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The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

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Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#421

Post by logicchains »

armchairhacker wrote: post #161
everdrive wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. The internet works differently than how people want it to, and filtering services are notoriously easy to bypass. Even if these age-verification laws passed with resounding scope and support, what would stop anyone from merely hosting porn in Romania or some country that didn't care about US age-verification laws. The leads to run down would be legion. I think you could seriously degrade the porn in…

> what would stop anyone from merely hosting porn in Romania or some country that didn't care about US age-verification laws A government could implement the equivalent of China's great firewall. Even if it doesn't stop everyone, it would stop most people. The main problem I suspect is that it would be widely unpopular in the US or Europe, because (especially younger) people have become addicted to porn and brainrot,…

Even China hasn't been remotely successful at banning porn, and it already has the great firewall and porn is illegal there.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#422

Post by whywhywhywhy »

maccard wrote: post #372
honkycat wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ISPs and OSs should be the ones providing these tools and make is stupid easy to set up a child's account and have a walled garden for kids to use.

I live in the UK. By default your ISP will block "mature" content and you have to contact them to opt out. iOS, Android, Playstation, Xbox, Switch all have parental controls that are enforced at an account level. A child with an iPhone, Xbox, and a Windows Laptop won't be able to install discord unless the parent explicitly lets them, or opts out of all the parental controls those platforms have to offer. The tech is…

You have to be very tech savvy to know that your kid asking to install Discord to talk to/play games with their friend group is as dangerous as it is.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#423

Post by uniq7 »

antitoxic wrote: post #390

I work at a European identity wallet system that uses a zero knowledge proof age identification system. It derives an age attribute such as "over 18" from a passport or ID, without disclosing any other information such as the date of birth. As long as you trust the government that gave out the ID, you can trust the attribute, and anonymously verify somebodies age. I think there are many pros and cons to be said about…

In your system, can companies verify age offline, or do they need to send a token to the Government's authority to verify it (letting the Government identify and track users)?

Switzerland is working on a system that does the former, but if Government really wants to identify users, they can still ask the company to provide the age verification tokens they collected, since the Government hosts a centralized database that associates people with their issued tokens.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#424

Post by Quarrelsome »

belorn wrote: post #290
JohnMakin wrote: post #261

We'll try everything, it seems, other than holding parents accountable for what their children consume. In the United States, you can get in trouble if you recklessly leave around or provide alcohol/guns/cigarettes for a minor to start using, yet somehow, the same social responsibility seems thrown out the window for parents and the web. Yes, children are clever - I was one once. If you want to actually protect child…

I am a bit confused by that comment. Are parents social responsible to prevent companies from selling alcohol/guns/cigarettes to minors? If a company set up shop in a school and sold those things to minors during school breaks, who has the social responsibility to stop that?

I think the argument is more around it being illegal so as to not be forced into playing "the bad guy". It's hard to prevent a level of entitlement and resentment if those less well parented have full access. If nobody is allowed then there's no parental friction at all.

Its unfortunate that the application of this rule is being performed at the software level via ad-hoc age verification as opposed to the device level (e.g. smartphones themselves). However that might require the rigimirole of the state forcibly confiscating smartphones from minors or worrying nepalise outcomes.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#425

Post by armchairhacker »

Aurornis wrote: post #298
armchairhacker wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The older sibling should be old enough to know better. Or if they're still a kid, they can have their privileges temporarily revoked. This problem probably can't be solved entirely technologically, but technology can definitely be a part of solving it. I'm sure it's possible to make parental controls that most kids can't bypass, because companies can make DRM that most adults can't bypass.

> The older sibling should be old enough to know better. This is exactly what I meant by my above comment: It’s like the pro-ID check commenters have become completely disconnected from how young people work. Someone’s 18 year old sibling isn’t going to be stopped by “should know better”. They probably disagree with the law on principal and think it’s dumb, so they’re just helping out.

True, hence the culture shift is necessary.

