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Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

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Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#381

Post by janci »

kallistisoft wrote: post #281
janci wrote: post #85

Our state-issued eID cards are supposed to have a function that allows anonymous age verification to a trusted party. It should work like this: a requesting party sends a request signed by state-issued certificate to the ID card, the card verifies the request authenticity and responds with a signed confirmation of legal age and that signature then can be verified by the requester. No personal information is shared. W…

There's an issue with the flow you described; the party requesting verification shouldn't directly interact with the verifying agent (the state) as this leaks to the state the identity of the requesting 3rd party. The correct flow for preserving anonymity is: the requesting party issues a challenge token to the user -- the token header describes the type of request (>=18yo?) and the token body is completely random( )…

I think it is a tradeoff between "everybody can request age verification" and "only state-licensed parties can request age verification". I don't think everybody's ID card should tell anyone if the holder is adult or not, especially wirelessly

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#382

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

throw10920 wrote: post #377
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The paradox of tolerance is not a law of physics. It doesn't automatically win you the argument because it was always merely some dude's opinion. Moreover, given that the public mood has turned decidedly anti-progressive, it's really, really a bad idea to bring up the paradox of tolerance because they might just adopt it and decide you're the intolerant ones that don't have to be tolerated.

> it's really, really a bad idea to bring up the paradox of tolerance because they might just adopt it and decide you're the intolerant ones that don't have to be tolerated. If the use of a meta-position like this is contingent on a particular set of people being in charge and using it, that means that it wasn't a good meta-position to begin with. Either you believe that we shouldn't tolerate "intolerant" people (and…

Yes, agreed. I've made that same point to progressives who quoted the paradox of tolerance many times but it fell on deaf ears. Perhaps they'll listen now.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#383

Post by bavell »

rijoja wrote: post #324
lolinder wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're taking the metaphor a bit too literally. Or maybe the metaphor is flawed? GP says that public spaces are adult-only by default, the parent rightly points out this is nonsense: public spaces are Safe for Work (and for kids) by default, and you have to prove you're an adult to access the adult-only spaces. Which is exactly what laws like this are trying to do by analogy to the physical world . It's not OP that…

Leaving children unattended with random strangers is bad parenting this should be obvious to anyone.

Yeah can't believe all those horrible parents taking kids to summer camp...

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#384

Post by immibis »

balamatom wrote: post #352
squigz wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably for the same reason we allow adults to smoke and drink but not children.

Not really. The reason "we", scratch that, the reason the state allows adults to drink and smoke is because adults have been known to fight back , sometimes quite effectively, when they feel like something is been "taken away" from them. The obvious example here is the rise of bootlegging during prohibition; all that did was empower the organized criminal class, rather than get the nation to realize the awesome benef…

> The reason "we", scratch that, the reason the state allows adults to drink and smoke is because adults have been known to fight back, sometimes quite effectively, when they feel like something is been "taken away" from them.

Which is also the same reason adults are allowed to do all these other things, like buying toxic skin creams.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#385

Post by immibis »

natebc wrote: post #42
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.

And "porn" (or anything you might want your children not to see?) is also ubiquitous and so intertwined with the internet that it's impossible to block ... and you also know it. Responsibility really is the only fix here. I know we love technical solutions to problems but either porn is illegal for everyone or it isn't.

"Parental responsibility" is to parenting what "pilot error" was to plane crashes: a thought-terminating cliche that refuses to dig any deeper.

When they stopped blaming crashes on "pilot error" they were able to properly investigate the causes of crashes and prevent more crashes.

"Pilot error" is a suitable explanation if you are a mechanic investigating the crash. You determined that the plane moved the wrong way because the ailerons moved the wrong way because the pilot told them to move that way. It's not a suitable explanation for a final report because you need to find out why the pilot told them to move that way.

