Live data from Hacker News

I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

neilzone.co.uk

441–450 of 645 posts

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1000% this. Fake info for everything that isn't directly tied to money or government. HN doesn't have my info. Apple doesn't have it. Google doesn't have it. Amazon doesn't have it. Microsoft doesn't have it. They don't care who I really am, and that hasn't, ever never, been a problem for using their stuff. They want your real ID. They do not need it. At all.

Remember that just typing 'John Smith DOB 1/1/1900' into a random webform and clicking submit to get in is technically wire fraud. Sure, it usually won't be prosecuted... Until you upset the wrong person and they're looking for a crime you did...

I don't believe it's wire fraud unless you deceive the other party for monetary gain. I realize that's not quite the correct definition but AFAIK it's quite close to it.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#442
Again, this must be framed ecologically, not individually. We've moved past the point where "individual choices" matter a whole lot, a lot of this is not much of an individual choice at all.

So, it's good to remember the leanings of people like the author, but it's perhaps more important to remember the extent to which this is a collective issue.

I never trusted 23 and me. But my Dad did, so now I potentially have a problem. Reminded of another anecdote about a guy who did everything to not use is social security number for ID for ANYTHING. Then someone pointed out -- it doesn't matter, they have everyone elses, so yours is the missing one.

Policy and skin-in-the-game for the COLLECTORS of the info is the thing to focus on.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#443
I'm suprised that ZKP almost never gets mentioned when it comes to age verification. It seems like it is a solution that does protect PII. There is a learning curve for the general public, but having watched the hoops a mother recently had to jump through so her kids could play Mario Kart on Nintendo Switch, I think it is not that difficult.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, this still doesn't do anything to show me that I should opt out. I, as an individual, am not going to have any effect on a business if I opt out or not. No business decision is going to be made because I opt out. You might argue that it will matter if enough of us do it. Sure, that is true... but again, it won't matter if I do it or not. If N number of people opting out is enough to ruin the business model, th…

Potential real-world consequences, while they do exist, are simply too subtle to realize. Some actual examples of cookies being used against people: - CBP has admitted to buying location/advertising data from brokers to use in helping locate people to arrest - Phishing and identity theft can be made easier due to cookies... security researchers have even demonstrated 2FA bypass techniques based on it - Price discrimi…

I appreciate the list of potential harms. I'm curious about your last point though. Isn't it trivially easy to wipe cookies from your browser?

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#445

Age verification is quite bogus. Parents can stand over their children's shoulder and force them to do or not do one thing or the other (and maybe not even them); but some website dictating which content young people can watch or not watch - not acceptable. And if you want to make a "protect the delicate mind of children" argument - let's first see some censoring of all of the ads, sponsored content, and state and co…

Tbh it is unfit for my in laws as well. And one is a gambling addict. The real regulation won't get done but policing people and becoming authoritarian, sure

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#446

Stop making your kids my problem! We have everything to hide. It is called personal identity. All data online managed by companies will always be misused, lost to scammers, blamed back to you for something you never did, and hunt you down.

> Stop making your kids my problem! This is an interesting point: there is a trade-off between kids being denied access to inappropriate websites and adults not being forced to verify their age. We can't have both, so we must weigh which is more important. One could argue that protecting kids is clearly more important; on the other hand, there are way more adults in the world than kids, so more people are impacted wi…

> there are way more adults in the world than kids

How can that be? The world population has been growing for decades.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potential real-world consequences, while they do exist, are simply too subtle to realize. Some actual examples of cookies being used against people: - CBP has admitted to buying location/advertising data from brokers to use in helping locate people to arrest - Phishing and identity theft can be made easier due to cookies... security researchers have even demonstrated 2FA bypass techniques based on it - Price discrimi…

I appreciate the list of potential harms. I'm curious about your last point though. Isn't it trivially easy to wipe cookies from your browser?

It can be yes, although not everyone wants to do that because you will likely be logged out of all the websites you're using, shopping carts cleared out, etc.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#448
post #132

And you shouldn’t verify. Many companies offering these identity verification services have ties to the intelligence networks of a country that shall not be named (similar to most VPN services that are supposedly there to protect your anonymity).

No Such Agency is the biggest government data collection agency, why not name the hosting country?

yoU Said it All

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#449
The only people who can be trusted with any form of identity (including age) vertification is the government. You know, the same people who issued the identity documents and know who you are.

It's not some SV-backed startup. It's not Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon or Meta. It's the government.

Re: I'm reluctant to verify my identity or age for any online services

#450

When thinking about verifying your identity with a service, you have to ask yourself "what will be the impact to me if everything this service knows about me, every click I've made, everything I've watched/read/uploaded is posted publicly on the internet, attached to my full name, address and photo?". Because those are the very real stakes; if you verify with enough services, this will happen to you. Weigh that again…

Price discrimination comes to mind. What else? (“what will be the impact to me”)

Rental discrimination, what you can buy, or where you can live, the whole social credit system
Post reply on HN