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I'm going to restate my proposed age verification system here. I've posted it several times as a comment on this website. It works as follows: 1. A private com

I'm going to restate my proposed age verification system here. I've posted it several times as a comment on this website. It works as follows: 1. A private company, let's call it AgeVerify, issues scratch-off cards with unique tokens on them. They are basically like gift cards. 2. AgeVerify's scratch-off cards are sold exclusively in IRL stores. Preferably liquor stores, adult stores, and/or tobacco/vape shops. Places that are licensed and check ID. 3. Anyone who wants to verify their age online can purchase a token at a store. The store must only demand ID if the buyer appears to be a minor (similar to alcohol or tobacco purchases). The store must never store the ID in any form whatsoever. 4. Giving or selling these tokens to a minor is a criminal offense. If a store does it, they lose their liquor or tobacco license. Treat it just like giving a minor alcohol or tobacco. 4a. Run public service announcement campaigns to communicate that giving an AgeVerify token to a child is like handing them a cigarette. There should be a clear social taboo associated with the legal ban. 5. The buyer of the AgeVerify token enters it into their account on whatever social media or adult website they want to use. The website validates the code with AgeVerify. 6. Once validated, the code is good for 1 year (or 6 months or 3 months, adjust based on how stringent you want to make it) - then it expires and a new one must be purchased. 7. A separate token is required for each website/each account. 8. The website is responsible for enforcing no account sharing. No identifying information is stored anywhere. Kids find it very hard to access age-restricted materials online, just like the vast majority of kids don't easily have access to alcohol or cigarettes.