But imagine if a locked device was treated like alcohol. Most kids get access to alcohol at some point despite it being illegal, often from older siblings, and rarely with legal consequences for the adult. But it's much less of an issue, because most kids don't get it consistently. Furthermore, "good" kids understand that it's bad, and even some "bad" kids understand that they must limit themselves.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#426

Post by basisword »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #291
dyauspitr wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This tired argument again. It doesn’t work. It’s like keeping your kid from buying alcohol but all their friends are allowed to buy it. The whole age demographic has to be locked out of the ecosystem.

Well, yes. If your friends can all go 'round to David's house, where David's parents hand each child a case of beer and send them on their way, any attempt by the other parents to prohibit underage drinking is going to be ineffective. But most parents don't do that. (I've actually never heard of it.) So social solutions involving parent consensus clearly do work here. "But it's behavioural!" I hear you cry. "What's s…

Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean it isn't common. Parents take different approaches. I had some friends parents who preferred we did it in their house where they could maintain some level of safety than us drinking recklessly in field. Others thought providing some beers was better than us buying the cheapest vodka available. And I'm sure other parents wouldn't have liked this approach if they knew about it.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#427

Post by jama211 »

JohnMakin wrote: post #261

We'll try everything, it seems, other than holding parents accountable for what their children consume. In the United States, you can get in trouble if you recklessly leave around or provide alcohol/guns/cigarettes for a minor to start using, yet somehow, the same social responsibility seems thrown out the window for parents and the web. Yes, children are clever - I was one once. If you want to actually protect child…

Ah, the abstinence theory of protection. How it continues to rear its ugly head.

Why this utter drivel is the top comment is beyond me, unbelievable.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#428

Post by jama211 »

fartfeatures wrote: post #419
axus wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very easy to lock up alcohol/cigarettes, a child should never have access. Internet usage is more like broadcast media, a child should have regular access. The positives and negatives of Internet usage are more extreme than broadcast media but less than alcohol/guns. The majority of people lack the skills to properly censor Internet without hovering over the child's shoulder full-time as you would with a gun. Be…

This is where Apple, Microsoft and Android need to step up. Indeed they already have in many ways with things being better than they used to be. There needs to be a strict (as in MDM level) parental control system. Furthermore there needs to be a "School Mode" which allows the devices to be used educationally but not as a distraction. This would work far better than a ban.

They could provide all the tools in the world. Unless there’s legislation change to what children are allowed to consume legally, everyone will largely ignore it.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#429

Post by Seattle3503 »

iamnothere wrote: post #28
notTooFarGone wrote: post #8

>Some observers present privacy-preserving age proofs involving a third party, such as the government, as a solution, but they inherit the same structural flaw: many users who are legally old enough to use a platform do not have government ID. So there is absolutely no way to change that and give out IDs from the age of 14? You can already get an ID for children in Germany https://www.germany.info/us-de/service/reise…

The problem is not that we aren’t doing age verification, it’s that a group of authoritarians are trying to force mandatory implementation of age verification (and concomitant removal of anonymity). That’s the problem.

It seems like the solution is to provide an age verification mechanism with robust privacy protections. That way when we offer a solution that works for all of their states concerns, if they disagree with the privacy preserving approach we force them to say outright "I want to keep a record of every website you visit."

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#430

Post by taeric »

ipaddr wrote: post #373
runarberg wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming parents is a bit unwarranted, when on the other end we have business interests driven by perverse incentives of predating on children’s gullibility for their own profit. When you say “ We‘ll try everything ” that is simply not true, in particular what we do not try is strict consumer protection laws which prohibits targeting children. Europe used to have such laws in the 1980s and the 1990s, but by the mid-19…

It is literally the parents responsibility. You want to blame someone else. Raising a kid doesn't mean letting society raise them you have to make tough choices. If parents can't handle that they can give them up to the state.

It is literally a platform's responsibility to make sure they are being used responsibly, as well?

Imagine a gun range that was well aware that their grounds were being used in nefarious ways. We'd shut it down. A hospital that just blindly gave out pain killers to anyone that asked. We'd shut it down.

Does this mean that a zero tolerance policy is what should be used to shut things down? I don't think so. We have some agency to control things, though.

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