4 ms·

that is one way of looking at it, and it's a perfectionist view. I'm sure that everybody knows that one simply can't filter out 100% of underage access, but the

by dorwi 4y ago

that is one way of looking at it, and it's a perfectionist view. I'm sure that everybody knows that one simply can't filter out 100% of underage access, but there are things that CAN be done to reduce it.

Ajedi32 4y ago
Maybe it should just be an HTTP header. Shift the responsibility for enforcing age restrictions to the client side; anything else is likely to be highly authoritarian and/or a massive privacy violation.
- waboremo 4y ago
  Surely we can come up with solutions to help ease the burden for parents/guardians instead of just leaving them out in the cold because we're offended by the mere idea of taking some collective action to prevent abuse.
  - generj 4y ago
    I believe the poster above was suggesting the client browser, not the user of the client, could assist. So Safari knows that a user is under 13 (due to information entered at sign up by guardians) and will block the user from creating an account if a page has the appropriate HTTP header. Or iOS could do the same for app signups.
    - Ajedi32 4y ago
      Correct. The problem here is two-fold: 1. Sites have no reliable way to determine a user's age without massive privacy violations. (E.g. To access this site, upload a copy of your driver's license.) 2. Making the government the final authority on who is allowed to access the adult internet would enable way too much authoritarian abuse. (E.g. Sorry citizen, you have been deemed a dissident, and will therefore now be treated like a child by every website you visit.) The solution to 1 is to handle the age verification part on the client side, so sites don't need to know anything about the user except whether they're old enough to access the content in question. And the solution for 2 is for parents to enforce access at the household level rather than governments doing it at the national level. (E.g. Don't let your kids use devices/software that lies to sites about their age, unless you're there to supervise.) The exact details of how that gets implemented at the protocol level aren't as important as the overall principle. (Though I have a few ideas.)
  - nradov 4y ago
    No thanks. As a parent, I am well aware of the risks of unintended consequences from drastic collective action by government or industry. I'll take the burden. Leave me out in the cold.
  - zaroth 4y ago
    Leaving parents out in the cold? Surely not. It’s obviously parents leaving their children out in the cold if a 10 year old is given unrestricted access to apps and the internet. There are abundant and powerful options to track, monitor, and censor content that your children are exposed to on their devices, assuming a parent chooses to provide their children access to such a device. Asking every single service everywhere to somehow gatekeep when the client-side can do it simply and easily is such a bizarre approach to solving the problem that I can only see it as an obvious and bold-fisted attempt to clamp down on anonymous speech, which is entirely essential for a functional democracy.
    - yamtaddle 4y ago
      Parent here trying to straddle the line between still having convenient tech in our house and keeping the kids from e.g. vegging out on creepily-targeted Youtube videos or stumbling on something terrible. It's a hell of a lot less simple than I thought it'd be. One wrinkle is the goddamn schools sending home devices I can't administer. Hate, hate, hate that.
      - mrguyorama 4y ago
        Surely you can administer the network connection those devices use when they are in your home?
        Ajedi32 4y ago
        That's getting harder as software continues to get better at bypassing network-level snooping or content blocks (which are often done by entities like malicious Wi-Fi operators or the user's ISP, neither of which have any business deciding what content the user is allowed to see).
        yamtaddle 4y ago
        I can. Good luck to people who aren't paid to make computers jump through hoops as their day job. I'm not even necessarily saying the government should step in with heavy-handed regulation, but "parents should just manage it and leave the rest of us alone" gets less reasonable with each passing day.
  - forgotusername6 4y ago
    We are sleepwalking into a surveillance state. One day we will be forced to sign onto the internet. After that it's just a matter of time before they rachet down the civil liberties one by one.

by dorwi 4y ago

Ajedi32 4y ago

Maybe it should just be an HTTP header. Shift the responsibility for enforcing age restrictions to the client side; anything else is likely to be highly authoritarian and/or a massive privacy violation.

waboremo 4y ago
Surely we can come up with solutions to help ease the burden for parents/guardians instead of just leaving them out in the cold because we're offended by the mere idea of taking some collective action to prevent abuse.
- generj 4y ago
  I believe the poster above was suggesting the client browser, not the user of the client, could assist. So Safari knows that a user is under 13 (due to information entered at sign up by guardians) and will block the user from creating an account if a page has the appropriate HTTP header. Or iOS could do the same for app signups.
  - Ajedi32 4y ago
    Correct. The problem here is two-fold: 1. Sites have no reliable way to determine a user's age without massive privacy violations. (E.g. To access this site, upload a copy of your driver's license.) 2. Making the government the final authority on who is allowed to access the adult internet would enable way too much authoritarian abuse. (E.g. Sorry citizen, you have been deemed a dissident, and will therefore now be treated like a child by every website you visit.) The solution to 1 is to handle the age verification part on the client side, so sites don't need to know anything about the user except whether they're old enough to access the content in question. And the solution for 2 is for parents to enforce access at the household level rather than governments doing it at the national level. (E.g. Don't let your kids use devices/software that lies to sites about their age, unless you're there to supervise.) The exact details of how that gets implemented at the protocol level aren't as important as the overall principle. (Though I have a few ideas.)
- nradov 4y ago
  No thanks. As a parent, I am well aware of the risks of unintended consequences from drastic collective action by government or industry. I'll take the burden. Leave me out in the cold.
- zaroth 4y ago
  Leaving parents out in the cold? Surely not. It’s obviously parents leaving their children out in the cold if a 10 year old is given unrestricted access to apps and the internet. There are abundant and powerful options to track, monitor, and censor content that your children are exposed to on their devices, assuming a parent chooses to provide their children access to such a device. Asking every single service everywhere to somehow gatekeep when the client-side can do it simply and easily is such a bizarre approach to solving the problem that I can only see it as an obvious and bold-fisted attempt to clamp down on anonymous speech, which is entirely essential for a functional democracy.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    Parent here trying to straddle the line between still having convenient tech in our house and keeping the kids from e.g. vegging out on creepily-targeted Youtube videos or stumbling on something terrible. It's a hell of a lot less simple than I thought it'd be. One wrinkle is the goddamn schools sending home devices I can't administer. Hate, hate, hate that.
    - mrguyorama 4y ago
      Surely you can administer the network connection those devices use when they are in your home?
      - Ajedi32 4y ago
        That's getting harder as software continues to get better at bypassing network-level snooping or content blocks (which are often done by entities like malicious Wi-Fi operators or the user's ISP, neither of which have any business deciding what content the user is allowed to see).
      - yamtaddle 4y ago
        I can. Good luck to people who aren't paid to make computers jump through hoops as their day job. I'm not even necessarily saying the government should step in with heavy-handed regulation, but "parents should just manage it and leave the rest of us alone" gets less reasonable with each passing day.
- forgotusername6 4y ago
  We are sleepwalking into a surveillance state. One day we will be forced to sign onto the internet. After that it's just a matter of time before they rachet down the civil liberties one by one.