postepowanieadm 10mo ago
Nah, EIDAS2 got you covered - you use your european identity wallet.
- triceratops 10mo ago
  The beauty of my proposal is you don't need that.
  - 9dev 10mo ago
    But instead, you need this other thing, which requires elaborate infrastructure and new standards and regulations
    - nej24swei 10mo ago
      And who is the biggest winner? Triceratops Age Verification services, provided a state-sanctioned monopoly on issuing Porn Licenses. Awful, really.
      - triceratops 10mo ago
        It doesn't have to be 1 company. Ideally it would be many companies competing on price, promotions, and other marketing.
        nej24swei 10mo ago
        Ok, so grifting for you and your friends? It’s a really bad idea. It’s not a problem that needs to be solved by building a market for porn licenses.
        triceratops 10mo ago
        I have less than zero interest in this, or any, business. I don't have any interested friends either. Any other baseless accusations you want to throw at me? > It’s not a problem that needs to be solved by building a market for porn licenses. You're blind if you can't see the rising wave of legislation that will make us upload ID to use the internet to "protect the children". The problem being solved is "protect the children without uploading ID".
        9dev 10mo ago
        You seem to stick on the idea that someone will make you upload your ID, while every initiative working on this issue is moving toward cryptographic proof of ownership without ever disclosing your identity to the age verification API nor the service you requested access to to the government.
- wolvoleo 10mo ago
  I absolutely don't want to log in with an id everywhere I go online. Even when it's zero knowledge blah blah. I'll just circumvent with a vpn which gives me more privacy not less.
  - triceratops 10mo ago
    Even with a VPN I assume you'll eventually run out of jurisdictions that don't have these laws.
    - wolvoleo 10mo ago
      Hmm I doubt that. I can imagine some island states making it their big selling point. Similar to the .to domain thing etc. Also I can't imagine the whole world actually wanting this shit. When I see the reactions here it's a pretty contested topic.
EA-3167 10mo ago
I’m in my 40’s and I’d rather just use a VPN, I can’t imagine that young people will feel any differently. Governments should feel free to take performative measures, and we’re free to circumvent them. Leave people to their fantasies of digital control and let them learn lessons the hard way. This is not a technical issue anyway.
AnIrishDuck 10mo ago
Or we have devices attest user age. On setup, the device has the option to store a root ("guardian"?) email address. Whenever "adult mode" is activated or the root email is changed, a notification must first be sent to the prior root email. That notification may optionally contain a code that must be used to proceed with the relevant action, though the user should be warned of the potential device-crippling consequences. This setting is stored in a secure enclave and survives factory resets. I will note that these two systems are not mutually exclusive. There are plenty of ways to "think of the children" that don't trample on everybody's freedom.
- iamnothere 10mo ago
  Yeah, not doing this on my Linux devices.
  - AnIrishDuck 10mo ago
    You don't have to, that's the point. EDIT: or to rephrase, this proposal is opt-in (device attests the user is a minor) not mandatory (device is required to attest the user is an adult)
    - iamnothere 10mo ago
      I misunderstood then, I’m all in favor of that approach. If mainstream manufacturers include an optional child mode then that doesn’t affect adults. I do think it’s better if the child device simply blocks adult labeled content rather than attesting that the user is a child, just to avoid leaking any information about minors. But it’s still an OK solution.
SilverElfin 10mo ago
While this can work I just don’t want any bans on speech for any age. These social media bans are going to next lead to porn restrictions and ultimately they will mainstream Christian theocratic values in public policy through an ever shifting morality goal post. That’s how it always goes. Enabling it through such solutions feels like a risk.
- sampli 10mo ago
  Anti Israel speech will be the first to be banned
  - CommanderData 10mo ago
    It already is. Comments are shadow banned across social media, videos across Tiktok are shadow banned if they include certain mix of words. There are cases of UK police turning up to homes for anti-zionist comments. We're already there.
- Greed 10mo ago
  It's arguable, even if you're right, that the net loss to humanity is still far greater without these restrictions than with. Modern social media is leading to multiple generations of emotionally stunted, non-verbal children. Many of whom literally struggle to read. If you haven't seen it in person, it is now incredibly common for children as young as 1 or 2 to be handed an iPad and driven down an algorithmic tunnel of AI generated content with multiple videos overlaid on top. I've seen multiple examples of children scrolling rapidly through videos of Disney characters getting their heads chopped off to Five Nights at Freddy's music while laughing hysterically. They do this for hours. Every day. It's truly horrifying. Parents are just as poorly equipped at dealing with this as the children are, the difference being that at least their brains have already fully developed so that there is no lasting permanent damage.
- School-Cotton 10mo ago
  I am sure that they will not lead to “Christian theocratic values in public policy” in France. That value system is fringe in France, one of the most irreligious and historically anti-clerical cultures in the world. Among people who identify as Christian in France, the ones who could be described as radical or fundamentalist are a very small minority.
altern8 10mo ago
Regardless of any laws pushing for age verification, this is pretty smart.
hypeatei 10mo ago
So a kid just has to get their hands on a token then access is open to restricted websites for a year (or whatever time period) while adults are inconvenienced? The black markets for these things would pop up instantly and you'd deal with secondary effects of that (scams, fraud, etc.) I think the whole idea of age verification on the internet is dystopian and should be tossed in the garbage.
- triceratops 10mo ago
  > I think the whole idea of age verification on the internet is dystopian and should be tossed in the garbage. You may think so. I have sympathy for that viewpoint. But the idea isn't going away. Public opinion is going the opposite direction. So what now?
Ritewut 10mo ago
Japan has a similar system for payments. If you prefer to buy things online with cash they give you a barcode you take to any convenience store. The store scans it and you pay with cash.
coppsilgold 10mo ago
You can do the same thing with online payments combined with a ZKP token system. The issue is and will always remain reselling the age verification tokens. The entire system is pretty pointless. Kids will just have some hoops to jump through, and they will be very motivated to do so. Criminals will be eager to aid them for some change too. Either you forget age verification, or you can forget about privacy. Because identity theft is the only hoop big enough for most kids not to make the jump - and even that may not hold, typically identity theft is carried out for financial returns, the age verification requirement will change the calculus on that and will likely expand that particular black market to both kids and people valuing their privacy. In my opinion it should be the parent's job to police their kid's access to an internet terminal. It's not even that hard. Mitigating the mistakes of parents at the expense of everyone's privacy is a poor trade.
- lo_zamoyski 10mo ago
  Just because something can and will be circumvented doesn't make it useless. People will continue to murder other people. That doesn't mean that criminalizing and punishing murder is pointless. Now, whether the above scheme is prudent or workable, that's a separate question. But the counterargument to the scheme cannot be "It's all or nothing".
  - coppsilgold 10mo ago
    Murder is all but impossible to prevent, the reason the murder rate is kept low is because it's difficult to evade attribution after the fact. In this instance we are talking about a technology that is impossible to attribute by design, the only way attribution will happen is if the reseller makes a serious mistake. There will be resellers that don't make serious mistakes. And unlike murder, very few successful resellers are sufficient to serve everyone.
- triceratops 10mo ago
  > The issue is and will always remain reselling the age verification tokens. The entire system is pretty pointless. I forgot to mention in my original post. I'd also rate limit purchases. Maybe only allow purchasing one per visit. > Kids will just have some hoops to jump through, and they will be very motivated to do so. Maybe? Kids can just buy alcohol or cigs or drugs from criminals today. But most can't or don't. Some do, and we accept that as a society. And we punish the criminals who enable it. This isn't like illegal drugs, where criminals have a massive market (adults with cash). A black market catering to only minors isn't very lucrative. Moreover social media's network effects work in our favor. If most kids can't join, their friends are less motivated to get in.
nej24swei 10mo ago
And I am going to restate how it’s an absolutely terrible idea, and will always fail with its perverse incentives. This does not solve any problems and creates many more. Your idea will create a massive black market for “adult validation tokens”, handing billions of dollars to criminal groups reselling these things. And then where such a system goes in 5-10y. Sure it’s sorta anonymous today, but then new government decides - “let’s make it mandatory to be sold with a binding identity and credit card.” Suddenly you need that token to log in to any public website. And Chinese, European and American authorities demand realtime access to the global logs. Every censorship system you build, even if it seems “good”, will eventually censor you and the things you care about. Don't design or build oppression technology. The very idea that you can realistically enforce Point of Sales age checks at scale is not sensible.
- JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
  > Every censorship system you build, even if it seems “good”, will eventually censor you and the things you care about Nobody is being censored. We regulate who can buy alcohol or tobacco, gamble at casinos, or operate a motor vehicle without it turning into a slippery slope. Politically, the free speech argument might have had a point if Silicon Valley’s most-visible “free speech” advocates hadn’t lined up behind an authoritarian who’s creating diplomatic tension (and thus domestic political capital) the world over.
  - potsandpans 10mo ago
