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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

#711

Post by qsera »

pixelatedindex wrote: post #651
qsera wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Outside of vaccines Will you allow an argument against this? I mean, I want to show an example where it is only a problem when someone else is not as convinced as yourself, one way or the other. >so the way to refute is to ask for proof.. No use. The same proof will not be convincing for everyone. Let us take vaccine. The proof for a Vaccine for X saving Y lives is often the following. "Before the vaccine there was…

> Are those kids who are not dying of X (thanks to the vaccine), are dying of something else? Now the picture is not so clear. Why is it not so clear? If they are not dying of X then the vaccine did the job and technically saved the kid’s life from dying of X. Notice that it doesn’t mean that they can’t die of other things.

Because just imagine that may be the underlying cause of death is malnutrition, or poor immune system. In this case the body won't be able to fight of any kind of infection. When you vaccinate such a person for X, that person is able to resist X. But since the immune system health is still weak or the person is still malnutrition, they could still succumb to an infection of Y.

But that is one less death from X, and one death less that the vaccine can claim credit to, but in the larger picture, the vaccine did not save a life.

So the point being 1000 deaths from X to 0 deaths from X does not necessary mean X lives saved.

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

#712

Post by GoblinSlayer »

segfaltnh wrote: post #473
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.

Every time I see this take I remember the time my step father picked me up by my throat and body slammed me on the floor. I was 12. I've had tinnitus ever since. Children really do need protection from some parents. I'm glad you had a good upbringing, be well.

That too. Presumably in bad families internet doesn't stand out as a problem.

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

#713

Post by GoblinSlayer »

inigyou wrote: post #531
GoblinSlayer wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All people were kids and know first hand what it means to be a kid, no need for vetted authority on that.

But we went to school 10-80 years ago and even 10 years ago, school was very different back then. Apparently now there's a lot more technology involved, and kids can bring their phones and use their phones all day which is why there's a backlash. When I was at school, phones were mainly used for texting (or calling, but not at school) and if you were (un)lucky enough have one, you had to put it in a locked drawer of…

I had NES and a lot of time after school.

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

#714

Post by volkl48 »

noir_lord wrote: post #633
happymellon wrote: post #433

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but the war on anonymity was first (just) passed in the US at a state level as porn laws before it passed in the UK. Are we pretending that the porn id laws weren't a first attempt at getting forums like Reddit that might "accidentally" have naked pictures liable and therefore profile everyone? Because this is leaning on blaming to UK for everything the US is doing to itself an awful lot…

Not to mention the UN convention on cybercrime which is a ridiculous one since it makes co-operation necessary if the penalty in the home country is 4 or more years - there are quite a few countries where speaking out against the leader, been gay or been trans will get you that (or much much worse). Canada opposed it originally and then quietly signed it most recently, the UK didn't start this stuff though we are up…

The US is not currently a signatory to that, just to note.

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

#715

Post by kerkeslager »

TZubiri wrote: post #680
noir_lord wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the UN convention on cybercrime which is a ridiculous one since it makes co-operation necessary if the penalty in the home country is 4 or more years - there are quite a few countries where speaking out against the leader, been gay or been trans will get you that (or much much worse). Canada opposed it originally and then quietly signed it most recently, the UK didn't start this stuff though we are up…

Pointing out a law you don't like in another country as justification to ignore local laws, or to critique internation relations policy, is a terrible argument. Some country has laws that some other country dislikes, therefore they should be able to ignore them? I think comes down to what influence you think you have. I'm a backend developer and sys admin, when it comes to international law, I think of it in relation…

> Some country has laws that some other country dislikes, therefore they should be able to ignore them?

I don't know your political beliefs, but I'll say that conservatives make this nonsense argument all the time.

Focus: the person you're responding to is talking about people going to jail for criticizing a leader or being gay or trans. These are violations of human rights. I can't speak for noir_lord, but for me, human rights are more important than any law, full stop. If human rights are being violated by the law, the law is wrong and it is our ethical imperative to do everything within our power to hinder the enforcement of that law (note that what is within our power may not be much).

So when you say, "Some country has laws that some other country dislikes, therefore they should be able to ignore them?" my response is that if any country has laws that violate human rights, then it is our ethical obligation to ignore those laws. To be clear: I'll happily break the laws of my own country if those laws violate human rights. Human rights supersede laws in every case.

> I think comes down to what influence you think you have. I'm a backend developer and sys admin, when it comes to international law, I think of it in relation to hosting content in other countries or serving users in other countries. Judging the quality of laws on another country is beyond my scope, if it conflicts with my ethical constitution, I just don't provide service to that country, I don't provide service in an anonymous manner that makes it possible for users of that country to evade local law because I find the law may contain bad parts.

