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What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

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Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#421

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

Who will be conducting this "mass surveillance"

The government? Nope. Guess again

This blogger thinks age verification legislation somehow supports these companies or has no negative effect on their bottom line

Who knows. Maybe that is correct. We are going to find out

But many would argue that unless and until computer users allowing Big Tech to collect data, for any purpose^1, start to be interested that data is being collected (cf. how it is allegedly used), nothing will change

Perhaps "age verification" could be what finally causes them to be interested. Trying to argue that this is what Big Tech companies want, or that they don't care, is pure nonsense, but online commenters are certainly trying

1. There's no way to verify how it is used or who is using it

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#422

Post by h4kunamata »

In Australia, ordinary posts on X is flagged and requires ID so I solved the problem like any homelab person would.

I run OPNSense and have a Mullvad VPN, every time I access X or any service that enforces digital ID, firewall rules forward those requests to the Mullvad VPN gateway.

This whole mess started because of the Australian activists Collective Shout.

1. They went after Steam +18 games but Steam didn't give them attention

2. They went after Visa/Master and due to political influence, Visa/Master blackmailed Steam

3. Steam removed thousands of +18 games

4. The following week, UK pushed digital ID

5. Countries worldwide followed but Japan

What happened at end?? Million of people having their personal information leaked, it has never been so easy to become a victim of identity theft.

The same Collective Shout against +18 games, supported a movie on Netflix exploring kids s**lly.

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#423

Post by Terr_ »

dofm wrote: post #207
Retr0id wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

reddit.com, discord.app, google.com with safe-search off (This one works sometimes, they are A/B testing force-enabling safe-search for unauth'd sessions)

Oh, reddit, yes. Good point. I don't use that; it's worse for your brain than any regulated substance. Kick your reddit habit while you can. Google safe search: I've only seen this from my PAYG mobile phone, because I've never bothered to lift the adult content lock on that after more than a decade, and Google is the only place I've seen ask, actually. Even so it rarely happens. Discord: the mere idea of being in an…

I'd also caution that Reddit can and will destroy a 10+ year account (erasing all submissions and comments) for no discernible reason with a quite-literally-broken appeals process.

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#424

Post by Terr_ »

drdexebtjl wrote: post #379
cogman10 wrote: post #65

Earlier 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.

No, no. Don’t give websites a way to check the user’s age. Age restrictions are different across countries and cultures. Parents disagree on age ratings given by boards all the time. Have apps and websites declare the objectionable content they have, and let the device decide if it will show it or not according to parental controls. If you’re a parent that pays attention to age ratings, you know exactly what I’m talk…

Right, recycling a comment on the benefits of "website reports, the device parents bought blocks":

_____________

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: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#425

Post by Terr_ »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #190
cogman10 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some probably will. 99% of them don't even know what "Chromium" is. This doesn't have to be perfect.

Right now, they don't know. They're going to learn very quickly when they want to use some website and they can't. We agree it doesn't need to be 100% perfect. But it needs to be at least, like, 60% perfect, right? And unless you make it at least a bit hard to bypass, it will stop virtually no one.

That is a real problem but for an unreal situation. Nobody is advocating that we combine (A) a child-safe browser with (B) a completely unlocked device in every other way.

When I buy/configure a device which prevents Little Timmy from viewing smut, that device is also going to have a parental code for installing new apps. If that part is left open, then Little Timmy wouldn't have to even bother getting a different browser, he could just install direct porn apps.

> But it needs to be at least, like, 60% perfect, right?

That can easily be reached by ensuring that child-mode covers default browsers and also the ability to install a new browser. If Little Timmy is turning on debugging over USB to sideload, then a fundamentally different parenting strategy is required.

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#426

Post by bryan_w »

shevy-java wrote: post #291
john_strinlai wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could you be more specific as to what you're imagining? sure, i'll put my favorite two. though you'll find much more detailed and thought-out versions of these (and others) in the dozens of other giant threads on the same topic. - buy a card with a UUID from anywhere that sells alcohol/tobacco that is valid for some period of time. most people are comfortable with flashing their ID at the clerk. the UUID card is no…

> - websites issue content tags, browsers consume them, you enter your age into the OS during setup. Why would that be acceptable though? What if a user does not trust the operating system? Even Linux may not be safe in the future, what with age sniffing coming by Red Hat integrating it into system already. And Red Hat plans more - xorg is abandoned on purpose, for instance.

If you don't trust your operating system, then I guess you can't operate

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#427

Post by angiolillo »

drdexebtjl wrote: post #379
cogman10 wrote: post #65

Earlier 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.

No, no. Don’t give websites a way to check the user’s age. Age restrictions are different across countries and cultures. Parents disagree on age ratings given by boards all the time. Have apps and websites declare the objectionable content they have, and let the device decide if it will show it or not according to parental controls. If you’re a parent that pays attention to age ratings, you know exactly what I’m talk…

> Have apps and websites declare the objectionable content they have, and let the device decide if it will show it or not according to parental controls.

That would have been nice. The RSAC (Recreational Software Advisory Council) had a slightly more granular rating system that rated violence, sex, and language on a scale from 0 to 4 which unfortunately it lost out to the ESRB/IARC age-based classifications, and the internet appears to be going towards age-based classifications as well. Personally I like Common Sense Media's ratings which extend the standard violence, sex, and language flags by adding scales for "Products & Purchases" and "Drinking, Drugs, & Smoking".

From a semantic web standpoint it would have been useful if the web had codified these sorts of content flags so content producers could apply them to apps, websites, page sections, images, or even individual HTML tags. Then a device administrator could tell the operating system or browser to restrict certain content, either based on age-appropriate presets or based on custom levels for each type of content.

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#428

Post by inigyou »

actionfromafar wrote: post #371
inigyou wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The platform can also add ghost upvotes and downvotes and censor upvotes and downvotes.

That could be penalized, ultimately by breaking up the company and selling it in parts.

Well, yeah, it could be. Is that your proposal?

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#429

Post by inigyou »

actionfromafar wrote: post #373
inigyou wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would Facebook be okay if all the Nazi propaganda posts were tagged "Facebook boosted this post"?

If they did boost it, why shouldn't they tell us?

Would that be all that's required to make it okay?

Re: What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

#430

Post by rlt »

mzajc wrote: post #180
rlt wrote: post #172

In general I'm opposed to this kind of regulation, but as a thought exercise, we do have the primitives needed to do age (or any other attribute) verification in a privacy-preserving and decentralized way. You could imagine a hierarchy of organizations (governments, financial institutions, schools, etc) that a website trusts to verify some attribute (minimum age, citizenship, etc). Those organizations can attest that…

If the website sees (and possibly stores) the e-mail address, and the government or another party knows who it belongs to, the scheme is anything but privacy-preserving.

I’m confident you could devise a way to ensure the verifying party doesn’t know which website requested the verification, and vice versa. I’ll have to think about it a bit more.
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