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I'm pretty sure I didn't provide an address or an id when I got my library card.
In the US? I think you most likely need to provide proof of an address
I can’t think of a better solution to the issue of children being so aggressively harmed by the internet. That doesn’t remove any of the problems associated with this.
I grew up in a neighborhood full of drug dealers. Street sellers, not the classy Walter White kind.
Ironically being on a computer all day kept me out of trouble.
But with these laws in place I guess you might as well start doing stupid ish in real life.
There are at least some technological solutions here, such as anonymous credentials. [1] Modern versions of this technique allow one to associate metadata (like a proof of age exceeding a threshold) in such a way that the verifier can't even correlate repeated requests across users. Governments that are serious about age verification and individual privacy (which, doubtful they truly are) should agree on a protocol a…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Modern versions of this technique allow one to associate metadata (like a proof of age exceeding a threshold) in such a way that the verifier can't even correlate repeated requests across users. If it's unlinkable, what's preventing someone from setting up a site that hands out anonymous tokens for anyone to use?
Using cryptographic signatures from approved signers, like a government
I can’t think of a better solution to the issue of children being so aggressively harmed by the internet. That doesn’t remove any of the problems associated with this.
How is it any different from being required to identify yourself to get a phone or electricity account? Identifying yourself on the internet is long overdue.
If I misbehave here, dang can just ban me. There's no reason HN needs to know my real name. The only reason to mandate blanket age and identity verification is to control online speech.
I’m glad this is finally becoming the cause célèbre du jour. This feels like THE FIGHT or at least one of the TOP 3 THE FIGHTS and it hasn’t had even a fraction of the public’s attention until now.
Unfortunately I don’t think it has the public’s attention, it’s still very niche. Nowhere near enough to change anything yet.
I may sound crazy for saying so, but I think the answer is more government run infrastructure for enabling identity-based operations, like payments and authentication, with rules about standards, open source, contractor selection, and audit that make operation transparent. It can work if technical operations are legislated instead of "left for the engineers to figure out." Then at least the evolution of systems can become real political issues that map to election cycles.
My stance is probably a polarizing one, but this is precisely why we need to be able to debate the minutae of these systems through our political discourse instead of just "will we; won't we" legislation. This should be debated in democratic process.