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EU Age Control: The trojan horse for digital IDs

juraj.bednar.io

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Re: EU Age Control: The trojan horse for digital IDs

#181

Post by [deleted] »

rglullis wrote: post #178
ragall wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, I should say, things are enforced after the fact, through the possibility of criminal charges or civil lawsuits. Enforcement doesn't mean that crime is made impossible, just that there is enough deterrent.

Except there isn't enough deterrent. The big companies are still mining user data, they are just forced to use some extra dark patterns to trick people into compliance. Would-be criminals are not going to stop being criminals because of the threat of fines. And TLAs are not going to wait for due process to acquire access to data legally. All that GDPR does is give the illusion that people are being protected and CYA…

[deleted]

Re: EU Age Control: The trojan horse for digital IDs

#182

Post by pando85 »

jeroenhd wrote: post #59

It's not a trojan horse, it's spelled out in the decision, debates, and legal texts to be the explicit goal. The age verification requirement was picked both as a means to prove the technology is sound and as a simple starting point for a full digital ID solution. The EU already has some form of digital ID in fact, every government provides some kind of OIDC-like service tied to either smart cards or accounts that au…

Age verification today, digital ID tomorrow, mandatory tracking forever. The pattern never changes.

Re: EU Age Control: The trojan horse for digital IDs

#183

Post by coldtea »

schubidubiduba wrote: post #27
coldtea wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My government has been talking for a while making the case that social media use makes us dumber, sadder, and more scared. I believe it's true that they also see that playing out in elections, but that's not where they want to solve a problem. The governments themselves are "dumber, sadder, and more scared". They are worried because social media puts regular people talking on equal footing to official propagandas (…

You couldn't be more wrong. There's no equal footing when propaganda buys you thousands of bots to parrot what you want on every related post. And there is no ability to "reach everyone" when intransparent algorithms decide what reaches who. Moreover, some kind of content is explicitly suppressed and censored.

All of that is still irrelevant if the people can still express themselves. The truth can rise on top of bots.

The problem is the algorithm and the "explicitly suppressed and censored" and that's on the governments and corporations. So that's the worst argument for giving the government more control.

Re: EU Age Control: The trojan horse for digital IDs

#184

Post by xorcist »

pzo wrote: post #90
rglullis wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, imagine if every convenience store had CCTV security filming everyone 24/7. Oh, wait...

they don't know necessary who are you and what are you buying. I don't think also for big shops with many customers that techonology and reliably do instance segmentation - this is not face id.

Do you not pay for you groceries? Then the store probably has a good idea about your identity. In any case, they payment processor knows exactly who you are, and the store and anyone else who cares can buy this information online, albeit in a slightly obfuscated form.

Unless you live at some place where they still accept cash of course, but the writing is on the wall already.

Re: EU Age Control: The trojan horse for digital IDs

#185

Post by dzhiurgis »

petre wrote: post #130
jeroenhd wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair to some of them, across the Atlantic the Americans are implementing similar laws in absolutely ridiculous ways. Many Americans don't even have ID (and plenty of those are reluctant to the general concept of any kind of government ID), let alone any kind of digital ID. However, their governments are pushing frankly weird and absurd ID verification laws to businesses online. Meta seems to be bankrolling lobb…

Relax, it would probably buit by Palantir and operated by Meta /s.

You joke, but at least it would work well, be secure and cost appropriate. All at a cost of imaginary privacy that you don’t have already.

Re: EU Age Control: The trojan horse for digital IDs

#186

Post by dzhiurgis »

greenavocado wrote: post #125
bootsmann wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What surveillance capacity? In what way does the spec build surveillance capacity?

Mandatory app installation through the mandatory state sanctioned rootkit Google Play store and 4G/5G LTE modems on-chip management engines. And that doesn't even cover the ubiquitous app data partnerships which report your information upstream.

97% of population is ok with this

Re: EU Age Control: The trojan horse for digital IDs

#187

Post by dzhiurgis »

jcattle wrote: post #91
jdrek1 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is what follows. They will make it mandatory to use the electronic ID to do anything, resulting in total surveillance. And if you happen to land on their "bad" list (which eventually everyone will), you're locked out of life completely. No banking, no traveling, no communication with anyone, no buying food, nothing.

"They" will make it mandatory? Who is they? How will the current approach result in total surveillance? I would much prefer hotels would have a scanner which just transmits the bare minimum of identifiable information from the ID instead of it being completely normalized in many countries/hotels that they take your ID card and scan the full thing. Can you explain to me, how with an eID one would be prevented from com…

> Who is they?

You see, the government wants to control the people so they can control the government /s

Re: EU Age Control: The trojan horse for digital IDs

#188

Post by throw-the-towel »

dwedge wrote: post #105
jeroenhd wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And unlike in the real world, there's little to no real benefit to it online. What value is there to industrializing any of this? Kids who will pay someone for their age tokens to watch porn or create social media would probably be smart enough to download a free VPN instead. Even in the very worst case scenario for the designers of this system, where large amounts of people manage to extract their tokens and hand th…

This "they'll just use a vpn" argument is infuriating to me because it's being used to downplay intrusive laws and make them more palatable. The obvious next step (the UK already hinted at it after the online safety act) is forcing VPNs to do ID verification.

And then, blocking the VPNs that don't comply, Russia style. (If you're sure It Can't Happen Here,[0] you're part of the problem.)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can%27t_Happen_Here

Re: EU Age Control: The trojan horse for digital IDs

#189

Post by zrn900 »

schubidubiduba wrote: post #27
coldtea wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My government has been talking for a while making the case that social media use makes us dumber, sadder, and more scared. I believe it's true that they also see that playing out in elections, but that's not where they want to solve a problem. The governments themselves are "dumber, sadder, and more scared". They are worried because social media puts regular people talking on equal footing to official propagandas (…

You couldn't be more wrong. There's no equal footing when propaganda buys you thousands of bots to parrot what you want on every related post. And there is no ability to "reach everyone" when intransparent algorithms decide what reaches who. Moreover, some kind of content is explicitly suppressed and censored.

Statistics showed that bots don't change opinions. The only reason why certain establishments scream about them is to explain their election losses. People have very deep biases, and 'randos' blabbering online does not change them. It doesn't matter whether those 'randos' are bots or are real.

Re: EU Age Control: The trojan horse for digital IDs

#190

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

May I share a different perspective

"EU Age Control" is not a Trojan Horse. The software (app) does what it purports to do. No one _wants_ to use it

The "Trojan Horse" is the corporate mobile OS. It's a "free gift". People such as the author happily accept it. These people _want_ to use the corporate mobile OS for what they believe it is, which is something other than software to defeat privacy for the benefit of Google, Apple and their advertiser business partners and customers

People don't think of the software as performing that function. Meanwhile it is the core "business model" of its distributor. The corporate mobile OS is a Trojan Horse

This is why the "age verification" app only works when using the corporate mobile OS. The author states:

"The apps will not work unless you have a Google or Apple approved device. Forget Linux, GrapheneOS, Huawei, after-market firmwares. It's part of the security model."

The bogus justification for requesting ID is not "age verification" it is "security". That's the nonsense reason why the computer owner cannot use an OS he/she compiles himself/herself and why people happily accept the Trojan Horse. The corporate mobile OS is an instrument of data collection, surveillance and online advertising but that's not how the author sees it. He does not see what's inside, he sees a beautiful "free gift"

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