Here's how schools should deal with the social media problem:
Make children write down what they got out of social media, every time they use it.
Maybe then it will sink down that it basically offers close to zero actual benefit.
EFF launches Age Verification Hub
301–310 of 371 posts
Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub
#302This keeps coming up and we keep having the same debates about what Age Verification isn't. For the folks in the back row: Age Verification isn't about Kids or Censorship, It's about Surveillance Age Verification isn't about Kids or Censorship, It's about Surveillance Age Verification isn't about Kids or Censorship, It's about Surveillance Without even reaching for my tinfoil hat, the strategy at work here is clear […
Age verification is absolutely about kids. It’s also being used (or hijacked into) a vehicle for people who want increased surveillance. There is a ton of evidence that there are harms to unrestricted online access for kids and teens (the book The Anxious Generation is cultural touchstone for this topic at this point). There is a real, well reasoned, and valid movement to do something about this problem. The solution…
People are ignoring reality and thinking that kids and teenagers won't be smart enough to type "XXX" into piratebay and download a torrent client.
Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub
#303This keeps coming up and we keep having the same debates about what Age Verification isn't. For the folks in the back row: Age Verification isn't about Kids or Censorship, It's about Surveillance Age Verification isn't about Kids or Censorship, It's about Surveillance Age Verification isn't about Kids or Censorship, It's about Surveillance Without even reaching for my tinfoil hat, the strategy at work here is clear […
I would much rather have laws that require that certain kinds of websites return machine-readable headers describing what kind of content is on them, and then browsers, web proxies, etc. could be configured by parents, schools, etc. to block undesirable sites.
Recycling a post about reasons to do it that way:
> 1. Most of the dollar costs of making it all happen will be paid by the people who actually need/use the feature.
> 2. No toxic Orwellian panopticon.
> 3. Key enforcement falls into a realm non-technical parents can actually observe and act upon: What device is little Timmy holding?
> 4. Every site in the world will not need a monthly update to handle Elbonia's rite of manhood on the 17th lunar year to make it permitted to see bare ankles. Instead, parents of that region/religion can download their own damn plugin.
Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
> None of them are part of the Age Verification discussion because kids are not the actual point of Age Verification. The EU age verification solution says implementations SHOULD implement[1] their ZKP protocol[2]. Not linking it to the user is stated as an explicit goal: Unlinkability: The goal of the solution is to prevent user profiling and tracking by avoiding linkable transactions. Initially, the solution will r…
One thing to keep in mind when reading about any "ZKP protocol" is that on its own the term has the same inherent vagueness as "end-to-end encrypted" - especially when like here there are more than two parties concerned to solve a single verification. What information is not disclosed to whom? In what way is it ZK? One example is Googles "zero-knowledge age verification" where AFAICT, Google still has full insight in…
> same inherent vagueness as "end-to-end encrypted"
Recent HN discussion example: How Kohler Inc. has a toilet feces analysis camera with "end to end encrypted", except they're one of the ends so it is deceptive advertising.
Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
As many others have mentioned in this thread and others, there are ways - effective and straightforward ways - that we could be protecting our kids from the harms that come with the www. The harms are real. The solution is a Surveillance Wolf wearing a dead Save The Kids Sheep(tm). Solutions that might work - RTA headers [0]. More robust parental controls. Not this reimagining of the rules of the internet in service…
Yes all those things are great, but you'll notice that instead of explaining this to the non-technical crowd, technology focused privacy concerned individuals rarely attempt to educate about how these could work. Instead they simply seem to be against any sort of control on what children watch online. Given that it's also coming from a bunch of tech males, it comes across as extraordinarily creepy. This is not hard t…
If I believed that the efforts in question were in earnest, I would absolutely be talking through the finer points of how to do it right. I don't believe that, though. The veneer of legitimacy here is paper thin - we start with a very weatherbeaten conservative war drum (think of the children!) and immediately jump into "let's ruin privacy for everyone and I totally promise this isn't another Cambridge Analytica".
Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub
#306If age check is truly anonymous/zero-knowledge, as in the requester can't identify me, the issuer can't link me to the attestation... why wouldn't someone start selling age verified accounts? Easy money for some 18yo.
Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
Excellent question. More generally, what prevents me from copying the credential and giving it to somebody else? The currently favored approach works like this. The DOCUMENT contains a device public key DPK. The corresponding secret key is stored in some secure hardware on the phone, designed so that I (or malware or whatever) cannot extract the secret key from the secure hardware. Think of it as a yubikey or somethi…
> How does the issuer (e.g. the republic of France) know that DOCUMENT is bound to a given fingerprint? This is still under discussion, but as a first bid, a French citizen goes to city hall with his phone and obtains DOCUMENT after producing a fingerprint on the citizen's phone (as opposed to a device belonging to the republic of France). Are you saying that someone goes to city hall, shows ID, and gets a DOCUMENT t…
> Eventually there's going to be enough pretense to expand the system and block "non-compliant" sites. Why not use the same DOCUMENT to prove age to buy beer? Sanity for guns? Loyalty for food?
You're not wrong to be concerned about those impulses, but I think this is getting into "perfect is the enemy of good" territory.
A really authoritarian government isn't going to make an effort to misuse the system that way: They'll tear it down entirely and go back to worse-alternatives which we already use, where they do know all parties involved and exactly when and what was being checked.
Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like many mention in other comments on this post, it's possible to implement using ZKPs. There are likely other methods that would be effective without compromising privacy. None of them are part of the Age Verification discussion because kids are not the actual point of Age Verification. When I say "if we have to know you're not a kid, we have to know who you are" I'm not stating an actual truth , but the argument a…
The simplest possible such method? Single-use age verification codes, generated and validated by the government, sold on physical scratch cards with in-store verification of ID, piggybacking on the infrastructure we already use for selling alcohol and cigarettes. This would be far easier to implement for websites too. You'd just have a single, unauthenticated API endpoint which, given a code, tells you if the code is…
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Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub
#309ITT: HN discussing whether and how to pull up the ladder on free youth.
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Re: EFF launches Age Verification Hub
#310Whose fault is it when a child burns their hand on the stove?
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