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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

#241

Post by nemomarx »

laughing_man wrote: post #233
nemomarx wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's two strong incentives - deanonymization for law enforcement is pretty useful so that's one. You want to make it easier to subpoena information about posters for various reasons, access to stores on different dates etc. Lots of reasons for that. And you want to satisfy voters who are worried about children online or have heard scary things about anonymous criminals. You want to be seen to do something about th…

>There's two strong incentives - deanonymization for law enforcement is pretty useful so that's one. When you say it like that it sounds less scary than "deanoymization so the government can track down people saying things it doesn't like." Let's not forget the UK has more people in jail for things they said on the internet than Russia and China put together.

Yeah the wording is a little broad, but the UK would call that law enforcement too.

Depends on your state and laws and you can look around at how that's going - maybe you'll have brought a first aid kit to the wrong event or helped print some zines and they want to check up on you now.

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

#242

Post by vkou »

simoncion wrote: post #136
vkou wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> It's anonymous. The clerk or his POS system knows your name and age, but doesn't know your number. What prevents a commercial "AI" security camera analysis firm from doing a decent job of linking footage of a store's customers to a likely subset of tokens, based on the knowledge of which tokens are sent to which store and how many tokens have been pulled off of the roll so far? Remember that you can design the toke…

You can also just follow people around and look in their windows. Nothing prevents that other than laws and rules and social norms.

> In the real world, the system you propose absolutely will not function to the standards required by the people agitating for these systems. You can't "protect the children" if "children" can easily get their hands on anonymous access-granting tokens.

What stops children from paying someone to buy beer and cigs for them? What's the difference between age-controlled liquor and an age-controlled token falling off the back of a truck?

You can introduce as many soft-verification systems as you want to tweak this. The roll of numbers doesn't become active unless installed in a dispenser that phones home when it is installed, for example. The empty bobbins containing the roll have to be returned to the oracle, and need to register installation in a dispenser. The dispenser can even count each dispensed ticket. The only requirement is that the sale and the process of paying for the sale isn't linked to the ticket. If you maintain that, the system is anonymous. If you break it, it's not.

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

#243

Post by sneak »

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…

No. The point of these initiatives IS TO GET ID, not to protect children.

Anonymous credentials don’t allow the state to retaliate in the dark of night against protected expression that they don’t like. Anonymous credentials do not allow for that, so they are irrelevant.

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

#244

Post by Nursie »

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…

Yep, there are a variety of ways this can work well, but the overwhelming 'vibe' here at HN is a) that the tech is too complex and b) that governments actually want to end privacy anyway for their own nefarious reasons.

I find 'a' amusing as we'll often see in the same conversation that users appeal to parents to take responsibility and lock down their kids' access to things, as if that's trivial for non-tech folk and foolproof. It's also silly because the user interface to such a system doesn't need to show all that complexity.

And 'b' is often supported by some out of context quote that at first glance looks incriminating but doesn't actually mean much.

The saddest thing is that the article you link addresses most of the objections people have brought up in the thread, but few have read it.

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

#245

Post by lovich »

verdverm wrote: post #220
lovich wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I _can_ climb to the top of Mount Everest theoretically but it’s highly unlikely given the real world constraints. I’d prefer a pragmatic solution and there is no pragmatic solution that gives us privacy back given the government and megacorps ability to pierce the vast majority of forms of privacy. The only thing anonymous speech is getting us currently is being manipulated by bad actors who are lying about thei…

So much bad speech / misinformation is not anonymous, look at the kind of stuff the US President, Admin, and Gov't are proud posting, or the left/right-wing influencers. Forcing "papers please" on everyone is not going to meaningfully change the situation (imo). It will give the autocrats an inch and then they will take more. Eventually they will be able to police online speech. --- From: On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder…

I am not obeying in advance. My privacy was obliterated with the government before I could even vote, with the data science of mega corps, and with the double digit number of times companies leaked my data based on have I been pwned numbers.

I am not under the impression I have any sort of privacy on the internet anymore, other than from other regular civilians.

What I have to deal with is bots, foreign actors, and domestic actors all flooding the zone with lies that I cannot discern from the truth but that companies and the government can.

Making posting a non anonymous activity equalizes the playing field between me and governments/corporations.

If you are arguing that we should keep this thin skin of anonymity that doesn’t stop the bad actors, then I assume you just want them to keep power or that you don’t actually believe that they have managed to track our behavior.

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

#246

Post by boppo1 »

motohagiography wrote: post #55

The discussion is not about whether it's a good or bad idea, but whether we will yield the power to these people to ratchet in further oppressive laws onto formerly free countries. Tech companies should ignore it and just publicly name whoever attempts to prosecute them and see how the population responds. I think people today are orders of magnitude more informed about their privacy and the consequences of digital I…

>Tech companies should ignore it and just publicly name whoever attempts to prosecute them

The most powerful tech companies are in favor of this.

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

#247

Post by lovich »

rockskon wrote: post #72
lovich wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The first amendment doesn't have a clause that exempts Americans from anonymous speech if it's possible a foreigner could inadvertently take advantage of the freedom too. You may as well advocate for no one to be allowed to drive cars because of the possibility of someone getting into a car accident. Or (in case you're a fan of the second amendment) - advocate for guns not being allowed to be sold to law-abiding citi…

> The first amendment doesn't have a clause that exempts Americans from anonymous speech if it's possible a foreigner could inadvertently take advantage of the freedom too.

Cool, ignore my point about technology changing the situation. I assume you’ll ignore Jefferson talking about how the constitution should be changed every 19-20 years because the world changed.

> You may as well advocate for no one to be allowed to drive cars because of the possibility of someone getting into a car accident.

That’s the literal reality with mandated car insurance. If you don’t have car insurance you can be banned from driving. What was your point here?

> Or (in case you're a fan of the second amendment) - advocate for guns not being allowed to be sold to law-abiding citizens because of the possibility of the gun later working its way into the hands of someone who would use it for a mass shooting.

I’m not an advocate for the 2nd amendment since the majority of people I’ve met advocating for it as a defense against tyranny are full throated proponents for the tyrannical leaders because they don’t like the cultural norms of anyone outside their tribe. I can’t think of a single 2nd amendment advocate who is ready to stand up to the government against rights violations and would be happy to hear from you of an example.

> Freedoms exist with the understanding that both positive and negative consequences can result from them. The argument is that the good vastly out-weighs the bad and are worth preserving.

Yea, the freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose. Freedom of speech to explicitly lie like Steve Bannon organized and many others using the “flood the zone” strategy seems to the be at the end of my nose. If you are actively lying to manipulate me or others knowledge of reality, that is not feee speech, that’s Machiavellian manipulation.

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

#248

Post by smallstepforman »

greatgib wrote: post #143

What scary me a lot, is the amount of people here or in real life that are not concerned about that, and that are like "it is to protect the children, so whatever it is, it worth it. And what else we can do?". And often it goes on with things like "anyway, social media are bad, they ruin people even adult, so good thing". Literally they all look like repeating a carefully crafted propaganda without that much more dee…

Mate, you have to revise your stance on Russia, more people are imprisoned annually in the UK for speaking than people in Russia in a decade. The UK banned RT while you can access any western propaganda outpost from within Russia.

You’re on Hacker News, this website is known for attracting open minded free thinkers that do not fall under the influence of government financed propaganda. Learn and reassess your thoughts.

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

#249

Post by CGMthrowaway »

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…

> There are at least some technological solutions here, such as anonymous credentials.

Identity verification is busy being rolled out across the entire developed world right now, and I have yet to see or hear about even one single mention of anonymous credentials in the discussion of any of the laws.

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