"We rate Reclaim The Net as Right-Biased based on story selection and editorial positions that align with a conservative perspective. We also rate them Mixed for factual reporting due to poor sourcing, lack of transparency, and one-sided biased reporting."
State Attorneys General Want to Tie Online Access to ID
91–100 of 109 posts
Re: State Attorneys General Want to Tie Online Access to ID
#92Re: State Attorneys General Want to Tie Online Access to ID
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A ZKP will work as a base, but the proof mechanism will have to be combined with anti-user measures like device attestation to prevent things like me offering an API to continually sign requests for strangers Spot on! The "technical" proposal from Google of a ZKP system is best seen as technically-disingenuous marketing meant to encourage governments to mandate the use of Google's locked down devices and user-hosti…
I'm not sure what I feel about depriving teens of general purpose computing devices, either, which is the logical consequence of both the pseudo-ZKP scheme and parent's "underage signal". I believe most of us here learned programming through being able to run arbitrary programs, and that would never have happened if we only had access to locked down devices. And that habit of viewing computers as appliances controlle…
Sure, I'm sympathetic to that idea. The point is that it leaves such a decision up to parents, putting non-locked-down computers in the same position as any other potentially-harmful thing you might want to keep away from your kids.
Keeping parents in control also lets them make decisions contrary to what the corporate surveillance industry can legally get away with. For example we can easily imagine an equivalent of Facebook jumping through whatever hoops it needs to do to target minors, perhaps outright banned various places but not generally in the US. If age restrictions are going to be the responsibility of websites, then parents will still have been given no additional tools to prevent their kids from becoming addicted to crap like that.
Shooting from the hip about the situation you describe, I'd be tempted to give a kid a locked-down phone with heavy filtering (or perhaps without even a web browser so they can't use Facebook and its ilk), and then an unrestricted desktop computer which carries more "social accountability".
Re: State Attorneys General Want to Tie Online Access to ID
#94Anonymous or pseudonymous publishing is an essential element of Constitutionally protected freedom of speech [1]. If the government knows who's posting what, it's a lot easier for them to harass, intimidate, punish, or otherwise suppress people who post uncomfortable or politically inconvenient things.
Recent New York Times headline: "Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts". I'm sure the administration would be very happy if there was a database of government issued photo ID's for every account on Facebook. And if the government gets the ID's of those accounts, I'm quite sure nothing good will come of it for either the individuals involved, or the ability of the people to understand whether the government department in question is going about its duties in a way that respects the law and the Constitution.
[1] My username refers to an anonymously published pamphlet that played a key role in US history.
Re: State Attorneys General Want to Tie Online Access to ID
#95I guess HN leans strongly towards the pro-anonymity viewpoint, and sure, the "think of the children!" claim has worn very thin.
But: what methods could that reduce the harm that anonymous internet discourse so often produces? People send death threats, threats of sexual assault, harassment of all kinds, unsolicited pics of their genitals, swat attacks, just absolute nonsense all day every day, hiding behind the veil of anonymity and the asymmetry between the cost of sending such trash and the cost to track it down and do something about it.
There is, quite unusually in politics, a bit of a bipartisan consensus that this is a real, real problem, and that steps like this, or repealing Section 230, would help. Would it, or would it not, and if not, what alternatives are there?
Re: State Attorneys General Want to Tie Online Access to ID
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure what I feel about depriving teens of general purpose computing devices, either, which is the logical consequence of both the pseudo-ZKP scheme and parent's "underage signal". I believe most of us here learned programming through being able to run arbitrary programs, and that would never have happened if we only had access to locked down devices. And that habit of viewing computers as appliances controlle…
Sure, I'm sympathetic to that idea. The point is that it leaves such a decision up to parents, putting non-locked-down computers in the same position as any other potentially-harmful thing you might want to keep away from your kids. Keeping parents in control also lets them make decisions contrary to what the corporate surveillance industry can legally get away with. For example we can easily imagine an equivalent of…
I think banning facebook/instagram/etc is one of the special cases where it makes more sense to be enforced by the site, because people use these out of mainly peer pressure and network effect. If a majority is kept off, the rest have little use for it regardless of their personal wishes. Heck, I'd reckon most kids don't actually want to use them all that much. Regardless of technical details, giving parents this control will also cause a lot of resentment if most parents don't go along.
As opposed to censoring internet content in general, which does not work because there will always be sites not under your jurisdiction and things like VPNs. I don't support any such censorship measures as a result.
Re: State Attorneys General Want to Tie Online Access to ID
#97What I find puzzling about these proposals is that it SEEMS like they could be designed to achieve 90% of the stated goals with almost 0% of the loss of privacy. The idea would be that devices could "opt in" to safety rather than opt out. Allow parents to purchase a locked-down device that always includes a "kids" flag whenever it requests online information, and simply require online services to not provide kid-unfr…
You are mistaking cause for effect. The loss of privacy is the goal, not a side effect, the rest is just a fig leaf.
I generally try to think of things like this in terms of the natural incentives of systems, politicians, and well-meaning voters smoking hopeium. But now with the revelations of how insidious the Epstein class is, I have to wonder if the reason all these digital lockdowns are being shamelessly pushed with a simultaneous urgency is really just because of a giant fucking conspiracy. The common wisdom has always been that conspiracies naturally fall apart as they grow, succumbing to an increasing possibility of a defector. But I think that calculus might change when the members have all got mortal crimes hanging over their heads.
Never mind thinking about how legitimacy was laundered through scientific institutions, and extrapolating to wondering how much that same dynamic applies to "save the children" lobbying NGOs and whatnot.
Re: State Attorneys General Want to Tie Online Access to ID
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, I'm sympathetic to that idea. The point is that it leaves such a decision up to parents, putting non-locked-down computers in the same position as any other potentially-harmful thing you might want to keep away from your kids. Keeping parents in control also lets them make decisions contrary to what the corporate surveillance industry can legally get away with. For example we can easily imagine an equivalent of…
I think banning facebook/instagram/etc is one of the special cases where it makes more sense to be enforced by the site, because people use these out of mainly peer pressure and network effect. If a majority is kept off, the rest have little use for it regardless of their personal wishes. Heck, I'd reckon most kids don't actually want to use them all that much. Regardless of technical details, giving parents this con…
But why not both? I'm coming from a USian perspective here where I don't see much possibility of actual widespread bans of these types of products, rather just a retrenching to what can be supported by regulatory capture.
Also, we're getting the locked down computing devices anyway - mobile phones as they are right now are a sufficient root of trust for parental purposes. So it seems pointless to avoid using that capability (which corpos are happy to continue embracing regardless) but instead put an additional system of control front and center.
Re: State Attorneys General Want to Tie Online Access to ID
#99we really need better leadership
Nobody who would be any good at the job wants to waste their life campaigning for it.
Re: State Attorneys General Want to Tie Online Access to ID
#100What I find puzzling about these proposals is that it SEEMS like they could be designed to achieve 90% of the stated goals with almost 0% of the loss of privacy. The idea would be that devices could "opt in" to safety rather than opt out. Allow parents to purchase a locked-down device that always includes a "kids" flag whenever it requests online information, and simply require online services to not provide kid-unfr…
The Purpose Of a System Is What It Does. Whether it is stated (or even designed) to protect kids, if it does anything more or different from that goal, it will perform those actions regardless of what is said about what the System should be doing.