    Accessing information is not a harmful substance or a dangerous activity that requires training. The problem is that you are drawing the parallels in the first place. These are not the same things. This is precisely what a totalitarian regime espouses: information so dangerous it must be selectively distributed and access must be accounted for. Today it's pornography. Tomorrow LGBTQ materials are labeled as pornography. And soon thereafter you're putting in age verification to access non-state sponsored news, wondering "why is this required? should I be looking at this?" I have no doubt that these are well-intentioned attempts by concerned citizens and civil servants to preserve some semblance of a decent society. The problem is that it's _always_ coopted. _Always._ Yet we can't seem to help ourselves but clamber towards more consolidation of power in the face of some new hysteria. Your final point... _these supposed free speech advocates have supported an authoritarian, therefore they have no credibility_, _the only free speech advocates are in silicon valley_, _this is the only defense of free speech_. I have no idea what your point is. That a few capitalists used free speech as a shield to make more money, we should throw the baby out with the bathwater? I refuse.
mikkupikku 10mo ago
> The store must only demand ID if the buyer appears to be a minor (similar to alcohol or tobacco purchases). The store must never store the ID in any form whatsoever. Your plan requires nuanced implementation details which the general public is ill equipped to understand let alone independently verify. In particular, it is already normalized (in America at least) that liquor and weed stores will ID even the elderly, and scan the barcode on the ID into their computer. Let's say you want to ban the computer part outright; the public won't understand why, because it's already normal to them. So maybe you permit scanning IDs but regulate the way businesses can store/use that data; the public can't see into the computer, they have no idea if the law is being followed or not. This leads to lax attitudes towards compliance and enforcement both, and furthermore, likely results in public cynicism aka low expectations, which will give way to complacency. This is why I don't think your plan will work well, it's doomed to degenerate into surveillance.
- sethammons 10mo ago
  In the three states I've lived in, nobody scanned IDs. They eye balled it and maybe enter birthday into a system.
  - mikestorrent 10mo ago
    This is how it should be. If you happen to be 16 and look 19, well, fuck's sake, your body's old enough to drink now. People get so hung up on this kind of think-of-the-children crap like as though every generation before now didn't have plenty of underage drinking and debauchery. I'm more worried about people being shutins and not having any fun than I am about some kid having a beer.
  - lokar 10mo ago
    I don’t even get asked for mine
- hypeatei 10mo ago
  I didn't even think about the ID scanning that already takes place. States that have legalized weed still have people who avoid the legal stores because of the scanning. You don't know who has access to that data and how it could implicate you because weed is still illegal on the federal level (e.g. gun owners may be wary of buying from these stores)
anal_reactor 10mo ago
A very important part of the system is a nationwide program of sending homeless people to concentration camps so that teenagers wouldn't bribe them to buy TittyTokens. Like seriously, do you really think that if currently minors can buy tobacco and alcohol using unlawful means, then your TittyTokens will somehow be magically immune to the same problem because you really really wish they would? You can't patch this without creating some form of a central database of who exactly buys how many TittyTokens.
- triceratops 10mo ago
  > do you really think that if currently minors can buy tobacco and alcohol using unlawful means, then your TittyTokens will somehow be magically immune No I fully admit some minors will still get access to FaceTok. We accept this failure for alcohol and tobacco. We don't have internet connected beer cans phoning home when you open them, asking to scan your face. But at least where I live, most kids aren't falling over drunk or puffing away at school bus stops. So if the system is good enough for selling actual poisons, it's good enough to limit most minors' access to online vices. Moreover social media has network effects. If most kids aren't on it, the rest will likely not bother either.
  - anal_reactor 10mo ago
    So basically you've designed an expensive solution that is very complicated to roll out and has obvious cases where it doesn't work, but you still think it's a good idea, rather than explore alternatives. Are you a politician?
    - triceratops 10mo ago
      I don't want to type it out again so here's my response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46459959 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46459959 I also have no issue with viable alternatives (read: have a chance of being passed as law) that preserve privacy. This is just my idea, take it or leave it. I couldn't care less.
JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
Why do you need a private monopoly or physical tokens? This is trivially solved with national IDs and strict liability.
- triceratops 10mo ago
  I didn't say "monopoly" anywhere in my post. Strangely you're the second commenter who assumed that. Probably a communication error on my part, because I only named AgeVerify in my example and didn't enumerate their competitors.
kurthr 10mo ago
Once you're selling them, put a bounty where kids can turn in the cards for money. Then you'll both set a price floor and know which stores are selling them and you can find out who's doing it. Nothing says that a token has to last for a constant amount of time. If kids turn in more than a certain percentage, then that location would have theirs expire early. What I like here is that you've turned a digital problem into a physical one where we already have solutions and intuition for how to enforce rules.
PunchyHamster 10mo ago
No need for separate company. Banks know your age. I'd imagine CC companies know or at very least can get age data from the banks they trade. So it would be 1. Site let's you pick your "age provider" 2. You log to you bank/govt site 3. They only get age as response. Even easier with CC, shops could just send payment request with minimal age, if it doesn't pass, no sell
- triceratops 10mo ago
  > Banks know your age They also know who you are. This rules them out of a privacy-forward age verification system.
  - amelius 10mo ago
    Can't it be implemented such that the banks give out the age information without knowing the ID of the person on the platform?
    - ivan_gammel 10mo ago
      Yes, browser can do that. A browser starts with GET and gets new HTTP 1xx or 3xx response with “Age-Verification: required <age>” header. Browser calls your AVP (defined once in preferences) and gets short-lived certificate of age (expires in 30 seconds), then passes it to website in “Age: <age> <certificate>” header. The website uses known public keys to verify “at least certain age” claim in certificate. AVP public keys can be published in some registry and cached by websites.
    - triceratops 10mo ago
      Then, at a minimum, the platform knows where you bank. But in any case you're trusting the platform and bank to not collude to violate your privacy. They both have strong incentives to collect that info.
- JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
  > Banks know your age Why are we pretending Facebook and X don’t? Start with liability. The age gates will erect themselves.
colonial 10mo ago
You underestimate the average American teenager’s shell-buying game (honed for decades by our asinine alcohol laws.) I’m sure kids elsewhere would pick it up pretty fast too. Plus, this would spawn massive online black markets for the codes, fueled by crypto/gift cards/other shady means of money transmission.
- triceratops 10mo ago
  The comparison to alcohol is apt. Some motivated teenagers succeed in getting beer. Most don't. All the adults consider that enough of a success (which it is) that any proposed legislation to require internet-connected beer cans with facial verification is dead-on-arrival.
ffsm8 10mo ago
> Once validated, the code is good for 1 year (or 6 months or 3 months, adjust based on how stringent you want to make it) - then it expires and a new one must be purchased. That sounds fantastic, were just one step away from making social media entirely controlled by one single party Perfect to push anyone you don't like into irrelevancy, politicians will love this Journalists too, finally they can be rid of these pesky YouTubers that show how politically captured they're! Just need to get someone with admin permission in that company and you're golden
- triceratops 10mo ago
  > entirely controlled by one single party Why? Multiple companies could compete in the market of age verification tokens. Right now we have actual partisans buying actual social media companies (Twitter, TikTok) to control them. That's a much bigger threat vector.
  - JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
    > Multiple companies could compete in the market of age verification tokens Why do we want this? The entire proposal sounds designed to tank popularity for keeping kids off Instagram.
    - triceratops 10mo ago
      > Why do we want [multiple companies issuing tokens]? To prevent a monopoly driving up prices. And to keep the government out of the business.
- lelandbatey 10mo ago
  Politicians wouldn't know who has which "adult code", so they wouldn't be able to get a singular "adult code" banned/early expired by the (supposedly corrupt) code-keeping company. To know which code a particular Youtuber has, they'd need to be able to get that info from Youtube, and if they "have a man on the inside" of Youtube then they can just ask that person to ban the Youtuber in question.
globular-toast 10mo ago
So who do you give the private monopoly to? The next lottery winner?
- triceratops 10mo ago
  I didn't say "monopoly" anywhere in my post. Weirdly a lot of people assumed that, which means I didn't communicate well. In case it wasn't clear: multiple companies can issue tokens. Sites can choose the issuers they accept.
refibrillator 10mo ago
No disrespect but paying to verify age feels absurd, let alone putting a private company in charge of what should be an essential function of the government. How about when you turn 18 or whatever the government gives you a signed JWT that contains your DOB? Anyone who needs to verify your age can check that and simply validate the signature via a public key published by the government. Simply grab a new JWT when you need it, to ensure privacy. And sure, sprinkle in some laws that make it illegal to store or share JWTs for clearly fraudulent intents. > the vast majority of kids don't easily have access to alcohol or cigarettes This feels like it comes from an affluent perspective, where I grew up it was trivial to acquire these things and much worse, there will always be someone’s older brother etc who will do this for $20 because he’s got nothing to lose.
