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Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance

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Re: Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance

#121

Post by Paracompact »

Gigachad wrote: post #60
echelon wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure it's just kids? In dealing with the ills of social media, you do what you do with every other negative externality - you tax it. At least the parts of it you don't like. Designing privacy, freedom, and liberty destroying mechanisms is not the way. Big social wants these regulations to pass so that they can get better identity tracking for ads targeting. To them it doesn't matter if the tech ushers in 198…

It's definitely not just kids. Social media is a lot like meth, we should at a bare minimum stop giving it to kids as soon as possible. And then come to realise it's bad for everyone and should be wound back.

Their argument would be, "If meth is a negative externality, we should just tax it instead of banning it in stores for kids to buy." Kids may die, but I'm sure with all that extra state revenue we'll get a nice park or museum or kickback to Tesla or something.

Re: Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance

#122

Post by IshKebab »

skybrian wrote: post #115
dadoum wrote: post #10

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.

Websites should have an easy way to check whether the connecting device has a child lock turned on. We don’t need to identify the person using the device at all. It should be up to parents to make sure their kids use device that are locked.

This is clearly the right way to do things. Just make devices have a forced choice for their age setting on initial setup, and expose that to apps and websites.

Insane that they didn't even try this simple solution first. Yeah people will get around it, but they'll get around any solution.

Re: Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance

#123

Post by anonzzzies »

vasco wrote: post #91
doginasuit wrote: post #19

Earlier 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.

If you saw a bunch of it and presumably are fine what does it matter then? Sure it might have been uncomfortable for a few days and you may not have understood right away but so what? That's almost every week as a kid. Seeing some titties is probably the least confusing.

Many uncles of friends (or fathers, who knows) had stacks of porn mags we knew where they were as 70s kids. When very young they were icky and after that we took them home. Who cares.

Re: Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance

#124

Post by anonzzzies »

bloqs wrote: post #76
echelon wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure it's just kids? In dealing with the ills of social media, you do what you do with every other negative externality - you tax it. At least the parts of it you don't like. Designing privacy, freedom, and liberty destroying mechanisms is not the way. Big social wants these regulations to pass so that they can get better identity tracking for ads targeting. To them it doesn't matter if the tech ushers in 198…

I'm not sure I get your arguement here Are you saying that we should let children smoke and just tax it because its better for their liberty and freedoms? Or are you saying we should just tax social media for adults but banning it for kids is ok

We do that here; heavy tax sigarettes (and booze): both dropped like a lead balloon. So yes, tax it for everyone. Kids cannot pay for sigarettes and most adults don't want to (most vapers I know do it because it costs far less; that should be taxed more too imho). If browsing insta/tiktok costs an euro per hour, let's see how many still do it; I'd say they go bankrupt in a few months. Apparently it was never that interesting.

Re: Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance

#125

Post by krige »

PeterStuer wrote: post #110
echelon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"We" are building 1984 to make sure "We" stay in power of our EU Animal Farm.

EU? It's mostly happening elsewhere though. See: Australia. See: California. See: KIDS act. See: KOSA.

Sounds like denial or tunnel vision.

Re: Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance

#126

Post by intended »

vlian2088 wrote: post #104
intended wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 6 in 10 parents worldwide support social media ban for under 16s - but children are divided > Support among parents for a social media ban for under-16s is highest in Malaysia (77%) and India (75%), Argentina (55%) and lowest in Japan (38%) and Nigeria (39%) > Globally, the majority of Gen Z (51%) – the first true digital natives – support a social media ban for under-16s. Support for the ban is highest in India (7…

>among parents increasingly few people are parents, so these numbers are don't reflect 'the vast majority' of the population.

A majority of Gen Z dont want it for kids, so that isn't true either. Plus, thats a moving of goal posts.

Re: Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance

#127

Post by Seattle3503 »

PeterStuer wrote: post #112

Will they not just argue that you could share the assertion, and hence we need a 'trusted' verfication point to establish it is actually you in posession of the zkp token, right now. So turn on that smartphone camera right now and obediently follow our biometric verfication instructions ...

Maybe, but we should force them to make that argument after we demonstrate age verification doesn't require identifying ourselves to every website. It would reveal they aren't seeking pragmatic solutions.

Re: Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance

#128

Post by Nevermark »

If you need personalized government attestation to visit a site, then the government has the ability to dynamically deny and rescind your individual access to any site that adopts age verification, at any time.

Once adult sites adopt the system, it will creep over to any site wanting to limit their liability. Banks. Business services. Eventually almost everyone.

Liability the government will dramatize and escalate. You won't see the government pass any laws to create age-liability safe harbors.

Wikipedia is already being forced to fight to not implement age verification. Age verification managed by the government = No Wikipedia access without individually tracked, controlled and revokable government permission. [0]

Seldom has a slippery slope been so slippery.

The distance between government controlled per-citizen access to obviously adult sites, and government permissioned/controlled access to any site of substance, does not even involve a technical hurdle. It just becomes a site adoption curve. Every adoption increasing the scope of real-time government surveillance in our minute-to-minute lives, and its real-time at-will ability to deny access to whatever it chooses, whenever it chooses, and for whoever it chooses. In any combination.

Dystopia is here.

In my opinion, this is terrifying.

We need: Third party attestation, providable by anyone/entity meeting basic openly-defined criteria, limited to age attestation only, implemented with Zero Knowledge Proofs, to create a safe anonymous (unsurveiled/no personalized denials) alternative, to take the wind out of the sails of this constant governmental power grab. If it isn't solved by security minded technologists and the marketplace, the freedom destroying version will prevail - and it won't be undone.

[0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/we-support-wikimedia-f...

Re: Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance

#129

Post by vlian2088 »

intended wrote: post #126
vlian2088 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>among parents increasingly few people are parents, so these numbers are don't reflect 'the vast majority' of the population.

A majority of Gen Z dont want it for kids, so that isn't true either. Plus, thats a moving of goal posts.

I responded to "the vast majority of the population supports banning social media", not "the vast majority of parents supports banning social media".

the latter wouldn't surprise me at all, I've seen all kinds of degenerates suddenly begin to act like boomers after they've had a kid.

Re: Opening up 'Zero-Knowledge Proof' technology to promote privacy in age assurance

#130

Post by rstuart4133 »

Groxx wrote: post #13

I'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…

> But if they reveal nothing, isn't it wide open for abuse?

Good point, they do contain more information than "They are over 18". The primary (usually only) thing is who is attesting they are over 18. That might be the government, or a bank.

That's inevitable, because the usual flow is rather like Google's OAuth - the site needing you to prove your age rediects to the provider (Google, or whoever), who asks questions to verify your identity, and then replies with "over 18" or "not over 18".

This can leak other information aside from the site knowing who is verifying your age. For example, done the wrong way, the Google / the government could know what porn sites you like. OAuth, for example leaks that sort of information. But there is no technical reason it has to be that way.

The major barrier to all this isn't whether it's possible to design a protocol that proves your age, having a driver's licence or even an amount in a bank account. It is absolutely possible. It's that to be useful, everyone has to agree on the same protocol. That has so far proved to be near insurmountable.

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