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Why isn't online age verification just like showing your ID in person?

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Re: Why isn't online age verification just like showing your ID in person?

#81

Post by ipython »

nickthegreek wrote: post #79
ipython wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad to hear your life is so simple that you can track all this while working full time jobs, cooking healthy meals, driving the kids to the various activities and travel sports (because you could be arrested if you let your kids walk anywhere), making sure they complete their homework on time, monitoring their interactions with friends, tracking new tech trends to find new threats (is my kid interacting with charact…

> Instead you're nitpicking my ability to parent my kids. You willingly invited that conversation. I obliged. > If you truly believe what you're saying, then you'd agree with me. Get over yourself. You have not made an attempt to ask for a solution from me to find common ground. You keep trying to remove yourself from the responsibilities of parenting in the modern world as shown in the examples you put forth and you…

> Get over yourself.... find common ground

Ad hominem attacks - great way to find common ground. I actually did try to find common ground, which is that we need to legislate. My argument is that the real entities that need legislation are the ones who can most afford to do so - in both time, resources, and ownership of the platforms that we are all beholden to. I will not advocate for even more punitive restrictions on parents (who already are subject to enough societal punitive pressures as it is - TBH your post is a great example. Instead of empathy, you reply with scorn and derision - as if I'm not good enough to parent my kids).

> I believe that it would be good for Parental Controls on devices to have a toggle to say that the phone is being used by someone in under 13, or someone 14-18 (whatever bands you want).

So you're admitting that parental controls are ineffective?

> Laws can be passed that tell remote connections how they must act when receiving this flag.

And those laws are enforced through what mechanism? What country enforces this law? Do ISPs now have to only accept connections from "legal" remote servers that have attested that they respect that flag? That sounds like an even more restrictive situation for you, as a free adult, than the current system.

But, I do have good news! What you described already exists! In fact, there are even W3C standards that have been around for 30 years to implement a machine readable content rating system! Just never got around to that whole passing a law thing to force all websites globally to adopt it...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_for_Internet_Content_... and more recently https://www.w3.org/2007/powder/. You can read the ACM paper on this, aptly titled "Internet Access Controls Without Censorship" here: https://www.w3.org/PICS/iacwcv2.htm.

And the most popular web browser of the early 2000s even has this functionality built in - to filter out remote connections that advertise content unsuitable for minors! https://www.isumsoft.com/internet/enable-content-advisor-in-...

Re: Why isn't online age verification just like showing your ID in person?

#82

Post by mariusor »

danaris wrote: post #14
rzerowan wrote: post #4

Paradoxically this is one of those features/requirements that i feel should be on the end-user-device with zero knowledge proof. It would make sense to have the enduser verification ondevice with a simple reply to any online property : Passed age verification/or not. Otherwise the centralization and eventual leak of this data is a can of worms in waiting.

Any on-device solution that simply sends back a yes/no result as you describe is guaranteed to have one of two problems: 1) It is vulnerable to modifications and hacks on the local device that get it to send back a "yes" result without actually verifying anything OR 2) It requires the device to use some kind of closed, proprietary system that allows the service to guarantee that #1 cannot happen Now, in general, the…

I think that the improved version of age verification is to ask the yes/no question to a government third party based on a signed payload that your local device offers the service. The government already has your identifying data, they only need to certify on behalf of which person the question is asked.

Re: Why isn't online age verification just like showing your ID in person?

#83

Post by pseudalopex »

jraby3 wrote: post #49
zug_zug wrote: post #25

Cryptographically there are techniques that let you prove you're one of the several hundred million adults in the US that don't reveal anything about which adult you are. It's much less complicated than bitcoin. I'm bringing this up because it's the perfect litmus test to show whether you really care about age verification, or if you want personal trackability for all internet behavior. I'd be okay with this for cert…

Can you send a link or explain how this can be done? As a not super tech savvy parent I find it impossible to keep my son off screens. He always finds a workaround. So I'm a fan of age verification especially after reading The Anxious Generation, despite all the hate it gets from hacker news.

> hate

You meant logical criticism?

Re: Why isn't online age verification just like showing your ID in person?

#84

Post by zug_zug »

swid wrote: post #50
zug_zug wrote: post #25

Cryptographically there are techniques that let you prove you're one of the several hundred million adults in the US that don't reveal anything about which adult you are. It's much less complicated than bitcoin. I'm bringing this up because it's the perfect litmus test to show whether you really care about age verification, or if you want personal trackability for all internet behavior. I'd be okay with this for cert…

Not really. There are ways to prove ownership of one of several hundred million tokens. If you give out this many tokens, the odds that some will be stolen or sold must be fairly close to 1.

Chat GPT would be happy to explain "Rate-limited anonymous credentials" to you. Just because you can't think of something doesn't mean brilliant mathematicians can't.

Re: Why isn't online age verification just like showing your ID in person?

#85

Post by zug_zug »

jraby3 wrote: post #49
zug_zug wrote: post #25

Cryptographically there are techniques that let you prove you're one of the several hundred million adults in the US that don't reveal anything about which adult you are. It's much less complicated than bitcoin. I'm bringing this up because it's the perfect litmus test to show whether you really care about age verification, or if you want personal trackability for all internet behavior. I'd be okay with this for cert…

Can you send a link or explain how this can be done? As a not super tech savvy parent I find it impossible to keep my son off screens. He always finds a workaround. So I'm a fan of age verification especially after reading The Anxious Generation, despite all the hate it gets from hacker news.

