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EU age verification app not planning desktop support

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101–110 of 437 posts

Re: EU age verification app not planning desktop support

#101
post #5

This is hardware attestation in a nutshell: a double edged sword, and a sharp one at that. The biggest issue is that the attestation hardware and the application client is the same device with the same manufacturer, who also happens to have a slight conflict of interest between monetizing customers and preserving any sort of privacy. IMHO the pro-attestation forces are so overwhelming that we should all cherish the m…

The insane question here is, why would the EU mandate hardware attestation controlled by two private American companies in order to access services? That seems completely contrary to the spirit of EU laws and regulations, which tend to be about protecting the consumer, preventing monopolies, ensuring people can generally live their lives where all things that are mandatory are owned and ran by the state and foster a…

Take any group of a hundred tech people (devs, analysts, architects, etc.), and 95 of them will do everything with their stock Android or IOS smartphone. Maybe 3 will consciously limit their use of that device, and the remaining 2 reluctantly use something sane like GrapheneOS. Those two might pipe up and take a stand for people without smartphones (which includes a very varied swath of people, from Luddites to people with disabilities), but they'll get drowned out by sighs, sheepish looks, and the chorus of 'let's just start with those two smartphone OSes, and if after a year or two people still really need something else, a new project can be started to address that'.

It's not an insane question, it just doesn't get asked.

Re: EU age verification app not planning desktop support

#102
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Further forcing everybody to have their phone on person at all times

I've been saying this for years: eventually not having your phone on you and powered up at all times will not be a crime, but it will be grounds for questioning and search. One day, there will be a knock on your door. "Good morning, this is the police. Is there something wrong with your phone? Is your phone broken? Can we provide you with a charge?" "No, I must have turned it off accidentally." "Can we assist you wit…

Black Mirror "The entire history of you" now in mobile app version.

Re: EU age verification app not planning desktop support

#103
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, remote attestation is only acceptable on your own devices with remote attestation servers that you control. For example, it would be completely fine to implement remote attestation where devices issued by companies to employees verify their TPM values with company's servers when connecting via VPN. All other such activities directly infringe on ownership rights.

I don't see the value of remote attestation period. Especially when we talk about the mobile world which is a jungle where even the manufacturer itself doesn't have the full picture of all the code running on the device. Yeah sure it's guarantees that the device is more or less similar as from the factory... and then what? What am I supposed to do with that information?

It can be valuable on devices *you own* with servers *you own* when the devices are not physically present (or even if they are).

You can get PCR values and decide if the device you are talking to is tampered with. That way, you can set a higher bar for hackers.

This is completely different to what this topic is about, I'm just saying that there is a case where it can be useful.

Re: EU age verification app not planning desktop support

#104
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This read more like "we thought pc was a dead relic of the past" sadly

Well, looking around I see more people using smartphones for anything and even not having a PC…

But as long as there are still people using desktop computers, removing access from them is an overreach and makes these ideas totally undemocratic. I am frankly baffled that an organization having the principles and know-how of the EU can even think of gating access to information with something so slipshod.

The only eventuality where this is acceptable is when desktop computers won't even be gated, and then if anyone can circumvent the problem with a computer, why is anyone even bothering with the whole thing...

Re: EU age verification app not planning desktop support

#105
post #68
post #38

Tangentially, I would love to be able to see the age of everyone on the internet. IRL this gives us so much context when having an interaction.

Further tangent, I'm not big on digital ID and stuff overall but then I'll play an online game with cheaters and wonder if it's not the solution to things like this. Lifetime cross platform online game bans tied to your real life ID which you need to sign into this new all encompassing anticheat.

False positives aren't exactly rare. Cheaters trolled PunkBuster's memory scans by sending offending payloads matching blacklisted signatures over popular IRC channels, less recently they exploited an RCE vulnerability to deploy cheats to other players computers, mid-game. AMD released drivers hooking themselves into games processes, triggering detections. And there's a lot of less obvious problems with this approach.

Re: EU age verification app not planning desktop support

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wallet app can be started using a QR code. You can then finish the verification on your phone and continue on the desktop website/app/whatever.

How can I do this when I don't have a phone?

Don't you people have phones?

Edit: Sorry that reference was a deep cut, I was quoting the devs of that awful Diablo mobile game way back.

Re: EU age verification app not planning desktop support

#108
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also this will completely disable any new phone OS' being developed. Why would anyone bother when you can't verify your wallet to do anything online. This already the case today, you can't run your bank's app or government eID apps on anything but Google or Apple devices.

Back when Microsoft said they were going to let Android apps run on Windows before killing it off for I think the third time, I was excited that I'd be able to run my bank app on my desktop. The app is a simple process to login, but the website has about 50 steps to login making it unappealing to use (probably on purpose).

You can, aith Windows subsystem for Android. Unsurprisingly, it's not going to be supported for much longer.

Re: EU age verification app not planning desktop support

#109
post #82
post #3

This is a great example of how this whole requirement hasn't been properly thought out. > Desktop support is not currently within the project's scope. What I would like to take from this is that, by their own definition, desktop apps are out of scope for Age Verification. So does that mean we will see a return of the 'desktop applications' instead of everything being a web service ? One can dream perhaps. Until then…

> Also this will completely disable any new phone OS' being developed. Why would anyone bother when you can't verify your wallet to do anything online. This already the case today, you can't run your bank's app or government eID apps on anything but Google or Apple devices.

True, but there are alternatives to using these services, though a bit more inconvenient. What will be the alternative to the age verification mobile app?

Re: EU age verification app not planning desktop support

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, looking around I see more people using smartphones for anything and even not having a PC…

I've seen this as well. It's getting increasingly normal, but I cannot imagine doing the same myself. There's a much bigger likelihood of me going back to a feature-phone, compared to me starting to use my phone for anything but the absolute basics.

I used to use a feature phone and I genuinely didn't miss any of the same things.

my commute is a really long ride and I just don't like using my phone in it.

My dumb phone had music system and sd card (I finally managed to have that sd card fixed after an year of using that dumbphone without even an sd card for music)

I just used to stare into nothingness / surrounding and think. (Yes I have edited it because I didn't used to think, I used to overthink just as I am doing right now lol)

Not that productive, but my current phone is so slow that I can't even tell you guys or start telling you. It takes me 1/2 a minute just to unlock it and the only thing its truly good at is having a music player run and some occasional hackernews or pokemon showdown or youtube scrolling.

But tbh, I don't have any banking apps etc. so to me there isn't thaaat much of a difference. I feel like a macbook is genuinely nice as it has that less friction and a pc is great too as compared to a phone for the most part when I am at home.

My screentime is usually just some shorts that I occassionaly watch on phone when I am extremelyyy bored.

I am sad that my dumb phone was in my bag one day and then it just stopped (working??) , I swear I kinda regret having my dad's old phone. I am not sure how he was even using it.

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