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The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

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Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#981

Post by mikestorrent »

Aurornis wrote: post #678
mikestorrent wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> give parents strong monitoring and restriction tools The problem is that it's bloody hard to actually do this. I'm in a war with my 7yo about youtube; the terms of engagement are, I can block it however I want from the network side, and if he can get around it, he can watch. Well, after many successful months of DNS block, he discovered proxies. After blocking enough of those to dissuade him, he discovered Firefox…

As a parent of young children, this is your entire problem: > the terms of engagement are, I can block it however I want from the network side, and if he can get around it, he can watch. You're treating this as a technical problem, not a parental rules problem. Your own rules say he's allowed to watch! You have to set the expectations and enforce it as a parent.

Well, the point of it is to turn learning about network security and TCP/IP into a game that encourages him to dig in deeper than just the typical surface level interaction with a computer. Firefox has just made the job harder for me than I'd like. I have no issue with simply having him turn the thing off, or taking it away. It's moderated, I'm not totally hands off, c'mon.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#982

Post by mikestorrent »

MintPaw wrote: post #712
Aurornis wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent of young children, this is your entire problem: > the terms of engagement are, I can block it however I want from the network side, and if he can get around it, he can watch. You're treating this as a technical problem, not a parental rules problem. Your own rules say he's allowed to watch! You have to set the expectations and enforce it as a parent.

I think the point is that it's not enforceable.

Correct. I think that's the purpose of DoH, but it's not helping me with my little game.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#983

Post by mikestorrent »

rkagerer wrote: post #682
mikestorrent wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> give parents strong monitoring and restriction tools The problem is that it's bloody hard to actually do this. I'm in a war with my 7yo about youtube; the terms of engagement are, I can block it however I want from the network side, and if he can get around it, he can watch. Well, after many successful months of DNS block, he discovered proxies. After blocking enough of those to dissuade him, he discovered Firefox…

Sounds like a smart kid, is part of you secretly proud of him for his tenacity? Is it impractical to keep an eye on what he's doing on his computer, i.e. physically checking in on him from time to time? How about holding him responsible for his own behavior, to develop respect for the rules you impose? Is it just hopeless, and if so how come? Is it impossible for him to understand why you don't want him watching cert…

> is part of you secretly proud of him for his tenacity?

Of course! That's the whole point. The computer's in a highly visible area of the home. The point was to try to get him to learn a little about networks with some built-in motivation, but I didn't expect the arms race to end so easily.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#984

Post by mikestorrent »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #730
mikestorrent wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> give parents strong monitoring and restriction tools The problem is that it's bloody hard to actually do this. I'm in a war with my 7yo about youtube; the terms of engagement are, I can block it however I want from the network side, and if he can get around it, he can watch. Well, after many successful months of DNS block, he discovered proxies. After blocking enough of those to dissuade him, he discovered Firefox…

The obvious solution would be TLS interception and protocol whitelisting. Same as corporate IT. Stick the kids' devices on a separate vLAN if you don't want to catch all the other devices in the crossfire. Still, there's an awful lot of excellent educational content on YouTube. It seems unfortunate to block access to that. Have you considered self hosting an alternative frontend for it?

> TLS interception and protocol whitelisting

Well, that means directly doing things on the endpoint, which I don't want to do. One could work around that with a Linux USB; I could block USB boot, but then I'm just giving him an iPad, right? What's the point?

The goal is the learning exercise that puts Youtube as a reward mechanism for getting around my blocks. I just hoped to not run out of options so quickly.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#985

Post by mikestorrent »

tolerance wrote: post #759
mikestorrent wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> give parents strong monitoring and restriction tools The problem is that it's bloody hard to actually do this. I'm in a war with my 7yo about youtube; the terms of engagement are, I can block it however I want from the network side, and if he can get around it, he can watch. Well, after many successful months of DNS block, he discovered proxies. After blocking enough of those to dissuade him, he discovered Firefox…

At this point why not just emancipate him. Hook him up with an easy remote job, put a lock on his bedroom and hand him the keys, and make him start paying rent. Because I’m having trouble figuring out what part of society you’re preparing him for at this stage. Respectfully.

Well, what jobs are even going to exist in 15 years??

