4 ms·

In most legal jurisdictions that I know of, kids aren't legally allowed to be able to access to pornography either. How is that working out? The only way to ev

In most legal jurisdictions that I know of, kids aren't legally allowed to be able to access to pornography either. How is that working out? The only way to even attempt to enforce these things is with government mandated age verification. Few people want that as it represents a massive violation of privacy and effectively makes anonymity on the Internet impossible.

oblio 10mo ago
It could be designed to be anonymous. Government runs authentication service that has your personal details. User creates account on platform Y, platform Y asks government service if your age is >18, service says y/n. Platform never finds out your personal details. OAuth for age verification.
- swiftcoder 10mo ago
  The government still knows your identity in this scenario, so it's a pretty limited form of anonymity (i.e. only suitable for activities the government isn't hostile to)
  - oblio 10mo ago
    I know Americans don't want to hear this, but once the government turns hostile, internet anonymity won't save you, just like how guns won't save you (hello propaganda and a large and very active brainwashed minority that also has guns). The only thing saving you from a hostile government is a well educated populace that really wants democracy and is willing to fight for it (through constant activism, peaceful & other types of protests). This is where many democracies are failing now. No amount of technology or rules can replace large amounts of constantly vigilant eyes that understand how democracy is subverted. I would rather optimize for not giving companies too much power and end up with a Kafkaesque patchwork of corporate abuses and regulatory captures.
  - tim-- 10mo ago
    Can't you just put a middle man on there then? Get a non-profit organisation like Mozilla to ask the govt. on behalf of the user. The organisation asks the govt, and gives back a signed token. The the only thing the government knows is that an age verification was requested. Once verification has been done once for one site, it can be used for future verifications.
    - swiftcoder 10mo ago
      The middle man in this scenario can mask the URL that is requesting age verification, but what's to stop the government compelling traffic logs from the middle man?
      - trinix912 10mo ago
        Nothing more than what prevents them from getting logs from your ISP about the sites you visit after verification. In ideal countries they need a court order for that, in less ideal ones they just scoop up the logs preemptively.
- iknowstuff 10mo ago
  The government then knows all the services you use. No bueno. There are better ways to do this including zk proofs, but you gotta work against people mass reselling them. Could do some rate limited tokens minted from a proof maybe.
  - osn9363739 10mo ago
    Let's be real. Unless you're putting in the effort, the government already knows. Especially so on the sites listed in this ban.
    - iknowstuff 10mo ago
      To an extent I agree, except consider that governments of smaller countries probably don’t currently have the means to know, but they with such a system it would be served on a silver platter. Additionally, it could be leveraged as a means of censorship system restricting access to undesirable content
- padjo 10mo ago
  Some concerns: - government gets a list of every website that requests your age - every website has to register with the government to initiate age verification checks Which pretty much puts an end to any notion of an open internet. But maybe a system I prefer to one where a bunch of random startups have my age verification biometrics .
- Froztnova 10mo ago
  Would zero knowledge proofs work here? I'm not enough of a cryptography nerd so I don't know if it would be a practical use-case.
  - tim-- 10mo ago
    > Would zero knowledge proofs work here? Yes, but that would then require more infrastructure. For example, Australia does not have a national ID card - or a national proof of age card (each state, however, does implement a Proof of Age card, eg https://www.nsw.gov.au/driving-boating-and-transport/driver-and-rider-licences/proof-of-identity/photo-cards/get-your-first-photo-card https://www.nsw.gov.au/driving-boating-and-transport/driver-...). So, what is your zero knowledge based on? Who is the signer? Under the Identity Verification Services Act 2023 we have IDMatch (https://www.idmatch.gov.au/ https://www.idmatch.gov.au/). This whole setup can simply be extended to have third parties act as an intermediary between the government and the party attempting to get proof of age. Similar to AusPost's DigitaliD (https://www.digitalid.com/personal https://www.digitalid.com/personal). But let's not have that company owned by the Government :) It's pretty cooked that we are asking the social media companies to go ahead and prove to the eSaftey commissioner that they have measures in place to stop kids from getting access to social websites, yet they have to use unreliable measures like selfies to do it. The companies can't win here. This won't be the last you hear of this. https://youtu.be/YTwBStZIawY?t=306 https://youtu.be/YTwBStZIawY?t=306
thfuran 10mo ago
>The only way to even attempt to enforce these things is with government mandated age verification Yes, that's what they did.
lisbbb 10mo ago
I don't see the danger of pornography, tbh. Oh, much of it is sick, sure, but violent video games are far more harmful. Would it be better to depict loving, caring relationships? Hell, yes! But there are so few of those these days. My teenage son struggles to have any meaningful dialog with any of the girls his age. It's like he doesn't exist. The few kids who are "dating" is basically the exact scenario that MGTOW depicts--girls only go for the elite jocks and ignore everyone else like they don't even exist. Everyone is miserable. Many will eventually grow out of it, but I don't think the females will ever view themselves as doing anything but "settling" because of the nonsense programmed into their heads. And yes, social media is largely responsible for how extreme the situation has become. In the 90s, girls were picky, but nothing like now. So all that young men have left is like AI chatbots and porn and it's better to not take that away from them, too.
triceratops 10mo ago
The insistence on perfect age verification requires ending anonymity. Age verification to the level of buying cigarettes or booze does not. Flash a driver's license at a liquor store to buy a single-use token, good for one year, and access your favorite social media trash. Anonymity is maintained, and most kids are locked out. In the same way that kids occasionally obtain cigs or beer despite safeguards, sometimes they may get their hands on a code. Prosecute anyone who knowingly sells or gives one to a minor.
- pryce 10mo ago
  > Flash a driver's license at a liquor store to buy a single-use token, good for one year, and access your favorite social media trash. Anonymity is maintained... Ask a woman in a liquor store whether her anonymity is maintained by this scenario...? The current liquor store approach for buying liquor is hazardous for a good chunk of people and we need to acknowledge that - even if acquiring a token somewhat ameliorates the compounded risk from presenting ID multiple times So many of these internet ban proposals feel like someone creates a single cartoon scenario that captures ~2% of the use cases, and happily charges ahead to a proposed solution as though they've sufficiently thought about the people affected and the harms involved.
  - Dylan16807 10mo ago
    > Ask a woman in a liquor store whether her anonymity is maintained by this scenario...? Is she not going to say "pretty well compared to a surveillance database, one or two people that are probably going to forget immediately"? > The current liquor store approach for buying liquor is hazardous for a good chunk of people What chunk of people? Are you trying to imply that this chunk includes women in general? It's really easy to find random women without looking at an ID. If this is about addresses, anyone taking actions based on "a woman probably lives here" has about the same effect as picking houses at random.
    - pryce 10mo ago
      > Is she not going to say "pretty well compared to a surveillance database" No, instead she is likely to avoid talking in abstractions and instead talk about personal experiences of getting stalked online by multiple people she has had to show her details to in the past, who may include storekeeps, police, university staff, etc, etc. Eva Galperin is an excellent source on the way many of our procedures are designed in ways that do not at all account for the potential of stalking and harassment, though her focus is on how this continues to unfold in the technology space.

