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Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

citizens-initiative.europa.eu

231–240 of 313 posts

Re: Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I truly believe unfettered access to endless scroll dopamine is bad for adults, but even more terrible for a developing mind. It reduces attention span, increases anxiety, etc. Pushing the onus on parents for healthy internet consumption is probably not effective because most families have both parents working jobs and can't be on top of their kids 24/7. Now... how to effectively address this problem without introduc…

> Pushing the onus on parents for healthy internet consumption is probably not effective because most families have both parents working jobs and can't be on top of their kids 24/7. So, the choice is surveillance state or nothing? I guess we choose not to solve the actual issue of overstressed parents working too much to parent their kids because there is no way to profit from that.

Parents who have enough time to parent also have enough time to take a critical look at what the government is doing and that would be bad for national security (defined as the security of those leading the nation).

Re: Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I truly believe unfettered access to endless scroll dopamine is bad for adults, but even more terrible for a developing mind. It reduces attention span, increases anxiety, etc. Pushing the onus on parents for healthy internet consumption is probably not effective because most families have both parents working jobs and can't be on top of their kids 24/7. Now... how to effectively address this problem without introduc…

Zero Knowledge Proofs, but the fact this isn't being implemented, despite various popular open source implementation existing [0], speaks volume. [0] https://github.com/google/longfellow-zk

How about adding a blockchain and AI to complete the buzzword bingo?

Re: Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

#233
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time I had police knocking at my door, it was a lot more than two, and they were readying their battering ram when I opened, and then immediately swarmed me and told me to sit down, and then I just explained and they realized their warrant was for a different address and they left. It was scary in the moment, but I never had a gun pointed at me and I wasn't even touched, so overall it left me with a rather p…

Unfortunately, reasonable men, perhaps virtually all reasonable men, can and will become more corrupted by expansive power. The fact that they were not corrupted when they had less leverage on the populace doesn't mean they will behave differently than other historical German (/human) apparats when they have a bit more of the intoxicating liquor. >r warrant was for a different address and they left. I am sorry but th…

Yeah, this read like someone reviewing a mob organization with "4/5 always polite when they come to collect".

I was initially convinced that it had to be sarcasm but since gp insists in keeping up the spiel in replies I am less sure now.

Re: Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people say things like this, they mean the good parts of the internet, e.g. real people who are able to be honest because a pseudonym allows them to say things they would be punished by evildoers for saying if the evildoers could identify them. Taking that away doesn't get you out of the engagement-optimized ad funnel, it just makes that be the only thing left.

Having a digital ID does not obviate that (in principle), thanks to zero-knowledge schemes. To my understanding then, the issue is that the EU's implementation only has a ZK-based solution in the plans so far. But then this initiative says "No Digital ID", not "No Auto-Deanonymizable Digital ID", so...

> Having a digital ID does not obviate that (in principle), thanks to zero-knowledge schemes.

Yes it does, because zero-knowledge schemes take it as an assumption that all of the people who are supposed to have credentials can be trusted not to share them with people who aren't, since you're proposing a system that provides no means for that to be detected. And this context doesn't allow that assumption.

With a normal ID, the entity required to demand ID compares the picture on the ID to the person using it, which obviously doesn't work when they're not being provided with any identifying information. You thereby have no way to know that the ID belongs to the user and anyone can allow anyone else to use their ID, thereby defeating the system.

Which means that the proponents would never be satisfied with the result and the only thing building that system does is entrench something with the shape of a non-consensual identification system, which will then have any ZK features disabled (assuming they were actually implemented to begin with) when the consequences prove unsatisfactory.

Re: Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

#235
post #191
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time I had police knocking at my door, it was a lot more than two, and they were readying their battering ram when I opened, and then immediately swarmed me and told me to sit down, and then I just explained and they realized their warrant was for a different address and they left. It was scary in the moment, but I never had a gun pointed at me and I wasn't even touched, so overall it left me with a rather p…

Serious question - looking around, do you really think "everything is going basically fine"?