- tbossanova 10mo ago
  So they give you their jwt for 20 instead
- lokar 10mo ago
  If kids can get the card from the liquor store, then they can get physical pornography there as well.
  - wolvoleo 10mo ago
    And they can get porn from all those sites that don't obey laws anyway, like a gazillion torrent sites. So yeah what's the point really. You're not preventing anything. Also I'm pretty sure we all watched porn when we were under age and didn't get anything from it. When I was young internet wasn't accessible for consumers yet but I built a pay TV decoder so I could watch their porn at night. It was easy enough. Only did black and white and no audio but it didn't really matter for that purpose :) Still, I never got the idea that this was normal sex and I've always treated women with the utmost respect.
    - triceratops 10mo ago
      > So yeah what's the point really. You're not preventing anything You're preventing public pressure being put on the legal sites to collect ID from their members to "save the children".
bethekidyouwant 10mo ago
Step 9 i buy my kids this card because this law is dumb
- triceratops 10mo ago
  Some parents give their kids cigarettes and booze. I feel sorry for those children but what can I do?
  - bethekidyouwant 10mo ago
    Some people compare kids having TikTok on their phone with smoking cigarettes and drinking booze. I feel sorry for those people, but what can I do?
    - triceratops 10mo ago
      > I feel sorry for those people Why? They're adults. Let them believe what they want.
jimnotgym 10mo ago
Perhaps we should drop age verification and just ban sites that use AI to scam attention for everyone? I would be happy enough if X and FB were banned outright.
sieve 10mo ago
This is a typical technical solution to a sociopolitical problem. The powers-that-be are not comfortable with the free-for-all that exists on the internet. All these laws are meant to fix that squeaky wheel, one ball-bearing at a time. "Children" gets the Right to march behind you unquestioningly. "Misinformation/Nazis" does the same for the Left. This is now a perfect recipe for a shit sandwich.
- triceratops 10mo ago
  I agree. But if you find a different way to protect the children, that normal people can understand and relate to ("It's like buying beer"), and still maintain privacy, you take away at least one leg of support for what a lot of states really want to do (remove anonymity). It's better than the fatalism in your comment IMO.
ben-schaaf 10mo ago
A private monopoly sounds like a great idea. A profit incentive for access to social media definitely won't result in the price of these tokens skyrocketing to extract as much money as possible.
- vkou 10mo ago
  Generally these kinds of private monopolies also have public-set prices. Which is a huge disaster for expensive things (like your power bill), but is much less of one for a token that takes 50 cents of human labour and 0.5 cents of computing to produce.
- triceratops 10mo ago
  I never said "monopoly". There isn't just one alcohol company or one gift card company.
- swat535 10mo ago
  It doesn't even have to be a private monopoly, it can be a public service. For example in Quebec, liquor stores are managed by the government, called "Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ)" or legal cannabis is managed by "Société québécoise du cannabis (SQDC)". I don't see why other restrictions can't follow the same pattern?
  - ben-schaaf 10mo ago
    Other than the criminalization, I like the idea. I'm purely criticizing the privatization.
sureglymop 10mo ago
I'm half convinced it's satire but I'll answer sincerely anyway. As an adult I just couldn't be bothered buying this again year over year, let alone even once. I'm dropping the site instead of going to the store to buy this. Guess I'd just go fully offline.
- triceratops 10mo ago
  > I'm dropping the site instead of going to the store to buy this Umm...good? You'll have better mental health.
- jodrellblank 10mo ago
  Why would you need to buy it over and over again? Your age verification isn't going to become invalid as if you magically aged backwards. The time limit is (presumably) so the tokens can't be stored and resold on the black market indefinitely.
  - triceratops 10mo ago
    > The time limit is (presumably) so the tokens can't be stored and resold on the black market indefinitely. Correct.
throwaway85825 10mo ago
I don't believe the goal of 'age verification' has anything to do with children. Politicians have been very explicit objecting to anonymous people online complaining about them including calling them 'fat'.
- wolvoleo 10mo ago
  Yeah like those politicians that are calling a slim female journalist "piggy". One rule for me and one for thee.
  - throwaway85825 10mo ago
    As long as there is an anonymous internet I could not care less what words are used by politicians.
    - wolvoleo 10mo ago
      Well this would bother me from anyone. But leaders are supposed to set a good example. Totally agree that the internet should remain anonymous though.
      - throwaway85825 10mo ago
        I care more about what they do than what they say.
- triceratops 10mo ago
  > I don't believe the goal of 'age verification' has anything to do with children. Some people pushing for it are sincere. I believe keeping children away from social media or adult content online is good. But I also believe most of the existing proposals to do it dangerously erode adults' privacy. And that's the real end goal for many politicians. Implementing a fully anonymous, pretty-good-but-not-perfect age verification system can cut the legs out from all the demands to upload ID to "protect the children". I've proposed a relatively simple one that doesn't rely on zero knowledge proofs or something else the general public can't understand.,
wolvoleo 10mo ago
Sounds good. Except the reverify thing. The whole reverification is becoming a bit of a disease lately. I've already had my bank AND my mobile provider demanding an updated scan of my ID. Which is completely BS, after all I'm still the same person. I didn't suddenly become someone else. It's ridiculous they demand it. But these cards sound like a better solution than using government ID yes.
Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 10mo ago
I had a very similar idea with a few differences: 1. You can go to the mayor's house to get the token. No need to associate tobacco/alcohol to it. 2. It's free. 3. It's culturally enforced to exchange tokens with other people. This way users themselves help make sure it's truly impossible to trace their activity. 4. It's illegal to publish your or someone else's token. It's like a paper ID, with a QR code. 5. Can be reused. Expires after 5 years . This way if you want 5 pornhub accounts you don't have to buy 5 stamps. You are also extra sure that the tokens cannot be linked to you because you can exchange it with anyone.
- triceratops 10mo ago
  My proposal doesn't prohibit exchanges or buying tokens for other people. Just like it's legal to buy or give someone of legal age a beer.
hackable_sand 10mo ago
I was going to be mean, but here we are in 2026, so let me be nice. Your idea is garbage.
- hopingtomuch 10mo ago
  [dead]
- triceratops 10mo ago
  It's ok to be mean if you're constructive. You aren't. Your comment violates site guidelines. But here we are in 2026 so instead of flagging you, let me be nice. Give me a reason why my idea is "garbage" that hasn't already been covered in the comments. I'll summarize the current comments and my responses: 1. "Age verification is censorship and evil"/"This is the parents' job, not the state's" - That's a valid point of view, and I understand where it's coming from. But IMO it's increasingly a losing one. 2. "It's not perfect/it can be circumvented by ..." - All of the same circumventions also apply to tobacco and alcohol. Everyone accepts that and the world goes on. We prosecute people who break those laws. Whatever the harms of social media and adult content, they aren't worse than literal poisons that cause car accidents and cancer. 3. "It doesn't preserve privacy because they record ID where I live" - Fix the law. Ban scanning ID where you live. I can't believe you ever accepted that for tobacco or alcohol but now's your chance. 4. "Why do I have to pay? This should be provided by the government" - Then we're back to ZKPs (not comprehensible to laypeople) and paranoia that governments are tracking you anyway. But hey, I'm not a policy or crypto expert, so I'll defer to people who are. Maybe this aspect can be improved. 5. "This requires a lot of new legislation" - Yes. Governments are already at work writing legislation for age verification. Do you want to be proactive to make it privacy forward or sit passively while they decide for us?
Jackson__ 10mo ago
>6. Once validated, the code is good for 1 year (or 6 months or 3 months, adjust based on how stringent you want to make it) - then it expires and a new one must be purchased. > 7. A separate token is required for each website/each account. I propose instead: A single code valid for 10 packets sent to a single IP address, or 30 seconds, whichever expires first.
jodrellblank 10mo ago
What happens with point 7 when you verify your age to Google Plus and then you go to Reddit and “sign in with Google?”. If your verification doesn’t transfer, that would be silly because you aren’t a different age. Trying to start a new social network in your world either has “every new signup must go to a store and spend money” or every new social network becomes tied to “sign in with Google”. Your plan locks us into the current social networking forever?
- triceratops 10mo ago
  A good point that I hadn't thought about. You are correct that the choices are "accept lock-in" or "new site, new card". I lean to the latter.
tsoukase 10mo ago
Not only this but every age verification system will create an immense motive for the kids to obtain an "adult pass". Money, uncles, "family engineering" on parents or obscure paths will be used by the kid to become a hero to their peers. In a few months/years the system will degenerate and become abandoned.
- triceratops 10mo ago
  That (mostly) doesn't happen for booze or cigs today. You're alleging that kids will behave like heroin junkies in order to access social media. If that's true, social media is more dangerous than we thought, and we should be having a very different conversation.
  - tsoukase 10mo ago
    Electronic screens are "audiovisual drugs" delivered in hour-dosages through the sensory organs. After any type of ban there will be a craze by spoiled kids and/or spoiling parents to get a pass. And these are the people that the ban targets in the first place. Results from Australia's expirement are coming mediocre.
    - triceratops 10mo ago
      Like I said, if social media is actually more like heroin than tobacco then mere age-restriction is not the answer. We're going to, as they say, need a bigger boat.

