That’s really cool. I thought you guys had stopped development altogether.
Same; I switched to ControlD when it appeared NextDNS was on autopilot without support or fixes.
Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"
61–70 of 208 posts
Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"
#62How does this "DNS trick" work? That to me is a much more interesting detail.
It likely overrides DNS resolution to CDN/POPs in countries which don't require age checking, or routes the traffic through TCP proxies so your traffic appears to come from a different country without these laws.
This will increase the latency of all traffic to that site though.
Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"
#63Better than that at least in the UK, they are not handing the data to the government, but to unregulated, diverse third parties - what could go wrong.
it's all gonna get leaked every quarter
Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"
#64Glancing at the front page, it looks like this product also has enforced SafeSearch and restricted mode to protect children, so... seems fine? They're doing the same thing themselves, and it's probably better since it's a local solution. If you're running a product like this, it should be officially allowed to bypass age verification.
Arguably, the UK's Online Safety Act already allows these products to bypass age verification: see s. 12(6) https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/section/12/6):
> the age verification or age estimation must be of such a kind, and used in such a way, that it is highly effective at correctly determining whether or not a particular user is a child
Unfortunately, it's hard to tell what this passage means, and I suspect it doesn't apply here. (But does that mean there's no law covering age-verification bypassing services? That seems like an unlikely oversight, and the Online Safety Act's badly-drafted enough that I'm not comfortable making a broad assertion here.) Hopefully case law sorts this out a little.
Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
next step is to try to make VPNs illegal (or require age verification for them, of course)
Age verification for VPNs would be awesome. I would rather hand ID over to a VPN provider than individual sites I visit.
The VPN provider should hook into the existing government identify service.
Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please post a link to a picture of your national ID. /s
I've had to upload my ID card to send money, open a bank account online, verify my identity for a dating app, book an international flight, and ironically to register for the app to have an electronic version of my id on my phone, and weirdly to pay a traffic ticket (why do they care who pays it?), get a discount on my Amazon Prime subscription, and finally to reset my password for my ID.me login for government websi…
You don’t see the difference between it getting out some place I travelled to, opened a bank account to, etc than if I visit grandmamidgetporn.com?
Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
next step is to try to make VPNs illegal (or require age verification for them, of course)
Age verification for VPNs would be awesome. I would rather hand ID over to a VPN provider than individual sites I visit.
This would ensure you couldn't tie an Identity to an activity\user on a service which is of course why it's not where they're going
Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"
#68It may not be effective in the long term, but I think it's very much worth doing. The privacy nightmare of uploading government docs is appalling and should be resisted by all who can, so I think you're doing great work. If it provokes regulators to push harder, they might just get enough attention from voters to motivate a change. That would be my hope anyway
Even if this was a good idea, ID verification technology should not be outsourced to private parties. This is a service governments themselves must provide. I shouldn't need to upload an ID because the government already has it!
If they simply wanted age verification, the dumb and lazy way is to SSO through a government managed portal with OAUTH2 and you only share your age with the third party. You do a one time account setup (you already have to do this in the US for many government services at the federal level) with age verification, that's your gov portal login. This means the government will now which naughty sites you visit of course, but like I said, it is the lazy approach, and if you think about it, if they respect the laws then a law can be passed to prevent them from storing or using that association, if they didn't, they could still sniff your traffic and wiretap you.
A slightly smarter approach would be to directly auth against a government portal and be given a 24h expiring code for age verification, and the government will publish an updated list of codes to trusted businesses. Those codes could be leaked, but making it a felony should deter most cases, because who wants to go to prison to let some kids watch porn?
Smarter people than me can come up with smarter solution, that is really my point. Involving third-parties and requiring you to upload documents is done either out of extreme incompetence or opportunistic malice by elected officials (bribery).
Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"
#69It may not be effective in the long term, but I think it's very much worth doing. The privacy nightmare of uploading government docs is appalling and should be resisted by all who can, so I think you're doing great work. If it provokes regulators to push harder, they might just get enough attention from voters to motivate a change. That would be my hope anyway
Even if this was a good idea, ID verification technology should not be outsourced to private parties. This is a service governments themselves must provide. I shouldn't need to upload an ID because the government already has it! If they simply wanted age verification, the dumb and lazy way is to SSO through a government managed portal with OAUTH2 and you only share your age with the third party. You do a one time acc…
South Korea has implemented something similar, but through private corporations, not directly by the government.
When you sign up with a South Korean online service that might contain age-restricted content, you provide your name, date of birth, and phone number. The service operator uses a special telecom-provided API to have a 6-digit code sent to your phone. (The code is generated by the telecom, not the service operator.) When you enter the code, the telecom confirms the name and date of birth. No need for random online services to ask for government IDs, because they're allowed to pass the burden of proof to telecoms who have already verified it offline.
You could probably do something similar via banks, schools, the social security system, or any other regulated industry that has KYC rules.
Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please post a link to a picture of your national ID. /s
I've had to upload my ID card to send money, open a bank account online, verify my identity for a dating app, book an international flight, and ironically to register for the app to have an electronic version of my id on my phone, and weirdly to pay a traffic ticket (why do they care who pays it?), get a discount on my Amazon Prime subscription, and finally to reset my password for my ID.me login for government websi…
Its not the 'voluntary' services that may or may not want to see your ID, its the existence of any and all Mandatory legislation, which would be a nightmare.
This is a tech site so I imagine the average user has some deeper understanding than most(technically), but I guess imagination is off the table.
What this would do (requiring all sites) is basically be the end for any and all attempts against identity fraud protection. Indulge a bit of imagination for a moment. If EVERY site is now required to do some form of verification, than everyone's infrastructure now becomes prime targets for PII and troves of identity information, and wherein amazon, banks, and ID.me can be considered to be at or near the top (i'd hope) for keeping their machines tied down, the reality is that EVERYONE'S servers ARE NOT so will maintained. They WILL be attacked, and shims inserted to steal such identity information, as people have ZERO idea, as they're being shunted around to all thees angel-invested ID startups, as to what is or isn't legit, during signup. Wholly, identical pages/domains, as are often seen to steal traditional PCI information, will now be repurposed to this. Its not that the reputable ones are likely to fall, its the small vendors who don't understand that once a customer is EXPECTED to fork over ID to sign up, any hiccup in the process will be unnoticed, and it'll be ripe for abuse if the server/service is ever compromised.