Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance • Hacker News Board

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#101

Post by add-sub-mul-div » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 9:44 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #95

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…

> Would you allow an 8 year old to wander New York City unattended? At age 8 I was wandering in Munich unattended. But okay, gotta admit, this is Germany we're talking about, so not many issues with hordes of mentally ill and/or homeless people doing anything from drugs to defecating on the sidewalk right next to big tech's offices [1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/18/san-fr...

If your politicians back then had wanted to cultivate your fear badly enough, they'd easily have been able to find anecdotes or instances to scare you with.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#102

Post by inetknght » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 9:45 PM UTC

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...

Maybe we shouldn't.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#103

Post by inetknght » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 9:46 PM UTC

diebeforei485 wrote: post #99

I have my California Drivers License in my Apple Wallet. I should be able to prove to iPhone apps that I am 18+ (only a binary yes/no with no metadata) by the apps making a local API call to iOS, which checks this information with the unexpired drivers license on device.

What if you're born on February 29th?

What if you're borth on March 1st and it's currently February 29, 18 years later?

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#104

Post by 3np » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 9:52 PM UTC

diebeforei485 wrote: post #99

I have my California Drivers License in my Apple Wallet. I should be able to prove to iPhone apps that I am 18+ (only a binary yes/no with no metadata) by the apps making a local API call to iOS, which checks this information with the unexpired drivers license on device.

That is trusting both Apple and the client, and also only works for iPhone.

We can do better with zero-knowledge-proof-based schemes, which also allow securely decoupling issuance/certification from online verification.

E.g. https://linc.cnil.fr/en/demonstration-privacy-preserving-age...

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#105

Post by 3np » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 9:54 PM UTC

washadjeffmad wrote: post #72

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…

How have you not heard about Worldcoin?

/s/s

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#106

Post by drdaeman » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 9:54 PM UTC

pakitan wrote: post #79

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!"

If we don't trust the legislative and see them as malevolent entities with their own agendas unaligned with those of their constituents, then, yes, a checkbox opens a path for further abuse.

If we trust the legislative to have a modicum of common sense and don't try to invent a technical solution to a non-technical problem, then a warning "what you're going to see is not for the younger audiences" might be a reasonable compromise.

And it's a shame we live in a world where the former doesn't sound completely nuts.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#107

Post by masfuerte » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 9:59 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #90

"no method of age verification is both privacy-protective and entirely accurate." No method of age verification is entirely actuate. It seem a hardline stance that we can't think up a process that would allow for a reasonable level of accuracy with privacy. It could literally be drawing a usb token from a bucket full of them after a human at the DMV visually checks your license.

There was a serious proposal to do something like this in the UK [1] the last time the government tried to introduce age checks for online porn. Age checks are becoming mandatory this July but the idea of having a privacy-respecting option seems to have been dropped.

[1]: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/porn-passes-...

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#108

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 10:04 PM UTC

inetknght wrote: post #103

diebeforei485 wrote: post #99

I have my California Drivers License in my Apple Wallet. I should be able to prove to iPhone apps that I am 18+ (only a binary yes/no with no metadata) by the apps making a local API call to iOS, which checks this information with the unexpired drivers license on device.

What if you're born on February 29th? What if you're borth on March 1st and it's currently February 29, 18 years later?

I don't know that I care for the solution, but why would the API have a problem with either of those scenarios? What datetime library are you using that does, and why haven't you switched?

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#109

Post by ajross » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 10:07 PM UTC

z0r wrote: post #81

ajross wrote: post #35

[flagged]

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-sues-opm-doge-and-mus... ?

EFF's legal side is... not as insane, I guess. And there are some sound minds surely there still.

But I repeat: the data privacy dystopia is upon us, and what is EFF pushing for clicks and eyeballs? "Big Tech Bad".

"Big Tech Bad" is precisely the kind of poorly-grounded outrage farm used to bring DOGE to power in the first place. Voters trying to bring their perceived enemies to heel are the actual threat! And EFF is part of the problem and not the solution.

In the coming years we will remember fondly when our personal data lived in secure and well-managed centers run by Meta and Google and Amazon and not on some DOGE staffers' Macbook. Write it down.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#110

Post by kennysoona » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 10:10 PM UTC

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…

> The Internet should be Unrated and thus Adults Only by default.

As much as I kind of agree, I want to fight so much for open access to the internet because it was so useful to me as a child, thirsty for information and starving for nourishment.

I will say I think these laws are bonkers. Restrict what companies can do with child data, make it clear an account is a minors, that should be more than sufficient.