Never Give Them Your Face • Hacker News Board

Re: Never Give Them Your Face

#21

Post by cjs_ac » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 2:31 PM UTC

panny wrote: post #3

[flagged]

> Sorry. You can refuse the covid vaccine, but that won't stop everyone else from blithly accepting it.

I agree with this part, but then, I personally don't have a problem with everyone else giving up their privacy.

> Then once the critical mass is reached, your ability to buy groceries can just be terminated. The 20% of the population that refuses just isn't important enough to matter.

Wut? Can you provide any information about a supermarket chain (or law affecting supermarket chains) anywhere in the world that prevents (or prevented) people who weren't vaccinated against COVID-19 to enter or buy groceries from those supermarkets?

Taking these age-assurance laws at face value, I don't have a problem with them, because I think algorithmically-personalised social media feeds are an intrinsically bad product and I don't see anything that any society would lose if they went away. My concern about these laws is how far politicians are willing to go to close loopholes like VPNs, because I think that's where the potential is to cause inadvertent collateral damage to systems that really matter.

Re: Never Give Them Your Face

#22

Post by reactordev » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 2:33 PM UTC

Here in the US, there’s a giant database of faces the government uses to ID people with an app. In the UK, they want this same level of invasive policing. Technology will always be used nefariously by police agencies until someone stops them, which no one will. No one, politically, wants to come out and “restrain policing” but that’s how the rich will position it so they can sell more flock cameras, more app platforms, more tech to the ever bottomless pockets of government. We are in a Thiel world.

Re: Never Give Them Your Face

#23

Post by jupr » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 2:33 PM UTC

Im sure a lot of people know about tor on this site...but let me remind everyone.

Tor is not for criminals. It's for you and me. And happens to be good enough that criminals use it too. This is the two sided nature of technology.

Tor is a networks of peers across the globe volunteering their network bandwidth to support people under oppression by their government.

The amount of privacy that can be gained from tor is proportional to the amount of people using it. The more that people utilize the technology, the more that everyone looks the same, and protects the people that need it the most.

Tor enables me to say no to these things and carry on, without permission.

Re: Never Give Them Your Face

#24

Post by blahblaher » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 2:33 PM UTC

tsukikage wrote: post #12

I particularly like the form at the bottom for collecting your email address and adding it to a big list. EDIT: looks like it's gone now. Gonna count that as a win.

Don't be fucking stupid equating these 2 things together

Re: Never Give Them Your Face

#25

Post by yunwal » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 2:33 PM UTC

giacomoforte wrote: post #13

I completely agree with this, but my banking apps, my broker, my health insurance, my simcard provider all already require my face for identification.

FYI the processing for FaceID on iPhones is entirely offline. I think the Samsung androids have offline face id as well.

Re: Never Give Them Your Face

#26

Post by jandrese » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 2:33 PM UTC

beachwood23 wrote: post #14

rylando wrote: post #11

Is there even an option at the airport to refuse face scanning? I assume that signs you up for a one way trip to a cavity search. TSA does it, Customs does it when entering the USA after a trip too.

There is a small sign in front of the facial scanner that says "Photo verification not required." You can always say "I decline the photo verification", and they will check your license like back in the old days. This is what I have been doing for years now.

Things may not be quite so simple if your skin color is on the darker side, especially with the current administration. Doubly so if your passport shows you come from a country who's name ends in -stan.

Re: Never Give Them Your Face

#27

Post by 9dev » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 2:34 PM UTC

Can't we even write a short text like this without LLMs anymore, not even when it's really important, when it's about humans against the inhumane?

Re: Never Give Them Your Face

#28

Post by inigyou » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 2:35 PM UTC

jupr wrote: post #23

Im sure a lot of people know about tor on this site...but let me remind everyone. Tor is not for criminals. It's for you and me. And happens to be good enough that criminals use it too. This is the two sided nature of technology. Tor is a networks of peers across the globe volunteering their network bandwidth to support people under oppression by their government. The amount of privacy that can be gained from tor is…

I'm using Tor right now! Everyone should. It's too bad that many websites block it, but most of those websites are slop anyway.

Re: Never Give Them Your Face

#29

Post by heroku » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 2:36 PM UTC

himata4113 wrote: post #17

I just have obs with a video of mkbhd downloaded playing in a loop, whenever I am asked for age verification I just start the virtual camera, select it at the age verification website and it immediately passes it (most of the time). MKBHD was just the first person that I could come up with that records extremely high res video.

[dead]

Re: Never Give Them Your Face

#30

Post by inigyou » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 2:37 PM UTC

giacomoforte wrote: post #13

I completely agree with this, but my banking apps, my broker, my health insurance, my simcard provider all already require my face for identification.

Perhaps we should distinguish between institutions that require strong identity (phone networks shouldn't be in this list but are, which is a separate argument) and institutions that really shouldn't, like random websites.