281–290 of 302 posts
Age is just one metric. I don't want zero proof tech about information X. I don't want to have an identity. Full stop.
And does it make sense that at least some people do want your identity before interacting with you?
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The harms of smartphones and social media are about as far from imaginary as it could get. The data is screaming at us. We will look back at handing kids phones with instagram like giving kids cigarettes and think wtf were we doing.
The data isn't screaming at us. That's an illusion caused by the flood of bad academic papers on the topic. A good example is the Jonathan Haidt/Aaron Brown fiasco from a few years ago. Brown has been methodically trying to stop the stampede off yet another pseudo-scientific cliff but not enough people are listening. https://reason.com/2023/03/29/the-statistically-flawed-evide... https://reason.com/video/2024/04/02/t…
The interpretation is interesting. Probably, a lot of people don't like criticism of academia or have already made an emotional investment in the social media hypothesis, but aren't sure how to respond to Brown's critiques of the studies. So it just swings up and down with otherwise no engagement.
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We don't need age attestation or any kind of identity attestation, period.
We definitely need identity attestation in some places. A basic example is when authorising tax return payments. Or when opening a line of credit. Also when getting e.g. a concealed carry license. And similar for government agents executing search warrants, tow truck drivers picking up cars, etc. Identity attestation isn’t a bad thing per se. It’s just something that can be abused.
Banks already verify your identity as well and don't require you to use a government app.
Law enforcement asks for your ID and check it with their database, which is already enough as well.
We don't need age attestation for accessing websites.
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I am not making an argument based on tradition. I couldn't care less that the web has not been government-gated for the past X years, because through this logic you should adhere to any dumb tradition or custom humans have ever had. I am concerned with the present and the future of the web's impact on the world, which of course requires government intervention like any other big phenomenon or technology in the histor…
> I am not making an argument based on tradition. I know, and neither am I. Perhaps you misread my comment. > I couldn't care less that the web has not been government-gated for the past X years That is clear. > because through this logic you should adhere to any dumb tradition or custom humans have ever had Not only is that statement a non-sequitur, since neither of us is making an argument based on tradition, it's…
Since the government currently has all of our ID data and since mathematically secure algorithms have been invented to prove personal information without revealing it, I'd say we have reached the point where digital identification can be implemented without infringing on people's privacy any more than a clerk checking your ID.
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The harms of smartphones and social media are about as far from imaginary as it could get. The data is screaming at us. We will look back at handing kids phones with instagram like giving kids cigarettes and think wtf were we doing.
I remember the video nasties of the 90s were 'far from imaginary dangers' for kids, before that it was rock music that the data was screaming at us about. Maybe social media does hold an actual danger this time, but we are a hysterical bunch of knee-jerk reactionary nutjobs, when it comes to new things and kids. I wouldn't be surprised if 20 years from now we see social media as just another hysterical reaction that…
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> Many young boys now think it’s normal to ask girls for sexual acts before having ever kissed a girl. This is a common media talking point, but are there any hard figures for this 'many'? The type you're describing existed when I was young, long before the internet. My impression of boys and young men today is that they are generally just as decent, cautious, respectful and idealistic as they ever were - but that a…
I don't think it's a "reputation" issue, more of a what they're being exposed to and what it's normalizing. From studies I've seen it's a significant percentage (from a random Google search [1]): The review talked to young people aged 13 to 19 and surveyed 1,000 young people aged 16 to 21. Over 6 in 10 (64%) said they had seen online pornography. Of these: 1 in 10 (10%) of nine-year-olds had seen pornography 3 in 10…
You don't seem to have any data putting your figures into any context over time: run the same study in the 80s and I would wager you'd see similar even worse results. Wank mags and grainy VHS were passed around schools from the moment they appeared, including BDSM and torture porn - often in the form of sleazy B-movies. Sure, pornography is far easier to access today. But the material is the same, and this notion that somehow, today's boys and young men are worse for this exposure than their predecessors is insidious and deeply ignorant.
It is significantly more difficult to find young men today who think it's acceptable for husbands to beat their wives - or that rape is never rape in marriage. Or who think they can get a woman drunk to seduce her. Campaigners had to work damn hard to raise public consciousness out of the traditionalist inertia around these blights. Frankly, to anyone like me, old enough to compare several different eras and their male representatives, comments like yours and the inferences you'd have people draw from them, are utterly ridiculous - and yes, hugely unjust to the overwhelming majority of young men who flinch from the idea of hurting a woman in bed or out of it, regardless of what type of pornography they've been exposed to.
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I don't think it's a "reputation" issue, more of a what they're being exposed to and what it's normalizing. From studies I've seen it's a significant percentage (from a random Google search [1]): The review talked to young people aged 13 to 19 and surveyed 1,000 young people aged 16 to 21. Over 6 in 10 (64%) said they had seen online pornography. Of these: 1 in 10 (10%) of nine-year-olds had seen pornography 3 in 10…
It definitely is a reputation issue: unless I'm misunderstanding something, you are using this data to suggest a greater incidence of violent sexual behavior among young men as a result to their exposure to ugly types of pornography. You don't seem to have any data putting your figures into any context over time: run the same study in the 80s and I would wager you'd see similar even worse results. Wank mags and grain…
No what's ignorant is ignoring the prevalence and nature of modern online pornography. Hopefully you realize that having the worst of what previous generations might've been exposed occassionally to by copying grainy VHS videos is literally a few clicks away now.
Much like social media it's pushed constantly onto them (well all us men). It's a giant predatory industry with a very addictive product.
It's not a reputation thing because it's about how destructive it is to society as a whole to both men and women. It's a very different sort of destructive behavior than previous generations might've had.
> hugely unjust to the overwhelming majority of young men who flinch from the idea of hurting a woman in bed or out of it
There's lots of great young guys out there. How about we not regress due by allowing new rampant destructive influences. That's my perspective.
We're seeing huge upticks in "incels" and "red-pilled" young men now. IMHO that's largely influenced by pervasive (mysoginist) pornography.
Even then, apparently young women don't agree with you as recent polls show young women don't view men favorably anymore [1]. So apparently something, or many things, are going wrong.
1: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/women-men-fe...
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> 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…
You can fix the leaked token problem if your prover also proves that (a) the private token id is not on the public revocation list, and (b) the token has not yet expired. Use short expirations and auto-renew, this is just to keep the revocation list from growing forever. Attackers could still compromise the system with proxies, but you can fix that by (a) passing in a random sessionid from the server so proofs can't…
Unfortunately ZKP's aren't magic. When not doing privacy oriented cryptocurrency ( cough money laundering cough ) with ZKP's, if you really want private verification you are in a position where a single actor can authenticate the entire world and no one will know it happened. And to prevent it you assemble the pieces necessary to deanonymize anyone. Make no mistake. ZKP age verification, as proposed, will just requir…
I don't really believe this is true, there are schemes which allow limited use tokens but which don't compromise the ZK nature of things - https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2026/03/02/anonymou...
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With ZKP age verification, services will not be able to track you without help from the CA. The CA will not be able to track you without help from the services. Both will contain the necessary information in their databases that when combined deanonymize you. The CA is the central authority/certificate authority. So you should assume the government can track you, because you should assume both will be streaming those…
This isn't correct. With ZKP-based systems even the CA can't track you. That's the "zero-knowledge" part.