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Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

texasattorneygeneral.gov

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Re: Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea that a state court in one particular state can enforce such an absurd law against a company that likely has no business operations or servers in the state is ridiculous. I agree. California has been doing this since 2022 [1][2] and it's equally indefensible. States should not be allowed to wield their size and influence as a cudgel against other states and jurisdictions. [1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.…

Interestingly if you browse American-hosted online internet firearms accessories websites (and FFLs who will sell you something online to ship to your local FFL), for the most part, it's just a basic HTML popup of "Are you over 18? Click Yes, okay, proceed". I haven't seen a single one that actually attempts to implement age verification. It seems that the Internet-based vendors, the same general cohort of companies…

Damn, I didn't even considered this angle. Lot's 18+ items dont actually require age verification online. Yet porn/socials are being subjected to it.

Just shows what priorities are.

Re: Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly if you browse American-hosted online internet firearms accessories websites (and FFLs who will sell you something online to ship to your local FFL), for the most part, it's just a basic HTML popup of "Are you over 18? Click Yes, okay, proceed". I haven't seen a single one that actually attempts to implement age verification. It seems that the Internet-based vendors, the same general cohort of companies…

But you see, guns aren't harmful to small children. It's that damn pornography. Seeing a gun doesn't traumatize you for life, but man, seeing a private area? Life ruined. Of course, once the number of years since you were born reaches exactly 18, your brain automatically shuts off the part of you that is impossibly traumatized by private areas, so it's suddenly completely okay and normal. Oh, and when you reach exact…

It also makes complete and total sense that you can sell your body by joining the Marines as an 0311 MOS rifleman/grunt on your 18th birthday, but you're going straight to hell if you have an alcoholic drink before you're 21. I don't know if I've ever met a European who doesn't think the US's alcohol age laws are weird.

Re: Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

#173
I took a quick look at the Texas law. Like a few other such laws it allows sites to use an external service to do the check, as long as the service uses a "commercially reasonable" method of doing that. That basically means it has to be based on government ID or by inference based on certain types of transaction records they can get access to (e.g., if you have a mortgage they can reasonably infer you are an adult).

As far as I can tell it would be possible to build an age verification service based on an open source ZKP implementation such as Google's Longfellow [1] that would be acceptable to these laws, but would allow anonymous age verification. It would be similar to the system the EU is now trialing, except not limited to iOS and to Android devices with Google Play. Longfellow should be able to work with those but also most modern smart phones running any OS the supports the phone's secure element, and also desktop computers that have secure elements, and devices like YubiKeys.

You would have to verify your age with the age verification service to set things. The easiest way to make it so that is not a privacy risk is for the age verification service to be offered by some entity that already has your ID documents. In the EU that would be the governments themselves, but I don't think any US state governments are ready to do that.

The age verification service doesn't necessarily need to store copies of whatever ID you present. It just needs to know you are when it issues its ID documents that get bound to your device's secure element. If this service was offered by some entity that has a widespread physical presence (a bank would be perfect) you could go in, show ID in person, and get your device enrolled.

Even better would be for a trusted non-profit to run this, like the EFF or the ACLU. Yes, I know they don't want age verification to happen at all, but they are going to lose that one, and it would be prudent to try to make it so that people have a privacy preserving way to do it that can be used anonymously when that happens.

Anyway, once your device is set up verifying your age to a website would involve a protocol between your device in the website the uses a ZKP (Zero Knowledge Proof) to demonstrate to the website that the identify information the age verification service bound to the secure element on the your devices says your age is acceptable. The ZKP doesn't disclose anything else from your identidy information. (The web server sees your IP address of course, but they would see that without age verification too). Note that the age verification service has no idea when, or were, you age verify at a website.

[1] https://github.com/google/longfellow-zk

Re: Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you see, guns aren't harmful to small children. It's that damn pornography. Seeing a gun doesn't traumatize you for life, but man, seeing a private area? Life ruined. Of course, once the number of years since you were born reaches exactly 18, your brain automatically shuts off the part of you that is impossibly traumatized by private areas, so it's suddenly completely okay and normal. Oh, and when you reach exact…

It also makes complete and total sense that you can sell your body by joining the Marines as an 0311 MOS rifleman/grunt on your 18th birthday, but you're going straight to hell if you have an alcoholic drink before you're 21. I don't know if I've ever met a European who doesn't think the US's alcohol age laws are weird.

I have a cousin who lives in Illinois and joined the Marines. He's 20 now. He can shoot fully automatic weapons in the military and has won awards for handgun precision and skill.

But he can't buy a handgun in his home state or drink a beer.

Make it make sense.

