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Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

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Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#431

Post by redczar »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #425
redczar wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe most websites keep track of viewing history and ip addresses of where that history comes from. I believe if the government wanted to determine what your internet history is they could do so with a great deal of accuracy. As such I think the complaint that requiring proof of age would be a privacy nightmare is not relevant. We already live in an age of relatively little privacy.

A targeted investigation by the government is not the same as dragnet surveillance is not the same as sharing the equivalent of my driver's license with some random site operator who can potentially turn around and sell that data (or just inadvertently leak it). The complaint is relevant because the proposed measure would make the status quo significantly worse than it currently is. That applies regardless of how bad…

Since Obama’s presidency we know dragnet surveillance by the government is already the norm.

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#432

Post by fc417fc802 »

redczar wrote: post #431
fc417fc802 wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A targeted investigation by the government is not the same as dragnet surveillance is not the same as sharing the equivalent of my driver's license with some random site operator who can potentially turn around and sell that data (or just inadvertently leak it). The complaint is relevant because the proposed measure would make the status quo significantly worse than it currently is. That applies regardless of how bad…

Since Obama’s presidency we know dragnet surveillance by the government is already the norm.

So after a protracted back and forth your reasoning comes down to the following. The government is already engaging in dragnet surveillance. Somehow this automagically unmasks VPN usage (global dragnet (as opposed to targeted) traffic correlation on that scale would be a seriously impressive feat) in addition to any other privacy measures a typical individual might take. Therefore we should be okay with a system that enables the government to see you registering with various websites, or alternatively with a system that reveals various personal information to said website operator, or alternatively both simultaneously.

Or to summarize, the situation is already organically bad so everyone should be okay if we enact laws that artificially make it even worse in new ways.

To be blunt your reasoning seems entirely specious to me.

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#433

Post by droopyEyelids »

uconnectlol wrote: post #370
ndriscoll wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was, in fact, what COPA mandated in the US in 1998, and SCOTUS struck it down as too onerous in Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, kicking off the last 20 years of essentially completely unregulated Internet porn commercially available to children with nothing more than clicking an "I'm 18" button. At the time, filtering was seen as a better solution. Nowadays filtering is basically impossible thanks to…

lets just skip straight to the logical conclusion, buddy. no amount of "web" or "discord" regulation stops porn consumption. the statistic of "minors viewing porn" wouldn't be affected even slightly, even if all of the regulation in question here were passed to the fullest extent. this is because people can just download and run whatever software they want, and communicate with any party they want. what you want is f…

Do you believe the ease with which a service can be used influences the amount of people who use that service?

Like with marginal users?

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#434

Post by RHSeeger »

shortrounddev2 wrote: post #307
RHSeeger wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to teach our children that different people have different restrictions. Some of my daughter's friends have no phone. One of them has no phone, but does have a tablet. To the best of my knowledge, none of them are ostracized by the group. I mean, I've seen them hanging out at our house and other places.

Just curious, how old are they? I'm planning on having kids and I'm afraid of how to answer the smart phone question. I imagine that it could start to be an issue by 12 or 13

My daughter is 13 and has a phone for a number of years, and she got it later than some friends, earlier than others. I know that's not a lot of info, but it gives you some idea of the range _I_ saw.

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#435

Post by DrillShopper »

whiplash451 wrote: post #427
DrillShopper wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone looking in from the outside: what regulations govern this type of work?

In EU: eIDAS and ETSI. In the US: BIPA started in Illinois and is expanding to other states. BIPA sets a brutal bar in terms of regulation.

Okay, that makes sense.

I'm in a different regulated industry (healthcare), so we have a lot of different international standards there, and wondered how that worked in a different space.

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#436

Post by sph »

hn_go_brrrrr wrote: post #428
sph wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I logged into my Starling Bank account on a new phone, and I had to film my face reading a 6 digit number.

Wow, I would move my money elsewhere rather than comply with that.

Yeah I agree, the problem is that my money is already in there, so I have no choice but to comply.

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#437

Post by redczar »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #432
redczar wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since Obama’s presidency we know dragnet surveillance by the government is already the norm.

So after a protracted back and forth your reasoning comes down to the following. The government is already engaging in dragnet surveillance. Somehow this automagically unmasks VPN usage (global dragnet (as opposed to targeted) traffic correlation on that scale would be a seriously impressive feat) in addition to any other privacy measures a typical individual might take. Therefore we should be okay with a system that…

It’s not ok to allow easy access to hardcore pornography by minors. There is already virtually no privacy in these matters in the sense that Google and others already track us so the argument against age verification on privacy grounds is weak. As with most things there are tradeoffs and there is no perfect solution. I favor age verification being the law. You don’t.

