People don't like these checks. Ok. But. Parents worry about their kids being exposed to porn and social media. They want someone to do something about it. That political force is real, and someone is going to take advantage of it. What tools can they ask for if not these checks everyone agrees they hate? That's what I hope for in these types of comment threads.
I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services
81–90 of 645 posts
Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Luckily it’s already possible to verify your age without actually giving out any data like your birthdate
And without having to trust that the government isn't keeping track of every request for age verification? I'd be curious how that might work as I haven't yet seen a zero-trust age verification system.
See eg. BBS+[1]. Proofs that preserve anonymity are generated locally and neither the verifier nor issuer can determine the user based on these (in scenarios of non PII signals like age thresholds), while still allowing the verifier to validate it's issuer approved.
Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services
#83I 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…
People around me (including engineers) all casually use things like Alexa, Google Home, Ring, Nest, Chrome, are always signed into Google, have all sorts of apps installed on their phones, and have no problems giving up their phone numbers to services for verification. It's crazy.
Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services
#84I 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…
> It is the young people that are growing up conditioned to press accept It's really alarming, actually. I run the cyber security training & phishing simulations at my work, and it's the younger employees that struggle the most. It's like they just assume that everything on the web is trustworthy. It's not hard to see why though. They grew up with app stores & locked down devices. No concept of a file or file system,…
That's an exaggeration. Young people on average have grown up with drastically greater understanding of what a file is than any other generation that has come before them. They grew up using Chromebooks or laptops in school, constantly interacting with the local file systems, uploading files to Instagram and TikTok from the file systems on their smartphones, browsing their phones for files constantly. They know what a file is, they use & manage files more than any other generation prior.
No other prior generation comes close.
Compare them to people growing up in the 1980s. The average person at that time was overwhelmingly oblivious to computing very broadly, their grasp of a "file" as a concept would have been close to non-existent. That was just 40 years ago.
In the mid 1980s a mere 10% of US households had home computers. And that was a high mark globally, it was drastically lower in nearly every other country (closer to zero in eg China, India at that time). The number of people routinely using office PCs was still extremely low.
Today young people have a computer in their hand for hours each day, and they knowingly manage files throughout the day.
Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services
#85[flagged]
Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services
#86I 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…
People are getting brainwashed into giving away information on the web and real life.
In the US it's not rare to link accounts through phone numbers that are required in web forms and store memberships.
In Chile they started asking for your National Id with so many stupid pretexts that people got conditioned into just giving it away. It wasn't like this 10yrs ago. I'd rather have membership numbers.
It's technically public information, so collecting Ids is legal, but it's also a universal primary key within the country that allows merging any user-related table you run into.
Retail says it's just to associate it with receipts in case you need that later, but I'd rather just get a photo of the printed receipt for later than rely on them to find my receipt. Supermarkets, Drug stores, and petrol stations tie it to (possible) discounts or points at check-out, which is price discrimination and it's illegal, but we are in our way to get surge pricing as soon as the new US bootlicker president begins his period next week.
Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services
#87I 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…
I do this, more or less, although I am a bit older. It's not as if I enter my real name, address, or email at every opportunity, but there is really no perceptible feedback loop that would force one to contemplate the consequences. I visit my local news site and the first thing I see is a massive cookie banner which lists over a thousand third-party vendors and asks me to either "Accept all", or if I am being prudent…
With uBlock Origin, you would not see such popups.
Also, it may not have an impact on your life, but it sure as hell has an impact on adtech guys' pockets.
Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> As the years have marched on, though, that "birthdate" becomes significantly closer to my real birthday. I understand there's a clever phrasing here but I didn't get it. English is only my second language.
When you're 10, a year is a long time, when you're 60 it is not. There's an implicit "relatively" here, which is unusual but not unknown in English. Almost poetic, I like it.
Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services
#89I 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…
It's not just cookies, it's explicit consent to track you, and sell your browsing history to ~1500 spy companies around the world. To the sibling comments: don't "accept the cookies" and then delete them. - - - I'm super angry at what the web has become, especially at the OS browser community. There is 0 browser (that I know of) that can access the web safely and conveniently. Atm I use Firefox with uBlock which bloc…
Not just the web. Last time I installed Backdrops on my phone (a nice wallpaper app), you would literally approve hundreds of uses of your data when you press Consent. Even if you choose to manage choices, 200 'legitimate interest' options are enabled by default. Even when you are a paying Pro user. Data used includes location data.
What makes it worse is that a substantial portion of users block web trackers through an adblocker. However on phones, unless you have a rooted phone or use some DNS-based blocker, all these analytics get uploaded without restraint.
Atm I use Firefox with uBlock which blocks the cookie banners, but Firefox's extension model is broken, and every single extension provides 100% access to my websites to whoever controls the extension. I don't like it.
Some browsers (e.g. Vanadium, Vivaldi) have a built-in adblocker, so you have to trust one party less.
Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services
#90I 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…
Again the HN bubble, I assure that the vast majority of adults of any age are not privacy conscious.