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What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

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Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#191

Post by sylos »

inigyou wrote: post #46
sneak wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t about kids at all. The ID requirement is the WHOLE POINT. That it is technically possible to do age verification in a privacy-preserving way is thus entirely irrelevant. They want all online activity tied to ID so they can violently, illegally retaliate in the dark of night against protected expression online that they don’t like. That’s all this is. Privacy-preserving techniques are irrelevant because the…

There is also, separately from that, a need to protect kids from growing up into the people in Idiocracy.

Getting children to not grow up into idiots requires intense parental interactions, healthy environments, and the ability to explore and get hurt. Identification isn't even on the list.

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#192

Post by spongebobstoes »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #134
js8 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there can be no consequences at T=0, but thanks to transparency, consequences can happen, by a collective decision, at T=1. Therefore having transparency is important on its own, it facilitates change towards fairness. And that's what I am saying - we should still ask for transparency even in the environment of no consequences. It's also possible that people are not sure about the lack of consequences, and again…

If we're in a position to ask for something, I would rather ask for consequences. We already know what bad stuff is being done: more transparency has marginal utility, under the circumstances.

transparency is knowledge, and is a prerequisite for accountability

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#193

Post by echoangle »

horsawlarway wrote: post #165
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way identity wallets work: The government issues an eID to your wallet. The ID is signed by the government and linked to the device to prevent transferring the credential. A public/private key-pair is generated by the secure enclave in your phone, the public key along with proof of possession of the private key is included in the request for the government eID. The government signs individual attributes combined…

> In practice this means no rooted/jailbroken phones. Personally - this is less acceptable to me than just having the site collect my image/id. I'd support just putting the id in a dedicated device (ex - gov issues smart key) or just accepting that sometimes people will share id info (just like... physical ids). It doesn't even close all the doors to transferring ids - since I can still just hand someone a phone (jus…

If you use physical ids to verify your identity, they normally verify that your face matches the image on the id, no? That’s not possible for web id.

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#194

Post by fluoridation »

CPLX wrote: post #115
donmcronald wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> buy a card with a UUID from anywhere that sells alcohol/tobacco that is valid for some period of time Why should I pay continuously to prove I'm an adult? And those cards will be getting sold to kids faster than you can blink. I bet a lot of parents would buy them for their kids.

Why should you pay for an internet connection, or a computing device with a screen? This isn't a serious counterargument.

Because those things cost money to make and to maintain, whereas there's no intrinsic cost to prove one is an adult.

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#195

Post by infinitezest »

inigyou wrote: post #52
actionfromafar wrote: post #14

Could we instead disallow algorithmic skinner-box addiction machines for everyone ?

How can you tell what one is? Reddit in 2010? Facebook in 2005? IRC in 1999?

Is heroin the same as beer? Who even knows.

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#196

Post by throw93939r »

intended wrote: post #179
Retr0id wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy-wise I think they're completely acceptable, but in terms of circumvention I don't think the politicians will be satisfied. It's barely a step up from the "I'm over 18" buttons on websites.

I believe kids will always find circumvention pathways. There is a signaling function these laws serve: things are the products we consider acceptable in society. We have these rules for cigarettes, booze, and vapes. That said, privacy being sacrificed for signals, is an unacceptable trade, especially when better solutions can be crafted.

[flagged]

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#197

Post by sdeframond »

donmcronald wrote: post #60
john_strinlai wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could you be more specific as to what you're imagining? sure, i'll put my favorite two. though you'll find much more detailed and thought-out versions of these (and others) in the dozens of other giant threads on the same topic. - buy a card with a UUID from anywhere that sells alcohol/tobacco that is valid for some period of time. most people are comfortable with flashing their ID at the clerk. the UUID card is no…

> buy a card with a UUID from anywhere that sells alcohol/tobacco that is valid for some period of time Why should I pay continuously to prove I'm an adult? And those cards will be getting sold to kids faster than you can blink. I bet a lot of parents would buy them for their kids.

> I bet a lot of parents would buy them for their kids.

That changes the default from "anyone can do anything" to "gotta ask parents". Defaults matter at scale. It adds friction.

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#198

Post by mindslight »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #178
cogman10 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And honestly, all these should ultimately just be done client side in the browser. After the browser has verified "User is x or user is over 21" there's no reason to then send that information to the website. Let websites issue a "window.isUserOver(16)" call once and then move forward based on the response to that query.

This would require browser attestation, wouldn't it? Otherwise kids are just going to download a custom build of Chromium where `window.isUserOver(16)` is always `True`.

No, it only "requires" browser attestation if we taken it as a given that the onus is on tech companies for verifying who they are talking to - ie identity verification that most of these schemes boil down to regardless of how cute they're dressed up.

To effectively keep adult content away from kids, it merely requires secure boot and closed app stores, which are already widespread. And they are only required on the devices actually given to kids, rather than every single computing device.

But this proposal has another problem: it's easy for a website to run isUserOver(n) in a loop to derive the exact age. And on a persistent account, it can be queried every day to derive an exact birthday! Which comes back to my main point that the only technical schemes we should be considering are ones where information strictly flows one way - the website/app supplies information to the browser/OS, which then [may] implement parental control policy. anything else fundamentally boils down to a mandate for identity verification.

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#199

Post by [deleted] »

Retr0id wrote: post #29
john_strinlai wrote: post #2

> "Age verification" means that everyone who does anything online will have to submit to fine-grained tracking and recording of all their online activities. its been said 1000 times here, but: age verification doesn't have to be a nightmare dystopia of 24/7 fine-grained tracking and recording unless you are somehow hoping to achieve 100% success rate (something we have not done with any other law ever). there are sev…

Where are these mythical sweet-spot solutions? Concretely, half the websites I visit from the UK want me to either scan my face or upload ID documents to access their full featureset. Now that users have been conditioned to accept this, nobody seems very interested in figuring out how to collect less PII - only insulating themselves from liability by having the data processed by a third party.

[deleted]

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#200

Post by betorabinovich »

here's alternative legislation that should be at least as effective without the mass surveillance aspect:

* as your kid's legal guardian you're legally liable for whatever the fuck your kid does, including but not limited to harming themselves: Parents should care for their kids

* platforms will do their best to not be available to minors unless minors are actually their core audience, will inform monthly how they did that, and the bottom 10% of achievers will pay an escalating percentual of their valuation as fine for each instance where they're found lacking: Platforms should care about kids as a category of people

* posession of personally identifiable information about an unrelated minor by any unrelated person/company without a clear and preapproved reason is grounds for a child abuse investigation on every person anywhere in the chain of custody of said data: Children's PII should be such a hassle to manage it's not worth taking

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