5 ms·

Yeah, it feels like a junior engineer fresh out their undergrad algorithms course. The business isn't going to grind to a halt and wait until you build the perf

Yeah, it feels like a junior engineer fresh out their undergrad algorithms course. The business isn't going to grind to a halt and wait until you build the perfect solution.

gjsman-1000 1y ago
Let’s take the pornography argument for example. Regardless of whether pornography is, or should be legal, average exposure is now 11 years old. That’s average, many kids are even younger. If this even prevents 95% of kids from accessing pornography until they’re 15 and get a debit card to buy a VPN, that’s a win in the eyes of most parents and legislators. It doesn’t need to be perfect, or even perfectly force you to be 18, to get the primary job done. Pointing to “a 16 year old can get around it with a VPN” is missing the point. It’s not a surprise why that argument falls on deaf ears. Or, another one, “just use parental controls,” have you even tried this? Almost all parental controls are horrifically buggy, full of loopholes, and these kids can just borrow each other’s technology. Apple’s parental controls predate HTML5 (literally, HTML 4.01) and regularly don’t work, sometimes even by their own admission. It also forces the parent to be in the role of a tech expert fluent in Microsoft, Apple, Google, Nintendo, and other products all at once. You might as well get CompTIA certified. That argument also falls on deaf ears.
- idle_zealot 1y ago
  > Apple’s parental controls predate HTML5 (literally, XHTML 4.01) and regularly don’t work, sometimes even by their own admission. It also forces the parent to be in the role of a tech expert. That argument also falls on deaf ears. The solution, then, ought to be to pass a law requiring some sort of standardized parental controls that allow trivial set-and-forget management. Require device manufacturers/software distributors to sort out a "child mode" switch you can flip upon device initialization, in-your-face and unmissable, and then have apps/webpages be able to see whether the device reports it's in child mode. Does this not solve the "prevents 95% of kids from accessing pornography" threshold of effectiveness while being infinitely less invasive?
  - gjsman-1000 1y ago
    It’s a better argument, and would gain more political ground, than do nothing. However, there’s one major problem: Most families aren’t actually using the multi-user capabilities of their devices. Many devices, like iPads or iPhones, just don’t support multi-user at all. The result? Either parents are tech experts again, or have deep pockets to get everyone a device, or you’re going to have a bunch of kids logged in as their parents on their devices (as is already the case). Of course, that defeats the policy goal. That’s a non-starter, unless we agreed that a device manufacturer could force a biometric check when accessing an age-verified device account. Nobody has proposed such a thing; but if there was a good way of making sure that the age-verified user is the actual person engaging with the age-verified account, then we might have progress in that direction. Personally though, I would really prefer to not have the government get any ideas whatsoever about dictating firmware or OS security or OS parental control requirements. Do you really want your Linux distribution mandated to implement an age check firmware with phoning home requirements to a government parental control server?
    - wvenable 1y ago
      That's not a major problem. Also, how does age verification fix things in that scenario if a child is using their parents device? If a parent can't be bothered to pin-lock their device or flip it into child mode then there is no technological solution. Now you're the one looking for the perfect solution that doesn't exist.
      - gjsman-1000 1y ago
