Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

EU Age Verification Project Mandates Hardware-Bound Attestation

linuxiac.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 206 posts

Re: EU Age Verification Project Mandates Hardware-Bound Attestation

#31

Post by akersten »

jmyeet wrote: post #24
big85 wrote: post #18

All this ostensibly to keep teenage boys from watching Pornhub (when parental controls already exist). The real reason, of course, is to force people to connect strong real-life identifiers to online activity. Mobile first, then Windows. Then Linux is too weak to oppose on its own, and will adapt or die.

That's a completely unhelpful, overly simplistic straw man argument. We restrict certain activities and places in the real world from certain people all the time. For example, not allowing people under 18 or 21 (depending on your country) into casinos. What we have now is essentially unrestricted access to pretty much anything and a fair assessment is that there is societal harm from that. We're creating gambling add…

What's simplistic and unhelpful is falling for the narrative that infinite scroll, boobies, and algorithmic feeds are somehow more harmful than ubiquitous government surveillance of the most powerful communication tool on earth. The Internet, more or less, has been around 30+ years and the Something awful and 4chan generations are now in charge. We're not much worse off. The Internet is actually way tamer these days than it used to be.

We can all agree that yeah sure this social media stuff isn't great, but that's the whole point of freedom. Fast food isn't great either but lawmakers aren't pushing for a junk food attestation framework to make sure you don't consume it more than twice a week. In other words, your best interest is not interesting to them at all. They are happy that you think it is somehow self evident that we should subject ourselves to undue surveillance through!

So, wonder why they're pushing for this so hard. I'll take the brainrot if it means criticism and ideas can spread without permanently being associated with a trackable, unchanging identity.

Re: EU Age Verification Project Mandates Hardware-Bound Attestation

#32

Post by tzs »

afandian wrote: post #4

I don't understand where the all the EU anti-trust and anti-corruption regulators are here. _Governments_ enforcing that you have a Google or Apple account to participate in society is transparently absurd. This isn't only a digital sovereignty issue, it's also an anti-competition issue.

My understanding is that you are not forced to use this. Sites in the EU that will be required to verify user age will be free to use any method they wish as long as they can show it is as effective as the app and it does not violate privacy laws.

Most analysts expect sites will offer multiple ways, for a variety of reasons.

Eventually when the full EU Digital Identity Wallet is available age checks can be done using that and the age-only app will go away. For the full wallet the rules explicitly require platforms to have fallback mechanisms for users who are not using the digital wallet.

Re: EU Age Verification Project Mandates Hardware-Bound Attestation

#34

Post by SecretDreams »

akersten wrote: post #31
jmyeet wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a completely unhelpful, overly simplistic straw man argument. We restrict certain activities and places in the real world from certain people all the time. For example, not allowing people under 18 or 21 (depending on your country) into casinos. What we have now is essentially unrestricted access to pretty much anything and a fair assessment is that there is societal harm from that. We're creating gambling add…

What's simplistic and unhelpful is falling for the narrative that infinite scroll, boobies, and algorithmic feeds are somehow more harmful than ubiquitous government surveillance of the most powerful communication tool on earth. The Internet, more or less, has been around 30+ years and the Something awful and 4chan generations are now in charge. We're not much worse off. The Internet is actually way tamer these days…

Don't know about boobies, but I would guess META/other infinite scroll products are this generation's cigarettes in terms of long term harm and we do a severe disservice to all young people that are exposed to this product. Moreover, asking parents to intervene is obviously not going to work because they, themselves, have been partially ruined by it and lack the critical thinking required to intervene and the prowess to execute. Same reason why we needed government to intervene for cigarettes.

I am not endorsing removing all anonymity from being online, but continuing the status quo with social media is a non starter for humanity. So tell me how we can help kids not get ruined by the internet without a mechanism specifically identifying that they're online in the first place?

Re: EU Age Verification Project Mandates Hardware-Bound Attestation

#35

Post by mort96 »

dijit wrote: post #9
83642736392 wrote: post #6

[flagged]

It's very commonly the anti-EU politicians who inevitably get into EU parliament (due to representative voting, ironically more democratic than the FPTP system we use in the UK, despite all the wailing about democracy) who endorse such obviously stupid ideas, as a way to undermine the credibility of the EU. What's frustrating is that it works really well, and occasionally they get something truly stupid through- whic…

A good way to prevent this anti-EU sentiment would've been to not go through with these obviously stupid ideas. Weird that the EU doesn't seem to realize?

