Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The 'papers, please' era of the internet will decimate your privacy

expression.fire.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 655 posts

Re: The 'papers, please' era of the internet will decimate your privacy

#91

Post by verdverm »

lovich wrote: post #30
derf_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...you should be forced to identify yourself for posting... The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the right to anonymous speech is inherent in the first amendment [1] [2]. See also The Federalist Papers or Common Sense, without which the US might not exist at all. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/362/60 [2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-986.ZO.html

That’s pre the ability for foreign actors to engage in our public square en masse. I think technology has changed the situation. Free speech absolutism that ends up in creating an environment where real speech is drowned out by lies is not valuable to me. It’s like the paradox of tolerance.

we can design better online spaces, the incentives are not currently aligned

Re: The 'papers, please' era of the internet will decimate your privacy

#92

Post by krapp »

jazz9k wrote: post #85
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know any librarians? Public libraries have always been a bit punk rock.

Punk rock has always been right wing. Libraries are about as far from this as they can get.

The anti-authoritarian, anti-government, anti-fascist, anti-capitalist music genre punk rock? Always right wing?

I mean, Nazis have always been attracted to punk because they like the loud noise but are too stupid to understand lyrics, but they tend to get their shit kicked in by punks more often than not. I don't think that's the same thing.

Re: The 'papers, please' era of the internet will decimate your privacy

#93

Post by Aurornis »

paulddraper wrote: post #61
gruez wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm meant me, using my 18+ ID to generate a bunch of tokens that can't be linked back to me, and then giving it to random < 18 year olds for the lulz.

The verification service would tie the token to the IP address/geolocation. It would also throttle the number of identifications, or expire old ones. Yes, that can eventually be worked around, but not really that different than doing the verification today on someone else's device.

> The verification service would tie the token to the IP address

So I'm constantly grabbing new tokens from the government every time I go from work WiFi to my cellular internet to the train WiFi and then home?

Sounds like a fantastic point for capturing more tracking data.

> /geolocation.

Which means I have to send my geolocation data to apps to confirm I can use my token?

Don't want that either.

> It would also throttle the number of identifications,

And if I move around too much in one day or change networks too often, I'm unable to log into anything until tomorrow?

Re: The 'papers, please' era of the internet will decimate your privacy

#94

Post by vkou »

_heimdall wrote: post #66
j2kun wrote: post #21

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…

I wouldn't trust governments, today or in the future, to keep such a system private and I don't see a foolproof way of building some kind of audit mechanism into it to make sure the data is always truely private. I've also always been curious how a truely anonymous identity verification could possibly work. At best for age verification, I could be given some kind of token that would still have to verify my age and be…

> I've also always been curious how a truely anonymous identity verification could possibly work.

You go to a store. You show the clerk your id and give him a quarter. The clerk pulls a scratch-off ticket from the front of a ticket tape. The ticket contains a token identifier.

It's anonymous. The clerk or his POS system knows your name and age, but doesn't know your number. The vendor providing the tape doesn't know your number or your name. The system accepting the token knows your number, but doesn't know your name. The token is only valid for a day after use, so loss and transfer isn't much of an issue.

It's the exact same process by which you buy lottery tickets in a world where they don't need to verify your identity when you redeem them. The lottery has no idea who bought a particular ticket, only that a ticket was bought. The clerk knows you bought a ticket, but doesn't know which ticket.

Obviously, Eavesdropping Eve looking over your shoulder knows both your name and your ticket number, but that's not a practical attack.

Re: The 'papers, please' era of the internet will decimate your privacy

#95

Post by jszymborski »

quotemstr wrote: post #51
gruez wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm meant me, using my 18+ ID to generate a bunch of tokens that can't be linked back to me, and then giving it to random < 18 year olds for the lulz.

There are multiple approaches. One, which the Europeans use, hardware-locks the token. Each age attestation is unlinkable, but the cryptographic credentials you need to make the attestation aren't portable. Of course, this model requires a big statist apparatus that does implementation certification, but it does achieve the narrow goal of unlinkable, privacy-preserving age attestation that doesn't instantly decay to…

I'm not familiar with this, but what your describing sounds similar to the hardware DRM keys used for protecting 4K streams from being downloaded from Netflix.

If so, this stuff is already broken, and imagine it would be pretty simple to apply the same principles here.

I'm probably wrong on this though I'm out of my depth

Re: The 'papers, please' era of the internet will decimate your privacy

#96

Post by Aurornis »

worble wrote: post #67
gruez wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm meant me, using my 18+ ID to generate a bunch of tokens that can't be linked back to me, and then giving it to random < 18 year olds for the lulz.

What's to stop you, using your 18+ ID from buying crates of alcohol and giving it to random < 18 year olds for the lulz?

Because those The anonymous crypto token scheme does not have any trace-back mechanism like this at all. If there's no way to track those tokens back to you, why not sell them for $1 each on the internet to make some extra money?

Re: The 'papers, please' era of the internet will decimate your privacy

#97

Post by pornel »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #59

This seems more like a technical problem that we could actually solve well if we wanted to and had competent people advising the governments. You go to DMV and they generate a keypair and an entry in a DB. App looks up your age with your public key + signed private key authorization from you. Apps can ask for specific checks like is_over_21, is_citizen or whatever without any more data. Something like that, details a…

This still criminalizes sharing "adult" information with people who are not on the government's approved list (the things states do to crush dissent are not safe for children.)

Re: The 'papers, please' era of the internet will decimate your privacy

#98

Post by Geezus_42 »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #48
andy99 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to come up in every discussion, in practice it’s irrelevant both because it’s too complicated for normal people to understand, and because the point of all this nonsense really is identification so anything that defeats that will be a non starter.

It doesn't have to be too complicated for normal people to understand. Majority of people understand their SIN or SSN number or whatever, they understand they have a drivers license number. This could be built in such a way that it's basically just be another government issued "thing" that they have to know about and be able to produce when requested

Every government has been working on ways to identify and target individuals online since as long as the internet has existed. Governments are incentivized to continuously increase control. Why would you assume this is not yet another escalation towards their goal of being able to track and silence anyone who pushes back?

Re: The 'papers, please' era of the internet will decimate your privacy

#99

Post by StanislavPetrov »

dools wrote: post #32

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.

You aren't required to identify yourself to get a phone. You can get a prepaid phone with no ID.

You are required to identify yourself for an electricity account because it is essentially extending you credit. You use the electricity first, and then they bill you for it later. They also only identify the person who is receiving the bill. You could have a house with a dozen people in it but the electric company only knows the name of the person responsible for the bill.

You are free to identify yourself on the internet right now. People who are intelligent and/or believe in freedom and free speech are opposed to this authoritarian power grab.

Re: The 'papers, please' era of the internet will decimate your privacy

#100

Post by jszymborski »

mossTechnician wrote: post #74

I appreciate the wealth of technical solutions that don't violate privacy, but isn't this overlooking an important point: that children don't need to be connected to the Internet at all times from such an early age? Many internet and cell phone providers seem to take it for granted that children must be online, which is already a net loss for their privacy as they mature.

I mean its only a hope and a skip away from having to validate ones age to turn on the router.
Post reply on HN