        > Also, how does age verification fix things in that scenario if a child is using their parents device Because the age is verified at the time of access; instead of once during initial setup. Odds are that the former will catch far more flies than the latter. Your employer probably does the same. Do they have you log in once when you set up your laptop, then comfortably happily say it’s you for the next three years; or do they have you sign in every morning?
        1y ago
- wvenable 1y ago
  > Regardless of whether pornography is, or should be legal, average exposure is now 11 years old. You make it sound like historically it was much later but actually even in the 1980s 11 years old was common. In fact, that matches my own personal experience from that era. > Or, another one, “just use parental controls,” have you even tried this? Parental Controls is the right answer but absolutely agree that parental controls suck. As a parent, I'd love just any level of better control. I don't even care if I have different controls per manufacturer as long they're pretty complete and capable. If the EU can mandate USB-C, they can mandate all technologies include powerful and capable parental controls. There is no need for age verification -- parents know how old their children are. Parents are providing children with the devices and often the means of connectivity as well. This is and has always been a parenting problem. If the government wants to assist parents, I'm all for that. But age verification is not the answer.
  - gjsman-1000 1y ago
    > mandate all technologies include powerful and capable parental controls That is, until Linux is also forced to come into compliance with said parental control standard, complete with all centralized reporting and remote restriction capabilities. > This is and has always been a parenting problem. What do governments do when everyone has the same parenting problem? Listen to industry idealists, like those who would call teenage smoking a “parenting problem,” or crack down?
    - wvenable 1y ago
      > That is, until Linux is also forced to come into compliance with said parental control standard, complete with all centralized reporting and remote restriction capabilities. Linux is fine. Someone can build the ultimately perfect parental control software for Linux and I'll use it. The same cannot be said for Windows, Android, or iOS -- third party system cannot exist for those platforms that are sufficient unless they're made by Microsoft, Google, or Apple respectively. Perhaps we just have to mandate an open standard. In fact, I would prefer that. > What do governments do when everyone has the same parenting problem? The wrong thing. Always.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- Hizonner 1y ago
  > Almost all parental controls are horrifically buggy, full of loopholes, and these kids can just borrow each other’s technology. ... and the centrally imposed, one-size-fits-all, politics-first age verification system you want will of course be free of bugs, loopholes, opportunities to borrow devices, or whatever. That's good, since you want to apply it to every single person on the Internet.
- const_cast 1y ago
  > Regardless of whether pornography is, or should be legal, average exposure is now 11 years old. That’s average, many kids are even younger. Okay, then don't give your kids access to the internet if you're so concerned, in the same way you wouldn't leave the liquor cabinet unlocked. People did it for millenia. It worked fine. We don't need any solutions, the solutions already exist. The problem is that you're not happy with parents not caring. You want to repress parents rights, and do it yourself, because you are greedy and have delusions of grandeur. To me, if the parents of the actual fucking children don't care, then why should I? They're not my kids. They're your kids. Do something about it. If you do nothing, then I'm going to assume it's not a real problem at all and this is just some sort of society wide delusion.

