At least for my discord, I still can't access channels marked NSFW, instead of showing me the verification screen it just says "failed to load messages".
Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"
31–40 of 208 posts
Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"
#32Presenting government ID to random entities is literally what government ID's exist for. Paranoia about this is silly. Additionally, intentionally aiding someone (especially a minor) in circumventing the law is very likely to not be legal, especially when legality is largely determined by a jury, and especially^2 when the facts of the case against you are the most egregious that the government can find, especially^3…
> Paranoia about this is silly.
Having had to deal with some clients with slightly sensitive data, I wish. Photocopies and printed screenshots lying around in the open, CC data copy-pasted manually to other fields or to generic excel sheets because otherwise "it disappears and we can't book late fees" etc. Not even only the "random third-party" companies vetted and specialised in ID verification, but then they get a new support contract down the road, and a fourth- or fifth-party agent who had the cheapest offer now has remote admin access to those desktops.
Probability is low, true. But all it takes is one compromised access.
We all choose our battles probably.
Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"
#33As a remark, not a criticism, such a deliberate promotion is probably illegal in the UK market, > "But Ofcom says platforms required to introduce "highly effective" methods to check user age must not host, share or permit content that encourages use of VPNs to get around age checks. The government has also told the BBC it would be illegal for platforms to do so." https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn72ydj70g5o
For people who don't live in the UK, why should they care about UK law?
NextDNS is a company not a person. The have infrastructure in the UK and presumably have UK customers, so they should care about UK law.
Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"
#34At least for my discord, I still can't access channels marked NSFW, instead of showing me the verification screen it just says "failed to load messages".
Likewise, unable to get it working myself (tested with reddit and bluesky - both ask for verification still).
Will be keeping an eye on this though, hopefully this can be an alternative to my Irish VPN in the future.
Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"
#35I am a user of nextdns and okay, this is really neato team! I find this really interesting. If I may ask, what are the dns tricks, is there a blog post about what you added, I am sooo curious about what sorcery is nextdns using. Edit: I searched on ddg and there was a ghacks.net link and a alternativeto.net article and sadly ghacks was taking a long time to load and I just read the alternativeto.net article and it wa…
> If I may ask, what are the dns tricks, is there a blog post about what you added, I am sooo curious about what sorcery is nextdns using.
It is likely they use some form of SNI-based proxy, similar to: https://github.com/celzero/midway
The way this works is, for preset domains, you always answer with the IP of your SNI proxy, which then forwards the connection to the real IP based on the domain in TLS's SNI extension. This "trick" only works for TLS connections that send SNI in the clear, and will not work with QUIC (HTTP/3) or with TLS v1.3 with ECH (encrypted client hello). For non-TLS connections, like cleartext HTTP/2 or HTTP/1, the proxy would look at the Host header. Similar heuristics may exist for other popular cleartext protocols.
ControlD, a similar DNS provider, has supported redirections for a long time now: https://controld.com/features/traffic-redirection
If you own enough public IPs (like a /64 IPv6 or a /22 IPv4), you can vend time-limited unique IP per domain per client IP and support all transport protocols (and not just TLS/HTTP).
Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"
#36It may not be effective in the long term, but I think it's very much worth doing. The privacy nightmare of uploading government docs is appalling and should be resisted by all who can, so I think you're doing great work. If it provokes regulators to push harder, they might just get enough attention from voters to motivate a change. That would be my hope anyway
> More and more sites (especially adult ones) are now forcing users to upload IDs or selfies to continue.
> they might just get enough attention from voters to motivate a change
Unfortunately, guaranteeing anonymous internet porno is a terrible political beachhead to motivate "voters" to do anything.
Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"
#37That’s a bold move. Handing over IDs to random sites is definitely a privacy nightmare, so I get why you built this. The real question is whether it buys time for users or just accelerates the push for stricter regulation. Either way, it sparks an important conversation
Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"
#38I am a user of nextdns and okay, this is really neato team! I find this really interesting. If I may ask, what are the dns tricks, is there a blog post about what you added, I am sooo curious about what sorcery is nextdns using. Edit: I searched on ddg and there was a ghacks.net link and a alternativeto.net article and sadly ghacks was taking a long time to load and I just read the alternativeto.net article and it wa…
so does it work like this?:
- Client makes a DNS request to ageblockedsite.com using NextDNS server
- NextDNS server returns an IP to a proxy server they control
- Client connects to the site through the proxy server
Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"
#39Presenting government ID to random entities is literally what government ID's exist for. Paranoia about this is silly. Additionally, intentionally aiding someone (especially a minor) in circumventing the law is very likely to not be legal, especially when legality is largely determined by a jury, and especially^2 when the facts of the case against you are the most egregious that the government can find, especially^3…
>Presenting government ID to random entities is literally what government ID's exist for.
Wrong lmao. All forms of Government ID are PII and should be treated as sensitive.
https://www.esafety.gov.au/young-people/protecting-your-iden... Heres basic information from a government looking to enact these same laws.
>Nearly every app, social media platform or website asks you for at least some personally identifiable information. But this data can be stolen or misused. That’s why it’s important to keep it as private and secure as possible. If you have to share it, make sure it’s only used by trusted services with your knowledge and consent.
Wow thats great advice.
Re: Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification"
#40As a remark, not a criticism, such a deliberate promotion is probably illegal in the UK market, > "But Ofcom says platforms required to introduce "highly effective" methods to check user age must not host, share or permit content that encourages use of VPNs to get around age checks. The government has also told the BBC it would be illegal for platforms to do so." https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn72ydj70g5o
> must not host, share or permit content that encourages use of VPNs to get around age checks. The government has also told the BBC it would be illegal for platforms to do so
Holy. Crap. I knew the UK was going off the deep end with these laws, but this actually looks like China-level government reach.