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

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

#161

Post by DennisP »

Aurornis wrote: post #131
andrewla wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article talks about the possibilities of malicious cloning of these tokens by third parties, but fails to identify the much more common use case, and one that makes this scheme useless for age verification. It's one thing to be concerned about someone stealing my credential, but another to prevent the transfer of these credentials, especially if they are limited use credentials. The entire point of age verificati…

Yes, this is the part of the issue that is so frequently ignored: Anonymous age verification schemes are easily defeated through proxying because there wouldn't be any consequences for selling your tokens. "Install this app on your phone and we'll pay you $1 per day" and it will mint your anonymous identity tokens and send them off to kids who want to buy them. If there's no way to track the tokens, there is no possi…

> They become a traceable identity token

Not if you use a challenge-response protocol where the client returns a zero-knowledge proof of age, where the proof incorporates a random string sent by the website.

The traceable stuff is private information that the website never sees. If a minor is caught with it, then law enforcement has local access to the minor's hardware and can probably view the private data.

At that point, the private key can be put on a public revocation list. The zero-knowledge proof can include a proof that you're not on the revocation list. Once you've been revoked, you have to go through the hassle of setting this all up again, which might be enough incentive to keep it reasonably secure.

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

#162

Post by drooby »

Aurornis wrote: post #115
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.

That's their parents' decision to make, not yours.

Should it also be their decision that they can gamble? Smoke cigarettes? Get a job? Have sex?

We draw the line somewhere because these things that "are the parents' decision" have consequences on broader society. They have consequences that impact you and me. And we also have a say.

You can make the argument that it's just the parents' decision. But you have to say why.

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

#163

Post by DennisP »

mikestorrent wrote: post #153
Morromist wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why the act of buying internet access isn't considered a parental control. I doubt very many kids are doing it or can. Ok, but parents buy internet access and then let their kids use it, because the kids need it for school. So? The parents job is to keep their kids out of trouble. Learning how to keep track of what their kids access shouldn't be difficult, and maybe should be part of the obligation…

The problem with this idea is that it assumes responsible parents, which are not a given. I agree with you completely - I don't want any kind of controls on the Internet - but we live in a world where we cannot actually rely on parents to fulfill what you would consider to be basic and reasonable expectations of parental duties.

For kids with parents like that, the internet is probably the least of their problems.

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

#165

Post by subscribed »

johnc1 wrote: post #126
kaashif wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the problem governments are solving. They're solving the problem of convincing the public it's a good idea to end the anonymity of internet use.

I know! What puzzles me is responses every such article gets even on HN - let's build some cool tech that 95% of the general population and 100% of politicians won't even understand not to mention agree to. Yes, government want to end anonymity and that's clear to some. But governments enjoy on a pretty broad support for this and many people supporting this believe it's a real problem. Suggesting to leave it unsolved…

People on average aren't very smart and will happily support programs objectively harmful to them and everyone else because the government and a nice lady from the breakfast TV says it's necessary to think of someone's else's children watching porn (this soundbite is gross. I don't understand how it's okay for the serious people to repeat it).

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

#166

Post by bigbuppo »

madrox wrote: post #83
bigbuppo wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet as the article mentioned, the "problem" is a lie... an excuse to justify the surveillance state.

I think the lie is to look at the problems we have that the internet has enabled and say "things are ok as they are don't try to do anything to solve it."

If the problem is "social media bad for kids" then any parent that allows their children to access social media is as guilty of abuse or neglect as a parent that lets them play in traffic. Throw the parents in prison and put the kids in foster care. Problem solved.

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

#168

Post by Gigachad »

miiiiiike wrote: post #158
ricree wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main issue is that they are very careful not to frame it like that. In broader contexts, it's always framed as something like "do you favor limiting children's access to social media" without a word on what it would cost to actually institute such a ban.

Yeah, and we’re starting to inoculate people against that kind of rhetoric. It’s a process.

Not really, if anything we are seeing what a good idea taking kids off social media is and how crazy we allowed this to all happen for so long.

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

#169

Post by ajsnigrutin »

andrewla wrote: post #68
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…

The article talks about the possibilities of malicious cloning of these tokens by third parties, but fails to identify the much more common use case, and one that makes this scheme useless for age verification. It's one thing to be concerned about someone stealing my credential, but another to prevent the transfer of these credentials, especially if they are limited use credentials. The entire point of age verificati…

> The highest friction version of this is that the credential ties to a real world identity somehow; maybe locked behind legal barriers, etc., but if a minor is caught using someone's credential, then the person whose credential they are using can be investigated, and, if necessary, charged with a crime roughly equivalent to providing alcohol to a minor. Without the possibility of real world enforcement, none of these identity solutions can possibly work.

Buying alcohol for a minor implies knowledge and intent.

Getting the tokens out of a phone doesn't require the user to do any of that, the user just has to be frugal and keep the phone longer than it's supported by the manufacturer, until some local exploit is found again, and that token will be extracted and available online for everyone to use.

Parents buy those phones, phones could easily have a "user is a minor" setting (and a flag sent to all the sites that want one) with a password for parents to unlock stuff if needed. This would be set during the phones first set up, and it's done. But nope, the plan is for everyone to install a form if a digital ID on their phones, and once it's there, requiring full-name identification when registering is just one step away.

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

#170

Post by ajsnigrutin »

kklisura wrote: post #111
tqi wrote: post #58

> You’re not happy about it, but you hand over a photo of your passport and hope it doesn’t come back to haunt you. I think for this argument to carry weight with voters, privacy advocates need to be much more specific about what "coming back to haunt you" looks like. They do a little bit of it later on[1], but I think most people do a rough cost benefit in their head and decide that the small benefit outweighs the s…

> privacy advocates need to be much more specific I'm starting to think we need to lean on conspiracy theories in order to get broader population on train with this - and I'm saying this in utmost regret. That's a borrowing game from a right wing/extremist playbook. Start with this: requiring IDs online is a first step in micro-chipping the population. ...or how about this: marxists/atifa/nazis/zionists/islamist/whoe…

> I'm starting to think we need to lean on conspiracy theories in order to get broader population on train with this - and I'm saying this in utmost regret. That's a borrowing game from a right wing/extremist playbook.

How about "if you want to buy a dildo on aliexpress, you have to do a full scan of your face and send it to israelis"?

I mean.. au10tix does age verification for aliexpress, it is an israeli firm, and you can't even buy a scalpel (the DIY crafts one) without having to scan your face there due to EU regulation.

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