Still, I don't want to gate people based on age. Parents should at least be able to overwrite the age of their child, maybe selectively allow bypasses. My experience with a computer would have been completely different if I was blocked from half of the internet. Especially when I see which kind of content gets blocked.
As a millennial-aged person I saw a fair amount of content I would not want the young people in my life to see, but it's probably not nearly as harmful as the non-age gated content that they will still have access to. There is a lot creepy youtube and tiktok content that isn't off limits but still unhealthy and my younger relatives are fascinated by it.
Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance
91–100 of 302 posts
Re: Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance
#92I've been trying to figure out how zero-knowledge stuff would work in practice for age verification, where "when issued" (or extremely coarse, like what year), "to whom", and "where it's used" are hidden from everyone except the individual holding the proof (since that's the gold standard, and the only one worth accepting). I get that ZK techniques work, and reveal "nothing". That's useful. But if they reveal nothing…
Your proof proves two claims. That the person proving their age is over 18, and that they're using a device and software that hasn't been tampered with. That software requires human presence at every age check.
ZKPs for age assurance are trading off privacy at the expense of software malleability.
Note that this has nothing to do with open source; it's perfectly fine to release the source code for the relevant software. You can even allow for reproducible builds and full auditability if that's what you want.
Re: Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance
#93Re: Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But if they reveal nothing, isn't it wide open for abuse? Couldn't one over-18-person's proof become everyone's proof, because they can't tell it's the same proof, and the issuer can't tell where or how often the proof is being used? Yep! This is why the concept of zero knowledge age gating is such a trap for technically minded people. They imagine receiving a private cryptographic object that can be used to anonym…
> Some people want to require device attestation, so you could only do this handshake from a government approved device running a government approved operating system. Forget using Linux or maybe even a general purpose computer at all. The reason this is a non-problem for the purpose being discussed (age verification on social media) is that you can simply allow anyone with a de-Googled phone or using Linux on a lapt…
Social media is something people want. A large part of why people buy smartphones in the first place (especially at that age) is to be on social media. If you need to buy some weird kind of smartphone to do it, or ask your tech-savvy friend to do some voodoo on it for ten bucks, people absolutely will do that.
See the story of console modchips in eastern Europe for an example. Legal games were so expensive at that time that most kids / families weren't able to afford them. Console modchips existed, but they were difficult to install, and most people just didn't have the expertise. What ended up happening was that everybody "knew a guy", and that guy would do their modchip for a fee. They didn't need to know anything about rooting, ROMs, flashing or soldering, they gave a legal console to somebody and got a console that could play pirated games back.
Re: Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ideally the government would be the issuer and the facilitator but the US lacks the state capacity to do this. Maybe it will work that way in Estonia.
The US is in the weird position of having a class of people (undocumented immigrants) who are often provisionally allowed to live there, known to their state in some capacity, and yet unable to receive some government documents that a permanent resident or citizen would be entitled to. Europe doesn't really have that status. Either you're known to the government and can receive documents from it, or you're a criminal…
Re: Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance
#96It's moving the goal post from one entity to another.
You can also fake it by letting someone else solve it for you.
Re: Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a millennial-aged person I saw a fair amount of content I would not want the young people in my life to see, but it's probably not nearly as harmful as the non-age gated content that they will still have access to. There is a lot creepy youtube and tiktok content that isn't off limits but still unhealthy and my younger relatives are fascinated by it.
Not that I want my kids looking at porn or violent content, but I’m far more concerned about man-o-sphere influencers than that other stuff.
Re: Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not that I want my kids looking at porn or violent content, but I’m far more concerned about man-o-sphere influencers than that other stuff.
Manosphere content is toxic and harmful but the hyperviolence and desensitisation of the former should not be downplayed. That's where the mass shooters evidently come from.
I mean, quite a few have come from proto-manosphere circles, too. Elliot Rodger comes to mind.
Re: Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance
#99It's not zero proof It's moving the goal post from one entity to another. You can also fake it by letting someone else solve it for you.
Fair enough, that's true. But there is no solution that could ever prevent this, right?
Re: Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a millennial-aged person I saw a fair amount of content I would not want the young people in my life to see, but it's probably not nearly as harmful as the non-age gated content that they will still have access to. There is a lot creepy youtube and tiktok content that isn't off limits but still unhealthy and my younger relatives are fascinated by it.
We need to stop this helicopter civilization bullshit. We're building 1984 to protect from god knows what imaginary harms. Stop putting plastic wrap around people's freedoms, liberty, and right to privacy.