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EFF launches Age Verification Hub

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Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#91

Post by perihelions »

raverbashing wrote: post #82
throwaway198846 wrote: post #66

Why they don't use zero knowledge proof? Also question for the USA constitution experts, is this considered a violation of free speech? The article is not clear on this.

> is this considered a violation of free speech? Not in principle See the limits on curse words on TV. Or MPAA ratings for movies.

> "MPAA ratings for movies"

(IANAL) That demonstrates the opposite: that's a voluntary system with no force of law behind it—the private sector "self-regulating" itself, if you will.

The film rating systems were created under threat of legislation in the first half of the 20th century (so, in lieu of actual legislation). The transformative 1st Amendment rulings of the Warren Court would have made such laws unconstitutional after the 1960's, but the dynamic that created these codes predates that—predates the modern judicial interpretation of the 1st Amendment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hays_Code (history background)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association_fil... ("The MPA rating system is a voluntary scheme that is not enforced by law")

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#92

Post by squigz »

taeric wrote: post #53

I would be happy if we just moved to a way we could more realistically enable audits of information flow in our lives. I don't, necessarily, want to restrict my kids consumptions. It does worry me that I don't know how to teach them to audit all of the information that is being exposed to them. Or worse, collected about them.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by 'audit', but teach them critical thinking, and show them the strategies the media uses to manipulates them. Teach them there's often more than 1 side to a story.

Things like this will give them a huge advantage in not being manipulated and lied to.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#93

Post by taeric »

squigz wrote: post #92
taeric wrote: post #53

I would be happy if we just moved to a way we could more realistically enable audits of information flow in our lives. I don't, necessarily, want to restrict my kids consumptions. It does worry me that I don't know how to teach them to audit all of the information that is being exposed to them. Or worse, collected about them.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by 'audit', but teach them critical thinking, and show them the strategies the media uses to manipulates them. Teach them there's often more than 1 side to a story. Things like this will give them a huge advantage in not being manipulated and lied to.

To explain it like budgeting. You can forward plan what you will spend money on. But you also need to be able to see where all of your money went. This is nigh impossible with data flow, nowadays.

I'd be comfortable with it having large segments of "uncategorized." But right now, if I scan over to my ISP to see how much data I have used for the month, I have little to no help in saying how much of that was what.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#95

Post by nostrademons »

rockskon wrote: post #83
throwaway198846 wrote: post #66

Why they don't use zero knowledge proof? Also question for the USA constitution experts, is this considered a violation of free speech? The article is not clear on this.

Zero knowledge proof is either trivially defeated by re-using the same credentials or doesn't have useful privacy guarantees. There really isn't an in-between here for something like age verification.

Age verification in general is not intended to defend against people lying or using stolen credentials. If you’re 13 but know the password to your dead grandpa’s account and the website in question has no idea he’s dead, there’s no way to defend against that, with or without a ZKP.

What the ZKP does is let you limit the information the site collects to the fact that you are under 18, and nothing else. It’s an application of the principle of least privilege. It lets you give the website that one fact without revealing your name, birthdate, address, browsing history, and all your other private data.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#96

Post by pksebben »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #90
pksebben wrote: post #88

This keeps coming up and we keep having the same debates about what Age Verification isn't. For the folks in the back row: Age Verification isn't about Kids or Censorship, It's about Surveillance Age Verification isn't about Kids or Censorship, It's about Surveillance Age Verification isn't about Kids or Censorship, It's about Surveillance Without even reaching for my tinfoil hat, the strategy at work here is clear […

I am someone who is very privacy focused. I've literally never had a social media account on any platform and I'm 42. From day one of facebook, I never wanted my information online. Like many here, I'm deeply concerned about privacy and surveillance. In real life, we think age verification is a good thing. Kids shouldn't buy porn. Teenagers shouldn't get into bars. etc... There has to be room somewhere for reasonable…

I'm not dismissing that idea. It is a perfectly reasonable thing to think about, part of why we have age verification techniques that already work well in critical places like online vape shops.

I'm even willing to talk about the possibility that we could use more robust systems deployed more broadly. A lot of folks here are talking about ZKPs in this regard, and that's not a bad idea at all.

The issue I'm trying to sound the horn on is that the current push for AF in the US and EU has nothing to do with kids. I think you could put together a working group on ZKPs and Age Verification, write up a paper and run experiments, and when you bring it to the lawmakers they're gonna say something to the tune of:

"yeah but that's not trustworthy enough and too technical for people to understand so we're just going to serve legal notices to VPN providers instead to tell them that they can't anymore"

...or something to that tune. I'm not a mind reader, I've just read the reports (by lawmakers) mentioning VPNs as an "area of concern".

This is a political gambit and not a new one. The more we treat the current issue as having anything to do with protecting kids the more we legitimize what is an obvious grift.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#97

Post by vilhelm_s »

rockskon wrote: post #83
throwaway198846 wrote: post #66

Why they don't use zero knowledge proof? Also question for the USA constitution experts, is this considered a violation of free speech? The article is not clear on this.

Zero knowledge proof is either trivially defeated by re-using the same credentials or doesn't have useful privacy guarantees. There really isn't an in-between here for something like age verification.

The idea is that e.g. the government would give you an app that lives on your phone. When you apply for the app you provide some documents to prove your age, but you don't say anything about what sites you plan to visit. When you want to visit an age-restricted site you use the app to generate a proof that you have it, but the site doesn't learn anything more than that, and the government doesn't learn that you used the app.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#98

Post by perihelions »

throwaway198846 wrote: post #66

Why they don't use zero knowledge proof? Also question for the USA constitution experts, is this considered a violation of free speech? The article is not clear on this.

> "is this considered a violation of free speech?"

There were major Supreme Court rulings on the topic recently, see

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44397799 ("US Supreme Court Upholds Texas Porn ID Law (wired.com)"—5 months ago, 212 comments)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Coalition_v._Paxto...

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#99

Post by squigz »

taeric wrote: post #93
squigz wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by 'audit', but teach them critical thinking, and show them the strategies the media uses to manipulates them. Teach them there's often more than 1 side to a story. Things like this will give them a huge advantage in not being manipulated and lied to.

To explain it like budgeting. You can forward plan what you will spend money on. But you also need to be able to see where all of your money went. This is nigh impossible with data flow, nowadays. I'd be comfortable with it having large segments of "uncategorized." But right now, if I scan over to my ISP to see how much data I have used for the month, I have little to no help in saying how much of that was what.

Ah okay. I think this would probably be pretty tricky, security-wise, no? One of my first thoughts that might help would be writing a simple tool that parses history from your browsers to categorize it. Other than that, there are things like https://activitywatch.net/ (which seems to have a desktop and Android version)

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#100

Post by no_wizard »

taeric wrote: post #51
rlpb wrote: post #11

I'd be OK with an "I am a child" header mandated by law to be respected by service providers (eg. "adult sites" must not permit a client setting the header to proceed). On the client side, mandate that consumer devices that might reasonably be expected to be used by children (every smartphone, tablet, smart TV, etc) have parental controls that set the header. Leave it to parents to set the controls. Perhaps even hold…

My only gripe here is the idea of "perhaps hold the parents culpable." I'm not opposed to the idea, but what sucks is we are ultimately all paying the cost of it going wrong. The idea that we can shunt that away to a few irresponsible people is just demonstrably not the case. Worse, it leads to situations where society seems to want to flat out be kid free in many ways. With families reportedly afraid to let their ki…

>Worse, it leads to situations where society seems to want to flat out be kid free in many ways. With families reportedly afraid to let their kids walk to and from school unsupervised.

I'm not seeing the correlation / causation here.

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