Or do you think, maybe, that there's a deeper issue here and the problem isn't exclusive to just these anti-EU politicians you want to scapegoat?

Re: EU Age Verification Project Mandates Hardware-Bound Attestation

#36

Post by protocolture »

jmyeet wrote: post #24
big85 wrote: post #18

All this ostensibly to keep teenage boys from watching Pornhub (when parental controls already exist). The real reason, of course, is to force people to connect strong real-life identifiers to online activity. Mobile first, then Windows. Then Linux is too weak to oppose on its own, and will adapt or die.

That's a completely unhelpful, overly simplistic straw man argument. We restrict certain activities and places in the real world from certain people all the time. For example, not allowing people under 18 or 21 (depending on your country) into casinos. What we have now is essentially unrestricted access to pretty much anything and a fair assessment is that there is societal harm from that. We're creating gambling add…

>So saying "we should allow unfettered access to the internet" or even "it's the parents' responsibility" is naive, dismissive and has failed.

How has it failed? Whats the measure of a successful freedom vs an unsuccessful one.

>The only question from here is what to d we do about it. You can say "nothing" but that's a losing argument.

No its the positive case for action that remains to be justified.

Re: EU Age Verification Project Mandates Hardware-Bound Attestation

#37

Post by _jackdk_ »

tzs wrote: post #32
afandian wrote: post #4

I don't understand where the all the EU anti-trust and anti-corruption regulators are here. _Governments_ enforcing that you have a Google or Apple account to participate in society is transparently absurd. This isn't only a digital sovereignty issue, it's also an anti-competition issue.

My understanding is that you are not forced to use this. Sites in the EU that will be required to verify user age will be free to use any method they wish as long as they can show it is as effective as the app and it does not violate privacy laws. Most analysts expect sites will offer multiple ways, for a variety of reasons. Eventually when the full EU Digital Identity Wallet is available age checks can be done using…

And how, exactly, will one acquire this "full EU Digital Identity Wallet"? Will I be able to compile it from source and run it on a computing device of my own choosing?

Re: EU Age Verification Project Mandates Hardware-Bound Attestation

#39

Post by 0x000xca0xfe »

SecretDreams wrote: post #34
akersten wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's simplistic and unhelpful is falling for the narrative that infinite scroll, boobies, and algorithmic feeds are somehow more harmful than ubiquitous government surveillance of the most powerful communication tool on earth. The Internet, more or less, has been around 30+ years and the Something awful and 4chan generations are now in charge. We're not much worse off. The Internet is actually way tamer these days…

Don't know about boobies, but I would guess META/other infinite scroll products are this generation's cigarettes in terms of long term harm and we do a severe disservice to all young people that are exposed to this product. Moreover, asking parents to intervene is obviously not going to work because they, themselves, have been partially ruined by it and lack the critical thinking required to intervene and the prowess…

Then the solution could be just like the solution to tobacco addiction: tax social media companies HARD, tax all advertising on social media 10x, 20x, or ban advertising on/for social media outright, ban advertising of kids products, ban showing use of social media in movies not rated 18, ... the problem will vanish just like cigarettes.

But no, that's not what governments are doing. They want control and surveillance.

Re: EU Age Verification Project Mandates Hardware-Bound Attestation

#40

Post by dijit »

mort96 wrote: post #35
dijit wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very commonly the anti-EU politicians who inevitably get into EU parliament (due to representative voting, ironically more democratic than the FPTP system we use in the UK, despite all the wailing about democracy) who endorse such obviously stupid ideas, as a way to undermine the credibility of the EU. What's frustrating is that it works really well, and occasionally they get something truly stupid through- whic…

A good way to prevent this anti-EU sentiment would've been to not go through with these obviously stupid ideas. Weird that the EU doesn't seem to realize? Or do you think, maybe, that there's a deeper issue here and the problem isn't exclusive to just these anti-EU politicians you want to scapegoat?

I think rejecting proposals from MEPs on the grounds that "it's against EU interests" would be very undemocratic and fuel the very anti-EU sentiment that it would supposedly combat.
Post reply on HN