6 ms·

age verification should be backed into the browser and not into websites. parents should be able to access a (password protected) setting in any browser that c

age verification should be backed into the browser and not into websites. parents should be able to access a (password protected) setting in any browser that can exclude some types of websites (like porn). governments should be free to go after any website not respecting that setting. but forcing the age-verification onto websites is just moronic.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> age verification should be backed into the browser You want a mandated block of government code in every browser?
- dinkblam 2y ago
  why government code? having a checkbox that corresponds to info passed with the HTTP requests is hardly something that requires a library or more than a few lines of code
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > why government code? Legal age verification in the browser means legislated code. Not line by line, necessarily, but state code in the browser.
- michaelmior 2y ago
  Such a law doesn't necessarily have to require that every browser include the content filtering code. Only that websites must correctly report the content they serve. Of course then the obvious workaround for someone wanting to access restricted content is just to install a browser that does not enforce the restrictions. But that's a problem even if browsers were "forced" to implement this anyway. There would always be a browser out there that didn't adhere to this rule anyway.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Of course then the obvious workaround for someone wanting to access restricted content is just to install a browser that does not enforce the restrictions You really see a world where such a law is passed and such browsers aren’t outlawed?
    - michaelmior 2y ago
      Yes and no. There are (at least) two ways to effectively outlaw such browsers. One is penalties for the browser distributor. However, this really only applies to entities that are subject to US law. Of course the law could go one step further and try to go after ISPs for allowing access to download them, but that's already proved difficult in other arenas. The other way to limit access to such browsers is penalties for users of those browsers. But that feels even less likely. Even if such a law were on the books, how would it be enforced? Either someone would have to report someone using an "illegal" browser or perhaps some method of fingerprinting that is somehow tied back to the actual user. Both of these seem far-fetched to me. So perhaps such browsers would be outlawed, but I'm not sure it would practically do much.
  - Braxton1980 2y ago
    > Of course then the obvious workaround for someone wanting to access restricted content is just to install a browser that does not enforce the restrictions. But that's a problem even if browsers were "forced" to implement this anyway. There would always be a browser out there that didn't adhere to this rule anyway So why are you for it if the solution isn't valid?
    - michaelmior 2y ago
      I didn't say anywhere that I am for it.
bobthepanda 2y ago
it would be less terrible if there were some simple, Apple ID-like way to simply get redirected to a govt website, put in your driver's license, and the website only gets a token back that says "yes over age/no underage". The data already exists, it's what bars use to scan IDs with handheld readers IIRC.
- dinkblam 2y ago
  i wasn't really talking about about any "verification". just a way for parents to disable what they want their kid to be able to browse. if parents don't care to change the setting, their kids would be free to browse anything.
- baby_souffle 2y ago
  > The data already exists, it's what bars use to scan IDs with handheld readers IIRC. Sorta, yeah. But the reason that works is because there's a human guarding the door that can assert that the hand presenting the ID is attached to a face that looks just like the one on the ID. Otherwise a very smart 17 year old would just get their hands on the UUID or whatever for literally any ID that belongs to somebody that's 18+. Within _hours_ of this type of system going into effect, you'd have the age/id version of bugmenot.com
  - burnished 2y ago
    You're implying smart 17 year olds don't make it into bars. You rarely need anything approaching %100 compliance in order to have an effective policy, so if anything you're advocating for its effectiveness when you suggest the only people that would be in violation are the rare precocious kid.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      But that's the difference. For a 17 year old to get into a bar, they need to, themselves, acquire a fake ID. Anyone selling that physical object in your jurisdiction would then be subject to arrest. On the internet, one smart 17 year old sets up im-old.lol and then every kid everywhere has a one-click age verification bypass and the service is run by an anon on a server outside the jurisdiction.
cls59 2y ago
And then kinds just learn how to download and run an open-source browser produced outside of the country that does not implement the setting on the client side.
- mrweasel 2y ago
  I was going to say that it's a great way to teach teenagers how to modify and compile a browser. Moving the verification to sites also isn't going you any good, as the site owners could just move to more liberal countries.
- TylerE 2y ago
  Or just uses any of a gazillion proxies that strips the "I"m under 18" bit.
- johnnyjeans 2y ago