Yeah, it feels like a junior engineer fresh out their undergrad algorithms course. The business isn't going to grind to a halt and wait until you build the perfect solution.

gjsman-1000 1y ago

Let’s take the pornography argument for example. Regardless of whether pornography is, or should be legal, average exposure is now 11 years old. That’s average, many kids are even younger. If this even prevents 95% of kids from accessing pornography until they’re 15 and get a debit card to buy a VPN, that’s a win in the eyes of most parents and legislators. It doesn’t need to be perfect, or even perfectly force you to be 18, to get the primary job done. Pointing to “a 16 year old can get around it with a VPN” is missing the point. It’s not a surprise why that argument falls on deaf ears. Or, another one, “just use parental controls,” have you even tried this? Almost all parental controls are horrifically buggy, full of loopholes, and these kids can just borrow each other’s technology. Apple’s parental controls predate HTML5 (literally, HTML 4.01) and regularly don’t work, sometimes even by their own admission. It also forces the parent to be in the role of a tech expert fluent in Microsoft, Apple, Google, Nintendo, and other products all at once. You might as well get CompTIA certified. That argument also falls on deaf ears.

idle_zealot 1y ago
> Apple’s parental controls predate HTML5 (literally, XHTML 4.01) and regularly don’t work, sometimes even by their own admission. It also forces the parent to be in the role of a tech expert. That argument also falls on deaf ears. The solution, then, ought to be to pass a law requiring some sort of standardized parental controls that allow trivial set-and-forget management. Require device manufacturers/software distributors to sort out a "child mode" switch you can flip upon device initialization, in-your-face and unmissable, and then have apps/webpages be able to see whether the device reports it's in child mode. Does this not solve the "prevents 95% of kids from accessing pornography" threshold of effectiveness while being infinitely less invasive?
- gjsman-1000 1y ago
  It’s a better argument, and would gain more political ground, than do nothing. However, there’s one major problem: Most families aren’t actually using the multi-user capabilities of their devices. Many devices, like iPads or iPhones, just don’t support multi-user at all. The result? Either parents are tech experts again, or have deep pockets to get everyone a device, or you’re going to have a bunch of kids logged in as their parents on their devices (as is already the case). Of course, that defeats the policy goal. That’s a non-starter, unless we agreed that a device manufacturer could force a biometric check when accessing an age-verified device account. Nobody has proposed such a thing; but if there was a good way of making sure that the age-verified user is the actual person engaging with the age-verified account, then we might have progress in that direction. Personally though, I would really prefer to not have the government get any ideas whatsoever about dictating firmware or OS security or OS parental control requirements. Do you really want your Linux distribution mandated to implement an age check firmware with phoning home requirements to a government parental control server?
  - wvenable 1y ago
    That's not a major problem. Also, how does age verification fix things in that scenario if a child is using their parents device? If a parent can't be bothered to pin-lock their device or flip it into child mode then there is no technological solution. Now you're the one looking for the perfect solution that doesn't exist.
    - gjsman-1000 1y ago
      > Also, how does age verification fix things in that scenario if a child is using their parents device Because the age is verified at the time of access; instead of once during initial setup. Odds are that the former will catch far more flies than the latter. Your employer probably does the same. Do they have you log in once when you set up your laptop, then comfortably happily say it’s you for the next three years; or do they have you sign in every morning?
      - 1y ago
wvenable 1y ago
> Regardless of whether pornography is, or should be legal, average exposure is now 11 years old. You make it sound like historically it was much later but actually even in the 1980s 11 years old was common. In fact, that matches my own personal experience from that era. > Or, another one, “just use parental controls,” have you even tried this? Parental Controls is the right answer but absolutely agree that parental controls suck. As a parent, I'd love just any level of better control. I don't even care if I have different controls per manufacturer as long they're pretty complete and capable. If the EU can mandate USB-C, they can mandate all technologies include powerful and capable parental controls. There is no need for age verification -- parents know how old their children are. Parents are providing children with the devices and often the means of connectivity as well. This is and has always been a parenting problem. If the government wants to assist parents, I'm all for that. But age verification is not the answer.
- gjsman-1000 1y ago
  > mandate all technologies include powerful and capable parental controls That is, until Linux is also forced to come into compliance with said parental control standard, complete with all centralized reporting and remote restriction capabilities. > This is and has always been a parenting problem. What do governments do when everyone has the same parenting problem? Listen to industry idealists, like those who would call teenage smoking a “parenting problem,” or crack down?
  - wvenable 1y ago
    > That is, until Linux is also forced to come into compliance with said parental control standard, complete with all centralized reporting and remote restriction capabilities. Linux is fine. Someone can build the ultimately perfect parental control software for Linux and I'll use it. The same cannot be said for Windows, Android, or iOS -- third party system cannot exist for those platforms that are sufficient unless they're made by Microsoft, Google, or Apple respectively. Perhaps we just have to mandate an open standard. In fact, I would prefer that. > What do governments do when everyone has the same parenting problem? The wrong thing. Always.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Hizonner 1y ago
> Almost all parental controls are horrifically buggy, full of loopholes, and these kids can just borrow each other’s technology. ... and the centrally imposed, one-size-fits-all, politics-first age verification system you want will of course be free of bugs, loopholes, opportunities to borrow devices, or whatever. That's good, since you want to apply it to every single person on the Internet.
const_cast 1y ago
> Regardless of whether pornography is, or should be legal, average exposure is now 11 years old. That’s average, many kids are even younger. Okay, then don't give your kids access to the internet if you're so concerned, in the same way you wouldn't leave the liquor cabinet unlocked. People did it for millenia. It worked fine. We don't need any solutions, the solutions already exist. The problem is that you're not happy with parents not caring. You want to repress parents rights, and do it yourself, because you are greedy and have delusions of grandeur. To me, if the parents of the actual fucking children don't care, then why should I? They're not my kids. They're your kids. Do something about it. If you do nothing, then I'm going to assume it's not a real problem at all and this is just some sort of society wide delusion.