Standing up for human rights isn't beyond your scope, nor is it beyond your influence. You can provide service in an anonymous manner that makes it possible for users of that country to evade local laws, you just choose not to. And look, we all have limited resources--I'm not saying you're obligated to help with every human rights issue that you come across. But it seems like you're saying that nobody should help people break local laws, even when those laws are unethical. And frankly, that makes you unethical. It's no inconvenience to you if I help Saudi Arabian gays hide their sexual orientation or help Russians criticize Putin. If you're trying to get other people who want to protect human rights to stop doing that, you're de-facto supporting those human rights violations, whether you explicitly agree with them or not.

> What I'm not sure is whether you think of your influence on the subject as a sysadmin that actually wants to provide such services, or whether you think of it as some individual posturing, like a random citizen voicing their opinion on Israel v Palestina knowing full well you have no influence.

Disingenuous nonsense. Certainly a lot of what is done in the name of human rights is ineffective. But I'm not even seeing any indication you care about human rights. Why should someone who does care about human rights be taking strategic notes from you?

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

#716

Post by GoblinSlayer »

dyauspitr wrote: post #269
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.

Totally disagree. If you want to stop kids from using cell phones and social media, you are not going to achieve that at the family level. It is just not possible because if your peers are on the platforms and are using smart phones, no amount of family level restrictions are going to stop kids from using them. It has to be at the state or higher level so that everyone is prevented from using social media or smart ph…

Two platforms? Facebook and youtube? So regulate those two.

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

#717

Post by a2ff6eeb0 »

speedstyle wrote: post #341
dyauspitr wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no such thing as children’s devices. Everyone uses the same smartphones. Optional on device restrictions don’t matter as long as your peer group is on the platform, kids will not stop using it. People are not asking for biometric scanning, but I believe the vast majority would be OK with some sort of ID based authentication system. Now there are ways we can do that in a decentralized way where neither of the…

Are you saying parents would choose not to block it, or children would get around it? Like you say people want to block it, but currently it's very hard while allowing access to Google and other resources, or it's easy to get around. Why does this require server verification? For example, all devices could require your ZKP ID attestation to be usable unfiltered. Then the relevant apps/sites would be equally inaccessi…

This would be for harmful websites like ones that show pictures of ICE shooting people, Thai citizens making fun of the King, or Chinese folks posting pictures of the tank person, for people under the impressionable young age of 999 years old, right?

We have to protect our citizens, after all.

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

#718

Post by xboxnolifes »

andrepd wrote: post #586
mancerayder wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people in the replies below going back and forth about whether the US or the UK started the surveillance state first. I think as undemocratic as the US can behave in practice, it's hard not to argue that the UK won the CCTV surveillance race. London is heavily surveilled. And it doesn't help that someone just posted this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49255496

Hard not to argue in what metric? The US has Flock cameras spreading like the plague, if we're going purely based on vibes. And the Snowden disclosures about how they spy on their own citizens on a massive scale is over a decade old at this point. Plus, a city covered in CCTV could theoretically be freer than one with much less coverage, if those cameras are recording to encrypted storage and accessible only with a j…

London's cctv reputation predates Snowden leaks. Though, I feel like US trying to get antianonymity laws passed started long before the UK has tried.

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

#719

Post by applfanboysbgon »

inigyou wrote: post #424
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not a fallacy to point out the slope is slippery when you are actually, actively sliding down the slope.

And that you're defending dumping a bucket of lubricant on the slope with the pinky promise that it's just for aesthetics, you just like the look of a slippery slope, there's no way we'll ever slide down your lubed slope that we are already sliding down.

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

#720

Post by txrx0000 »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #675
txrx0000 wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The things you've listed are obviously reasonable, but the laws being proposed for digital parenting are very much not the same as those benign, locally-implemented guardrails. Take the recent Illinois law as an example: they're mandating all Internet-capable operating systems to broadcast the user's age bracket to all software that requests it. That effectively means you can't communicate online if you don't comply.…

They don't mandate what x is. Is the fact that the government requires service providers to ask if their users are above 13 years old for COPPA also compelled speech that is incompatible with the First Amendment?

They do not mandate what x is, but they do mandate that you must say a specific age in any Internet-capable OS, and that age must be communicated to any software asking for it. Either comply with the law and utter an age, or you're breaking the law if you communicate online without such an utterance. It is using compelled speech to threaten your right to all digital speech.

There are cases where compelled speech is considered constitutional, but surely not when it's used to threaten the primary way people communicate.

And contrary to your claim, COPPA does not legally require service providers to ask every user how old they are, nor are users obligated to reply. Age questions are just how service providers chose to implement it. And I don't think COPPA is a good example of a law working as intended.

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