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What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

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Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#71
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Headline news: children infiltrate the universal adult one time password scheme for porn, parents panic! Turns out the 18 year olds started selling access to their younger friends, who resold it to their younger friends.

this happens with alcohol and tobacco every day. i cant think of the last time it reached headline news.

My point is that the entire check is bypassed easily and instantly, and in the meantime the government gets data that someone _will_ figure out how to make personally identifying for adults, or will argue for changes to make it so. Alcohol age limits are a simple physical check for a vice that everyone accepts those who want it can get at. I’d rather demand that device manufacturers give parents effective controls before we try solving this problem by identifying internet users wholesale.

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#72
post #52

Could we instead disallow algorithmic skinner-box addiction machines for everyone ?

How can you tell what one is? Reddit in 2010? Facebook in 2005? IRC in 1999?

I think I would be fine with a positive enumeration. Some ideas for serving content:

    - purely random
    - sponsored but without user tracking (like old school TV ads)
       - sponsored for user selected geographical area feed
       - sponsored for user current location geographical area feed
    - follow "friends" or influencers
    - purely timeline

    - discussion boards
      - timeline (IRC like)
      - threaded
      - user votes (not magic platform votes)

    - follow keywords

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#73

What an exceptionally bad faith way to put this whole thing. A five year old watching hours of the most depraved porn available is harmful to that child. Even if you disagree with that statement, you surely must acknowledge that it is an entirely reasonable opinion to hold and one our societies have generally held to this sort of thing for ages. I also acknowledge that there is a reasonable debate to be had if the di…

Your example is in bad faith as your example assumes that the only thing blocking a child of 5 from porn is age verification of some type. There are lots of blockers today for 5 year olds to get access to porn.

> I also acknowledge that there is a reasonable debate to be had if the disadvantages to adults and businesses from imposing these rules are worth the harms prevented

Nobody on the "we need age verification" side wants a debate. They want to run face first in to dumb legislation giving governments and companies even more power to track every movement and know exactly who you are.

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#74
post #50

My main concern is transparency. How do we know that the ruling/governing class is not abusing these monitoring systems and exempting themselves from monitoring? If we are all subject to the same monitoring and there are no exceptions, that would be fair. However, if some people are exempt from monitoring because of their connections, relations, etc. then that would be unfair. And if some people are allowed to harass…

> exempting themselves from monitoring Wasn’t that in the Chat Control proposal? i.e. politicians and other important individuals are exempt

Of course. The lobbyists don't want to be called bribed people, so they only want to monitor the peons. Slavery 2.0.

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#75
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> age verification doesn't have to be a nightmare dystopia of 24/7 fine-grained tracking and recording unless you are somehow hoping to achieve 100% success rate I believe you are missing the point. "To protect kids" is just a cover, the nightmare dystopia is the real goal. So age verification have to be a nightmare dystopia or it would be useless for those, who push for it.

> I believe you are missing the point. "To protect kids" is just a cover, the nightmare dystopia is the real goal. did i miss the point? because my last sentence literally says this.

Ah, well, no. Sorry, didn't read to the end of it. It is just I see no point at all to discuss other options, so sorta become bored reading about them.

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#76
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mythical sweet-spot solutions? there are thousands of comments on these threads every time it comes up. there's tons of what i consider reasonable solutions proposed. there's examples below, too, which don't require face scans. > Concretely, half the websites I visit from the UK want me to either scan my face or upload ID documents yeah, i agree that really sucks.

I've yet to see one I consider reasonable.

if you think even the client-side "yes im 18" on OS setup proposals are unreasonable, i dont know what to say.

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#77
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you tell what one is? Reddit in 2010? Facebook in 2005? IRC in 1999?

I think I would be fine with a positive enumeration. Some ideas for serving content: - purely random - sponsored but without user tracking (like old school TV ads) - sponsored for user selected geographical area feed - sponsored for user current location geographical area feed - follow "friends" or influencers - purely timeline - discussion boards - timeline (IRC like) - threaded - user votes (not magic platform vote…

So Hacker News wouldn't be allowed?

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#78

> "Age verification" means that everyone who does anything online will have to submit to fine-grained tracking and recording of all their online activities. its been said 1000 times here, but: age verification doesn't have to be a nightmare dystopia of 24/7 fine-grained tracking and recording unless you are somehow hoping to achieve 100% success rate (something we have not done with any other law ever). there are sev…

> age verification doesn't have to be a nightmare dystopia of 24/7 fine-grained tracking

Personally I don't care how much age sniffing is mandatory in that I think it is inacceptable on any level. Do you try to insinuate that a little bit of tracking is ok? Because I can not buy into that premise. To me the whole assumption is wrong from the get go.

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#79
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government builds a website where you can log in using any government issued ID or using one of the many many many available services that hold your details already(at least in the UK nearly everyone will have a DLVA account, HMRC account, HMPO account, NHS account.....all of these are government services which we can only assume hold our data securely already). On that website, you can click "give me a verification…

The codes can trivially be shared in this case

...and? Just like a child can "trivially" ask an adult to buy them a beer.

Who are these adults giving children their verification codes for adult websites?

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, treating general-purpose computers like alcohol seems a lot more dystopian to me. Does this extend to PC components? Can I build a machine and put Linux on it?

Do most kids have the ability and motivation to build their own machines? AFAIK you don’t need ID to buy juice, sugar, and yeast to make your own alcohol, so I think it should be the same for computer parts.

> Do most kids have the ability and motivation to build their own machines?

I and pretty much everyone else in my childhood TeamSpeak server did at roughly 14 years of age.

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