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The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

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Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#421

Post by inigyou »

txrx0000 wrote: post #108
matheusmoreira wrote: post #3

> These NGOs have converged upon a unified strategy: use the rhetoric of ‘child safety’ to advocate for digital ID laws that would prevent adults from using the internet anonymously. Of course. Anyone who brings up kids is trying to manipulate you into giving up your freedom for security. Whatever argument they make should be simply ignored and dismissed.

We should not ignore it, but firmly dismiss it with reason. The recent Illinois law that applies to all Internet-capable operating systems is blatantly unconstitutional. People should not be forced by law to disclose their age (or anything ) in order to engage in digital communication. That forced utterance of your own age is compelled speech, a violation of the First Amendment. For parents who are genuinely concerne…

You don't have to disclose your age. You have to disclose the age that you want your device's parental controls to work at. Doesn't have to be yours.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#422

Post by inigyou »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #212
ulnarkressty wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The government says all children need to show an ID when browsing the internet in order to be safe" "The government says all children need to be vaccinated in order to be safe" I'm not saying these arguments are equivalent, but they seem equivalent because they induce the same feeling of loss of agency. And one cannot simply ignore and dismiss something like this.

> loss of agency That's exactly what this is. They want to build an internet where it is structurally impossible for children to be harmed in any way. This requires the destruction of the very concept of agency. You can't just do things. You need government approval.

No they don't? Laws can't really make anything "structurally impossible" unless they criminalize a lot more - such as hosting a website without full government review (this is illegal in China). These laws are quite clearly targeted at the harm that is happening today and not at locking down the entire internet.

You do have to take enforcement into account when evaluating these laws. Some HNers interpret this as you go to jail for not scanning an ID (which makes sense to programmers because it's a simple if/then), but most of them are actually written as product safety laws, so the government can order you to comply or take your product off the market.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#423

Post by penguin_booze »

chr15m wrote: post #254

The right people to protect children are those responsible for them - their parents and guardians. If there is a problem with children not being sufficiently protected, that is the level at which to solve it. Give families tools and information to do so.

> The right people to protect children are those responsible for them - their parents and guardians.

They can only do so much, within the boundaries of their home. It takes a village to raise a child. The policies, thus, should be made village-wide.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#424

Post by inigyou »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #92
inigyou wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half the laws we're complaining about (e.g. California, Illinois) are literally just regulating parental controls, and I can no longer give the benefit of the doubt to people who act as if this is the same as forcing internet users to scan their ID. People who conflate these two things are paid lobbyists of Meta to make sure Meta won't have to be safe for children even when the parental controls checkbox is turned on…

Regulating parental controls by making you scan an ID to use a computer is even worse than doing it to access a website. I understand that today's laws are not doing that, but do you genuinely, truly believe in your heart of hearts that once every OS has mandatory age fields, that nobody is going to start proposing legislation to attempt to enforce its validity by ID verification + hardware attestation? You're not wi…

You're doing the thing. The half I'm talking about, they don't make you scan your ID to use a computer. Actually I don't think even the worst ones make you do that.

You're doing the slippery slope fallacy by saying "well if there are not terrible laws now that just means there will be terrible laws later." A law against murder doesn't mean there will later be a law against farting.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#425

Post by tim333 »

gib444 wrote: post #394

It's cute people think the UK has this level of influence over the USA Like, pick a side: are we the tiny backwater micro state on the verge of bankruptcy with no standing in the world, or are we a hugely influencial world power directing US law?

I think it's more they may copy the idea. Kinda like the US version of The Office.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#426

Post by inigyou »

Bender wrote: post #132
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, that's a reasonable approach. Just to clarify that we're agreeing, the comment I was replying to was strongly defending California and Illinois' laws that require the OS record an age field for the primary user of the device, which while currently self-declared is at least an obvious path for future, more invasive legislation.

The problem with a self declared approach is that puts a signalling mechanism in place. Once in place the laws can easily scope creep year over year to add more information or require putting in ID information or some future nation-wide digital ID and Trump coin digital wallet which could easily be the plan all along. All they need is the API that will interface with websites using some agreed upon standard and then…

They can do that with or without an existing law.

Without signaling nothing would happen. There's always signaling.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#427

Post by skinfaxi »

ColdStream wrote: post #190
Buttons840 wrote: post #129

It seems to me the intrusiveness of age verification will continue to grow. They want the OS to report the user's age. People will use this to claim whatever age they want. For instance, if companies cannot advertise to children, they might find that almost every computer is reporting that the user is a child--turns out adults want the protections kids receive as well--sometimes. Eventually they will have to enforce…

I will go back to DOS before I hand over this information. I already have my setup for it when this comes down the line. Can also just lie about your age, "I am as old as the fjords, as young as a newborn lamb" - Thor - GTA Vice City radio ;)

They will require you to use device attestation to access government sites/services next.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#428

Post by inigyou »

rescbr wrote: post #163
walrus01 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently put some thought into what I would have done if I had encountered "parental controls" to use the Internet when I first encountered it as a young teen in 1992. I would have made it my personal mission in life to circumvent everything and anything possible. I feel fortunate that no such controls existed and the adults in my life knew significantly less about the technology than I did. Was I exposed to some c…

Agreed. I was a middle-schooler in the 2000's, had my own PC in my own bedroom, we had broadband access and I, of course, was exposed to porn while I was trying to download cracks and keygens on Astalavista and other such sites. Mislabelled files on eMule too. Links to porn also were readily shared on IRC channels. But yeah, I can't say it had a damaging effect on me. It was a mix of being afraid of getting a virus f…

You see how that isn't nearly as bad as the current state of society though.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#429

Post by trashb »

zmmmmm wrote: post #276
chr15m wrote: post #254

The right people to protect children are those responsible for them - their parents and guardians. If there is a problem with children not being sufficiently protected, that is the level at which to solve it. Give families tools and information to do so.

the weird thing about it all is that age is a bad proxy in the first place for a child's level of safety in interacting with online content. Some kids are super mature at 11 and others still need protection at 16. For some reason the world has fixated on "years alive" as a perfect measure of vulnerability and now are doggedly pursuing it. Even if perfect age verification is implemented, kids will be harmed. Because t…

> others still need protection at 16

Other still need protection at 30, or in fact in my opinion also a lot of people above 50 (that didn't grow up with the internet around) are not prepared for what is out there. Also there are parents that are "underage". Those are not considered either.

I agree it is a very arbitrary limit indeed, but it seems there is no other good proxy so for a lot of people it will be choosing the best worst option, at least that is how the argument in favor is brought forward.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#430

Post by inigyou »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #325
Forgeties79 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a feeling we had a similar experience growing up. I generally agree, but also, we got QAnon/Alex Jones and such which have quite directly screwed up my country. So I don’t know, my opinion is often contradictory and fluid. I don’t know where I stand anymore. I believe in an “open internet,” but also, there’s people like Andrew Tate who have ruined the minds of people I care about. We can debate if these system…

> We need basic screening and filtering. Based on whose values and criteria? Yours? Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

I am sick and tired of the argument that porn shouldn't be kept from kids because what if someone thinks it's healthy for kids to watch porn (and for all I know it might be, since I haven't sent the scientific evidence).

If some parent thinks that's healthy they can just enter the child's age as 18.

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