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EFF launches Age Verification Hub

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Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#151
As I have stated before, AI is freeing us to:

1. create our own porn at home and (soon)

2. have home orgasmatrons.

Parents have complete control of the Chat/Porn server and since the orgasmatron necessarily has all your desires stored in its LLM (Large Lust Model) it trivially knows your age and will lock you out.

And internet porn can be banned regardless of age. (that's only half sarcastically said).

Demand for home Large Lust Models and orgasmatrons will soar. You heard it here first. Opportunity for entrepreneurs. And these home-based products are the only way to keep porn away from kids (if parents don't care now, they never will) and to maintain privacy on the internet.

Every place where I've worked in I.T., the rule was "No porn downloading at work. Porn belongs in the home." (especially in the days of slow home modems)

And to be really enforceable, all offshore sites would have to agree to the scheme, including certain Russian ones who are glad to pollute our children's and adults' minds with porn, propaganda and conspiracy theories.

Lastly: There always was and will be media. Micro-SD cards now? If not phones, thrift store picture frames and RPi's. "Porn finds a way."

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like many mention in other comments on this post, it's possible to implement using ZKPs. There are likely other methods that would be effective without compromising privacy. None of them are part of the Age Verification discussion because kids are not the actual point of Age Verification. When I say "if we have to know you're not a kid, we have to know who you are" I'm not stating an actual truth , but the argument a…

> None of them are part of the Age Verification discussion because kids are not the actual point of Age Verification. The EU age verification solution says implementations SHOULD implement[1] their ZKP protocol[2]. Not linking it to the user is stated as an explicit goal: Unlinkability: The goal of the solution is to prevent user profiling and tracking by avoiding linkable transactions. Initially, the solution will r…

Is there a good explanation of how ZKPs prevent attestation providers (which presumably know your identity) from linking an issued proof back to you if, for example, the website elects to store it? I can wrap my head around RSA and ECC and PKI, but I haven't managed to make sense of this yet.

Assuming that's even a goal, of course. The cited paragraph mentions RPs (the websites, from what I understand), but makes no mention of attestation providers.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#153

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 […

Age verification is absolutely about kids. It’s also being used (or hijacked into) a vehicle for people who want increased surveillance.

There is a ton of evidence that there are harms to unrestricted online access for kids and teens (the book The Anxious Generation is cultural touchstone for this topic at this point). There is a real, well reasoned, and valid movement to do something about this problem.

The solutions proposed aren’t always well targeted and are often hijacked by the pro-surveillance movement, but it’s important to call out that these solutions aren’t well targeted instead of declaring the age verification push isn’t addressing a real problem and constituency.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#154
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we must do something like this, I think a good solution would be an optional server header that describes the types of objectionable content that may be present (including “none”). Browsers on child devices from mainstream vendors would refuse to display any “unrated” resources without the header, and would block any resources that parents deem age-inappropriate, with strict but fair default settings that can be o…

This exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_for_Internet_Content_... It was derided as a "system for mass censorship", and got shot down. In hindsight a mistake, and it should have been implemented - it was completely voluntary by the user.

It’s close, but I see why it failed. There’s no need to include licensing/rights management in there. Also this was before pervasive HTTPS, so it would have been possible for governments and ISPs to snoop the info and possibly block it. If it could be limited to just content ratings, and kept private behind SSL, this isn’t a bad approach.

But this also needs some kind of guarantee that lawmakers won’t try to force it on FOSS projects that want to operate outside the system. And that companies like Google won’t use EEE to gradually expand this header into other areas and eventually cut off consenting adults who want to operate outside this system. I’m not sure if it is possible to get those guarantees.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can absolutely guarantee you that any teenager can easily get access to weed, cigarettes and alcohol Is you argument then that we shouldn't age gate those things in reality either? Would you suggest that teenagers smoke and drink just as much as they would have had it been legal to sell to minors? Laws don't just exist to stop you, they also exist to shape society. They exist as signals for what we deem appropria…

So we make meaningless laws that inconsistently enforced? What do you think happens when little Johnny is caught with weed in his car in a 95% White high income school district vs little Jerome in a 95% Black school district? Also how much “shaping of society” do you expect to happen when you pass a law that no one respects? How many kids do you think a law is going to stop from going to the porn sites that completel…

> How many kids say “I really want to smoke weed but it’s illegally so I won’t do it”?

I think it's generally accepted that marijuana use increases after legalization. So yes.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you aware of any age verification systems that do not have this property? (This includes being robust against law enforcement action, legal or otherwise.)

> Are you aware of any age verification systems that do not have this property? As I understand it, it's the goal of OpenID4VP[1][2]. Using it a site can request to know if the user is over 18 say, and the user can return proof of just that one claim, I'm over 18, without sharing identifying information. The new EU age verification solution[3] builds on this for example. [1]: https://openid.net/specs/openid-4-verifia…

Can't read the specs at the moment, but what prevents the age verification service and the age-gated website from coluding and de-anonymizing your porn use?

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#158

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 […

Politicians in Washington State is proposing not just age verification but also health warnings on adult websites. How is either constitutional?

https://www.xbiz.com/news/294260/washington-av-bill-jumps-on...

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#159

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…

> In real life, we think age verification is a good thing. Kids shouldn't buy porn. Teenagers shouldn't get into bars. etc...

These are not equivalent, I don't have to scan my face, upload my ID and share my personal biometric data with various 3rd parties, who will sell and leak my data, every time I want to look at porn or sip a beer.

Also, there are countries where teenagers can drink and go to pubs, and society hasn't crumbled. We also have several generations of young adults with access to porn, and the sky didn't fall.

Maybe we shouldn't use the government to implement a "papers, please" process just to use and post on the internet, maybe we should instead legislate the root cause of the problem: algorithmic optimization and manipulation. That way everyone benefits, not just kids, and we won't have to scan our faces to look at memes on Reddit.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can absolutely guarantee you that any teenager can easily get access to weed, cigarettes and alcohol Is you argument then that we shouldn't age gate those things in reality either? Would you suggest that teenagers smoke and drink just as much as they would have had it been legal to sell to minors? Laws don't just exist to stop you, they also exist to shape society. They exist as signals for what we deem appropria…

So we make meaningless laws that inconsistently enforced? What do you think happens when little Johnny is caught with weed in his car in a 95% White high income school district vs little Jerome in a 95% Black school district? Also how much “shaping of society” do you expect to happen when you pass a law that no one respects? How many kids do you think a law is going to stop from going to the porn sites that completel…

Laws that nobody respects lead to lack of respect for the law as a whole.
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