postepowanieadm 10mo ago

Nah, EIDAS2 got you covered - you use your european identity wallet.

triceratops 10mo ago
The beauty of my proposal is you don't need that.
- 9dev 10mo ago
  But instead, you need this other thing, which requires elaborate infrastructure and new standards and regulations
  - nej24swei 10mo ago
    And who is the biggest winner? Triceratops Age Verification services, provided a state-sanctioned monopoly on issuing Porn Licenses. Awful, really.
    - triceratops 10mo ago
      It doesn't have to be 1 company. Ideally it would be many companies competing on price, promotions, and other marketing.
      - nej24swei 10mo ago
        Ok, so grifting for you and your friends? It’s a really bad idea. It’s not a problem that needs to be solved by building a market for porn licenses.
        triceratops 10mo ago
        I have less than zero interest in this, or any, business. I don't have any interested friends either. Any other baseless accusations you want to throw at me? > It’s not a problem that needs to be solved by building a market for porn licenses. You're blind if you can't see the rising wave of legislation that will make us upload ID to use the internet to "protect the children". The problem being solved is "protect the children without uploading ID".
        9dev 10mo ago
        You seem to stick on the idea that someone will make you upload your ID, while every initiative working on this issue is moving toward cryptographic proof of ownership without ever disclosing your identity to the age verification API nor the service you requested access to to the government.
wolvoleo 10mo ago
I absolutely don't want to log in with an id everywhere I go online. Even when it's zero knowledge blah blah. I'll just circumvent with a vpn which gives me more privacy not less.
- triceratops 10mo ago
  Even with a VPN I assume you'll eventually run out of jurisdictions that don't have these laws.
  - wolvoleo 10mo ago
    Hmm I doubt that. I can imagine some island states making it their big selling point. Similar to the .to domain thing etc. Also I can't imagine the whole world actually wanting this shit. When I see the reactions here it's a pretty contested topic.

EA-3167 10mo ago

I’m in my 40’s and I’d rather just use a VPN, I can’t imagine that young people will feel any differently. Governments should feel free to take performative measures, and we’re free to circumvent them. Leave people to their fantasies of digital control and let them learn lessons the hard way. This is not a technical issue anyway.

