Why can't the EFF tell people to lie? Because if you can get away with it, lying is almost always your best option. Unless there are actual real world consequences to lying like you may anger the police.
And maybe consider using a VPN.
So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?
41–50 of 306 posts
Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?
#42How well does the selfie test detect AI-generated photos? That seems easy to bypass, especially if you copy the metadata over from a real photo.
The ones I have used do not accept photos, they require real-time video with the front-facing camera and they prompt you to move your head to face different directions on command. Not impossible to attack, I'm certain, but it's tougher than simply uploading a photo.
Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?
#43I'm surprised that the EFF does not highlight the best option, here: use a VPN to a jurisdiction that doesn't have such ridiculous laws.
Next step: the same government that is demanding the age verification will ban VPNs.
Everyone seems to forget that using VPNs to violate your local laws gives lots of good ammo to the authoritarians that want to ban VPNs. The answer isn't to use a VPN to get around it (and thus give fodder to your enemies) but to change the law.
Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?
#44>If Google can guess your age, you may never even see an age verification screen. Your Google account is typically connected to your YouTube account, so if (like mine) your YouTube account is old enough to vote, you may not need to verify your Google account at all. This has been proven false a bunch of times, at least if the 1000s of people complaining online about it are to be believed. My google account is definit…
I wrote an April Fool's parody in 2021 that Google is going to get rid of authentication because they're following you around enough to know who you are anyway (modeling it after their No Captcha announcement[1]):
http://blog.tyrannyofthemouse.com/2021/04/leaked-google-init...
Edit:
>I think the truth is, they just want your face.
I just realized the parody also predicted that part (emphasis added):
>>In cases where our tracking cookies and other behavioral metrics can't confidently predict who someone is, we will prompt the user for additional information, increasing the number of security checkpoints to confirm who the user really is. For example, you might need to turn on your webcam or upload your operating system's recent logs to give a fuller picture.
[1] https://security.googleblog.com/2014/12/are-you-robot-introd...
Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?
#45I'm surprised that the EFF does not highlight the best option, here: use a VPN to a jurisdiction that doesn't have such ridiculous laws.
I think EFF does not recommend for or against VPN in general because it's not always a clear win, depending on the VPN and the use case.
Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?
#46My kid has recently just quit playing Roblox because of the sketchy facial age check process. She said that her and all her friends know not to ever upload a picture of themselves to the Internet (good job, fellow Other Parents!!) so they're either moving on to other games or just downloading stock photos of people from the internet and uploading those (which apparently works). What a total joke. These companies need…
I was getting a haircut last week and chatting about our kids with the stylist, who said (basically): "I just started letting my 7 year old on Roblox. I know its full of pedophiles. I told him to come to me or his older brother if anyone tries to talk to him."
If the million reports of Mark Zuckerberg enabling pedophiles and scam artists haven't made it clear, the executives of these tech companies just don't care. They will sell children into sexual slavery if it improves next quarter's numbers.
Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?
#47If my options are upload a picture of myself for Google to monetize through ads or not use Google / Youtube then I will be moving on regardless of the inconvenience to myself.
Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?
#48I think that age verification is important. While its not perfect, it is one tool to help protect kids.
Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?
#49How well does the selfie test detect AI-generated photos? That seems easy to bypass, especially if you copy the metadata over from a real photo.
The ones I have used do not accept photos, they require real-time video with the front-facing camera and they prompt you to move your head to face different directions on command. Not impossible to attack, I'm certain, but it's tougher than simply uploading a photo.
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Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?
#50Is there a throwaway identity that people are using? A dead person unchecked in Mississippi somewhere? Like every teen in America using the same identity like everyone's extended family does with their uncle's Netflix account? I don't want to google it because I don't want to be put on a list but I also feel somewhat confident that this is being done. Apparently, HN feels safe to ask questions like that for me.
> I don't want to google it because I don't want to be put on a list
Of all the controversial things out there we've become afraid to even google in order to learn more about the world around us, this one strikes me as not all that controversial.
But you're not wrong, just making a comment about how sad the world has become.