Yes. I didn't vote for either of the parties in power, they implement many policies I disagree with, but this makes surprisingly little difference in practice.

Re: Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

#236

I want the right to not be identified. I also want the right to SELF identify . I think the toxic culture of the internet has happened in part because anonymity leads to lack of accountability. I want to self identify and interact with other people who also self identify. The cost of running LLM botnets is going down. I cannot imagine how the next cycle of elections is going to be like on all countries. I understand…

> I think the toxic culture of the internet has happened in part because anonymity leads to lack of accountability. It is trivial to demonstrate that this is incorrect (despite sounding plausible). There's plenty of incredibly toxic behavior to be found all over facebook. Among other considerations it's worth noting that most of the usual social feedback mechanisms are missing from typical online interactions. > The…

Exactly and the typical societal feedback mechanism for bad behavior are more terrible than the original problem when they are expanded to internet scale and become cancel culture.

Re: Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's plenty of incredibly toxic behavior to be found all over facebook. But is it comparable to the amount of toxic behavior on 4chan?

Yes, it is far worse because it gets personal far more quickly with non-anonymous users. People don't feel exhausted by 4chan, it is mostly the comparison to others on "legit" platforms. And to be frank, there is value in 4chan. Nobody would feel compelled to believe obvious bullshit some societies and cultures impose on its members. This shit needs a counterweight. That isn't 4chan of course, but any free platform.

In fully anonymous platforms like 4chan it also just takes one participan to step away to end a dispute unlike non-anonymous or pseudonomynous platforms where there are more avenues for continued harassment.

But really to have this discussion we first need a better definition of what we are talking about than nebolous "toxic behavior". I don't think anyone is going to dispute that 4chan posts are more likely to use crass language than those on Facebook so perhaps that is what gp considers toxic.

Re: Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, reasonable men, perhaps virtually all reasonable men, can and will become more corrupted by expansive power. The fact that they were not corrupted when they had less leverage on the populace doesn't mean they will behave differently than other historical German (/human) apparats when they have a bit more of the intoxicating liquor. >r warrant was for a different address and they left. I am sorry but th…

Yeah, this read like someone reviewing a mob organization with "4/5 always polite when they come to collect". I was initially convinced that it had to be sarcasm but since gp insists in keeping up the spiel in replies I am less sure now.

Do you think law enforcement shouldn't exist like the mob shouldn't exist, or do you think they should've gone differently about enforcing the law in this particular case?

Re: Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

#239

I want the right to not be identified. I also want the right to SELF identify . I think the toxic culture of the internet has happened in part because anonymity leads to lack of accountability. I want to self identify and interact with other people who also self identify. The cost of running LLM botnets is going down. I cannot imagine how the next cycle of elections is going to be like on all countries. I understand…

Toxic culture was always there but it really took of with social media where users often have zero shame to self-identify. There are anonymous communities that are far more friendly than the common insta group. "My brain" is perfectly fine with anonymous users. And yes, anonymity should be the default because otherwise the alternative is that you need to identify. If not, most users would stay anonymous because it is…

Exactly, it has much more to do with the size of the crowd than how easily the members can tie each other to real world identities.

Re: Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

#240
post #99

I'm glad they mention privacy preserving and being voluntary. It's possible to make digital ID that allows selectively revealing attributes without identity, and that could solve problems like bots, socketpuppets, etc along with reasonable age-gating. It could be an ideal internet if it's properly applied. The problem is it's difficult to verify all the promises are being kept, and if they're not it instantly becomes…

> I'm glad they mention privacy preserving and being voluntary. It's possible to make digital ID that allows selectively revealing attributes without identity

Not without either being able to trivially let others use your proofs OR ending open computing. There is no zero knowledge proof about the slab of meat sitting in front of the screen.

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