Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

neilzone.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 645 posts

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#21

Post by cm2187 »

bArray wrote: post #6

I was sitting in a room the other day with a young adult, we were searching for additional algorithm learning materials. They searched in Google, and accept the cookies. They clicked on a website, and accepted those cookies too. They then started entering their email address to access another service. I was completely taken aback. I'm the sort of person that either rejects the cookies, or will use another site entire…

Accept the cookies and flush them out every time you close the browser. I think it would be naive anyway to assume that clicking no on a cookie banner would achieve much for your privacy.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#22

Post by rustyhancock »

bArray wrote: post #6

I was sitting in a room the other day with a young adult, we were searching for additional algorithm learning materials. They searched in Google, and accept the cookies. They clicked on a website, and accepted those cookies too. They then started entering their email address to access another service. I was completely taken aback. I'm the sort of person that either rejects the cookies, or will use another site entire…

There is a third path, Firefox focus.

Accept everything, the end the session.

That said even with throwaway relay emails I don't sign up to much

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#23

Post by mothballed »

nonethewiser wrote: post #16

Enforcing laws against porn companies distributing porn to minors seems reasonable. It's already illegal many places, such as the US. It is then their responsibility to gate by age. It has always worked this way for liquor stores or basically anything else age-gated, including some online services like poker. If you dont want to provide age verification you don't have to.

You can absolutely buy for instance tobacco, cannabis by the pound ("CBD" but actually ~20+% THC[a]), explosives(tannerite), alcohol (wine), and guns (black powder, or perfectly functional cartridge pre-1898) completely legally online without ID check. It's really not a problem, which is why most people probably haven't heard of it being one or even realize all can legally be bought online without ID.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#26

Post by malfist »

nonethewiser wrote: post #16

Enforcing laws against porn companies distributing porn to minors seems reasonable. It's already illegal many places, such as the US. It is then their responsibility to gate by age. It has always worked this way for liquor stores or basically anything else age-gated, including some online services like poker. If you dont want to provide age verification you don't have to.

When I buy liquor (well, I don't drink anymore, so THC seltzers), the liquor company isn't saving my ID to my profile and then following me around everywhere I go for the rest of my life shouting "This is MALFIST, he's 42! He buys alcohol! He also visited X Y and Z last week and had interests in A, B and C. He's annual income is six figures and buys expensive bourbon."

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#27

Post by michaelt »

> I was pondering last night for which services I, personally, would actually be willing to verify my age or identity.

> And… the answer is “none”.

> At least, none that I can think of at the moment.

Think back to the recent pandemic.

Work? Online. School? Online. Recreational activities? Online. Talking to loved ones you don’t live with? Online. Birthday party? Online. Nonfood shopping? Online. Banking? Paying taxes and bills? Online. Job interview? Doctors appointment? Online. Dating? You guessed it, online.

The internet’s a big thing these days.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#28

Post by Springtime »

Related: this[1] current article/thread about privacy-preserving age verification.

The author here seems to be commenting specifically on the type of anonymity-breaking age assurance widely being utilized along with the vaguely justified social media bans. Given the right technology to prove an age threshold but while preserving anonymity I'd be curious how their thoughts would change.

For example, we've never seen people critiquing the naive kind of 'Are you over 18?' prompts seen on ye olde Reddit or adult sites, precisely because those weren't breaking anonymity or leaking any trackable identifiers.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47229953

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#29

Post by jermaustin1 »

LoganDark wrote: post #17
croes wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily it’s already possible to verify your age without actually giving out any data like your birthdate

Not to a service that only accepts such data as proof.

Steam thinks I was born Jan 1, 1970. Not that I needed to lie when I did my age verification back 15 years ago, I just randomly scrolled the year down and selected one.

As the years have marched on, though, that "birthdate" becomes significantly closer to my real birthday.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#30

Post by bitmasher9 »

cm2187 wrote: post #21
bArray wrote: post #6

I was sitting in a room the other day with a young adult, we were searching for additional algorithm learning materials. They searched in Google, and accept the cookies. They clicked on a website, and accepted those cookies too. They then started entering their email address to access another service. I was completely taken aback. I'm the sort of person that either rejects the cookies, or will use another site entire…

Accept the cookies and flush them out every time you close the browser. I think it would be naive anyway to assume that clicking no on a cookie banner would achieve much for your privacy.

Why even ask for the cookies if denying them doesn’t achieve much?

It’s naive to think that cookies are the only tool used for tracking, but they are the most powerful tool for web based tracking.

Post reply on HN