  I consider that a feature. Working and training problem solving skills and persistence through trial-and-error to the degree required for that kind of thing is great. I feel it's underappreciated in potential that treating a wide swath of these kinds of rules as nothing more than cattle-fences can have a shockingly positive effect. One of the biggest problems that grows with each generation, is how do you get the youth to actually engage in constructive development of real skills? How do you get them to be interested in something that will be useful for society down the line? Quietly looking the other way while a statistical minority breaks some of the safety-rails of society basically solves that problem. Breaking the rules is cool. You're basically exploiting the rebellious nature of the youth to trick them into learning useful skillsets. So long as the hurdles to circumvent the rules remain reasonably involved to overcome, and the secret intention remains unspoken, you basically double up the rewards of the rules.
  - Der_Einzige 2y ago
    So the desire to jerk off is the ideal catalyst for being subversive? I mean it’s not that I disagree with you, but this is what you are saying!!!
- 2y ago
baby_souffle 2y ago
> but forcing the age-verification onto websites is just moronic. Agree. > parents should be able to access a (password protected) setting in any browser that can exclude some types of websites (like porn). How would this work? Who's going to set up the taxonomy / classification tree for every domain/site on the internet just so a guardian can say "yes to drugs, no to porn, no to news, no to weapons..."? Or if that's not the implementation, how would an arbitrary site signal to the browser what the age limit is? Once you move beyond a binary "require parent consent for $domain" flag, you're quickly approaching traditional parental control software. I know I'm not the only one one this site that made a bit of spare $ back in the day helping kids at school go _around_ overbearing parental controls.
- generalizations 2y ago
  This is the core fallacy I see in proponents of such rules: they think the rules can be enforced.
  - convolvatron 2y ago
    I think the parent had an even more important fallacy - that the rules can't even be _stated_. there is an implicit presumption that everyone everywhere agrees on what material is appropriate for what people and at what age.
    - evil-olive 2y ago
      yes, and that presumption is even older than the internet. this is from a 1964 Supreme Court decision [0]: > I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
- simion314 2y ago
  >How would this work? Pornhub knows they do not want to have trouble so they will respect the browser setting and not serve minors. There could be an institution that can receive complains about websites not using this API and those wbsites can be blocked from the country and fined if possible until they implement the API. We need all mobile and desktop OSes to make it easy for parents to setup accounts for their children, the church could also educated the people instead of just complaining. It is not perfect, soem clever kid can find a way to reset the BIOS/UEFI and install Ubuntu with a fake age on his PC , but most parents can feel safe and we would not have to show our ID card to Pornhub or even Steam because some game shows nipples and nipples are more dangerous in USA then nazi propaganda.
Terr_ 2y ago
I wouldn't say every browser, but the correct place for the policy is on the device of the parent who is demanding the special feature. Sites' obligations should be limited to basic disclosure of "this site might contain X" metadata. Benefits: 1. Orwellian abuse: No creepy-ass super-abuseable government panopticon knowing every goddamn service you've ever made an account on, with the ability to arbitrarily revoke them and/or block new ones. 2. Costs: The majority of the costs of creating and maintaining the system fall upon the people who actually use it and want it to exist, rather than a bunch of other adults across the globe. 3. Parent focus: Most enforcement exists in a physical realm where parents/guardians at least have a chance of understanding, monitoring, and managing it. "Little Timmy is using Daddy's phone" can be determined instantly at a glance. 4. Exceptions: If the child has some health-class homework and can't access the right Wikipedia pages anymore, the parent can easily grant exceptions and revoke them. 5. If someone's religion says that unclad ankles are smut, then their church can create their own site-rating-site and adherents configure their family's devices to it.
- Braxton1980 2y ago
  What if a site doesn't comply or lies? Who is enforcing this
barnabee 2y ago
Age verification should be baked into the parenting. It's about the only place it might have the intended effect anyway, and has the advantage of not enabling mass surveillance.
Braxton1980 2y ago
Why
butlike 2y ago
Kids have nothing but time and energy to learn about their world, so you get weird things like the children rootkitting your device or "the home computer" on their quest to see salacious corners of the web. As always, parenting starts and stops with the parent. The internet should be open and if the child sees something that upsets them (or makes them question one of their assumptions), it's the parent's responsibility to cultivate an environment where the child feels comfortable talking about it with them.
- Der_Einzige 2y ago
  I learned that the password my parents used on the computer was “Neo Maxi Zoom Dwebie” by password cracking my windows XP with rainbow tables at like age 11. I hate the breakfast club and think it’s one of the examples of movies which idolized anti-intellectualism and basically celebrates bullying nerdy types. Sadly ironic of a password choices from my “nerdy” family. If the rainbow tables didn’t work, I’d have rootkitted/RATed the computer.
genewitch 2y ago
And who decides what browsers are okay? Is it Apple and Google?

