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Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"

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81–90 of 208 posts

Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"

#81
post #36

It 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

> More and more sites (especially adult ones) are now forcing users to upload IDs or selfies to continue. > they might just get enough attention from voters to motivate a change Unfortunately, guaranteeing anonymous internet porno is a terrible political beachhead to motivate "voters" to do anything.

> Unfortunately, guaranteeing anonymous internet porno is a terrible political beachhead to motivate "voters" to do anything.

Reworded press release: "We protect children from being forced to upload their photos (on their IDs) to adult web sites"

Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"

#82
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "content that encourages use of VPNs to get around age checks" I think "...to get around age checks" is controlling. It isn't illegal to promote VPN's in that country; it's illegal to promote their usefulness in circumventing other laws.

The law reads like it applies to platforms required to do the checks rather than third party service providers.

* https://legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/contents

Which section of the Online Safety Act 2023 is that in, please?

Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"

#83
post #81
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More and more sites (especially adult ones) are now forcing users to upload IDs or selfies to continue. > they might just get enough attention from voters to motivate a change Unfortunately, guaranteeing anonymous internet porno is a terrible political beachhead to motivate "voters" to do anything.

> Unfortunately, guaranteeing anonymous internet porno is a terrible political beachhead to motivate "voters" to do anything. Reworded press release: "We protect children from being forced to upload their photos (on their IDs) to adult web sites"

Another rewording:

"...to upload your photos (on your IDs)..." :D

Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"

#84
post #56

How 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.

A DNS provider can not route your traffic through TCP proxies, so it must be the former.

Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pro…

ID verification is done by 3rd parties. Nobody wants to hold a photo of your ID because it's a compliance nightmare. You aren't uploading your ID to some porn site, you are uploading it to some real-person verification company.

Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Nobody uploads their ID to some porn site, they work with some reputable id verification company.

Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"

#88
post #43

Presenting government ID to random entities is literally what government ID's exist for. Paranoia about this is silly. Additionally, intentionally aiding someone (especially a minor) in circumventing the law is very likely to not be legal, especially when legality is largely determined by a jury, and especially^2 when the facts of the case against you are the most egregious that the government can find, especially^3…

showing a plastic card in a store to buy the yearly Cum Companion Calendar or whatever is one thing, because the clerk likely is not a savant with eidetic memory, whereas online there's this little thing happening called data processing which starts with the only thing we usually don't want with our ID. copying.

I wonder what the legality would be for the brick and mortar stores (especially the big chain ones) to just start asking customers for ID and then swiping them through scanners that can do all of the eidetic memory work for them?

Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"

#89
post #36

It 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

> More and more sites (especially adult ones) are now forcing users to upload IDs or selfies to continue. > they might just get enough attention from voters to motivate a change Unfortunately, guaranteeing anonymous internet porno is a terrible political beachhead to motivate "voters" to do anything.

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"

#90
This sounds like a company using DNS to direct _other_ peoples' web traffic through _their_ proxies. Cloudflare started this way. That's why signing up for Cloudlfare requires using _Cloudflare's_ DNS servers

The so-called "DNS trick", which is defintely not a trick, is to redirect traffic though a proxy server. Whoever operates the proxy, e.g. Cloudflare, NextDNS, etc., has control over the HTTPS traffic and _could_ have access to the contents

HN commenters and other online commenters have criticised Cloudlfare in the past because it decrypts ("terminates") TLS connections and _could_ thereby have access to the contents of customers' traffic

For any doubters, this access was confimed some years ago when a coding mistake by someone at CF in a scanner generated with ragel caused customers'_decrypted_ web traffic contained in memory on Cloudflare's proxies to spill out all over the web. Leaked data became publicly available and remained discoverable via web search for a while; the data had to be scrubbed from search engines and web archives which took several days at least

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudbleed

NextDNS purports to be a "DNS service" but proxying HTTPS opens a new can of worms

NB. This comment is not claiming that NextDNS or anyone else does or does not do anything, nor that anyone will or won't do anything. This comment is about _what becomes possible through control over DNS_. The possibilities it allows for control are why I do not use third party DNS service and prefer to control own DNS; having control can be very useful

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