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

EFF launches Age Verification Hub

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 371 posts

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#141

Post by taeric »

saltcured wrote: post #111
no_wizard wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Worse, it leads to situations where society seems to want to flat out be kid free in many ways. With families reportedly afraid to let their kids walk to and from school unsupervised. I'm not seeing the correlation / causation here.

Not sure, but I think the earlier post is implying a (false) dichotomy between: A. "Your kid is not my problem" B. "Your kid is everyone's problem"

Less the false dichotomy, and more the stickiness of each of those options. To your point (I think), those aren't the only options available, but people do seem to be attracted quite heavily to them.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#142

Post by delusional »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #122
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am someone who is very privacy focused. I've literally never had a social media account on any platform and I'm 42. From day one of facebook, I never wanted my information online. Like many here, I'm deeply concerned about privacy and surveillance. In real life, we think age verification is a good thing. Kids shouldn't buy porn. Teenagers shouldn't get into bars. etc... There has to be room somewhere for reasonable…

In the online world you can’t make sure of anything. Florida for instance requires age verification for porn sites. Guess how many mainstream sites not based in the US are completely ignoring the law and guess how many others are easily accessible via a VPN? If you guessed the sum total of both is less than 100%, you would be wrong - and even that is tilted toward sites that just ignored it. The one thing you can con…

> I can absolutely guarantee you that any teenager can easily get access to weed, cigarettes and alcohol

Is you argument then that we shouldn't age gate those things in reality either? Would you suggest that teenagers smoke and drink just as much as they would have had it been legal to sell to minors?

Laws don't just exist to stop you, they also exist to shape society. They exist as signals for what we deem appropriate behavior.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#143

Post by delusional »

reorder9695 wrote: post #116
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am someone who is very privacy focused. I've literally never had a social media account on any platform and I'm 42. From day one of facebook, I never wanted my information online. Like many here, I'm deeply concerned about privacy and surveillance. In real life, we think age verification is a good thing. Kids shouldn't buy porn. Teenagers shouldn't get into bars. etc... There has to be room somewhere for reasonable…

In real life the situation is different. When I buy alcohol, someone looks at my drivers licence, does not make a copy of it, forgets it quickly, and cannot tie it to other information about me. As soon as it's online and it's copies, I can't tell what happens on anyone else's servers. I don't want any company knowing my actual name and location, then that can be tied to more data, which is what Google etc have been…

A lot of the proposals don't involve you sending your drivers license or "other information" to anyone. The site in question asks you to verify with a trusted third party (usually a government entity), and that trusted third party only provides then with the end result of the validation.

> which is what Google etc have been trying to do for years but this would just completely fast track that.

Excuse me? They have done that for years. There's nothing to "fast track" here. Big Tech already implemented surveillance.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#144

Post by quitit »

zmmmmm wrote: post #114

I feel like the EFF has stretched a bit far on this one. They need to be advocating for good solutions, not portraying age verification as fundamentally about surveillance and censorship. As many are pointing out zero knowledge proofs exist and resolve most of the issues they are referring to. And it doesn't have to be complex. A government (or bank, or anybody that has an actual reason to know your identity) provide…

There are overwhelming dichotomous portrayals in this debate which gives me pause because there are entities who benefit from both sides of this debate, but neither would benefit with a sensible privacy-preserving solution.

So instead of advocating for those sensible and workable solutions, the discussions are always centred on either blocking any attempt at reform while hyperventilating about vague authoritarianism or a similarly vague need to protect the innocent.

Meanwhile in the world of smartphone data providers, social media networks, and the meta/googles of the world: they all know your personal information and identity up to the wazoo - and have far more information on every one of you than what is possessed by your own governments (well except for the governments that are also buying up that data.)

So let me be clear, the gate is open, the horse has bolted - recapturing your privacy is where attention should be focused in this debate... even if it's bad for shareholders.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#145

Post by delusional »

pksebben wrote: post #130
tzs wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The issue I'm trying to sound the horn on is that the current push for AF in the US and EU has nothing to do with kids . I think you could put together a working group on ZKPs and Age Verification, write up a paper and run experiments, and when you bring it to the lawmakers they're gonna say something to the tune of: The EU is currently doing large-scale field tries of the EU Digital Identity Wallet, which they hav…

I appreciate the mention - i had not yet heard of this EU DIW thing. That said, I can't find any resources on it that mention the use of ZKPs. Could you share a link?

