5 ms·

Congress Shocked to Discover 10 Year Olds Check the ‘I’m over 18’ Box Online

57 points by piperswe 3y ago

paulpauper 3y ago
Great, that means expect more inconvenience for people who are 18+. some people who break the system means we have to operate under the presumption of guilt for all. TSA for example.
- Etrnl_President 3y ago
  [dead]
version_five 3y ago
Occasionally I'll click on a site, say a brewery, that asks me to put in my birthday, usually though a slider wheel or form. 90% of the time I just go to a different site. If I'm just browsing around I don't care that badly. Same with modal popups. I suppose if I was a kid who wanted to get to a site, I'd be more likely to make up an age. My point is that asking stupid questions to anonymous users probably turns away more legit users than kids.
- nubinetwork 3y ago
  The alternative is those third party services that make you take pictures of yourself holding your ID... I absolutely despise these services though, because it's a huge hassle, on top of the privacy concerns attached to it.
  - thmsths 3y ago
    And in an ideal world that would be no big deal. Indeed when I buy alcohol at the liquor store the cashier does a brief check of the ID and inputs the DOB in his terminal. There is a good precedent for using my ID to check my age. But I have no illusions of what would happen if we used it for online age check: the picture of the ID would be stored forever. The website would try to collect all the available info and not just the DOB (which includes full name and address as well as height and weight) and try to monetize it. And then of course there is a the risk of data leaks. So in our current world I am afraid that online ID checks are a hard no.
kbelder 3y ago
I've had to walk my child through the process of lying about their age on a website at least a dozen times by age 10. Thank you, Government, for making me have the "it's ok to lie to certain people under certain specific circumstances" conversation with my child far before she was ready.
- spondylosaurus 3y ago
  "Never give out your real birthday online" was the party line when I was a kid... so a whole lot of us were apparently born on January 1st, 1900.
  - dontlaugh 3y ago
    The birthday emails were funny to read.
  - m463 3y ago
    Hi birthday mate. We've both passed Jean Calment now! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment
  - satiric 3y ago
    I wondered for years why I was getting so many ads on Facebook directed towards old people. Then I realized that Facebook thinks I was born about 90 years before I was actually born.
adr1an 3y ago
I'm surprised we still don't have a standard way of setting birthdate on browsers or OS. If we had, then setting could be given (and locked) by parents..
- e44858 3y ago
  Seems like such an obvious solution. Almost free to implement for websites, just return a “content-rating” header, instead of having to integrate with a costly ID verification system. Only downside is that it doesn’t make it easier to track people /s
- chromoblob 3y ago
  How would you block all proxies which give access to same website, except replacing the lockable birthdate input with another input that is not lockable?
- graftak 3y ago
  Just a ‘is this user of age X?’ query would suffice. Obtaining it should require user interaction, and there should be a limit of maybe 3 distinct ages per domain that can be requested. No need to give out more details than needed.
suddenclarity 3y ago
Terrible headline. As the author himself pointed out, this has been discussed by politicians for decades. There just hasn't been a privacy acceptable method. Especially when you can vote without ID. It's just that more recently it's becoming more common to call for real ID checks to access the internet. Didn't the UK introduce a porn block so you have to ask your internet provider to access it..?
- jjeaff 3y ago
  What does voting without an id have to do with any of this?
  - deprecative 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - valleyer 3y ago
      I've voted many times in the US without having to show ID. Here's California: "In most cases, a California voter is not required to show identification to a polling place worker before casting a ballot." https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting-resources/voting-california/what-bring https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting-resources/voting-cal...
      - jjeaff 3y ago
        This is true, but not the whole story. You do have to have some form of ID when you register to vote. But not necessarily a photo ID. A utility bill or something similar to verify that you live where you say you live. Then they match SSN and some other stuff like that. It's a system that can be somewhat easily cheated on a small scale, but would be very difficult to do on a large scale without getting caught. I would encourage anyone who thinks voter fraud is a big problem in the US to learn about how voting verification works in your state and try to come up with hypothetical ways that someone might cheat to gain a few hundred illicit votes. I think you will find it completely untenable and highly risky. Which is why we have had so few voter fraud problems over the years.
pengaru 3y ago
What would George Carlin say? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-ryuJDTpEc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-ryuJDTpEc
- southernplaces7 3y ago
  his point about soft fruity baby boomers raising a whole generation of even softer fruity baby boomers bore terribly prophetic, fruits, now that we're here in the 2020s.