AnIrishDuck 10mo ago

Or we have devices attest user age. On setup, the device has the option to store a root ("guardian"?) email address. Whenever "adult mode" is activated or the root email is changed, a notification must first be sent to the prior root email. That notification may optionally contain a code that must be used to proceed with the relevant action, though the user should be warned of the potential device-crippling consequences. This setting is stored in a secure enclave and survives factory resets. I will note that these two systems are not mutually exclusive. There are plenty of ways to "think of the children" that don't trample on everybody's freedom.

iamnothere 10mo ago
Yeah, not doing this on my Linux devices.
- AnIrishDuck 10mo ago
  You don't have to, that's the point. EDIT: or to rephrase, this proposal is opt-in (device attests the user is a minor) not mandatory (device is required to attest the user is an adult)
  - iamnothere 10mo ago
    I misunderstood then, I’m all in favor of that approach. If mainstream manufacturers include an optional child mode then that doesn’t affect adults. I do think it’s better if the child device simply blocks adult labeled content rather than attesting that the user is a child, just to avoid leaking any information about minors. But it’s still an OK solution.

SilverElfin 10mo ago

While this can work I just don’t want any bans on speech for any age. These social media bans are going to next lead to porn restrictions and ultimately they will mainstream Christian theocratic values in public policy through an ever shifting morality goal post. That’s how it always goes. Enabling it through such solutions feels like a risk.

sampli 10mo ago
Anti Israel speech will be the first to be banned
- CommanderData 10mo ago
  It already is. Comments are shadow banned across social media, videos across Tiktok are shadow banned if they include certain mix of words. There are cases of UK police turning up to homes for anti-zionist comments. We're already there.
Greed 10mo ago
It's arguable, even if you're right, that the net loss to humanity is still far greater without these restrictions than with. Modern social media is leading to multiple generations of emotionally stunted, non-verbal children. Many of whom literally struggle to read. If you haven't seen it in person, it is now incredibly common for children as young as 1 or 2 to be handed an iPad and driven down an algorithmic tunnel of AI generated content with multiple videos overlaid on top. I've seen multiple examples of children scrolling rapidly through videos of Disney characters getting their heads chopped off to Five Nights at Freddy's music while laughing hysterically. They do this for hours. Every day. It's truly horrifying. Parents are just as poorly equipped at dealing with this as the children are, the difference being that at least their brains have already fully developed so that there is no lasting permanent damage.
School-Cotton 10mo ago
I am sure that they will not lead to “Christian theocratic values in public policy” in France. That value system is fringe in France, one of the most irreligious and historically anti-clerical cultures in the world. Among people who identify as Christian in France, the ones who could be described as radical or fundamentalist are a very small minority.

altern8 10mo ago

Regardless of any laws pushing for age verification, this is pretty smart.

hypeatei 10mo ago

So a kid just has to get their hands on a token then access is open to restricted websites for a year (or whatever time period) while adults are inconvenienced? The black markets for these things would pop up instantly and you'd deal with secondary effects of that (scams, fraud, etc.) I think the whole idea of age verification on the internet is dystopian and should be tossed in the garbage.

triceratops 10mo ago
> I think the whole idea of age verification on the internet is dystopian and should be tossed in the garbage. You may think so. I have sympathy for that viewpoint. But the idea isn't going away. Public opinion is going the opposite direction. So what now?

Ritewut 10mo ago

Japan has a similar system for payments. If you prefer to buy things online with cash they give you a barcode you take to any convenience store. The store scans it and you pay with cash.

coppsilgold 10mo ago

You can do the same thing with online payments combined with a ZKP token system. The issue is and will always remain reselling the age verification tokens. The entire system is pretty pointless. Kids will just have some hoops to jump through, and they will be very motivated to do so. Criminals will be eager to aid them for some change too. Either you forget age verification, or you can forget about privacy. Because identity theft is the only hoop big enough for most kids not to make the jump - and even that may not hold, typically identity theft is carried out for financial returns, the age verification requirement will change the calculus on that and will likely expand that particular black market to both kids and people valuing their privacy. In my opinion it should be the parent's job to police their kid's access to an internet terminal. It's not even that hard. Mitigating the mistakes of parents at the expense of everyone's privacy is a poor trade.

lo_zamoyski 10mo ago
Just because something can and will be circumvented doesn't make it useless. People will continue to murder other people. That doesn't mean that criminalizing and punishing murder is pointless. Now, whether the above scheme is prudent or workable, that's a separate question. But the counterargument to the scheme cannot be "It's all or nothing".
- coppsilgold 10mo ago
  Murder is all but impossible to prevent, the reason the murder rate is kept low is because it's difficult to evade attribution after the fact. In this instance we are talking about a technology that is impossible to attribute by design, the only way attribution will happen is if the reseller makes a serious mistake. There will be resellers that don't make serious mistakes. And unlike murder, very few successful resellers are sufficient to serve everyone.
triceratops 10mo ago
> The issue is and will always remain reselling the age verification tokens. The entire system is pretty pointless. I forgot to mention in my original post. I'd also rate limit purchases. Maybe only allow purchasing one per visit. > Kids will just have some hoops to jump through, and they will be very motivated to do so. Maybe? Kids can just buy alcohol or cigs or drugs from criminals today. But most can't or don't. Some do, and we accept that as a society. And we punish the criminals who enable it. This isn't like illegal drugs, where criminals have a massive market (adults with cash). A black market catering to only minors isn't very lucrative. Moreover social media's network effects work in our favor. If most kids can't join, their friends are less motivated to get in.

nej24swei 10mo ago

And I am going to restate how it’s an absolutely terrible idea, and will always fail with its perverse incentives. This does not solve any problems and creates many more. Your idea will create a massive black market for “adult validation tokens”, handing billions of dollars to criminal groups reselling these things. And then where such a system goes in 5-10y. Sure it’s sorta anonymous today, but then new government decides - “let’s make it mandatory to be sold with a binding identity and credit card.” Suddenly you need that token to log in to any public website. And Chinese, European and American authorities demand realtime access to the global logs. Every censorship system you build, even if it seems “good”, will eventually censor you and the things you care about. Don't design or build oppression technology. The very idea that you can realistically enforce Point of Sales age checks at scale is not sensible.

JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
> Every censorship system you build, even if it seems “good”, will eventually censor you and the things you care about Nobody is being censored. We regulate who can buy alcohol or tobacco, gamble at casinos, or operate a motor vehicle without it turning into a slippery slope. Politically, the free speech argument might have had a point if Silicon Valley’s most-visible “free speech” advocates hadn’t lined up behind an authoritarian who’s creating diplomatic tension (and thus domestic political capital) the world over.
- potsandpans 10mo ago
  Accessing information is not a harmful substance or a dangerous activity that requires training. The problem is that you are drawing the parallels in the first place. These are not the same things. This is precisely what a totalitarian regime espouses: information so dangerous it must be selectively distributed and access must be accounted for. Today it's pornography. Tomorrow LGBTQ materials are labeled as pornography. And soon thereafter you're putting in age verification to access non-state sponsored news, wondering "why is this required? should I be looking at this?" I have no doubt that these are well-intentioned attempts by concerned citizens and civil servants to preserve some semblance of a decent society. The problem is that it's _always_ coopted. _Always._ Yet we can't seem to help ourselves but clamber towards more consolidation of power in the face of some new hysteria. Your final point... _these supposed free speech advocates have supported an authoritarian, therefore they have no credibility_, _the only free speech advocates are in silicon valley_, _this is the only defense of free speech_. I have no idea what your point is. That a few capitalists used free speech as a shield to make more money, we should throw the baby out with the bathwater? I refuse.

mikkupikku 10mo ago

> The store must only demand ID if the buyer appears to be a minor (similar to alcohol or tobacco purchases). The store must never store the ID in any form whatsoever. Your plan requires nuanced implementation details which the general public is ill equipped to understand let alone independently verify. In particular, it is already normalized (in America at least) that liquor and weed stores will ID even the elderly, and scan the barcode on the ID into their computer. Let's say you want to ban the computer part outright; the public won't understand why, because it's already normal to them. So maybe you permit scanning IDs but regulate the way businesses can store/use that data; the public can't see into the computer, they have no idea if the law is being followed or not. This leads to lax attitudes towards compliance and enforcement both, and furthermore, likely results in public cynicism aka low expectations, which will give way to complacency. This is why I don't think your plan will work well, it's doomed to degenerate into surveillance.

sethammons 10mo ago
In the three states I've lived in, nobody scanned IDs. They eye balled it and maybe enter birthday into a system.
- mikestorrent 10mo ago
  This is how it should be. If you happen to be 16 and look 19, well, fuck's sake, your body's old enough to drink now. People get so hung up on this kind of think-of-the-children crap like as though every generation before now didn't have plenty of underage drinking and debauchery. I'm more worried about people being shutins and not having any fun than I am about some kid having a beer.
- lokar 10mo ago
  I don’t even get asked for mine
hypeatei 10mo ago
I didn't even think about the ID scanning that already takes place. States that have legalized weed still have people who avoid the legal stores because of the scanning. You don't know who has access to that data and how it could implicate you because weed is still illegal on the federal level (e.g. gun owners may be wary of buying from these stores)

anal_reactor 10mo ago

A very important part of the system is a nationwide program of sending homeless people to concentration camps so that teenagers wouldn't bribe them to buy TittyTokens. Like seriously, do you really think that if currently minors can buy tobacco and alcohol using unlawful means, then your TittyTokens will somehow be magically immune to the same problem because you really really wish they would? You can't patch this without creating some form of a central database of who exactly buys how many TittyTokens.

triceratops 10mo ago
> do you really think that if currently minors can buy tobacco and alcohol using unlawful means, then your TittyTokens will somehow be magically immune No I fully admit some minors will still get access to FaceTok. We accept this failure for alcohol and tobacco. We don't have internet connected beer cans phoning home when you open them, asking to scan your face. But at least where I live, most kids aren't falling over drunk or puffing away at school bus stops. So if the system is good enough for selling actual poisons, it's good enough to limit most minors' access to online vices. Moreover social media has network effects. If most kids aren't on it, the rest will likely not bother either.
- anal_reactor 10mo ago
  So basically you've designed an expensive solution that is very complicated to roll out and has obvious cases where it doesn't work, but you still think it's a good idea, rather than explore alternatives. Are you a politician?
  - triceratops 10mo ago
    I don't want to type it out again so here's my response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46459959 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46459959 I also have no issue with viable alternatives (read: have a chance of being passed as law) that preserve privacy. This is just my idea, take it or leave it. I couldn't care less.

JumpCrisscross 10mo ago

Why do you need a private monopoly or physical tokens? This is trivially solved with national IDs and strict liability.

triceratops 10mo ago
I didn't say "monopoly" anywhere in my post. Strangely you're the second commenter who assumed that. Probably a communication error on my part, because I only named AgeVerify in my example and didn't enumerate their competitors.

kurthr 10mo ago

Once you're selling them, put a bounty where kids can turn in the cards for money. Then you'll both set a price floor and know which stores are selling them and you can find out who's doing it. Nothing says that a token has to last for a constant amount of time. If kids turn in more than a certain percentage, then that location would have theirs expire early. What I like here is that you've turned a digital problem into a physical one where we already have solutions and intuition for how to enforce rules.

PunchyHamster 10mo ago

No need for separate company. Banks know your age. I'd imagine CC companies know or at very least can get age data from the banks they trade. So it would be 1. Site let's you pick your "age provider" 2. You log to you bank/govt site 3. They only get age as response. Even easier with CC, shops could just send payment request with minimal age, if it doesn't pass, no sell

triceratops 10mo ago
> Banks know your age They also know who you are. This rules them out of a privacy-forward age verification system.
- amelius 10mo ago
  Can't it be implemented such that the banks give out the age information without knowing the ID of the person on the platform?
  - ivan_gammel 10mo ago
    Yes, browser can do that. A browser starts with GET and gets new HTTP 1xx or 3xx response with “Age-Verification: required <age>” header. Browser calls your AVP (defined once in preferences) and gets short-lived certificate of age (expires in 30 seconds), then passes it to website in “Age: <age> <certificate>” header. The website uses known public keys to verify “at least certain age” claim in certificate. AVP public keys can be published in some registry and cached by websites.
  - triceratops 10mo ago
    Then, at a minimum, the platform knows where you bank. But in any case you're trusting the platform and bank to not collude to violate your privacy. They both have strong incentives to collect that info.
JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
> Banks know your age Why are we pretending Facebook and X don’t? Start with liability. The age gates will erect themselves.

colonial 10mo ago

You underestimate the average American teenager’s shell-buying game (honed for decades by our asinine alcohol laws.) I’m sure kids elsewhere would pick it up pretty fast too. Plus, this would spawn massive online black markets for the codes, fueled by crypto/gift cards/other shady means of money transmission.

