Could we step back a little and maybe revisit the premise that we need the gov't to be protecting children to begin with? That's what parents are supposed to be doing.
What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance
211–220 of 520 posts
Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance
#212Earlier 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.
You can get their exact age by binary search.
Typically these APIs are designed so you can't make arbitrary queries, but rather there are fixed age brackets.
Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance
#213This whole shitshow thread is a bunch of techies coming up with more inane and erudite ways to implement spying on every web activity, but 'technically better'.
And people here are NOT asking why its even needed at all. This is what those ethics classes are for - not asking HOW to make, but whether we should at all.
And invasive country identity level online personas is NEVER something we should ever go for. This is basically "FLOCK ONLINE". And we see how devastating Flock is, even when pigs only have access.
No ID scans. No eyeball scans. No face scans. Im done with all of it.
Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> 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.
...I guess I don't really see the difference.
Closed app stores are widespread on some platforms but certainly not others, and I for one would really like them to not spread any further.
Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance
#215> "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…
So let's see some of the champions of these systems acknowledge this downside and make the case that they should be built in a way that avoids it and not back down on that when it becomes inconvenient.
Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yes there is.
You need to pay for a drivers license or a passport and so on. So there is an intrinsic cost to prove who you are where you are from and what your birthday is already.
You have to pay for all sorts of small things to participate in normal society. This isn't a serious criticism.
By definition this is not a life critical thing, it's something that is procured in order to access specific services on the internet, which is not free.
Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance
#217My main concern is transparency. How do we know that the ruling/governing class is not abusing these monitoring systems and exempting themselves from monitoring? If we are all subject to the same monitoring and there are no exceptions, that would be fair. However, if some people are exempt from monitoring because of their connections, relations, etc. then that would be unfair. And if some people are allowed to harass…
> We need full transparency.
A couple years ago I would have tended to agree with you, transparency would be a good first step. But then I have recently seen demonstrated that transparency just proves that you do not need to hide corruption as long as a powerful bloc of voters actually agrees with your corrupt position. I think what we really are going to need is consequences defined ahead of time, along with an enforcement mechanism not easily corrupted itself. This is hard. But it is a topic we will hopefully be spending quality time working out over the next few years anyway.
Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance
#218> "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…
I am convinced that no one will make any progress on this issue so long as they refuse to understand that their aren't a group of shadowy figures pushing for this but rather a sizeable chunk of the general population, buoyed on by various moral outrage interest groups including a great many HNers who have been happily stoking the narrative that social media is the cause of every negative statistical ill. Who wants th…
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Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What makes you think this will be close to 90%? Unless these cards are expensive I don't see that happening. its obviously just an illustrative guess. but if the penalty of possessing the card is similar to underage possession of alcohol/tobacco, and larger penalties if a store/person is found providing a card to someone underage, i see no reason why it wouldnt have a similar success rate as alcohol/tobacco.
Why possess the card when you can just buy the UUID on the dark web
If they have access to the "dark web" they can already do anything that requires age verification there. In the same way you expect that the rule to "not sell UUIDs" wouldn't be respected there, I wouldn't expect other age-verification rules to be respected, no matter the verification method.
Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance
#220> "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…
So let's see some of the champions of these systems acknowledge this downside and make the case that they should be built in a way that avoids it and not back down on that when it becomes inconvenient.
Why would they ever do that? The spying is the point.