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#986

Post by mikestorrent »

bfg_9k wrote: post #783
mikestorrent wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> give parents strong monitoring and restriction tools The problem is that it's bloody hard to actually do this. I'm in a war with my 7yo about youtube; the terms of engagement are, I can block it however I want from the network side, and if he can get around it, he can watch. Well, after many successful months of DNS block, he discovered proxies. After blocking enough of those to dissuade him, he discovered Firefox…

Whats so hard about taking the iPad out of they're hands? or laptop or whatever, once you catch them on sites they shouldnt be on?

You missed the point. I take it away all the time! The goal is to teach him about networking, by forcing him to learn it to work around the limitations.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#987

Post by fc417fc802 »

mikestorrent wrote: post #984
fc417fc802 wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious solution would be TLS interception and protocol whitelisting. Same as corporate IT. Stick the kids' devices on a separate vLAN if you don't want to catch all the other devices in the crossfire. Still, there's an awful lot of excellent educational content on YouTube. It seems unfortunate to block access to that. Have you considered self hosting an alternative frontend for it?

> TLS interception and protocol whitelisting Well, that means directly doing things on the endpoint, which I don't want to do. One could work around that with a Linux USB; I could block USB boot, but then I'm just giving him an iPad, right? What's the point? The goal is the learning exercise that puts Youtube as a reward mechanism for getting around my blocks. I just hoped to not run out of options so quickly.

No? A firewall at the edge of the network performs a MitM attack against all TLS connections, substituting in your own (ie self signed) root certificate for the connection on the local side. It also performs protocol filtering because the only realistic way to prevent leaks is a whitelist approach.

The end user is faced with a choice. Either add the local root certificate or else all TLS connections will be rejected. Booting off a USB won't get around it.

At this point this is a bog standard approach taken by any corporate IT department that takes network security even half seriously.

Granted, certain types of proxy will still work since automated approaches to filtering page content itself are not particularly robust. You could always write a custom heuristic to detect the YouTube frontend though. Would probably be quite easy since the elements have predictable names.

That said it doesn't really seem like blocking is what you're actually after. It's unfortunate the cat and mouse game being used as a learning activity concluded so quickly but maybe just have a chat with him about the psychological issues posed by algorithmic feeds and user generated content in general?

I'll mention again, a self hosted alternative frontend for YouTube might address most of the objections you have to it in the first place.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#988

Post by [deleted] »

shimman wrote: post #958
hunterpayne wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are screwed but not for the reason you claim. Its because you don't take any accountability for yourself. There is/was no hope for someone who does that at any point in human history. Is it fair? Nope...but it also doesn't mean you have 0 autonomy.

So when people try to take accountability in a democratic government, by changing the law to what they want through democratic means that suddenly is having no accountability for one's self? Good lord, Silicon Valley must have lead pipes.

[deleted]

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#989

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

myrion wrote: post #611
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't the companies also expected to do revocation checking, essentially creating a record of who identified where, with a fig leaf of "pseudonymity" (that is one database join away from being worthless)?

The revocation checking is implemented in a way where the government doesn't know who you checked and you can even cache the information (if that's good enough for you) so they won't notice at all.

Either the spec changed since I last checked or I confused it with something else, you're right. They're basically using CRLs.

For unlinkability, I think the plan is to essentially issue single use IDs/"certificates", but it's not implemented in the Beta.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#990

Post by tolerance »

mikestorrent wrote: post #985
tolerance wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point why not just emancipate him. Hook him up with an easy remote job, put a lock on his bedroom and hand him the keys, and make him start paying rent. Because I’m having trouble figuring out what part of society you’re preparing him for at this stage. Respectfully.

Well, what jobs are even going to exist in 15 years??

Look, I get what you mean. Sort of watching out for where the puck is moving instead of worrying about where it’s at now.

Maybe it would help not to think that your son is out on the ice with you right now. Because I feel like that’s how you’re treating him. And at least in the situation you described he’s beginning to skate circles around you!

If he’s smart enough to outwit you then maybe he’s smart enough for you to start explaining to him whatever the reasons are you don’t want him to do certain things. I get it. You don’t want him to do some things but at the same time you don’t want to curtail his ambition and agency to do other things. Am I on the right track?

I won’t tell you what to do about that. I mean I could, but I hope that this was useful enough, whatever I mean to be doing here.

Maybe you need to take a step back and revise your feel for the game that you’re playing on your own before you intend to prepare him to start too. The ‘game’ of life and making one’s living.

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