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EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

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Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#101

Post by ArnoVW »

eowln wrote: post #67
oytis wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These dimwits (and I don't just mean those in EU) seriously want to stop adolescents from watching porn, and are ready to mess with internet infrastructure for that. That's a depressing manifestation of aging society

Practically all the ills we suffer currently are depressing manifestations of an aging society. That, and the lack of real issues to solve.

Without thinking too hard I can name a few?

The rise of authoritarianism? Inequality? Revival of geopolitical "realism"? Decrease in empathy and holistic thinking? Increasing willingness of the general population to engage in political adventurism? Accelerating resource consumption (and decelerating resource stocks).

And if you consider none of those "real" problems, I know some people seem to have forgotten about it, but what about climate change? Given the half-life of CO2 and methane, that's a problem as "real" as they get.

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#102

Post by palata »

dinwos wrote: post #50
thunderbong wrote: post #40

I have a question that's been going through my mind - Why is age verification connected with identity verification? I understand why the former is not possible with the latter, but my question is - Whichever entity is responsible for the verification can just pass on the age verification confirmation without passing through any of the other details, right? Am I mistaken here? Because if this was possible, I could sti…

It's a question of blind trust in your government to respect this, when they themselves control the age verification apps, at least in the EU who wants to impose its own system and not rely on an autonomous third party.

It is cryptography. Just like you don't have to blindly trust Signal with end-to-end encryption (their client app is open source), it could be implemented in a way that you don't need to blindly trust your government.

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#103

Post by pembrook »

rswail wrote: post #99

Governments already have everyone's ID, including DOB. They say that the problem is non-adults accessing adult sites and services. So therefore, the sites need to know that users are over 18 (or the selected government age). There should be a standardized government ID service/API that allows a person to let it disclose their age (or other user selected information) to a requesting site/service. That's all that is ne…

> if the government ID service has appropriate 2FA and security.

You're kidding right?

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#104

Post by cess11 »

palata wrote: post #92
cess11 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really about kids looking at porn, it's about tracking everyone else and making it easier for state surveillance and corporations to identify people. Kids don't have money and hardly ever manage to do crime without getting caught so they're profoundly uninteresting to surveil in this way, but adults are and here the interests of the state and corporations converge so they'll make a push for tyranny. But how…

If you think that there is a need for new technology to identify people, I suggest you wake up and start getting informed about surveillance capitalism. There is absolutely no need for new technology to track people, it's there already. Also I feel like a big reason for age verification is social media. Many countries are trying to prevent kids from accessing social media (because we know it's bad for them), and age…

Need is a very strong word. I'd call it a desire. Currently you can often identify people, sure, but there's hassle involved. What they want to do is to plug in a private corporation separate from whatever service that is likely to be more loyal with the state apparatus than the service, or else it is easily switched out for another.

And corporations are having issues discerning bots from people without making access to their services a fuss or dependent on possibly idealistic and troublesome open source projects, like Anubis.

It's truly, absolutely, not about "age verification". If it were about protecting kids from harm they'd take money from corporations post factum that are offending. Instead they're preparing to spend a lot of money. You could also look at who is heavily lobbying for this, you'll find it is fascist tech oligarchs from the US. They couldn't care less about kids except for obscene or profitable purposes. It would be weird for them to be cosy with epsteinian networks of power and at the same time be mindful about the wellbeing of children.

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#105

Post by kro »

VPN usage increased, but how to they draw the conclusion that this is children. I think it's more likely that adults are using VPNs to not have to deal with the ID process. I would do that.

As VPNs usually cost some money, which is already a barrier for minors.

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#106

Post by palata »

thunderbong wrote: post #40

I have a question that's been going through my mind - Why is age verification connected with identity verification? I understand why the former is not possible with the latter, but my question is - Whichever entity is responsible for the verification can just pass on the age verification confirmation without passing through any of the other details, right? Am I mistaken here? Because if this was possible, I could sti…

You are right, it is possible to do age verification in a privacy-preserving manner. Feels like most people being very vocal against the idea don't know about that.

At least most complaints I see here are assuming that age verification means tracking.

Too bad, there could be interesting discussions about privacy-preserving age verification, if people just bothered getting informed before complaining.

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#107

Post by mr_mitm »

rswail wrote: post #99

Governments already have everyone's ID, including DOB. They say that the problem is non-adults accessing adult sites and services. So therefore, the sites need to know that users are over 18 (or the selected government age). There should be a standardized government ID service/API that allows a person to let it disclose their age (or other user selected information) to a requesting site/service. That's all that is ne…

The german gov id supports that. They have a PKI and the id is a smart card with a cert and private key on it [0]. It lets you answer the question "are you over 18" with a zero knowledge proof. I guess it only proves you have in your possession a valid id AND know the PIN to it, but that should be fine. France apparently has this, too, according to the article.

[0] https://www.personalausweisportal.de/Webs/PA/EN/government/t..., https://www.bsi.bund.de/EN/Themen/Oeffentliche-Verwaltung/El...

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#108

Post by mcv »

rswail wrote: post #99

Governments already have everyone's ID, including DOB. They say that the problem is non-adults accessing adult sites and services. So therefore, the sites need to know that users are over 18 (or the selected government age). There should be a standardized government ID service/API that allows a person to let it disclose their age (or other user selected information) to a requesting site/service. That's all that is ne…

Exactly. Governments that really care about age verification should provide the tools to do so. They have the means to do so without violating privacy. Something like the Dutch DigiD service (the one they're about to sell to the US despite literally everybody opposing that) would be a great basis for this; just add an age verification service to it. They already know who you are in the most legal sense possible.

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#109

Post by nirui »

In case people no longer remember, when China started to require websites to register for a license before be allowed to operate, it was for "protecting the children" too.

This simple policy then goes on to silence most individual publisher(/self-media) and consolidated the industry into the hands of the few, with no opportunity left for smaller entrepreneurs. This is arguably much worse than allowing children to watch porn online, because this will for sure effect people's whole life in a negative way.

Also, if EU really wants "VPN services to be restricted to adults only", they should just fine the children who uses it, or their parent for allowing it to happen. The same way you fine drivers for traffic violation, but not the road.

And if EU still think that's not enough, maybe they should just cut the cable, like what North Korea did.

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#110

Post by hnlmorg »

palata wrote: post #100
hnlmorg wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children have always found ways to access age restricted consumables. Whether that was porno mags, alcohol or cigarettes. They’d just get an older sibling, or stranger to buy it. Or they’d have a fake ID. Or they’d just steal it from a family member. But you know which kids did this the least? It was the ones where their parents / guardians took their responsibilities as a guardian properly.

> Children have always found ways to access age restricted consumables Doesn't mean that it's equivalent to giving them free access to those consumables. > But you know which kids did this the least? Source?

> Doesn't mean that it's equivalent to giving them free access to those consumables.

Why do people on HN always need to look at things as a Boolean state? It’s entirely reasonable to have some preventative measures but acknowledging that there are ways to circumvent them and accept that as a reasonable conclusion.

Things don’t need to be “all or nothing” ;)

> Source?

I grew up pre-WWW. Literally lived and breathed the points I’m making.

But don’t just take my word on this. Ask anyone of a certain age and they’ll tell you the same: they either tried cigarettes or knew lots of kids in school who smoked under the age of 16. They had access to alcohol under the age of 18. And pornographic content was easy to get hold of under the age of 18.

The age at which they gained access and the frequency of the usage depended greatly on their upbringing.

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