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> age verification should be backed into the browser You want a mandated block of government code in every browser?

dinkblam 2y ago
why government code? having a checkbox that corresponds to info passed with the HTTP requests is hardly something that requires a library or more than a few lines of code
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > why government code? Legal age verification in the browser means legislated code. Not line by line, necessarily, but state code in the browser.
michaelmior 2y ago
Such a law doesn't necessarily have to require that every browser include the content filtering code. Only that websites must correctly report the content they serve. Of course then the obvious workaround for someone wanting to access restricted content is just to install a browser that does not enforce the restrictions. But that's a problem even if browsers were "forced" to implement this anyway. There would always be a browser out there that didn't adhere to this rule anyway.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Of course then the obvious workaround for someone wanting to access restricted content is just to install a browser that does not enforce the restrictions You really see a world where such a law is passed and such browsers aren’t outlawed?
  - michaelmior 2y ago
    Yes and no. There are (at least) two ways to effectively outlaw such browsers. One is penalties for the browser distributor. However, this really only applies to entities that are subject to US law. Of course the law could go one step further and try to go after ISPs for allowing access to download them, but that's already proved difficult in other arenas. The other way to limit access to such browsers is penalties for users of those browsers. But that feels even less likely. Even if such a law were on the books, how would it be enforced? Either someone would have to report someone using an "illegal" browser or perhaps some method of fingerprinting that is somehow tied back to the actual user. Both of these seem far-fetched to me. So perhaps such browsers would be outlawed, but I'm not sure it would practically do much.
- Braxton1980 2y ago
  > Of course then the obvious workaround for someone wanting to access restricted content is just to install a browser that does not enforce the restrictions. But that's a problem even if browsers were "forced" to implement this anyway. There would always be a browser out there that didn't adhere to this rule anyway So why are you for it if the solution isn't valid?
  - michaelmior 2y ago
    I didn't say anywhere that I am for it.

bobthepanda 2y ago

it would be less terrible if there were some simple, Apple ID-like way to simply get redirected to a govt website, put in your driver's license, and the website only gets a token back that says "yes over age/no underage". The data already exists, it's what bars use to scan IDs with handheld readers IIRC.

dinkblam 2y ago
i wasn't really talking about about any "verification". just a way for parents to disable what they want their kid to be able to browse. if parents don't care to change the setting, their kids would be free to browse anything.
baby_souffle 2y ago
> The data already exists, it's what bars use to scan IDs with handheld readers IIRC. Sorta, yeah. But the reason that works is because there's a human guarding the door that can assert that the hand presenting the ID is attached to a face that looks just like the one on the ID. Otherwise a very smart 17 year old would just get their hands on the UUID or whatever for literally any ID that belongs to somebody that's 18+. Within _hours_ of this type of system going into effect, you'd have the age/id version of bugmenot.com
- burnished 2y ago
  You're implying smart 17 year olds don't make it into bars. You rarely need anything approaching %100 compliance in order to have an effective policy, so if anything you're advocating for its effectiveness when you suggest the only people that would be in violation are the rare precocious kid.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    But that's the difference. For a 17 year old to get into a bar, they need to, themselves, acquire a fake ID. Anyone selling that physical object in your jurisdiction would then be subject to arrest. On the internet, one smart 17 year old sets up im-old.lol and then every kid everywhere has a one-click age verification bypass and the service is run by an anon on a server outside the jurisdiction.

cls59 2y ago

And then kinds just learn how to download and run an open-source browser produced outside of the country that does not implement the setting on the client side.

mrweasel 2y ago
I was going to say that it's a great way to teach teenagers how to modify and compile a browser. Moving the verification to sites also isn't going you any good, as the site owners could just move to more liberal countries.
TylerE 2y ago
Or just uses any of a gazillion proxies that strips the "I"m under 18" bit.
johnnyjeans 2y ago
I consider that a feature. Working and training problem solving skills and persistence through trial-and-error to the degree required for that kind of thing is great. I feel it's underappreciated in potential that treating a wide swath of these kinds of rules as nothing more than cattle-fences can have a shockingly positive effect. One of the biggest problems that grows with each generation, is how do you get the youth to actually engage in constructive development of real skills? How do you get them to be interested in something that will be useful for society down the line? Quietly looking the other way while a statistical minority breaks some of the safety-rails of society basically solves that problem. Breaking the rules is cool. You're basically exploiting the rebellious nature of the youth to trick them into learning useful skillsets. So long as the hurdles to circumvent the rules remain reasonably involved to overcome, and the secret intention remains unspoken, you basically double up the rewards of the rules.
- Der_Einzige 2y ago
  So the desire to jerk off is the ideal catalyst for being subversive? I mean it’s not that I disagree with you, but this is what you are saying!!!
2y ago

