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Want to do something that protects a significant percentage of children? Ban social media for children. Work out a zero knowledge way to verify age, and implem

by BLKNSLVR 11mo ago

Want to do something that protects a significant percentage of children? Ban social media for children. Work out a zero knowledge way to verify age, and implement it. It won't be easy, but it also won't require breaking the rules of mathematics as per most of the governmental requests to 'safely' backdoor encryption.

jeffrallen 11mo ago
And shockingly enough, the EU has been investing in this technology for a while. Check out OIDC4VCI, and the selective disclosure protocols that go with it. The Swiss citizens just approved a system like this.
graemep 11mo ago
> Work out a zero knowledge way to verify age, and implement it is it feasible? is it likely given government's desire for more surveillance? personally I think the best approach is to empower parents - require ISP's and ISP supplied routers have means to filter, ensure child friendly filtered SIM cards are easily available etc.
- tzs 11mo ago
  Yes, it is feasible. The EU has been working on it for a while as part of the EU Digital Identity Wallet project. Parts of it, including zero knowledge age verification, are undergoing large field trials in several countries. Briefly, here's how it works. • Your government can issue you a digital copy of government identity documents. This copy is cryptographically bound to a key that it stores in a hardware security module that you provide. In the reference implementation and the implementations undergoing field testing the supported hardware security modules are the security modules in Apple mobile devices and in many Android devices. They plan to support more, such as stand alone smart cards and external security keys like YubiKeys. • There's a zero knowledge protocol that lets you demonstrate to a website that (1) you have a digital copy of a government ID document that is bound to the hardware security module of your device and that you were able to unlock that hardware security module, and (2) that ID document says your birthday is far enough in the past that you meet the site's age requirement.
- Aloisius 11mo ago
  It takes 3 minutes to enable parental control software built into every every major OS. Parents have all the power they need, they just refuse to use it.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 11mo ago
    You should ask a parent how well they work. I have spoken to a few and as a rule, the restrictions are so poorly implemented that they either block nothing or make the application impossible to use.
sveme 11mo ago
The German Personalausweis seems to offer something like this (basically returning a bool indicating whether a user is below or above a certain age), but it seems as if the service indicates which data it requests from the ID card. As a user, I would not be able to state that this or that porn site should only see this age verification. Not sure how the requestable data are in turn requested by the service.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
ForHackernews 11mo ago
Australia has done this. They've put the burden of proof on the tech firms: you already have this invasive data on all your users, use it to ban children.
John23832 11mo ago
> Work out a zero knowledge way to verify age, and implement it. It won't be easy, but it also won't require breaking the rules of mathematics as per most of the governmental requests to 'safely' backdoor encryption. Have parents actually pay attention to their kids and not give them unfettered access to technology. Boom. Easy. The parents are the second factor that nobody is willing to discuss because the parents are addicted to the exact same technology.
- akudha 11mo ago
  One of my colleagues (he is in his mid forties now) joked that he was raised by TV, not his parents. I suppose today’s kids are raised by social media. It is super easy to give an iPad to a 10 year old, so they don’t bother you while you’re working. Feels like parenting is a bit outsourced to electronics and the internet
- toomuchtodo 11mo ago
  Hasn’t worked based on the evidence, so we’re moving on to something effective. Australia is up first, others will follow, just as we limit access to nicotine and other drugs or harmful products. The data is robust social media is toxic to kids, and Meta even knew about it and doesn’t care. Social media bans are like GLP-1s: we know that will power is not a thing, so we use an intervention to help the human. Same deal. “Just do better good luck” is not actionable. “We have seen the enemy and he is Big Tech.”
- watwut 11mo ago
  Reality check is that parents spend a lot more time actively parenting then they used to. The expectations on parenting went up. These complains about parents not doing enough are from another alternative reality.
- MintPaw 11mo ago
  Everyone discusses better parenting all the time. But some people forget what it's like being a kid, circumventing blocking systems is trivial if you're motivated, and even if they weren't, a cheap phone costs $80 and kids are very willing to share their old devices.
burnt-resistor 11mo ago
"Think of the children!" No, think of the absentee parents rationalizing invading our privacy because of their laziness. All of this ID requirements bullshit is just about invasive, authoritarian control. Hell no!

