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US Bill Mandates On-Device Age Verification

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141–150 of 369 posts

Re: US Bill Mandates On-Device Age Verification

#141

I'm glad I got to see the era where the internet was useful and exciting. I feel like every major change since about 2010 has pushed it more toward blandness and made it less useful. This will be a big one. They're building the groundwork for a world-wide dystopia.

Come join us on what I will call the “scatternet”, the globally distributed, offline-first, async network full of all the things that made the old Internet great.

Save a few ISOs of still-free OSes and hoard a few extra cheap computers. (You might also want to get a 10Mhz capable radio.)

Re: US Bill Mandates On-Device Age Verification

#142
I read the bill and I feel like it's missing any technical details. It's almost like they read my suggestion [1] but then left some parts out. The technical parts. As I read it one can just enter whatever name, age and other details in the setup of a computer they desire. It's missing any checks for a header on the server to detect adult content labels. What am I missing? What forces me to enter my real information? Are operating system developers going to be granted access to the DMV databases? Or forced to use some third party that scratched the back of some politicians? If I block connectivity to this will I not be able to log in? If someone performs a successful DDoS to the site will I not be able to log in? It feels like several pages of the bill are missing. How does the OS know it is visiting an adult site?

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46152074

Re: US Bill Mandates On-Device Age Verification

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, derangement is declaring "The writing has been on the wall for some time now: the era of completely unrestricted internet is coming to an end." without fighting it at all and just mindlessly accepting it because you were told it was going to happen. It should be really easy to get your bank account information then. You're just going to give it to me, right? What is this? You're fighting me tooth and nail instead…

It's derangement to jump from an adult/not-adult bit to bank account information.

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Re: US Bill Mandates On-Device Age Verification

#144
post #2

Do we know who is funding this? is this one of these things where Meta doesn't want the responsibility for this, so they are pushing to have the OS have the responsibility or something like that?

> is this one of these things where Meta doesn't want the responsibility for this

Very likely, given the legal liability they are already facing from the "addictive" court cases that are turning against them. Moving the liability for "age verification" away means they will not also be facing a huge number of court cases accusing them of showing an underage person adult age content provided they followed the law's proscribed "ask the OS for the user's age" requirements.

Also, note that only a few months ago Zuckerberg was in court testifying that the single best place to perform "age verification" was in the operating system of a device. Now, like mushrooms after a long rain, at roughly the same time up pop bills in nearly every statehouse, Congress, even Brazil, that all read nearly identically and that all are so broad as to require "the OS in anything with a CPU do age verification". The nearly identical text in each highly implies a single lobbying entity is behind all of them (it would be quite the coincidence that 50 state houses, plus Congress and Brazil, all write nearly identical bills independently). And the connection back to Zuck's court testimony of "age verification is best done in the OS" highly implies that the single lobbying entity is Meta, or funded by Meta to obtain this outcome.

Re: US Bill Mandates On-Device Age Verification

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This bill requires actual verification and leaves it up to the politically controlled FTC to determine how this should happen. It’s a disaster. > The Parents Decide Act solves the self-reported-birthday problem by demanding something verifiable, which in practice means a government ID, a credit card, a biometric scan, or some combination. > However, Gottheimer has not specified which. The bill does not either. It’s u…

The article's analysis doesn't appear to be accurate. From the bill: (a) Requirements.—An operating system provider, with respect to any operating system of such provider, shall carry out the following: (1) Require any user of the operating system to provide the date of birth of the user in order to— (A) set up an account on the operating system; and (B) use the operating system. (2) If the relevant user of the opera…

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Re: US Bill Mandates On-Device Age Verification

#146
post #142

I read the bill and I feel like it's missing any technical details. It's almost like they read my suggestion [1] but then left some parts out. The technical parts. As I read it one can just enter whatever name, age and other details in the setup of a computer they desire. It's missing any checks for a header on the server to detect adult content labels. What am I missing? What forces me to enter my real information?…

They have dropped all the decision making for the details in the lap of the politically controlled FTC. Which also means that future FTCs could change the rules based on political goals.

Re: US Bill Mandates On-Device Age Verification

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids having $20-30 means you're fine with them being unsupervised? Computers and smartphones are incredibly cheap. In person, we expect stores won't sell cigarettes to kids. We should simply expect companies won't provide age restricted services to kids. The liability and requirements should be on those companies.

If they're able to get a burner phone unsupervised then I think they could also pay an adult to do the face scan for them or borrow your ID from your purse to authenticate an account. What level of security would you need to totally prevent that kind of thing? Unless it checks your age every time you log in with biometrics I don't see it. (Of course adding any level of friction will deter some kids, but needing to ge…

We could e.g. try saying it's sufficient that the user makes ongoing credit cards payments as a proof of age. Or sure maybe you need to verify with every purchase, which is how e.g. alcohol works.

Don't currently take payments for your business model? Probably what you're doing is anticompetitive and we shouldn't allow it anyway.

Re: US Bill Mandates On-Device Age Verification

#149
post #51
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is with government mandates. Apple and Google already ship OSes with comprehensive APIs and parental controls. There's not even any porn on the iOS App Store by policy. Creating liability for random OS and app developers is absurd, and foreign porn websites aren't going to comply with this anyway.

Reddit and X are on the stores. I guess browsers are on the stores, at least on Android where they aren't necessarily Safari reskins.

You can just configure the device to not give the child the ability to download apps without approval.

Re: US Bill Mandates On-Device Age Verification

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Vendors shouldn't sell unlocked devices to kids. This part is neither necessary nor sufficient. Put aside the Orwellian premise of "devices are locked by default". People keep making the analogy to things like cigarettes, but if a kid wants a steady supply of cigarettes then they need a steady supplier. If they want an "unlocked device" they just need money and Craigslist, once. It doesn't matter what you make Walm…

Kids having $20-30 means you're fine with them being unsupervised? Computers and smartphones are incredibly cheap. In person, we expect stores won't sell cigarettes to kids. We should simply expect companies won't provide age restricted services to kids. The liability and requirements should be on those companies.

You are gliding past the crucial difference: detecting that someone is a minor in person is magnitudes easier than doing so online.
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