oblio 10mo ago

It could be designed to be anonymous. Government runs authentication service that has your personal details. User creates account on platform Y, platform Y asks government service if your age is >18, service says y/n. Platform never finds out your personal details. OAuth for age verification.

swiftcoder 10mo ago
The government still knows your identity in this scenario, so it's a pretty limited form of anonymity (i.e. only suitable for activities the government isn't hostile to)
- oblio 10mo ago
  I know Americans don't want to hear this, but once the government turns hostile, internet anonymity won't save you, just like how guns won't save you (hello propaganda and a large and very active brainwashed minority that also has guns). The only thing saving you from a hostile government is a well educated populace that really wants democracy and is willing to fight for it (through constant activism, peaceful & other types of protests). This is where many democracies are failing now. No amount of technology or rules can replace large amounts of constantly vigilant eyes that understand how democracy is subverted. I would rather optimize for not giving companies too much power and end up with a Kafkaesque patchwork of corporate abuses and regulatory captures.
- tim-- 10mo ago
  Can't you just put a middle man on there then? Get a non-profit organisation like Mozilla to ask the govt. on behalf of the user. The organisation asks the govt, and gives back a signed token. The the only thing the government knows is that an age verification was requested. Once verification has been done once for one site, it can be used for future verifications.
  - swiftcoder 10mo ago
    The middle man in this scenario can mask the URL that is requesting age verification, but what's to stop the government compelling traffic logs from the middle man?
    - trinix912 10mo ago
      Nothing more than what prevents them from getting logs from your ISP about the sites you visit after verification. In ideal countries they need a court order for that, in less ideal ones they just scoop up the logs preemptively.
iknowstuff 10mo ago
The government then knows all the services you use. No bueno. There are better ways to do this including zk proofs, but you gotta work against people mass reselling them. Could do some rate limited tokens minted from a proof maybe.
- osn9363739 10mo ago
  Let's be real. Unless you're putting in the effort, the government already knows. Especially so on the sites listed in this ban.
  - iknowstuff 10mo ago
    To an extent I agree, except consider that governments of smaller countries probably don’t currently have the means to know, but they with such a system it would be served on a silver platter. Additionally, it could be leveraged as a means of censorship system restricting access to undesirable content
padjo 10mo ago
Some concerns: - government gets a list of every website that requests your age - every website has to register with the government to initiate age verification checks Which pretty much puts an end to any notion of an open internet. But maybe a system I prefer to one where a bunch of random startups have my age verification biometrics .
Froztnova 10mo ago
Would zero knowledge proofs work here? I'm not enough of a cryptography nerd so I don't know if it would be a practical use-case.
- tim-- 10mo ago
  > Would zero knowledge proofs work here? Yes, but that would then require more infrastructure. For example, Australia does not have a national ID card - or a national proof of age card (each state, however, does implement a Proof of Age card, eg https://www.nsw.gov.au/driving-boating-and-transport/driver-and-rider-licences/proof-of-identity/photo-cards/get-your-first-photo-card https://www.nsw.gov.au/driving-boating-and-transport/driver-...). So, what is your zero knowledge based on? Who is the signer? Under the Identity Verification Services Act 2023 we have IDMatch (https://www.idmatch.gov.au/ https://www.idmatch.gov.au/). This whole setup can simply be extended to have third parties act as an intermediary between the government and the party attempting to get proof of age. Similar to AusPost's DigitaliD (https://www.digitalid.com/personal https://www.digitalid.com/personal). But let's not have that company owned by the Government :) It's pretty cooked that we are asking the social media companies to go ahead and prove to the eSaftey commissioner that they have measures in place to stop kids from getting access to social websites, yet they have to use unreliable measures like selfies to do it. The companies can't win here. This won't be the last you hear of this. https://youtu.be/YTwBStZIawY?t=306 https://youtu.be/YTwBStZIawY?t=306

