

Any measure? ChatGPT still can’t solve a sudoku, let alone do any form of reasoning. It’s more of a search engine than “intelligence”, while humans obviously can reason and solve novel tasks.

> ChatGPT still can’t solve a sudoku,

Now you've got me wondering, if there's even an appropriate test set to find out.

When I do a sudoku, it's either printed and then I don't know if I made a mistake until the very end; or it's on a computer which tells me about mistakes as soon as I make them.

I do know I make mistakes when doing them, but I don't know how often — more or less frequently than ChatGPT.

(Also, at least one LLM has been demonstrated to do Turing-machine-like operations[0], and there were Sudoku-solving AI well before LLMs).

> let alone do any form of reasoning. It’s more of a search engine than “intelligence”, while humans obviously can reason and solve novel tasks.

I am aware of Clever-Hand and that I may be making the same mistake, but it sure looks like it can do those things as well as humans.

Humans aren't that great either when it comes to genuinely novel tasks, which is why we have to be trained to do science and use the method of falsification.

[0] I'm not sure if I need the "-like" caveat? https://manifold.markets/DanMan314/will-anyone-win-victortae...

Re: Protecting Children's Safety Requires End-to-End Encryption

#54

Post by abofh »

newswasboring wrote: post #48
vaylian wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children are smart enough to understand that no stranger except for a doctor should request to see their private parts. Children are smart enough to learn that they should not respond to sharing names, ages and locations when asked about it on the internet. Also: Children are a lot smarter than AI, which is allegedly the super-magical protection against child grooming.

I feel like you are just asserting things because it feels right. I don't have children myself but I have a gaggle of nieces and nephews and I just can't bring myself to be convinced that they can be trained to thwart the plans of an adult. Add to that all the cases I've heard about, no parent said they didn't try to train their child not to talk to strangers. The predators are using tools designed by billion dollar…

It however requires no evidence to suggest that the problem is having children without sufficient time and resources to support them will lead to poor outcomes.

If you want to protect your children, you have to be able to take those steps, not outsource the responsibility to someone else with time and money.

Predators are bad, but most of them are known to the child before the injury -- that suggests parents are way more responsible for child abuse than randos on the internet, it's just that randos have more opportunities.

Re: Protecting Children's Safety Requires End-to-End Encryption

#55

Post by devwastaken »

CJefferson wrote: post #2

I'm happy to have a discussion about this, but I don't buy that end-to-end encryption will, overall, increase children's safety. I'm happy to see strong evidence one way of the other, but this article is very one-sided. Child grooming on the internet is a huge problem, and I suspect (again, happy to see evidence against it) it's better to allow scanning of children's communications, rather than ensuring their communi…

In the U.S anyone under 18 have been and can easily be prosecuted and entered into the widely abused sex offender registry for not just other minors, but themselves. The law is designed to be strict in a world where teens are breaking it constantly. Puritan cultures like this are not hard to find, and act solely to punish people and abuse government authority.

Re: Protecting Children's Safety Requires End-to-End Encryption

#56

Post by vaylian »

CJefferson wrote: post #43
vaylian wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children are smart enough to understand that no stranger except for a doctor should request to see their private parts. Children are smart enough to learn that they should not respond to sharing names, ages and locations when asked about it on the internet. Also: Children are a lot smarter than AI, which is allegedly the super-magical protection against child grooming.

I'm sure you don't mean this, but it sounds a lot like you are saying that it is a child's fault when they get sexually abused and don't tell anyone about it. That happens all the time to children, they are groomed both offline and online. It's a real problem, and it isn't going to be solved by saying we just need smarter children.

> I'm sure you don't mean this, but it sounds a lot like you are saying that it is a child's fault when they get sexually abused and don't tell anyone about it.

That is valuable feedback. Thank you. I'll try to improve my choice of words.

> it isn't going to be solved by saying we just need smarter children.

Agree. We need better education, which does not require smarter children. And to achieve a better education, we as a society need to talk more about how abuse can happen and where red lines, that our children can understand, have to be drawn

Re: Protecting Children's Safety Requires End-to-End Encryption

#57

Post by salawat »

CJefferson wrote: post #2

I'm happy to have a discussion about this, but I don't buy that end-to-end encryption will, overall, increase children's safety. I'm happy to see strong evidence one way of the other, but this article is very one-sided. Child grooming on the internet is a huge problem, and I suspect (again, happy to see evidence against it) it's better to allow scanning of children's communications, rather than ensuring their communi…

>I don't think it's reasonable to make this the parent's responsibility, when basically the whole world is internet connected...

I think it is, tbqh. It's a tool. They have to be taught to wield it responsibly.

>fighting against multi-billion dollar international corporations, who dedicate huge teams of highly paid people to ensuring children get addicted to their platforms.

I dare say... I see the problem here, and it isn't one scanning everyone's communications is an effective mitigation for.

Re: Protecting Children's Safety Requires End-to-End Encryption

#58

Post by ugly1kenowbi »

CJefferson wrote: post #43
vaylian wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children are smart enough to understand that no stranger except for a doctor should request to see their private parts. Children are smart enough to learn that they should not respond to sharing names, ages and locations when asked about it on the internet. Also: Children are a lot smarter than AI, which is allegedly the super-magical protection against child grooming.

I'm sure you don't mean this, but it sounds a lot like you are saying that it is a child's fault when they get sexually abused and don't tell anyone about it. That happens all the time to children, they are groomed both offline and online. It's a real problem, and it isn't going to be solved by saying we just need smarter children.

I'm guessing this mismatch is a question of differing life views/philosophies; as a general rule, for me, it is absolutely my responsibility as a parent to educate my daughter to make sure she can evaluate risk "properly" and then, it is on her* to decide how to manage that, always knowing that are people out there that will attempt to harm you.

This clearly means that we sometimes will get it wrong but, in my mind, you will not reduce those risks with a technical solution as this applies to all facets of your life, online or otherwise, and you will be opening doors that can backfire too much.

*age matters a lot but that is a different discussion by itself

Re: Protecting Children's Safety Requires End-to-End Encryption

#59

Post by squigz »

CJefferson wrote: post #2

I'm happy to have a discussion about this, but I don't buy that end-to-end encryption will, overall, increase children's safety. I'm happy to see strong evidence one way of the other, but this article is very one-sided. Child grooming on the internet is a huge problem, and I suspect (again, happy to see evidence against it) it's better to allow scanning of children's communications, rather than ensuring their communi…

> Child grooming on the internet is a huge problem

I'm happy to see strong evidence on this.

Re: Protecting Children's Safety Requires End-to-End Encryption

#60

Post by squigz »

CJefferson wrote: post #47
vaylian wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's better to allow scanning of children's communications, rather than ensuring their communication with whoever they are talking to is end-to-end encrypted. This is not purely a technical matter. Children and adolescents want confidential communication just like older people. You might argue, that it is in the best interest of minors to have someone/something look at their private communication to intervene if ne…

There are many ways we don't give children the same rights as adults. They might want confidential communication, but I'm not sure they should have it. Why are you so sure that it is better and more versatile to educate them and their parents? We've been educating children, and parents, basically forever (and I've done a lot of educating of children myself). While they are young and still learning, I really believe t…

> They might want confidential communication, but I'm not sure they should have it.

Why not? Assuming you're using a Western metric of what a child is, why does a 17 year old not have the right to private communication, but an 18 year old does?

Furthermore, why do you think corporations are going to be like "Oh, this person is 18 now. We're going to respect their privacy now!"?

Post reply on HN