[flagged]

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#146

Post by thinkingtoilet »

like_any_other wrote: post #123
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am someone who is very privacy focused. I've literally never had a social media account on any platform and I'm 42. From day one of facebook, I never wanted my information online. Like many here, I'm deeply concerned about privacy and surveillance. In real life, we think age verification is a good thing. Kids shouldn't buy porn. Teenagers shouldn't get into bars. etc... There has to be room somewhere for reasonable…

> In real life, we think age verification is a good thing. Ok. In real life, do we think having agents from the government and corporations following you everywhere, writing down your every move and word, is a good thing? Or rather, what kind of crime would one have to have committed, so that they would only be allowed out in public with surveillance agents trailing them everywhere?

I don't, but society clearly does. We're already there.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#147

Post by crote »

magicalhippo wrote: post #136
pksebben wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like many mention in other comments on this post, it's possible to implement using ZKPs. There are likely other methods that would be effective without compromising privacy. None of them are part of the Age Verification discussion because kids are not the actual point of Age Verification. When I say "if we have to know you're not a kid, we have to know who you are" I'm not stating an actual truth , but the argument a…

> None of them are part of the Age Verification discussion because kids are not the actual point of Age Verification. The EU age verification solution says implementations SHOULD implement[1] their ZKP protocol[2]. Not linking it to the user is stated as an explicit goal: Unlinkability: The goal of the solution is to prevent user profiling and tracking by avoiding linkable transactions. Initially, the solution will r…

If privacy is an explicit goal, why isn't it a MUST? Why even bother with the initial batch issuance phase? And what's stopping them from silently adopting a batch size of 1?

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#148

Post by crote »

delusional wrote: post #143
reorder9695 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In real life the situation is different. When I buy alcohol, someone looks at my drivers licence, does not make a copy of it, forgets it quickly, and cannot tie it to other information about me. As soon as it's online and it's copies, I can't tell what happens on anyone else's servers. I don't want any company knowing my actual name and location, then that can be tied to more data, which is what Google etc have been…

A lot of the proposals don't involve you sending your drivers license or "other information" to anyone. The site in question asks you to verify with a trusted third party (usually a government entity), and that trusted third party only provides then with the end result of the validation. > which is what Google etc have been trying to do for years but this would just completely fast track that. Excuse me? They have do…

How many of those proposals do not have a government-mandated app as a spider in the middle of the web, which is aware of all the apps and websites you try to visit which ask for validation?

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#149

Post by magicalhippo »

phyzome wrote: post #115
knallfrosch wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we have to know that you're not a minor, then we also have to know who you are That is untrue

Are you aware of any age verification systems that do not have this property? (This includes being robust against law enforcement action, legal or otherwise.)

> Are you aware of any age verification systems that do not have this property?

As I understand it, it's the goal of OpenID4VP[1][2]. Using it a site can request to know if the user is over 18 say, and the user can return proof of just that one claim, I'm over 18, without sharing identifying information.

The new EU age verification solution[3] builds on this for example.

[1]: https://openid.net/specs/openid-4-verifiable-presentations-1...

[2]: https://docs.walt.id/concepts/data-exchange-protocols/openid...

[3]: https://ageverification.dev/

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#150

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

delusional wrote: post #142
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the online world you can’t make sure of anything. Florida for instance requires age verification for porn sites. Guess how many mainstream sites not based in the US are completely ignoring the law and guess how many others are easily accessible via a VPN? If you guessed the sum total of both is less than 100%, you would be wrong - and even that is tilted toward sites that just ignored it. The one thing you can con…

> I can absolutely guarantee you that any teenager can easily get access to weed, cigarettes and alcohol Is you argument then that we shouldn't age gate those things in reality either? Would you suggest that teenagers smoke and drink just as much as they would have had it been legal to sell to minors? Laws don't just exist to stop you, they also exist to shape society. They exist as signals for what we deem appropria…

So we make meaningless laws that inconsistently enforced? What do you think happens when little Johnny is caught with weed in his car in a 95% White high income school district vs little Jerome in a 95% Black school district?

Also how much “shaping of society” do you expect to happen when you pass a law that no one respects?

How many kids do you think a law is going to stop from going to the porn sites that completely ignored the law?

How many kids say “I really want to smoke weed but it’s illegally so I won’t do it”?

Post reply on HN