The choice between you and others keeping the belief that your porn viewing habits are completely anonymous vs. allowing minors unfettered access to hardcore pornography I choose the latter as the more important issue.

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#438

Post by fc417fc802 »

redczar wrote: post #437
fc417fc802 wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So after a protracted back and forth your reasoning comes down to the following. The government is already engaging in dragnet surveillance. Somehow this automagically unmasks VPN usage (global dragnet (as opposed to targeted) traffic correlation on that scale would be a seriously impressive feat) in addition to any other privacy measures a typical individual might take. Therefore we should be okay with a system that…

It’s not ok to allow easy access to hardcore pornography by minors. There is already virtually no privacy in these matters in the sense that Google and others already track us so the argument against age verification on privacy grounds is weak. As with most things there are tradeoffs and there is no perfect solution. I favor age verification being the law. You don’t. The choice between you and others keeping the beli…

> It’s not ok to allow easy access to hardcore pornography by minors.

I don't believe anyone here suggested that it was.

> Google and others already track us

This is not related to the discussion at hand. I already explained to you. Google does not track me on non-google sites. My state government does not track my browsing history. Neither does the federal government.

> the argument against age verification on privacy grounds is weak

You are responding with nonsense and ignoring the information I provided.

> As with most things there are tradeoffs and there is no perfect solution.

An empty platitude. The thing you are arguing for fundamentally does not work to accomplish the stated goal, although it is quite likely to accomplish other unstated goals. The "tradeoff" is a systematic loss of privacy that is likely to weaken civil liberties in the long run.

> keeping the belief that your porn viewing habits are completely anonymous vs. allowing minors unfettered access

Yet another misrepresentation. At this point I have to assume that your behavior is intentional. I'm left with the impression that you are an ideologically motivated actor who is fully aware that you don't have a leg to stand on but is attempting to sway the perception of an unseen audience anyhow.

The actual choice presented here is between a "solution" that openly invites government overreach without actually solving the stated problem versus the current status quo or possibly some alternative approach. Honestly I've yet to be convinced of the issue with the current status quo. Parental controls exist. Whitelists exist. Why can't we expect parents to do their jobs by parenting?

The mainstream social networks don't permit nudity. If you really have so little faith in your own child's judgment then whitelist Facebook, Wikipedia, and a few others and call it a day. Although I do have to wonder. Assuming they're a teenager, why do you have so little faith in their cognitive abilities?

In the end I'm reasonably certain that unfettered access to social networks is far worse for development than unfettered access to hardcore pornography. C'est la vie.

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#439

Post by RHSeeger »

redczar wrote: post #302
RHSeeger wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the government should come up with a good way to prove age that does not negatively impact privacy. It shouldn't be possible for "who is viewing what porn (or other thing)" to be accidentally leaked; because it should be possible to not store the "who" part.

Such a proof does not exist. It is already the case that your porn viewing habits can be leaked. It’s just that at present the one storing the information is not the government.

Then create one, or something much better than is being demanded, first; before demanding companies use it.

If a porn company has to collect all the information about me (name, address, age, etc) and keep it in their database then, if they get hacked, then all that information, connected to what I viewed, is available to the hackers.

If the porn company has an ID that it assigns each person, and it reaches out to some government agency to say "is this person of age" (without their internal ID), then stores "yes/no" with the ID; then hacking cannot (or is much less likely to be able to) connect "what account has viewed what" with "what human being is attached to the account".

Effectively, by making the porn site need to collect and maintain personal information, privacy is made less safe. If the government is going to demand proof of age, then the government is on the hook for supplying a reasonable way to check it.

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#440

Post by RHSeeger »

redczar wrote: post #423
fc417fc802 wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's definitely some critical information missing there. I don't think you could individually identify me if all you had to go on was the text and timestamp of the searches I made within the past 24 hours. At least yesterday I didn't even look up any local businesses on maps. State actor and porn site operator are two very different things. Pointing to the former in this context reads like a non sequitur to me.

I believe most websites keep track of viewing history and ip addresses of where that history comes from. I believe if the government wanted to determine what your internet history is they could do so with a great deal of accuracy. As such I think the complaint that requiring proof of age would be a privacy nightmare is not relevant. We already live in an age of relatively little privacy.

The fact that there are already many threats to our privacy is not a reason to not push back on new threats. Rather, it's a reason to push back harder, and then try to fix the existing threats, too.
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