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Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

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Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#71

Post by mjevans »

The Internet should be Unrated and thus Adults Only by default. Just like public spaces. (Would you allow an 8 year old to wander New York City unattended? Arguments can be made for more controlled spaces but...)

Have a website and want the chance for kids to see it? Advertise in the headers that it's moderated and intended to be a given rating. Various indexers can pick that up. Complaints can be forward to relevant government agencies (E.G. for a US based website the FTC, false advertising), or as usual other agencies for harder crimes.

Parents can mark computer accounts as Child accounts and Browsers configured to follow a set of list filtering rules selected by the parent or current guardian (E.G. schools).

So again. Internet == Unrated Free Zone -- Child Mode == Allow List filtered content.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#72

Post by washadjeffmad »

Who could have predicted this, though? If only there were some, no, any benevolent corporate deity poised to provide trusted global identity services for an event exactly like this.

If only this hadn't come out of the blue, maybe there'd be someone out there, right now, who could make it so that your identity traveled with you everywhere across the internet, an authentic digital fingerprint and passport so invisible that you can't even see or access it to keep people from having to prove themselves over and over and over again.

What a solution in search of a problem that would have been!

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#73

Post by Lanolderen »

michaelmior wrote: post #38
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Internet is so ubiquitous and intertwined in daily life that that's impossible and you know it.

I don't think the parent comment was suggesting disallowing access to the Internet entirely, but restricting the content that is accessible. Accessing pornographic material is obviously not a necessity for kids. That said, kids of course do often find a way around any blocks or filters put in place.

Never underestimate being horny, curious and having copious amounts of free time. Having to go through hoops does make it clear you shouldn't be looking at it though.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#74

Post by paulvnickerson »

mjevans wrote: post #71

The Internet should be Unrated and thus Adults Only by default. Just like public spaces. (Would you allow an 8 year old to wander New York City unattended? Arguments can be made for more controlled spaces but...) Have a website and want the chance for kids to see it? Advertise in the headers that it's moderated and intended to be a given rating. Various indexers can pick that up. Complaints can be forward to relevant…

we arrest people who have sex in public...

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#76

Post by mjevans »

paulvnickerson wrote: post #74
mjevans wrote: post #71

The Internet should be Unrated and thus Adults Only by default. Just like public spaces. (Would you allow an 8 year old to wander New York City unattended? Arguments can be made for more controlled spaces but...) Have a website and want the chance for kids to see it? Advertise in the headers that it's moderated and intended to be a given rating. Various indexers can pick that up. Complaints can be forward to relevant…

we arrest people who have sex in public...

Only the ones who make a display of it (get seen by others).

We don't randomly go around asking Papers Please! to everyone on the street.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#77

Post by [deleted] »

mjevans wrote: post #71

The Internet should be Unrated and thus Adults Only by default. Just like public spaces. (Would you allow an 8 year old to wander New York City unattended? Arguments can be made for more controlled spaces but...) Have a website and want the chance for kids to see it? Advertise in the headers that it's moderated and intended to be a given rating. Various indexers can pick that up. Complaints can be forward to relevant…

[deleted]

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#78

Post by Terr_ »

dinkblam wrote: post #3

age verification should be backed into the browser and not into websites. parents should be able to access a (password protected) setting in any browser that can exclude some types of websites (like porn). governments should be free to go after any website not respecting that setting. but forcing the age-verification onto websites is just moronic.

I wouldn't say every browser, but the correct place for the policy is on the device of the parent who is demanding the special feature. Sites' obligations should be limited to basic disclosure of "this site might contain X" metadata.

Benefits:

1. Orwellian abuse: No creepy-ass super-abuseable government panopticon knowing every goddamn service you've ever made an account on, with the ability to arbitrarily revoke them and/or block new ones.

2. Costs: The majority of the costs of creating and maintaining the system fall upon the people who actually use it and want it to exist, rather than a bunch of other adults across the globe.

3. Parent focus: Most enforcement exists in a physical realm where parents/guardians at least have a chance of understanding, monitoring, and managing it. "Little Timmy is using Daddy's phone" can be determined instantly at a glance.

4. Exceptions: If the child has some health-class homework and can't access the right Wikipedia pages anymore, the parent can easily grant exceptions and revoke them.

5. If someone's religion says that unclad ankles are smut, then their church can create their own site-rating-site and adherents configure their family's devices to it.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#79

Post by pakitan »

valicord wrote: post #11

Haven't checked the others, but at least for the skin cream bill, the text explicitly lists "a date of birth entry or checkbox verifying age system" as sufficient, so the outrage about privacy seems overblown. Of course this raises questions as to what is the point of requiring verification that doesn't actually verify anything, but that's an entirely separate problem.

One could argue it's the first step of the slippery slope process. First you introduce a checkbox as a "non-intrusive way" to for age verification, knowing full well it's useless. Next step is you say "Ok, we clearly agree there is a need for age verification, we all voted for the checkbox but kids are lying so we must put into place a system that cannot be gamed. Think of the children!"

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#80

Post by johnnyjeans »

cls59 wrote: post #8
dinkblam wrote: post #3

age verification should be backed into the browser and not into websites. parents should be able to access a (password protected) setting in any browser that can exclude some types of websites (like porn). governments should be free to go after any website not respecting that setting. but forcing the age-verification onto websites is just moronic.

And then kinds just learn how to download and run an open-source browser produced outside of the country that does not implement the setting on the client side.

I consider that a feature. Working and training problem solving skills and persistence through trial-and-error to the degree required for that kind of thing is great. I feel it's underappreciated in potential that treating a wide swath of these kinds of rules as nothing more than cattle-fences can have a shockingly positive effect.

One of the biggest problems that grows with each generation, is how do you get the youth to actually engage in constructive development of real skills? How do you get them to be interested in something that will be useful for society down the line? Quietly looking the other way while a statistical minority breaks some of the safety-rails of society basically solves that problem. Breaking the rules is cool. You're basically exploiting the rebellious nature of the youth to trick them into learning useful skillsets. So long as the hurdles to circumvent the rules remain reasonably involved to overcome, and the secret intention remains unspoken, you basically double up the rewards of the rules.

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