Discord/Twitch/Snapchat age verification bypass • Hacker News Board

Re: Discord/Twitch/Snapchat age verification bypass

#431

Post by bsharper » Thu, Feb 12, 2026, 3:59 PM UTC

well_ackshually wrote: post #332

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The solution is parents using the parental control feature on their children’s devices. This is a stopgap at best, and to be blunt, it's naive. They can go on their friends' phones, or go to a shop and buy a cheap smartphone to circumvent the parental controls. If the internet is locked down, they'll use one of many "free" VPN services, or just go to school / library / a friend's place for unrestricted network acce…

In what universe do you live where children have enough disposable income to buy a smartphone ?

You only need $25-30. It'll be locked to a carrier, but that doesn't matter and is perhaps preferable (no monthly fee for a subsidized device) if you are able to use wifi. There's an ETA prime video which explores using a 2025 Moto 5G as handheld game console: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ad5BrcfHkY

tl;dw it's quite capable for the money and would could easily get on social media apps/sites.

Re: Discord/Twitch/Snapchat age verification bypass

#432

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 12, 2026, 4:02 PM UTC

petu wrote: post #422

voxic11 wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see how that solves the problem? That's what I'm saying my service would provide. Unless the eID has some kind of client side rate limiting built in I can generate as many of them as I want. And assuming they are completely privacy preserving no one can tell they were all generated by the same ID.

https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/av-doc-technic... > Since Proof of Age Attestations are designed for single use, the system must support the issuance of attestations in batches. It is recommended that each batch consist of thirty (30) attestations. It sounds like application would request batch of time-limited proofs from government server. Proofs gets burned after single use. Whether or not you've used…

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Re: Discord/Twitch/Snapchat age verification bypass

#433

Post by uncletscollie » Thu, Feb 12, 2026, 4:06 PM UTC

ziml77 wrote: post #102

digiown wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A call requires a human, which is inherently not scalable. And even humans have trouble distinguishing AI content these days.

And it's not like Discord actually cares. They just care about appearing like they care. Something to keep the heat off of them from regulators and angry parents.

Discord built its own TSA?

Re: Discord/Twitch/Snapchat age verification bypass

#434

Post by uncletscollie » Thu, Feb 12, 2026, 4:09 PM UTC

Nifty3929 wrote: post #426

monksy wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're getting worse with attested and validated environments. This one of the reasons that google is trying to kill sideloaded apps and checking for root access. Weird thing.. the people who want this validation fully expect for you to pay for, maintain, keep it valid, and pay for upkeep/service for their desires. Honestly, this is something that SHOULD get very aggressive pushback.. but most people accept for no r…

It's not "accepting" - it's actual wanting. Many people want surveillance. Many people want age verification.

A vague answer that says nothing and can't be proven. Thank you for wasting our time.

Re: Discord/Twitch/Snapchat age verification bypass

#435

Post by manuelmoreale » Thu, Feb 12, 2026, 4:13 PM UTC

MSFT_Edging wrote: post #427

manuelmoreale wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we need smart phones and apps to interact with public services, we should apply the same constitutional rights to those platforms. Are private social media platforms "public services"? And also, you mentioned constitutional rights. Which constitution are we talking about here? These are global scale issues, I don't think we should default on the US constitution. > We know we cannot trust service providers on the…

> Because at some point, at a certain level, society is built on at least some level of implicit trust. Without it you can't have a functioning society. This is somewhat central to being remain anonymous. Protesters and observers are having their passports cancelled or their TSA precheck revoked due to speech. You cannot trust the government to abide by the first amendment. Private services sell your data to build a…

> You cannot trust the government to abide by the first amendment.

Again, this is a global issue. There is no first amendment here where I live. But the issue of the power these platforms have at a global level is a real one and something has to be done in general to deal with that. The problem is what should we do.

Re: Discord/Twitch/Snapchat age verification bypass

#436

Post by voxic11 » Thu, Feb 12, 2026, 4:15 PM UTC

petu wrote: post #422

voxic11 wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see how that solves the problem? That's what I'm saying my service would provide. Unless the eID has some kind of client side rate limiting built in I can generate as many of them as I want. And assuming they are completely privacy preserving no one can tell they were all generated by the same ID.

https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/av-doc-technic... > Since Proof of Age Attestations are designed for single use, the system must support the issuance of attestations in batches. It is recommended that each batch consist of thirty (30) attestations. It sounds like application would request batch of time-limited proofs from government server. Proofs gets burned after single use. Whether or not you've used…

Ok I have been convinced this is a technically feasible solution that could preserve privacy while reasonably limiting misuse. That said I'm worried that the document you linked does not require relying parties implement the zero knowledge proof approach. It only requires that they implement the attestation bearer token approach which is much weaker and allows the government to unmask an account by simply asking the relying party which attestation token was submitted to verify the account.

> Relying Party SHALL implement the protocols specified in Annex A for Proof of Age attestation presentation.

> A Relying Party SHOULD implement the Zero-Knowledge Proof verification mechanism specified in Annex A

Re: Discord/Twitch/Snapchat age verification bypass

#437

Post by toomuchtodo » Thu, Feb 12, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #22

gruez wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You require a human to identity proof in real life and bind that to a digital identity That's going to be a no from me, dawg. I'm sympathetic to ID checks like if you're buying beer or whatever, but not linking my real life identity to discord or whatever.

Not my call, it’ll be the law of the land. Some may leave, but most won’t, and that’s good enough for corporate and enterprise value purposes. Pornhub is fighting state age verification and keeps losing state by state, for example.

Porn site fined £800,000 for not rolling out age checks - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46990755 - February 2026

Re: Discord/Twitch/Snapchat age verification bypass

#438

Post by giancarlostoro » Thu, Feb 12, 2026, 4:33 PM UTC

shevy-java wrote: post #229

"k-id, the age verification provider discord uses doesn't store or send your face to the server. instead, it sends a bunch of metadata about your face and general process details." I think the primary issue is not the "send your face" (face info) to a server. The problem is that private entities are greedy for user data, in this case tying facial recognition to activities related to interacting with other people, mos…

Correct. AIM, YIM, MSN, Skype... to name a few all were giants that came before Discord. There will be alternatives over time that will overtake Discord.

Re: Discord/Twitch/Snapchat age verification bypass

#439

Post by munk-a » Thu, Feb 12, 2026, 4:35 PM UTC

hparadiz wrote: post #419

littlecorner wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And have schools stop giving kids laptops or tablets. I wonder how much of the Chromebooks for school incitive was to develop a new market for Google

It's wild seeing these opinions on hackernews of all places. Do we want future generations to know nothing about computing? I would not be here if I didn't get my start in my early teen years.

When I was an early teen I had access to the internet but my activities weren't entirely unsupervised (and I doubt yours were either). Since it was a new technology there was a lot of discussion around how best to talk to children and make sure they felt safe reporting threats or harms to parents.

A smart phone is too disconnected of a device when compared to the desktops we all grew up on. No one is talking about fully banning <18s from the internet (at least no one serious) - it's a discussion about making sure that the way folks <18 use the internet is reasonably safe and that parents can make sure their children aren't being exposed to undue harm. That's quite difficult to do with a fully enabled smart phone.

Re: Discord/Twitch/Snapchat age verification bypass

#440

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 12, 2026, 4:36 PM UTC

hparadiz wrote: post #419

littlecorner wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And have schools stop giving kids laptops or tablets. I wonder how much of the Chromebooks for school incitive was to develop a new market for Google

It's wild seeing these opinions on hackernews of all places. Do we want future generations to know nothing about computing? I would not be here if I didn't get my start in my early teen years.

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