57 points by piperswe 3y ago

Great, that means expect more inconvenience for people who are 18+. some people who break the system means we have to operate under the presumption of guilt for all. TSA for example.

Etrnl_President 3y ago
[dead]

version_five 3y ago

Occasionally I'll click on a site, say a brewery, that asks me to put in my birthday, usually though a slider wheel or form. 90% of the time I just go to a different site. If I'm just browsing around I don't care that badly. Same with modal popups. I suppose if I was a kid who wanted to get to a site, I'd be more likely to make up an age. My point is that asking stupid questions to anonymous users probably turns away more legit users than kids.

nubinetwork 3y ago
The alternative is those third party services that make you take pictures of yourself holding your ID... I absolutely despise these services though, because it's a huge hassle, on top of the privacy concerns attached to it.
- thmsths 3y ago
  And in an ideal world that would be no big deal. Indeed when I buy alcohol at the liquor store the cashier does a brief check of the ID and inputs the DOB in his terminal. There is a good precedent for using my ID to check my age. But I have no illusions of what would happen if we used it for online age check: the picture of the ID would be stored forever. The website would try to collect all the available info and not just the DOB (which includes full name and address as well as height and weight) and try to monetize it. And then of course there is a the risk of data leaks. So in our current world I am afraid that online ID checks are a hard no.

kbelder 3y ago

I've had to walk my child through the process of lying about their age on a website at least a dozen times by age 10. Thank you, Government, for making me have the "it's ok to lie to certain people under certain specific circumstances" conversation with my child far before she was ready.

spondylosaurus 3y ago
"Never give out your real birthday online" was the party line when I was a kid... so a whole lot of us were apparently born on January 1st, 1900.
- dontlaugh 3y ago
  The birthday emails were funny to read.
- m463 3y ago
  Hi birthday mate. We've both passed Jean Calment now! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment
- satiric 3y ago
  I wondered for years why I was getting so many ads on Facebook directed towards old people. Then I realized that Facebook thinks I was born about 90 years before I was actually born.

adr1an 3y ago

I'm surprised we still don't have a standard way of setting birthdate on browsers or OS. If we had, then setting could be given (and locked) by parents..

e44858 3y ago
Seems like such an obvious solution. Almost free to implement for websites, just return a “content-rating” header, instead of having to integrate with a costly ID verification system. Only downside is that it doesn’t make it easier to track people /s
chromoblob 3y ago
How would you block all proxies which give access to same website, except replacing the lockable birthdate input with another input that is not lockable?
graftak 3y ago
Just a ‘is this user of age X?’ query would suffice. Obtaining it should require user interaction, and there should be a limit of maybe 3 distinct ages per domain that can be requested. No need to give out more details than needed.

suddenclarity 3y ago

Terrible headline. As the author himself pointed out, this has been discussed by politicians for decades. There just hasn't been a privacy acceptable method. Especially when you can vote without ID. It's just that more recently it's becoming more common to call for real ID checks to access the internet. Didn't the UK introduce a porn block so you have to ask your internet provider to access it..?

jjeaff 3y ago
What does voting without an id have to do with any of this?
- deprecative 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - valleyer 3y ago
    I've voted many times in the US without having to show ID. Here's California: "In most cases, a California voter is not required to show identification to a polling place worker before casting a ballot." https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting-resources/voting-california/what-bring https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting-resources/voting-cal...
    - jjeaff 3y ago
      This is true, but not the whole story. You do have to have some form of ID when you register to vote. But not necessarily a photo ID. A utility bill or something similar to verify that you live where you say you live. Then they match SSN and some other stuff like that. It's a system that can be somewhat easily cheated on a small scale, but would be very difficult to do on a large scale without getting caught. I would encourage anyone who thinks voter fraud is a big problem in the US to learn about how voting verification works in your state and try to come up with hypothetical ways that someone might cheat to gain a few hundred illicit votes. I think you will find it completely untenable and highly risky. Which is why we have had so few voter fraud problems over the years.

pengaru 3y ago

What would George Carlin say? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-ryuJDTpEc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-ryuJDTpEc

southernplaces7 3y ago
his point about soft fruity baby boomers raising a whole generation of even softer fruity baby boomers bore terribly prophetic, fruits, now that we're here in the 2020s.