thfuran 10mo ago

>The only way to even attempt to enforce these things is with government mandated age verification Yes, that's what they did.

lisbbb 10mo ago

I don't see the danger of pornography, tbh. Oh, much of it is sick, sure, but violent video games are far more harmful. Would it be better to depict loving, caring relationships? Hell, yes! But there are so few of those these days. My teenage son struggles to have any meaningful dialog with any of the girls his age. It's like he doesn't exist. The few kids who are "dating" is basically the exact scenario that MGTOW depicts--girls only go for the elite jocks and ignore everyone else like they don't even exist. Everyone is miserable. Many will eventually grow out of it, but I don't think the females will ever view themselves as doing anything but "settling" because of the nonsense programmed into their heads. And yes, social media is largely responsible for how extreme the situation has become. In the 90s, girls were picky, but nothing like now. So all that young men have left is like AI chatbots and porn and it's better to not take that away from them, too.

triceratops 10mo ago

The insistence on perfect age verification requires ending anonymity. Age verification to the level of buying cigarettes or booze does not. Flash a driver's license at a liquor store to buy a single-use token, good for one year, and access your favorite social media trash. Anonymity is maintained, and most kids are locked out. In the same way that kids occasionally obtain cigs or beer despite safeguards, sometimes they may get their hands on a code. Prosecute anyone who knowingly sells or gives one to a minor.

pryce 10mo ago
> Flash a driver's license at a liquor store to buy a single-use token, good for one year, and access your favorite social media trash. Anonymity is maintained... Ask a woman in a liquor store whether her anonymity is maintained by this scenario...? The current liquor store approach for buying liquor is hazardous for a good chunk of people and we need to acknowledge that - even if acquiring a token somewhat ameliorates the compounded risk from presenting ID multiple times So many of these internet ban proposals feel like someone creates a single cartoon scenario that captures ~2% of the use cases, and happily charges ahead to a proposed solution as though they've sufficiently thought about the people affected and the harms involved.
- Dylan16807 10mo ago
  > Ask a woman in a liquor store whether her anonymity is maintained by this scenario...? Is she not going to say "pretty well compared to a surveillance database, one or two people that are probably going to forget immediately"? > The current liquor store approach for buying liquor is hazardous for a good chunk of people What chunk of people? Are you trying to imply that this chunk includes women in general? It's really easy to find random women without looking at an ID. If this is about addresses, anyone taking actions based on "a woman probably lives here" has about the same effect as picking houses at random.
  - pryce 10mo ago
    > Is she not going to say "pretty well compared to a surveillance database" No, instead she is likely to avoid talking in abstractions and instead talk about personal experiences of getting stalked online by multiple people she has had to show her details to in the past, who may include storekeeps, police, university staff, etc, etc. Eva Galperin is an excellent source on the way many of our procedures are designed in ways that do not at all account for the potential of stalking and harassment, though her focus is on how this continues to unfold in the technology space.