Codeless Code 224

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#386

Post by outer_web »

isaacremuant wrote: post #316
outer_web wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonspecific covid policies getting support from "the mainstream" is proof that HN will support authoritarianism? Huh.

Yes. That was the most clear cut case of authoritarianism I've ever seen in the post Berlin wall era. It's not hard to grasp if you read a constitution and see how right to assemble, right to work, right to bodily autonomy, right to speak, all got attacked in different degrees in different countries across the world with apparent widespread support. Of course, censorship of any alternative played a part and non compl…

Uh what?

Brief shelter in place orders followed by limitations on* occupancy of commercial spaces is proof that HN will embrace deanonymizing the internet?

You are also gonna have to help me out what I am supposed to call you.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#387

Post by Gollapalli »

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…

Public spaces should NOT be unrated.

This is a disgusting worldview. The fact that an 8-year-old can NOT walk NYC unattended is a disgrace. This is what civilized countries actually look like: https://youtu.be/IkVvXVDs5aI That American children cannot reasonably do the same any longer is a FAILURE of the public trust.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#388

Post by GlobalFrog »

wongarsu wrote: post #227
ty6853 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my state children can wander in a bar. They can even sit at the stool in front the bar counter. It's considered better to allow it than have children neglected at home without supervision.

The kind of hierarchies we deem necessary are certainly different. In most of Europe (spoiler: overgeneralization incoming) nobody would have an issue with a child walking alone through a city, going into a bar and ordering a coke. Nobody is going to stop them from taking public transit to a book store, and nothing is legally or physically preventing them from looking at a couple pages in the latest playboy issue in…

Exactly. Î really don’t understand that some take issue of verifying ages. IRL, you can be asked your ID to buy porn magazines, drink alcohol… Why would it be a nuisance to verify the same things online? Is it because you would be asked every time as your data wouldnt be stored for privacy issues? So, people are realizing that automating everything has drawbacks and that interacting with real humans directly has also advantages? Societies have evolved over hundreds of years and that has resulted in sets of rules to organize them. Would you really prefer the real life to have the rules of the internet replace what we have IRL?

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#389

Post by cosmicgadget »

isaacremuant wrote: post #318
cosmicgadget wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% sure his point was exactly what you said. "Should be done" vs "should be enforced" by the person you demand stay out of your life.

No. Another one who doesn't get it. It shouldn't be done. The problem is that you don't get it. You think that saying "we all agree on X but it's bad for society" gets you to eventually acknowledge there's a safer way to do X, at least partially. I'm saying you shouldn't even pretend the first statement is acceptable and that implementation is the problem . Now, that's very nuanced for some and I'll get the "you're m…

Okay my bad. I thought you were making an argument against intrusive law enforcement but you were actually saying kids should run with knives.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#390

Post by AnthonyMouse »

tzs wrote: post #331
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're omitting the part where you have to disclose who you are to the party issuing the credential. If they issue you a unique credential while knowing your identity then they can trace back all your uses of it to your identity. When that party is the government or within the government's jurisdiction, the government has the capacity to do that even if the services where you use the credential are operated by a thir…

The party that you must disclose your identity to doesn’t necessarily need to see the credential you will present to the party you wish to demonstrate your age to. A blind signature could be used to have the ID checking party sign the credential without seeing it.

That's just introducing a complex new vector for compromise without getting out of the dichotomy.

Option 1: Bob gets a credential that can be traced back to Bob; privacy fail.

Option 2: Bob gets a credential that cannot be traced back to Bob, shares it with everyone; defeats the system.

Notice also the tradeoff you're forcing for no benefit. If Bob has a unique blinded signature, even if the signer doesn't know the unblinded value, the verifier would and so Bob has to get a new signature for each use or the verifiers could correlate one use with another. But needing a new signature for each use creates a timing attack because now you can see that every time "someone" presents a signature to use a particular service, Bob had just requested a new signature.

In this context blinded signatures have only costs and no benefits over universal shared passwords.

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