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EFF launches Age Verification Hub

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Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#181

Post by SilverElfin »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #166
SilverElfin wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

It's been illegal to sell porn to minors since approximately forever. If that is constitutional (not saying it is, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't since it's such an established practice), then I don't see how requiring age verification on porn sites wouldn't be. Requiring health warnings might be another matter, though. Not sure about that.

Does the “sell” part matter - like is it simply that the sale to minors can be regulated? If it is free isn’t it just transmission of information?

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#182

Post by chriswarbo »

jolmg wrote: post #178
chriswarbo wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If HN is social media, then so are PHPBB, NNTP, BBS, etc. and the term loses its semantic relevance. My heuristic is that social media focuses on particular people, regardless of what they're talking about. In contrast, forums (like HN) focus on a particular topic, regardless of who's talking about it.

Doesn't matter what you want it to mean. What matters is what those in power want it to mean. It's very easy to stretch the definition to cover all sites where people can post content for strangers to see, or stretch it even wider to all digital media where people can interact with a social group.

> Doesn't matter what you want it to mean. What matters is what those in power want it to mean.

I was replying to a discussion between two HN users, who were using conflicting definitions of the term. AFAIK they are not "those in power".

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#183

Post by wcarss »

orblivion wrote: post #174
pksebben wrote: post #127

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…

Okay but then if a ZKP solution is presented, that's calling their bluff. They now have one less excuse for surveillance. EDIT: Actually do one better - tell them that for 16+ websites, you're actually protecting teenagers by keeping them anonymous.

Yeah, getting into the car with the guy holding the gun doesn't become okay because you have a great argument you're waiting to use down the road. He's already got the gun out.

We should have started arguing when he just said he had a gun, indoors, in the crowd. We shouldn't have quietly walked outside at his demand. But that all happened. Here we are now, at the car, and he's got the gun out, and he's saying "get in", and we're probably not going to win from here -- but pal, it's time to start arguing. Or better yet, fighting back hard.

Because that car isn't going anywhere we want to be. We absolutely can not get in the car right now, and just plan to argue the point later. It doesn't matter how right the argument is at all.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#184

Post by jacobgkau »

like_any_other wrote: post #120
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 […

> Age Verification isn't about Kids or Censorship, It's about Surveillance We know this because, instead of putting easy-to-use parental controls on new devices sold (and making it easy to install on old ones) with good defaults [1], they didn't even try that, and went directly for the most privacy-hostile solution. [1] So lazy parents with whatever censorship the government thinks is appropriate for kids, while invo…

Parental control software has existed for decades. It hasn't worked.

Over 70% of teenagers Yes, there were other ways of trying to solve the problem. Governments could've mandated explicit websites (which includes a lot of mainstream social media these days) include the RTA rating tag instead of it being a voluntary thing, which social media companies still would've fought; and governments could've also mandated all devices come with parental control software to actually enforce that tag, which still would've been decried as overreach and possibly would've been easily circumventable for anyone who knows what they're doing (including kids).

But at the end of the day, there was a legitimate problem, and governments are trying to solve the problem, ulterior motives aside. It's not legal for people to have sex on the street in broad daylight (and even that would arguably be healthier for society than growing up on staged porn is). This argument is much more about whether it's healthy for generations to be raised on porn than many detractors want to admit.

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/raising-kind-kids/20...

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#185

Post by jolmg »

chriswarbo wrote: post #182
jolmg wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't matter what you want it to mean. What matters is what those in power want it to mean. It's very easy to stretch the definition to cover all sites where people can post content for strangers to see, or stretch it even wider to all digital media where people can interact with a social group.

> Doesn't matter what you want it to mean. What matters is what those in power want it to mean. I was replying to a discussion between two HN users, who were using conflicting definitions of the term. AFAIK they are not "those in power".

> AFAIK they are not "those in power".

AFAIK nobody here is. The point is that with relevance to the current discussion on potential future age-verification laws, only the widest definition matters, because that's what's at risk.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#186

Post by MatteoFrigo »

mzajc wrote: post #152
magicalhippo wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

This is, of course, very technical, but here is how it works at a high level.

In the non-ZKP presentation, the "holder" (phone) sends the credential to the relying party (website), and the RP executes some verification algorithm. In the ZK presentation, the holder executes the verification algorithm and sends to the RP a proof that the algorithm was executed correctly.

The "proof" has this magical property that it reveals nothing other than the check passed. (You will have to take on faith that such proofs exist.) In particular, if the check was the predicate "I have a signature by ISSUER on HASH, and SHA256(DOCUMENT)==HASH, and DOCUMENT["age_gt_18"]=TRUE", anybody looking at the proof cannot infer ISSUER, HASH, DOCUMENT, or HASH, or nothing else really. "Cannot infer" means that the proof is some random object and all HASH, DOCUMENT, ISSUER, etc. that satisfy the predicate are equally likely, assuming that the randomness used in the proof is private to the holder. Moreover, a generating a proof uses fresh randomness each time, so given two proofs of the same statement, you still cannot tell whether they come from the same ISSUER, HASH, DOCUMENT, ...

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#188

Post by magicalhippo »

stvltvs wrote: post #157
magicalhippo wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Haven't either had time to fully wrap my head around the details.

At least in the EU solution they say there would be multiple attestation serivices the user could choose to use. So that would be technically better than nothing.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#189

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

pksebben wrote: post #175
delusional wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You would think so, but DARE increased adolescent usage of some drugs while having little to no effect on others. Turns out being illegal isn't as much of a disincentive as being uncool. If your parents are smoking it...

Nancy Reagan: Don’t sniff glue to get high.

Kids: You can sniff glue and get high!!!

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#190

Post by TomatoCo »

SilverElfin wrote: post #158
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 […

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...

I wonder how it relates to the health warnings on tobacco products?
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