Re: Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you see, guns aren't harmful to small children. It's that damn pornography. Seeing a gun doesn't traumatize you for life, but man, seeing a private area? Life ruined. Of course, once the number of years since you were born reaches exactly 18, your brain automatically shuts off the part of you that is impossibly traumatized by private areas, so it's suddenly completely okay and normal. Oh, and when you reach exact…

It also makes complete and total sense that you can sell your body by joining the Marines as an 0311 MOS rifleman/grunt on your 18th birthday, but you're going straight to hell if you have an alcoholic drink before you're 21. I don't know if I've ever met a European who doesn't think the US's alcohol age laws are weird.

Honestly I think the legal age for drinking could be lower if only society treated it better. A lot of drinkers are not only reckless but brought up to be reckless by how society treats them, what society expects of them, peer pressure, etc.

Similarly to how I'm salty about having to obtain LSD from black markets instead of having a known safe supply from a pharmacy. I trust my vendor, but the skill to not only find the market but to find the vendor and actually execute the ordering process is not easy to come by.

A lot more things could be available if people were properly informed and not just fed propaganda about how they're waay too dangerous. It's completely possible to be responsible about substances, it's called harm reduction. Also prescriptions are a thing -- even if I had to get a prescription from my doctor, I would even be fine with that as long as I'd get to take it at home.

Re: Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

#176

The idea that a state court in one particular state can enforce such an absurd law against a company that likely has no business operations or servers in the state is ridiculous. I don't care if you like the porn site in question or not, or condone or endorse its content. This is a slippery slope towards every regional tinpot dictator legislature attempting to censor the internet by having an entity's domain name rev…

One of the reasons I keep my .in domain up and running as my backup email (and just for personal use). That .com domain, if taken down/away from other jurisdictions (the ones that can easily do it) for whatever reason (including a “mistake” or slip) would mean it’s gone for good (because I neither have the capacity nor resources to appeal/fight that in foreign lands).

Your .IN domain is probably one of the worst possible choices of all ccTLD to claim that you can publish things on it without fear of reprisals or censorship, be assured that something bad would happen to it or you personally if you happened to run afoul of any powerful people in the Indian government (or oligarchs).

Something like .NL (you do not need to be a Dutch national to register) or .IS would be much more legally resilient.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_India

Re: Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

#177

So a state (or municipality or anyone capable of making laws) has the ability to say, "You don't meet our local laws, take down your URL" now? This is going to be a real problem when states start nuking whole parts of the internet from orbit. A state has a law against conversion therapy and starts to remove sites with that? A state has a law against trans people? Or abortion? Or medical misinformation? Suddenly we ju…

No. If a site doesn't want to comply with the state, they can geoblock. That's what pornhub does.

Re: Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea that a state court in one particular state can enforce such an absurd law against a company that likely has no business operations or servers in the state is ridiculous. I agree. California has been doing this since 2022 [1][2] and it's equally indefensible. States should not be allowed to wield their size and influence as a cudgel against other states and jurisdictions. [1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.…

Interestingly if you browse American-hosted online internet firearms accessories websites (and FFLs who will sell you something online to ship to your local FFL), for the most part, it's just a basic HTML popup of "Are you over 18? Click Yes, okay, proceed". I haven't seen a single one that actually attempts to implement age verification. It seems that the Internet-based vendors, the same general cohort of companies…

The ID (and therefore the age) is checked when one goes to pick up their firearm at the local FFL dealer, so an age check on the site doesn't add anything useful.

Re: Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea that a state court in one particular state can enforce such an absurd law against a company that likely has no business operations or servers in the state is ridiculous. I agree. California has been doing this since 2022 [1][2] and it's equally indefensible. States should not be allowed to wield their size and influence as a cudgel against other states and jurisdictions. [1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.…

Interestingly if you browse American-hosted online internet firearms accessories websites (and FFLs who will sell you something online to ship to your local FFL), for the most part, it's just a basic HTML popup of "Are you over 18? Click Yes, okay, proceed". I haven't seen a single one that actually attempts to implement age verification. It seems that the Internet-based vendors, the same general cohort of companies…

> I'm unaware of the Californians attempting to seize anyone's domain name over this issue.

They may not be attacking the domain but they're attempting to leverage the US Legal system to shut down operations. Arguably that's even worse- they can't just move to another domain/tld.

Re: Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly if you browse American-hosted online internet firearms accessories websites (and FFLs who will sell you something online to ship to your local FFL), for the most part, it's just a basic HTML popup of "Are you over 18? Click Yes, okay, proceed". I haven't seen a single one that actually attempts to implement age verification. It seems that the Internet-based vendors, the same general cohort of companies…

The ID (and therefore the age) is checked when one goes to pick up their firearm at the local FFL dealer, so an age check on the site doesn't add anything useful.

Correct, I was referring to the websites that have implemented only the most basic fig leaf of legal compliance (ca. 2001 era HTML popup of "are you over 18?") to be able to browse the product selection, even of items that aren't serialized/FFL 4473-requiring firearms receivers. Like, yes, I totally need to confirm that I'm over 18 to look at this Streamlight flashlight.
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