5 ms·

Age verification to access knowledge? I don't understand. What the bottom of this?

jjgreen 4y ago
The political driver: Tories don't like (other) people looking at porn. The real driver: age verification will entail logging of who looked at which page, information which is rather useful to the government.
- mPReDiToR 4y ago
  I would be surprised if all ISP's didn't log this information, and hand it over to GCHQ, maybe with a court order, maybe on request. Anyone who can stop their ISP tracking their forbidden knowledge is going to be bright enough to thwart this latest "think of the children" rubbish.
  - p-e-w 4y ago
    Wikipedia uses TLS, so which articles are being accessed is invisible to the ISP.
  - 1827163 4y ago
    We work around that by downloading a torrent of the entirety of Wikipedia. Then there is nothing the government can do to find out what we are reading. Same for Library Genesis, which holds over 2.5 million books, but that's rather expensive due to the sheer disk space required. For mobile usage, 1 Terabyte micro SD cards are getting cheaper by the day, perhaps someone could make a ready made torrent release of useful information, not just Wikipedia but Project Gutenberg and many other things from the Internet Archive? Complete with search built in.
    - BlueTemplar 4y ago
      A book being around 1 Mo, wouldn't LibGen fit in 1 to 10 To ?
  - throwaway67743 4y ago
    They don't, the retention act was/is a mess and only really covers the big 4....
- 31337Logic 4y ago
  Is there porn on Wikipedia though?
  - SpaghettiCthulu 4y ago
    Yes
  - renewedrebecca 4y ago
    Depends on who you allow to define "porn."
  - Clubber 4y ago
    Porn is the excuse, it fits in with "for the children!" They probably want to see who's posting what they consider "hate speech." It's an arrest able offense in the UK I believe. How the mighty have fallen.
  - tivert 4y ago
    > Is there porn on Wikipedia though? Yeah: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisting IIRC, most sex topics on Wikipedia similarly have a weird Wiki-how style illustration as well as contributed depictions (likely from exhibitionists).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
tivert 4y ago
> Age verification to access knowledge? Calling Wikipedia "knowledge" is being generous. That label is mostly its self-important marketing. Wikipedia is actually a reference that's oh so cheap and easy to access that its unreliability doesn't matter. It's what you use for "answers" when it's not important that you get the right one (or for pushing an agenda onto lazy information consumers).
- hnfong 4y ago
  If there's a way to pay a reasonable sum for infallible information sources that's higher quality than wikipedia besides buying out a university, let me know.
  - tivert 4y ago
    > If there's a way to pay a reasonable sum for infallible information sources that's higher quality than wikipedia besides buying out a university, let me know. Nothing's a perfect "infallible information source," but you can do better than Wikipedia without needing to go as far as "buying out a university." Perhaps Kindle Unlimited plus a newspaper subscription for current events?

The political driver: Tories don't like (other) people looking at porn. The real driver: age verification will entail logging of who looked at which page, information which is rather useful to the government.

mPReDiToR 4y ago
I would be surprised if all ISP's didn't log this information, and hand it over to GCHQ, maybe with a court order, maybe on request. Anyone who can stop their ISP tracking their forbidden knowledge is going to be bright enough to thwart this latest "think of the children" rubbish.
- p-e-w 4y ago
  Wikipedia uses TLS, so which articles are being accessed is invisible to the ISP.
- 1827163 4y ago
  We work around that by downloading a torrent of the entirety of Wikipedia. Then there is nothing the government can do to find out what we are reading. Same for Library Genesis, which holds over 2.5 million books, but that's rather expensive due to the sheer disk space required. For mobile usage, 1 Terabyte micro SD cards are getting cheaper by the day, perhaps someone could make a ready made torrent release of useful information, not just Wikipedia but Project Gutenberg and many other things from the Internet Archive? Complete with search built in.
  - BlueTemplar 4y ago
    A book being around 1 Mo, wouldn't LibGen fit in 1 to 10 To ?
- throwaway67743 4y ago
  They don't, the retention act was/is a mess and only really covers the big 4....
31337Logic 4y ago
Is there porn on Wikipedia though?
- SpaghettiCthulu 4y ago
  Yes
- renewedrebecca 4y ago
  Depends on who you allow to define "porn."
- Clubber 4y ago
  Porn is the excuse, it fits in with "for the children!" They probably want to see who's posting what they consider "hate speech." It's an arrest able offense in the UK I believe. How the mighty have fallen.
- tivert 4y ago
  > Is there porn on Wikipedia though? Yeah: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisting IIRC, most sex topics on Wikipedia similarly have a weird Wiki-how style illustration as well as contributed depictions (likely from exhibitionists).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

tivert 4y ago

> Age verification to access knowledge? Calling Wikipedia "knowledge" is being generous. That label is mostly its self-important marketing. Wikipedia is actually a reference that's oh so cheap and easy to access that its unreliability doesn't matter. It's what you use for "answers" when it's not important that you get the right one (or for pushing an agenda onto lazy information consumers).

hnfong 4y ago
If there's a way to pay a reasonable sum for infallible information sources that's higher quality than wikipedia besides buying out a university, let me know.
- tivert 4y ago
  > If there's a way to pay a reasonable sum for infallible information sources that's higher quality than wikipedia besides buying out a university, let me know. Nothing's a perfect "infallible information source," but you can do better than Wikipedia without needing to go as far as "buying out a university." Perhaps Kindle Unlimited plus a newspaper subscription for current events?