baby_souffle 2y ago

> but forcing the age-verification onto websites is just moronic. Agree. > parents should be able to access a (password protected) setting in any browser that can exclude some types of websites (like porn). How would this work? Who's going to set up the taxonomy / classification tree for every domain/site on the internet just so a guardian can say "yes to drugs, no to porn, no to news, no to weapons..."? Or if that's not the implementation, how would an arbitrary site signal to the browser what the age limit is? Once you move beyond a binary "require parent consent for $domain" flag, you're quickly approaching traditional parental control software. I know I'm not the only one one this site that made a bit of spare $ back in the day helping kids at school go _around_ overbearing parental controls.

generalizations 2y ago
This is the core fallacy I see in proponents of such rules: they think the rules can be enforced.
- convolvatron 2y ago
  I think the parent had an even more important fallacy - that the rules can't even be _stated_. there is an implicit presumption that everyone everywhere agrees on what material is appropriate for what people and at what age.
  - evil-olive 2y ago
    yes, and that presumption is even older than the internet. this is from a 1964 Supreme Court decision [0]: > I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
simion314 2y ago
>How would this work? Pornhub knows they do not want to have trouble so they will respect the browser setting and not serve minors. There could be an institution that can receive complains about websites not using this API and those wbsites can be blocked from the country and fined if possible until they implement the API. We need all mobile and desktop OSes to make it easy for parents to setup accounts for their children, the church could also educated the people instead of just complaining. It is not perfect, soem clever kid can find a way to reset the BIOS/UEFI and install Ubuntu with a fake age on his PC , but most parents can feel safe and we would not have to show our ID card to Pornhub or even Steam because some game shows nipples and nipples are more dangerous in USA then nazi propaganda.

Terr_ 2y ago

I wouldn't say every browser, but the correct place for the policy is on the device of the parent who is demanding the special feature. Sites' obligations should be limited to basic disclosure of "this site might contain X" metadata. Benefits: 1. Orwellian abuse: No creepy-ass super-abuseable government panopticon knowing every goddamn service you've ever made an account on, with the ability to arbitrarily revoke them and/or block new ones. 2. Costs: The majority of the costs of creating and maintaining the system fall upon the people who actually use it and want it to exist, rather than a bunch of other adults across the globe. 3. Parent focus: Most enforcement exists in a physical realm where parents/guardians at least have a chance of understanding, monitoring, and managing it. "Little Timmy is using Daddy's phone" can be determined instantly at a glance. 4. Exceptions: If the child has some health-class homework and can't access the right Wikipedia pages anymore, the parent can easily grant exceptions and revoke them. 5. If someone's religion says that unclad ankles are smut, then their church can create their own site-rating-site and adherents configure their family's devices to it.

Braxton1980 2y ago
What if a site doesn't comply or lies? Who is enforcing this

barnabee 2y ago

Age verification should be baked into the parenting. It's about the only place it might have the intended effect anyway, and has the advantage of not enabling mass surveillance.

Braxton1980 2y ago

Why

butlike 2y ago

Kids have nothing but time and energy to learn about their world, so you get weird things like the children rootkitting your device or "the home computer" on their quest to see salacious corners of the web. As always, parenting starts and stops with the parent. The internet should be open and if the child sees something that upsets them (or makes them question one of their assumptions), it's the parent's responsibility to cultivate an environment where the child feels comfortable talking about it with them.

Der_Einzige 2y ago
I learned that the password my parents used on the computer was “Neo Maxi Zoom Dwebie” by password cracking my windows XP with rainbow tables at like age 11. I hate the breakfast club and think it’s one of the examples of movies which idolized anti-intellectualism and basically celebrates bullying nerdy types. Sadly ironic of a password choices from my “nerdy” family. If the rainbow tables didn’t work, I’d have rootkitted/RATed the computer.

genewitch 2y ago

And who decides what browsers are okay? Is it Apple and Google?