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Kids can bypass some age checks with a drawn-on mustache

theregister.com

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Re: Kids can bypass some age checks with a drawn-on mustache

#171

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #157
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you end it with "and make a good easy to use technical solution instead" then you found my stance. That assumes a good easy to use technical solution is possible . What if classifying user-generated content as safe for kids is enormously subjective, and the labor required to accurately classify it even given a hypothetical objective standard would cost more than users are willing to pay to have it done?

The issue at hand of figuring out ages would not take much labor no matter how you did it.

It seems worth thinking past step one if you intend to do something. Even if you had some reliable way to know someone's age, what are you going to do with it in the context of information availability? The proposal is building a privacy-invasive age-leaking system (do you actually want adversarial/malicious services knowing when someone is a vulnerable kid?). There is no point in doing that if the "good thing" it's supposed to enable is actually a hopeless omnishambles.

Meanwhile we don't have any sound technical means of verifying age over the internet. The "use government ID" approaches are among the least effective because you have no good way to tell if the person behind the screen is the person on the ID.

Re: Kids can bypass some age checks with a drawn-on mustache

#172

Post by aussieguy1234 »

gloosx wrote: post #127

When I was a kid, I went as far as to install a key-logger on the computer to get the master password from the parental controls, silently disabling them when I wanted and enabling them again when I'm done so parents would never notice. It's almost sad this AI age verification bs doesn't even pose too big of a challenge for kid's creativity

Sounds like you were more sophisticated as a kid than your adult parents

Re: Kids can bypass some age checks with a drawn-on mustache

#173

Post by OkayPhysicist »

aussieguy1234 wrote: post #172
gloosx wrote: post #127

When I was a kid, I went as far as to install a key-logger on the computer to get the master password from the parental controls, silently disabling them when I wanted and enabling them again when I'm done so parents would never notice. It's almost sad this AI age verification bs doesn't even pose too big of a challenge for kid's creativity

Sounds like you were more sophisticated as a kid than your adult parents

Kids are highly motivated, and have a lot of free time. They make truly obnoxious adversaries.

Re: Kids can bypass some age checks with a drawn-on mustache

#174

Post by dreadsword »

gloosx wrote: post #127

When I was a kid, I went as far as to install a key-logger on the computer to get the master password from the parental controls, silently disabling them when I wanted and enabling them again when I'm done so parents would never notice. It's almost sad this AI age verification bs doesn't even pose too big of a challenge for kid's creativity

Hardcore!

Re: Kids can bypass some age checks with a drawn-on mustache

#175

Post by dreadsword »

Cakez0r wrote: post #90
zeec123 wrote: post #25

The result will be age verification with a passport or ID "to protect the children". Probably this was the goal all along.

Tier 1 networks legally not allowed to route packets that aren't digitally signed by a cryptographic ID linked to you

Yeesh thats chilling

Re: Kids can bypass some age checks with a drawn-on mustache

#176

Post by EmbarrassedHelp »

data-ottawa wrote: post #109
palata wrote: post #102

Reading the comments here, I see a lot of criticism along the line of "age verification doesn't work, it's completely stupid". I believe it is counter-productive, because "not having age verification" is a lost battle. Unlike E2EE (where it is impossible to give access "only to the good guys"), it is possible to implement age verification in a privacy-preserving manner. And look at the ChatControl fight: even though…

I'm writing my (Canadian) MP to this effect. There are a lot of issues with the UK approach. Privacy is a big one. But requiring this on every service is both a tax on the service and requires constantly authorizing stuff. That opens up the possibility for scams, data misuse, etc. And no, saying we said to only use the data for verification clearly doesn't work. It didn't work for discord, or Persona, or Tea or AU10T…

There is no such thing as privacy protecting or anonymous age verification. If you tell Canadian that such a thing is possible, they are guaranteed to harm privacy with any legislation they proposal. Just tell them no.

Re: Kids can bypass some age checks with a drawn-on mustache

#177

Post by EmbarrassedHelp »

data-ottawa wrote: post #84

If you’re in Canada please write your MP about bill S-209, which brings this nonsense here. As someone on a tech forum, we’re the only people who can really articulate the issues with the age verification approach. It’s really the worst solution to these problems with awful tradeoffs.

You should also write the Cabinet Ministers, including the heritage minister Marc Miller.

Re: Kids can bypass some age checks with a drawn-on mustache

#178

Post by throwawaytea »

Hoodedcrow wrote: post #168
qball wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most parents are too afraid of the State kidnappers (and the Karens who call them) for that.

IDK about "most", there are plenty of kids on the streets. Like, just going to and from school and extracurriculars gives opportunities.

Come on be honest.. it's like 10% of what it was in the past.

Re: Kids can bypass some age checks with a drawn-on mustache

#179

Post by davkan »

aussieguy1234 wrote: post #172
gloosx wrote: post #127

When I was a kid, I went as far as to install a key-logger on the computer to get the master password from the parental controls, silently disabling them when I wanted and enabling them again when I'm done so parents would never notice. It's almost sad this AI age verification bs doesn't even pose too big of a challenge for kid's creativity

Sounds like you were more sophisticated as a kid than your adult parents

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Re: Kids can bypass some age checks with a drawn-on mustache

#180

Post by palata »

hellojesus wrote: post #162
palata wrote: post #102

Reading the comments here, I see a lot of criticism along the line of "age verification doesn't work, it's completely stupid". I believe it is counter-productive, because "not having age verification" is a lost battle. Unlike E2EE (where it is impossible to give access "only to the good guys"), it is possible to implement age verification in a privacy-preserving manner. And look at the ChatControl fight: even though…

To date I haven't seen an implementation that preserves privacy and doesn't allow for easy bypass because person A generated infinite tokens and hands them out via a rest request.

I have seen implementations that preserve privacy. But fundamentally it means that an adult could give a token to a kid, as you say. But how bad is that? We don't need a perfect system, we just need it to be good enough that it prevents most kids from accessing stuff they shouldn't access. Some kids will always find a way anyway.

A simple solution to "generate infinite token and hands them out via a rest request" could be one of:

* Rate-limit the token generation. Nobody needs thousands per day, right?

* Make it illegal to distribute tokens. The server sees if you request an abnormal amount of tokens, and... it knows who you are. Not too hard to investigate.

* Make "honeypots" that scare the children when they try to access/buy the token.

I don't think it makes the concept completely useless.

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