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EFF launches Age Verification Hub

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Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#31

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

"SAN FRANCISCO-With ill-advised and dangerous age verification laws proliferating across the United States and around the world, creating surveillance and censorship regimes that will be used to harm both youth and adults, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has launched a new resource hub that will sort through the mess and help"

The surveillance and censorship system is built, administered and maintained by Silicon Valley companies who have adopted this as their "business model". "Monetising" surveillance of other peoples' noncommercial internet use

These Silicon Valley companies have been surveilling internet subscribers for over a decade, relentlessly connecting online identity to offline identity, hell bent on knowing who is accessing what webpage on what website, where they live, what they are interested in, and so on, building detailed advertising profiles (including the age of the ad target) tied to IP addresses, then selling the subscribers out to advertisers and collecting obscene profits (and killing media organisations that hire journalists in the process)

Now these companies are being forced to share some of the data they collect and store

Gosh, who would have forseen such an outcome

These laws are targeting the Silicon Valley companies, not internet subscribers

But the companies want to spin it as an attack on subscribers

The truth is the companies have been attacking subscriber privacy and attempting to gatekeep internet publication^1 for over a decade, in the name of advertising and obscene profits

1. Discourage subscribers from publishing websites and encourage them to create pages on the company's website instead. Centralise internet publication, collect data, perform surveillance and serve advertisements

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#32

Post by no_wizard »

guilamu wrote: post #10
no_wizard wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always ask myself who wins with these laws (well, any law really). so far, the only winner seems to be the government and data collectors. It seems these laws are intended to collect leverage in the long run.

Well, you just answered brilliantly to your own question. You nailed it.

Leaving room for someone to give me convincing evidence to the contrary. I didn't expect any, though.

It also lets someone who knows more than I to elaborate with more depth.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#33

Post by youarentrightjr »

owisd wrote: post #14
mikece wrote: post #2

Any time law-makers claim that a law is meant to protect children you can guarantee that the safety of children had almost nothing to do with it. This is all a push to normalize digital ID (to protect the children!); once normalized it will become mandatory .

[flagged]

You're conflating protecting children with "protect the children!".

Required reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#34

Post by AuthAuth »

no_wizard wrote: post #5
mikece wrote: post #2

Any time law-makers claim that a law is meant to protect children you can guarantee that the safety of children had almost nothing to do with it. This is all a push to normalize digital ID (to protect the children!); once normalized it will become mandatory .

I always ask myself who wins with these laws (well, any law really). so far, the only winner seems to be the government and data collectors. It seems these laws are intended to collect leverage in the long run.

Parents? Children? Schools?

I'd argue that this is negligible for data collectors and governments. Governments already know who you are and what sites you vist for 99.99% of the population. Data collectors already know who you are and have a pretty good idea of the sites you vist.

What unique information is this going to give the government and data collectors to abuse? Lets establish one case that both affects average people and is "bad" and not waste time discussing things that only affect a tiny minority of privacy minded people.

Keep in mind the law states a platform must provide multiple ways to reasonably verify a user is older than 16. No mention of giving the specific user age or requiring govt id

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#35

Post by kagrenac »

no_wizard wrote: post #5
mikece wrote: post #2

Any time law-makers claim that a law is meant to protect children you can guarantee that the safety of children had almost nothing to do with it. This is all a push to normalize digital ID (to protect the children!); once normalized it will become mandatory .

I always ask myself who wins with these laws (well, any law really). so far, the only winner seems to be the government and data collectors. It seems these laws are intended to collect leverage in the long run.

The internet, with verifiable identities, is the greatest system to collect kompromat that one could ask for.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#36

Post by rixed »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #31

"SAN FRANCISCO-With ill-advised and dangerous age verification laws proliferating across the United States and around the world, creating surveillance and censorship regimes that will be used to harm both youth and adults, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has launched a new resource hub that will sort through the mess and help" The surveillance and censorship system is built, administered and maintained by Silicon…

It was bad already, so who cares if that gets worse? Is that the message?

Silicon valley uses that information to sell adds, and sometimes votes. Not great, but I can imagine much worse from a State.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#37

Post by hackingonempty »

I am disappointed to find no mentions of zero knowledge proofs or any other indications that we wont have to trust anyone with this task.

We have the technology to do age verification without revealing any more information to the site and without the verification authority finding out what sites we are browsing. However, most people are ignorant of it.

If we don't push for the use of privacy preserving technology we wont get it and we will get more tracking. You cannot defeat age verification on the internet, age verification is already a feature of our culture. The only way out is to ensure that privacy preserving technologies are mandated.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#38

Post by addaon »

embedding-shape wrote: post #22
hypeatei wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concern is that websites have no way to tell the actual age in this scenario so you'd be potentially inconveniencing and/or blocking legitimate users (according to the server jurisdiction's rules) It doesn't seem sufficient, and would probably lead to age verification laws anyway.

No, it doesn't seem like that be a problem. Say you're a parent, with child, living in country A where someone becomes an adult when they're 18. Once the child is 18, they'll use their own devices/browsers/whatever, and the flag is no longer set. But before that, the flag is set. Now in country B or in country C it doesn't matter that the age of becoming an adult is 15 and 30. Because the flag is set locally on the c…

Except that if you're in country B, which has a law that says "you may not make information available to children that discloses that Santa Claus is made up," and the age of becoming an adult in your country is 18 -- knowing that a person accessing your site from country A is an adult in country A (which means, say, ≥ 16) is not sufficient to comply with the law.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#39

Post by wiredpancake »

hackingonempty wrote: post #37

I am disappointed to find no mentions of zero knowledge proofs or any other indications that we wont have to trust anyone with this task. We have the technology to do age verification without revealing any more information to the site and without the verification authority finding out what sites we are browsing. However, most people are ignorant of it. If we don't push for the use of privacy preserving technology we…

Everyone, including politicians are intimately aware of Zero Knowledge Proofs.

Google even open-sourced technology to enable it: https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/opening-up-ze...

The politicians don't want Zero Knowledge Proof because it prevents the mass-surveillance of internet users. This is all deliberate.

Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub

#40

Post by quailfarmer »

addaon wrote: post #38
embedding-shape wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn't seem like that be a problem. Say you're a parent, with child, living in country A where someone becomes an adult when they're 18. Once the child is 18, they'll use their own devices/browsers/whatever, and the flag is no longer set. But before that, the flag is set. Now in country B or in country C it doesn't matter that the age of becoming an adult is 15 and 30. Because the flag is set locally on the c…

Except that if you're in country B, which has a law that says "you may not make information available to children that discloses that Santa Claus is made up," and the age of becoming an adult in your country is 18 -- knowing that a person accessing your site from country A is an adult in country A (which means, say, ≥ 16) is not sufficient to comply with the law.

I’m not sure why the age of majority in the region of the server would be relevant. The user is not traveling to that region, the laws protecting them should be the laws in their own region.
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