Actually it's not super easy to explain to the layman, since it uses cryptography. But if you'd like to learn more ChatGPT is very knowledgeable.

But it sounds like your wish is to keep your kid off screens in general, which I don't think age verification would accomplish.

Re: Why isn't online age verification just like showing your ID in person?

#86

Post by hellojesus »

bennyp101 wrote: post #54
michaelmrose wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do they work find and keep a job keep up with their kids school and keep government benefits. It doesn't matter that you could do those things before the internet the normal and often only or only practical flow involves the net. Counter offer we keep letting people manage their own kids' shit and they can control access to the degree they deem appropriate

Whilst I do kinda agree, I was just replying to the parent about what the punishment would probably be :) But the problem is that people are NOT managing their own kids' shit, and now we have to have things put in place to try and counter that - and end up overreaching. I'm more than happy to educate mine on how to be safe online, and to come and talk to us about stuff, other aren't, or are not aware they need to. Pe…

Consider a parent that uses mac address filtering to block access. Easy to implement on routers.

What happens when the parent goes to bed and the kid hard resets the router? Or the parent goes to bed and the kid spoofs the mac of the parent's device?

It's a good outcome! Let the cat and mouse games begin, and the youth will be more tech literate than ever. But I think punishing the parents is a bit much.

It'll probably eventually be like how modern folks treat play dates when they ask the counterparty if there are guns in their house and whether they're locked, etc. but with the internet: Do you have a central device management system with proper safeguards, logging, and ml running for anomaly detection on your network? Do you dpi? How do you prevent your kids from evil maiding you? Is your personal computer locked in a cage, and do you check all your paraphernalia for keyloggers, etc. before booting?

Re: Why isn't online age verification just like showing your ID in person?

#87

Post by nickthegreek »

ipython wrote: post #81
nickthegreek wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead you're nitpicking my ability to parent my kids. You willingly invited that conversation. I obliged. > If you truly believe what you're saying, then you'd agree with me. Get over yourself. You have not made an attempt to ask for a solution from me to find common ground. You keep trying to remove yourself from the responsibilities of parenting in the modern world as shown in the examples you put forth and you…

> Get over yourself.... find common ground Ad hominem attacks - great way to find common ground. I actually did try to find common ground, which is that we need to legislate. My argument is that the real entities that need legislation are the ones who can most afford to do so - in both time, resources, and ownership of the platforms that we are all beholden to. I will not advocate for even more punitive restrictions…

> Ad hominem attacks

Grow some skin. I used that ad hominem in response to your false dilemma/no true support comment of "If you truly believe what you're saying, then you'd agree with me". This comment ignores the obvious 3rd option that we can share underlying values (parental controls are helpful) while disagreeing on details, tradeoffs and the responsibility that comes with parenting.

> So you're admitting that parental controls are ineffective?

I never stated anything of the sort. I specifically pointed how they could be effective for you in the examples you brought forth. I think they could be made more effective, not that they are ineffective.

> And those laws are enforced through what mechanism?

If this is how you feel, than no solution you put forth is valid either.

At this point, I've stated how current parental controls can solve some of your issues, parental controls can be strengthen, outlined an implementation that does not disrupt the lives of Adults on the internet while also pointing out that parents are not immune from blame and are bare the majority of control over their childs lives. Ive engaged with you in good faith.

You just keeping shitting on everything. All because I stated that parents are not immune from blame. I stand by the ad hominem.

Re: Why isn't online age verification just like showing your ID in person?

#88

Post by danaris »

mariusor wrote: post #82
danaris wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any on-device solution that simply sends back a yes/no result as you describe is guaranteed to have one of two problems: 1) It is vulnerable to modifications and hacks on the local device that get it to send back a "yes" result without actually verifying anything OR 2) It requires the device to use some kind of closed, proprietary system that allows the service to guarantee that #1 cannot happen Now, in general, the…

I think that the improved version of age verification is to ask the yes/no question to a government third party based on a signed payload that your local device offers the service. The government already has your identifying data, they only need to certify on behalf of which person the question is asked.

So then you're just back to the even more basic problem of "is the person using this device the same person that the payload was signed on behalf of?"

Re: Why isn't online age verification just like showing your ID in person?

#89

Post by sotix »

zug_zug wrote: post #84
swid wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. There are ways to prove ownership of one of several hundred million tokens. If you give out this many tokens, the odds that some will be stolen or sold must be fairly close to 1.

Chat GPT would be happy to explain "Rate-limited anonymous credentials" to you. Just because you can't think of something doesn't mean brilliant mathematicians can't.

It would be much more valuable if you explained rate-limited anonymous credentials or provided an article (even wikipedia). ChatGPT is non-deterministic and telling someone to use it feels a bit cold for this website.

Re: Why isn't online age verification just like showing your ID in person?

#90

Post by BizarroLand »

quentindanjou wrote: post #40
dbbk wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why we don't just make a law that parents must set parental controls on their kids' devices. We do this for most other things.

Because the main purpose of these regulations isn't protecting the kids. It's surveillance control. An easy way to better kill online anonymity.

Yep. Do it long enough and there won't be a single plebeian who has the slightest expectation of not being under surveillance.
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