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European "age verification" "app" forcing everyone to use Android or iOS

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Re: European "age verification" "app" forcing everyone to use Android or iOS

#341

Post by AnthonyMouse »

izacus wrote: post #298
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US federal government has been doing that to the states for a while now. They don't have the constitutional authority to do something, so instead they shove a lever under something they nominally are allowed to do and tell the states "do the thing we're not allowed to, the way we tell you to, or else." Where the "or else" is something like, they collect billions of tax dollars from your constituents that you then…

This isn't how EU works though (EU can actually directly order states arouns :P), so I'm not sure how that's relevant here?

That doesn't appear to be accurate:

https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/faq-eu-competences-and...

Moreover, it's ignoring the context of the thread. The relevance is obviously that coercing someone to do something against their will and then saying they're still in charge because they're the ones doing it is a sham.

Re: European "age verification" "app" forcing everyone to use Android or iOS

#342

Post by CircuitSeuss »

SoftTalker wrote: post #205
athrowaway3z wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a bag of chips without having to show my ID. There is a big difference between: Government demands every website to have age verification, and government supported scheme by which service can opt into age verification. As of now, American private spyware is actively filling the demand. I get the feeling some privacy advocates are approaching the choice as a tier system, with government being the worst case.…

Government is demanding age verification because the websites and platforms completely punted on the issue of keeping inappropriate content from children. Yes parents have a role here but we live in a society and we depend on/demand everyone doing their part. We (the tech sector) made our own bed here.

So what you’re saying is… the social media platforms/ tech sector needs to take basic measures to make their platforms less exploitative for all users regardless of age? I’m sold. What sort of incentives do you think would be the most effective motivation for platforms here?

Re: European "age verification" "app" forcing everyone to use Android or iOS

#343

Post by AnthonyMouse »

izacus wrote: post #296
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is all well and good, but who is going to use those projects if the law requires them to use Android or iOS for age verification?

"The law" requires no such thing and there's nothing preventing those new OSes form providing proper security signals. But is DOES require work - and it's much easier to complain than to put in work.

> "The law" requires no such thing

It requires age verification and provides code whose development was subsidized by the government, which third parties the user doesn't control will use, that creates a dependency on those platforms.

> there's nothing preventing those new OSes form providing proper security signals.

A network effect, far from being nothing, is a barrier the height of a mountain.

The purpose of attestation is to lock out competing platforms. It security value is a joke. Devices pass attestation with known vulnerabilities and fail it for being competitors, even if the competitors have better security.

Offering to make attestations nobody accepts is a farce. The problem to be solved is how to run existing software that was originally written for other platforms when the new platform is new and doesn't have enough users for third party developers to specifically target it, which is the exact thing that can't do. And without that it can't get enough users for third party developers to specifically target it.

Re: European "age verification" "app" forcing everyone to use Android or iOS

#344

Post by rcbdev »

watwut wrote: post #283
rcbdev wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do you really believe they don't know what you do on your personal internet connection linked to your name and payment data? Many people in the Western Europe used, until very recently, prepaid anonymous mobile data cards that they recharged monthly with charging vouchers paid for in cash. All this ended in the last 5 - 10 years. The U.S.-American corporate glass citizen slave mentality is actually a little tad bit…

You have it other way round. USA had burner anonymous cards when European countries did not.

Yes. Had.

In Europe it was the norm far longer than in the U.S.A.

Re: European "age verification" "app" forcing everyone to use Android or iOS

#345

Post by stubish »

gobip wrote: post #13

Don't fall for the trap. The question isn't how we should technically force age verification on anybody. The question is why they're pushing it onto everyone. I did not consent to this, neither did you.

'They' are not pushing age verification onto everyone. 'We' are pushing it onto ourselves. People want this. It is popular all over the world. If 'they' are doing anything, it is subverting what people want into something else. Which is the worry here, as people asked for age verification but didn't ask to be locked into the mobile phone duopoly. The system people want for age verification could be implemented as Firefox plugin. If it requires these attestation services for binary blobs provided by the government, it includes features someone else wants.

Re: European "age verification" "app" forcing everyone to use Android or iOS

#346

Post by lern_too_spel »

roundabout-host wrote: post #112
yorwba wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using an ID card reader is already possible. See here for a list of Linux repos supporting German IDs: https://www.ausweisapp.bund.de/en/open-source Finding a working hardware/software combination for your ID card is up to you. The app is an alternative for people who don't want to buy or carry around a card reader, but who already have a smartphone.

It is possible for e-signatures and similar variants. However, there is no sign that the "age verification" will support this variant. If you go to the demo https://cinema.ageverification.dev >, no option is given other than the Android/iOS app. So it seems that the app is only an alternative in the case of government portals, but it is not an alternative for "age verification".

The German implementation already allows it. The GitHub issue you linked to explains multiple times that it is a reference implementation, as have several previous HN comment threads linking to this page. It is not the actual implementation that any country plans to use.

Re: European "age verification" "app" forcing everyone to use Android or iOS

#347

Post by villish »

shevy-java wrote: post #24

What baffles me the most is how the EU commission constantly works in favour of US corporations in the long run. This is really strange. Something does not work in the explanations given by the EU commission. To me it looks like US lobbyists run the EU here.

The EU gets billions of dollars from fining US companies. That money is used to pay for a lot of programs and the bean counters don't wan't that source of funding to dry up.

Re: European "age verification" "app" forcing everyone to use Android or iOS

#348

Post by kobalsky »

lionkor wrote: post #270
duxup wrote: post #263

The unintended consequence of poorly thought out regulations (good or bad) can be wild. I’m still having to deal with making some sort of legal agreement with EVERY website I visit over cookies constantly… I just don’t care anymore / click whatever.

Consentomatic does most common cookie dialogs, according to your settings. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/consent-o-mat... It also exists for other browsers. I am not affiliated,but I have it on my devices and even on my phone, it's quite good and I very rarely get cookie popups now.

then you have an extension with full access to everything.

unless it's one of the big guys, devs either sell the extensions or get hacked, it has happened multiple times.

Re: European "age verification" "app" forcing everyone to use Android or iOS

#349

Post by DangitBobby »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #200
leonvoss wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It requires reason to understand the consequences of your decisions. Reason is something democracies have a shortage of. Thus, democracies structurally suffer from issues like this.

It worked great for the last several hundred years. The problem is that as government keeps expanding to control more and more of our lives, every decision it makes it necessarily imposes on everyone, whether they agree with that decision or not. E.g. In a country of 100M people, if 60% agree with a bill and it becomes law, the country has imposed that law on 40M people against their will. That's just as true in a di…

Whether it's federal, state, or local, you're going to see laws imposed on the 40% of people who don't agree with it. From what I've seen it's the federal legislature that is interested in protecting my rights and the state and local legislatures that want to infringe on my rights. The governments we are under have never been particularly hands off.

Re: European "age verification" "app" forcing everyone to use Android or iOS

#350

Post by roundabout-host »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #346
roundabout-host wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is possible for e-signatures and similar variants. However, there is no sign that the "age verification" will support this variant. If you go to the demo https://cinema.ageverification.dev >, no option is given other than the Android/iOS app. So it seems that the app is only an alternative in the case of government portals, but it is not an alternative for "age verification".

The German implementation already allows it. The GitHub issue you linked to explains multiple times that it is a reference implementation, as have several previous HN comment threads linking to this page. It is not the actual implementation that any country plans to use.

The German implementation allows it for some uses, but not for "age verification". The demo does not account for the fact that other options may exist.
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