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Online age verification is the hill to die on

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Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#581

Post by tardedmeme »

cameronbrown wrote: post #336

I’m in the UK and we recently got the Online Safety Act. We failed, this legislation is very popular with voters and not getting rolled back. Those that dislike it use a VPN and aren’t interested in fighting. I’d say most of the public here is exhausted with cost of living and internet freedom just isn’t relevant to their voting habits. I grew up around a lot of the hacker ethos, open internet, Information Wants To B…

The hacker ethos and open internet happened when the government was worse. It was illegal to send encryption outside of the US. Hackers used civil disobedience, some risked jail time, some actually went to jail, some are still in jail today or dead, and the world got a bit better as a result of their courage to break laws.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#582

Post by samplifier »

mghackerlady wrote: post #233
cooper_ganglia wrote: post #211

THe government shouldn't be raising anyone's children, that's what parents are for. If you're a bad parent, your kids will get access to bad things and could become an adult failure. The future of your family and your legacy is up to you, not the government. We don't need age verification to restrict the social darwinism of raising children.

Also, different kids mature at different rates. I wouldn't give a shit about my kid watching, say, an R rated movie if I understand they'll be able to handle it and understand it's fiction. If I had a 14 or 15 year old and they had a healthy understanding of sex and the dangers of porn, I wouldn't give a shit if they managed to see some poorly drawn tits online. Why? Because if you didn't intentionally seek out lewd…

Duke Nukem 3D had bouncy pixels that made it "tickle down there". Also: monochrome women "eating bananas".

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#583

Post by cvoss »

domador wrote: post #551
cvoss wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither HN nor my newspaper run content that needs age-gating.

You would think so but some future authoritarian or paternalistic government might disagree. Maybe the government will say that a newspaper should not report on the poorly built bridge that collapsed and killed some people. News of disasters (or death in any form) might be considered two sensitive for children to accidentally be exposed to through a newspaper.

A great argument for why the bloated executive powers should be clawed back by Congress. But not a strong argument for why Congress should stay hands-off.

Also, if something like that happens, that's a blatant 1st Amendment violation and will be enjoined as fast as the case can run up the judiciary. Today's SCOTUS is very 1st-Amendment-friendly (to the chagrin and delight of various flavors of both left and right).

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#584

Post by tardedmeme »

gnabgib wrote: post #564
protocolture wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We need a truly distributed point-to-point internet asap. Yes. A mesh network isnt point to point. Its a mesh.

So a mesh isn't made up of point to point connections? I'm pretty sure if you have several they start to look like a mesh (and every security site's banner)

The real internet is made of point to point connections. Doesn't mean anything.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#585

Post by domador »

ericmay wrote: post #290
walrus01 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big social media companies are likely overjoyed to be able to get discrete, government issued info of a person's full legal name, date of birth, residential address (as is printed on US drivers licenses) for advertising and demographic profile targeting purposes. And then be able to correlate it with their existing social media history/clicks/profile, browser fingerprinting, IP address, daily usage patterns, geolocat…

I doubt they need that to identify you. There are also lots of other problems like algorithmic manipulation. But also just stop using these junky websites. Everyone always complains about Meta doing this, TikTok doing that, and it's like if all they do is make you mad, stop being their user/customers?

It's very hard to stop being their users/customers when they're the only platform where people are gathering for that particular purpose. The nature of walled gardens and network effects often mean that there isn't a viable alternative.

It's bad when the choice one has is between 1) using a platform that's significantly problematic or 2) being disconnected from everyone you'd like to connect with because they're only using that platform.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#586

Post by tardedmeme »

k33n wrote: post #401
sailfast wrote: post #277

It’s not online age verification. It’s online identity verification. Would you vote for that? Prove who you are to visit this website? Would you do it to access Hacker News? Your newspaper? Didn’t think so.

I want that. I'm tired of bots being half the internet traffic or more. It's driving the general public insane and anonymity on the internet has zero utility. If journalists need to send sensitive information, they'll always be able to use Tor.

I want to read your comment. But first, so I know I'm not dealing with a bot, what is your full name and address? Please upload a photo of your ID as well. Thanks.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#587

Post by tardedmeme »

hirvi74 wrote: post #425
znnajdla wrote: post #278

In the age of AI I think it’s only necessary and inevitable to implement some of kind of internet ID system to stop the massive onslaught of AI generated fraud, malicious hacking, and spam. If age verification is a Trojan horse to erase online anonymity, so be it, I see that as a worthy goal. Humans are inherently social, and social networks are based on trust. Trust is primarily a function of reputation, peer pressu…

> Trust is primarily a function of reputation, peer pressure, and legal consequences. The trust is somewhat of a one-way street. We are supposed to trust the entities in power. If we break their trust, there are consequences. If said entities break our trust, we can do little about it. > I don’t see why anyone would want to remove any of this. To protect some freelance journalists in Iran? For some, perhaps. However,…

There are several holocausts going on around the world right now. It's not completely infeasible for there to be another one. I doubt there's been a time in human history where there wasn't at least one holocaust going on.

The German one stands out only because they fought us.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#589

Post by tardedmeme »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #466

I would say be careful what you choose to believe. Online identity verification is the only way to end the war that’s being waged on the American people by foreign states via social media. If I were a bad actor, I would very much want to convince the public that this is a bad idea.

It's easy for a corporate level bad actor to pay homeless people $20 to scan their ID, and easy for a state level bad actor to fabricate IDs at will

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#590

Post by tardedmeme »

terangaway wrote: post #145
arowthway wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it even theoretically possible to have bearer anonymity and no reselling option at the same time?

With digital tokens being generated by a user (the seller) on demand, you could have a bond system where the seller places something costly on the line, that the buyer can choose to destroy or obtain. For instance, if Alice gives her age token to Bob, Bob can (if he is a troll) invalidate the token in a way that requires Alice to go to a physical location to reset her ID. I imagine this could be done with appropriate…

I set up a porn site that requires your token. Psych! It's not a porn site, it just disables your ID when you enter a token.
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