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Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

android-developers.googleblog.com

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Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#231

Post by baby_souffle »

ben_w wrote: post #192
fsflover wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Government doesn't know what you're looking at, website doesn't know your ID. But then the government knows your location at any point of time and how often you use websites requiring the age check. Also, if your device is configured to do it automatically, a child can also follow this verification.

> But then the government knows your location at any point of time and how often you use websites requiring the age check. Not as described. There's no location info in that path, and the signed statement of that UUID passing the age check does not need to be re-signed because I've not given any consideration to expiry. (Should I consider expiry? It's not like people age backwards?) > Also, if your device is configur…

> Not as described. There's no location info in that path

Ip address and general time of day will tell you a lot about location. Not street level, but country or state level.

> UUID passing the age check does not need to be re-signed because I've not given any consideration to expiry.

So as soon as any one uuid is leaked, it becomes plausible for any child to bypass the gates until the uuid is manually revoked?

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#232

Post by trollbridge »

1718627440 wrote: post #197
mrtksn wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At glance this looks reasonable but how do you enforce that kids connection always goes through the parents control? You are just moving the verification point to another gate, it means that no anonymous connections are possible anymore to the entire Internet because we want to allow parents to control their kids. You want to use your friends Wi-Fi? Now that requires full identification so that we know that its not s…

No, the point was that the actual decision happens client side and under the control of the sysadmin (the parent). > You are just moving the verification point to another gate Yeah, the gate being the decision of legal entities of age, aka. adults. > You want to use your friends, Wi-Fi? That would still do whatever your parent decided for you. > Want to connect your can toilet to the internet? Whether the toilet can…

There are definitely toilets that have UAs.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#234

Post by ben_w »

baby_souffle wrote: post #228
ben_w wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does it prevent fingerprinting if you get access to both logs and try to time it? Even more so if you include already present tracking infrastructure, which as a government you can just request data from. True, but as this problem exists without any ID at all*, I don't see how the addition of the ID cards makes any difference? > It is possible to de-anonymize people based on aggregate data already, and this pro…

> All that psych testing Facebook have used for evil, can also catch bugs and loopholes faster than kids can figure them out What would be the incentive for meta to deploy that against their own self interests? > Will it be a constant fight as kids keep finding loopholes? Indeed. Good thing there are no other issues we as a species face. Let’s burn resources on a sysphian task because what else were we going to do wi…

> What would be the incentive for meta to deploy that against their own self interests?

The normal method is passing laws. That's kinda the point of laws.

Zuckerberg may be arrogant as hell, think he can bully governments into bending over backwards for him, governments have guns and get to arrest (and have in the past arrested) anyone local who does what Zuckerberg says instead of what the laws say when they are in conflict.

> Good thing there are no other issues we as a species face. Let’s burn resources on a sysphian task because what else were we going to do with them…

Hardly. This is more like gardening. It matters much less if kids get a few days of messing around where they're not ment to be, than if it's continuous.

And ultimately, if you want to run a business without spending money on legally required actions, you're in the wrong business, nobody should shed tears for you.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#235

Post by polipputter »

owbt wrote: post #60
inigyou wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should they do about it?

Who? The lawmakers? I believe banning children up to a certain age from having Internet-enabled mobile devices is a good starting point, and both child protection services and law enforcement services should fully cooperate with parents in enforcing that ban. If you see a kid smoking a cigarette or taking drugs, you know parents have failed somewhere along the road and it would be preferable if the government could s…

[dead]

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#237

Post by izend »

RandomGerm4n wrote: post #212
mrtksn wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At glance this looks reasonable but how do you enforce that kids connection always goes through the parents control? You are just moving the verification point to another gate, it means that no anonymous connections are possible anymore to the entire Internet because we want to allow parents to control their kids. You want to use your friends Wi-Fi? Now that requires full identification so that we know that its not s…

The answer is quite simple. You just don't verify it. The point isn’t to verify the age but to set the age on the device itself. If the parents set the age on the cell phone or computer, that setting is then used as the basis. The operating systems can be configured so that only the device administrator can change the age. Systemd already has a field for storing the age, which programs can read. If the child doesn’t…

Are you a parent?

I have personally used the parental controls on Android, iOS and ChromeOS and to be honest they are terrible. Issues with syncing changes, the terrible UX for parental access control (iOS...), issues around audit/access logs, issues around prompting the parent for access.

I am honestly shocked that Apple known for its polished experience hasn't been forced by angry parents.

My daughter's school actually advised parents to not enable parental controls on her ChromeBook because it would interfere with the school's education websites but my daughter was caught playing web games in class so we decided to lock her down anyways.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#238

Post by ben_w »

baby_souffle wrote: post #231
ben_w wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But then the government knows your location at any point of time and how often you use websites requiring the age check. Not as described. There's no location info in that path, and the signed statement of that UUID passing the age check does not need to be re-signed because I've not given any consideration to expiry. (Should I consider expiry? It's not like people age backwards?) > Also, if your device is configur…

> Not as described. There's no location info in that path Ip address and general time of day will tell you a lot about location. Not street level, but country or state level. > UUID passing the age check does not need to be re-signed because I've not given any consideration to expiry. So as soon as any one uuid is leaked, it becomes plausible for any child to bypass the gates until the uuid is manually revoked?

> So as soon as any one uuid is leaked, it becomes plausible for any child to bypass the gates until the uuid is manually revoked?

How? Phones are already locked down pretty hard. Anything like this would need to be in something secured at the OS level just to stop signatures getting leaked between apps.

If you're thinking "kid roots device, replaces OS entirely", that's not the problem of the manufacturer of the OS that just got deleted.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#239

Post by iamnothere »

account42 wrote: post #170
RandomGerm4n wrote: post #154

I'm fundamentally opposed to age verification because it usually leads to mandatory account creation no matter how privacy friendly the age verification process itself may be. It's already extremely annoying that, for example, on YouTube, you can no longer watch many videos without an account. Furthermore, the whole thing also reinforces monopolies. Once you've verified your age on one platform, the barrier to switch…

And instead of an age you could even make the indication about what is potentially objectionable so that parents can choose when to allow their kids to see what - and adults can also choose to avoid certain things.

Exactly, without this you’re handing the power to decide what is “appropriate” to someone else.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#240

Post by gambiting »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #219
K0nserv wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want the market solving this. If we are going to do age checks it should be based on public key cryptography, be open source, and handled by the government. You verify with the government (or don't since they already know your age), you get some form of cryptographic attestation, present said attestation to websites/apps. I'm not a fan of age verification in the first place, but I am extremely not a fan of ra…

You're seriously proposing letting governments decide which of their citizens are allowed unrestricted access to the internet? Of all the 3rd parties who could be responsible for this, I trust the government the least . But really the best solution here is no third party. The device owner (e.g. parents) should be responsible for setting the user's age when setting up the device. Anything that tries to take that respo…

>>Of all the 3rd parties who could be responsible for this, I trust the government the least.

Really? can you name any 3rd party you'd trust with this more than your own government?

Given that you know, the government already has all of this info on us. This isn't a choice between "the government doesn't know how old I am" and "the government has all the info on me". Governments usually already do. They have enough data already to issue such proof just by the virtue of us living in the country. Tax records, birth records, driving licences, council taxes, passport info, medical information - there's more than enough to give me a cryptographic certificate that says "yes, gambiting is definitely 18 years old" without me having to do anything. Compared to literally any third party that cannot do any of this, unless they buy my marketing cookies on the open market or something, or yes - I actually go out of my way to give them my passport/credit card/selfies etc.

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