jeffrallen 11mo ago

And shockingly enough, the EU has been investing in this technology for a while. Check out OIDC4VCI, and the selective disclosure protocols that go with it. The Swiss citizens just approved a system like this.

graemep 11mo ago

> Work out a zero knowledge way to verify age, and implement it is it feasible? is it likely given government's desire for more surveillance? personally I think the best approach is to empower parents - require ISP's and ISP supplied routers have means to filter, ensure child friendly filtered SIM cards are easily available etc.

tzs 11mo ago
Yes, it is feasible. The EU has been working on it for a while as part of the EU Digital Identity Wallet project. Parts of it, including zero knowledge age verification, are undergoing large field trials in several countries. Briefly, here's how it works. • Your government can issue you a digital copy of government identity documents. This copy is cryptographically bound to a key that it stores in a hardware security module that you provide. In the reference implementation and the implementations undergoing field testing the supported hardware security modules are the security modules in Apple mobile devices and in many Android devices. They plan to support more, such as stand alone smart cards and external security keys like YubiKeys. • There's a zero knowledge protocol that lets you demonstrate to a website that (1) you have a digital copy of a government ID document that is bound to the hardware security module of your device and that you were able to unlock that hardware security module, and (2) that ID document says your birthday is far enough in the past that you meet the site's age requirement.
Aloisius 11mo ago
It takes 3 minutes to enable parental control software built into every every major OS. Parents have all the power they need, they just refuse to use it.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 11mo ago
  You should ask a parent how well they work. I have spoken to a few and as a rule, the restrictions are so poorly implemented that they either block nothing or make the application impossible to use.

sveme 11mo ago

The German Personalausweis seems to offer something like this (basically returning a bool indicating whether a user is below or above a certain age), but it seems as if the service indicates which data it requests from the ID card. As a user, I would not be able to state that this or that porn site should only see this age verification. Not sure how the requestable data are in turn requested by the service.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

ForHackernews 11mo ago

Australia has done this. They've put the burden of proof on the tech firms: you already have this invasive data on all your users, use it to ban children.

John23832 11mo ago

> Work out a zero knowledge way to verify age, and implement it. It won't be easy, but it also won't require breaking the rules of mathematics as per most of the governmental requests to 'safely' backdoor encryption. Have parents actually pay attention to their kids and not give them unfettered access to technology. Boom. Easy. The parents are the second factor that nobody is willing to discuss because the parents are addicted to the exact same technology.

akudha 11mo ago
One of my colleagues (he is in his mid forties now) joked that he was raised by TV, not his parents. I suppose today’s kids are raised by social media. It is super easy to give an iPad to a 10 year old, so they don’t bother you while you’re working. Feels like parenting is a bit outsourced to electronics and the internet
toomuchtodo 11mo ago
Hasn’t worked based on the evidence, so we’re moving on to something effective. Australia is up first, others will follow, just as we limit access to nicotine and other drugs or harmful products. The data is robust social media is toxic to kids, and Meta even knew about it and doesn’t care. Social media bans are like GLP-1s: we know that will power is not a thing, so we use an intervention to help the human. Same deal. “Just do better good luck” is not actionable. “We have seen the enemy and he is Big Tech.”
watwut 11mo ago
Reality check is that parents spend a lot more time actively parenting then they used to. The expectations on parenting went up. These complains about parents not doing enough are from another alternative reality.
MintPaw 11mo ago
Everyone discusses better parenting all the time. But some people forget what it's like being a kid, circumventing blocking systems is trivial if you're motivated, and even if they weren't, a cheap phone costs $80 and kids are very willing to share their old devices.

burnt-resistor 11mo ago

"Think of the children!" No, think of the absentee parents rationalizing invading our privacy because of their laziness. All of this ID requirements bullshit is just about invasive, authoritarian control. Hell no!