triceratops 10mo ago
The comparison to alcohol is apt. Some motivated teenagers succeed in getting beer. Most don't. All the adults consider that enough of a success (which it is) that any proposed legislation to require internet-connected beer cans with facial verification is dead-on-arrival.

ffsm8 10mo ago

> Once validated, the code is good for 1 year (or 6 months or 3 months, adjust based on how stringent you want to make it) - then it expires and a new one must be purchased. That sounds fantastic, were just one step away from making social media entirely controlled by one single party Perfect to push anyone you don't like into irrelevancy, politicians will love this Journalists too, finally they can be rid of these pesky YouTubers that show how politically captured they're! Just need to get someone with admin permission in that company and you're golden

triceratops 10mo ago
> entirely controlled by one single party Why? Multiple companies could compete in the market of age verification tokens. Right now we have actual partisans buying actual social media companies (Twitter, TikTok) to control them. That's a much bigger threat vector.
- JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
  > Multiple companies could compete in the market of age verification tokens Why do we want this? The entire proposal sounds designed to tank popularity for keeping kids off Instagram.
  - triceratops 10mo ago
    > Why do we want [multiple companies issuing tokens]? To prevent a monopoly driving up prices. And to keep the government out of the business.
lelandbatey 10mo ago
Politicians wouldn't know who has which "adult code", so they wouldn't be able to get a singular "adult code" banned/early expired by the (supposedly corrupt) code-keeping company. To know which code a particular Youtuber has, they'd need to be able to get that info from Youtube, and if they "have a man on the inside" of Youtube then they can just ask that person to ban the Youtuber in question.

globular-toast 10mo ago

So who do you give the private monopoly to? The next lottery winner?

triceratops 10mo ago
I didn't say "monopoly" anywhere in my post. Weirdly a lot of people assumed that, which means I didn't communicate well. In case it wasn't clear: multiple companies can issue tokens. Sites can choose the issuers they accept.

refibrillator 10mo ago

No disrespect but paying to verify age feels absurd, let alone putting a private company in charge of what should be an essential function of the government. How about when you turn 18 or whatever the government gives you a signed JWT that contains your DOB? Anyone who needs to verify your age can check that and simply validate the signature via a public key published by the government. Simply grab a new JWT when you need it, to ensure privacy. And sure, sprinkle in some laws that make it illegal to store or share JWTs for clearly fraudulent intents. > the vast majority of kids don't easily have access to alcohol or cigarettes This feels like it comes from an affluent perspective, where I grew up it was trivial to acquire these things and much worse, there will always be someone’s older brother etc who will do this for $20 because he’s got nothing to lose.

tbossanova 10mo ago
So they give you their jwt for 20 instead
lokar 10mo ago
If kids can get the card from the liquor store, then they can get physical pornography there as well.
- wolvoleo 10mo ago
  And they can get porn from all those sites that don't obey laws anyway, like a gazillion torrent sites. So yeah what's the point really. You're not preventing anything. Also I'm pretty sure we all watched porn when we were under age and didn't get anything from it. When I was young internet wasn't accessible for consumers yet but I built a pay TV decoder so I could watch their porn at night. It was easy enough. Only did black and white and no audio but it didn't really matter for that purpose :) Still, I never got the idea that this was normal sex and I've always treated women with the utmost respect.
  - triceratops 10mo ago
    > So yeah what's the point really. You're not preventing anything You're preventing public pressure being put on the legal sites to collect ID from their members to "save the children".

bethekidyouwant 10mo ago

Step 9 i buy my kids this card because this law is dumb

triceratops 10mo ago
Some parents give their kids cigarettes and booze. I feel sorry for those children but what can I do?
- bethekidyouwant 10mo ago
  Some people compare kids having TikTok on their phone with smoking cigarettes and drinking booze. I feel sorry for those people, but what can I do?
  - triceratops 10mo ago
    > I feel sorry for those people Why? They're adults. Let them believe what they want.

jimnotgym 10mo ago

Perhaps we should drop age verification and just ban sites that use AI to scam attention for everyone? I would be happy enough if X and FB were banned outright.

sieve 10mo ago

This is a typical technical solution to a sociopolitical problem. The powers-that-be are not comfortable with the free-for-all that exists on the internet. All these laws are meant to fix that squeaky wheel, one ball-bearing at a time. "Children" gets the Right to march behind you unquestioningly. "Misinformation/Nazis" does the same for the Left. This is now a perfect recipe for a shit sandwich.

triceratops 10mo ago
I agree. But if you find a different way to protect the children, that normal people can understand and relate to ("It's like buying beer"), and still maintain privacy, you take away at least one leg of support for what a lot of states really want to do (remove anonymity). It's better than the fatalism in your comment IMO.

ben-schaaf 10mo ago

A private monopoly sounds like a great idea. A profit incentive for access to social media definitely won't result in the price of these tokens skyrocketing to extract as much money as possible.

vkou 10mo ago
Generally these kinds of private monopolies also have public-set prices. Which is a huge disaster for expensive things (like your power bill), but is much less of one for a token that takes 50 cents of human labour and 0.5 cents of computing to produce.
triceratops 10mo ago
I never said "monopoly". There isn't just one alcohol company or one gift card company.
swat535 10mo ago
It doesn't even have to be a private monopoly, it can be a public service. For example in Quebec, liquor stores are managed by the government, called "Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ)" or legal cannabis is managed by "Société québécoise du cannabis (SQDC)". I don't see why other restrictions can't follow the same pattern?
- ben-schaaf 10mo ago
  Other than the criminalization, I like the idea. I'm purely criticizing the privatization.

sureglymop 10mo ago

I'm half convinced it's satire but I'll answer sincerely anyway. As an adult I just couldn't be bothered buying this again year over year, let alone even once. I'm dropping the site instead of going to the store to buy this. Guess I'd just go fully offline.

triceratops 10mo ago
> I'm dropping the site instead of going to the store to buy this Umm...good? You'll have better mental health.
jodrellblank 10mo ago
Why would you need to buy it over and over again? Your age verification isn't going to become invalid as if you magically aged backwards. The time limit is (presumably) so the tokens can't be stored and resold on the black market indefinitely.
- triceratops 10mo ago
  > The time limit is (presumably) so the tokens can't be stored and resold on the black market indefinitely. Correct.

throwaway85825 10mo ago

I don't believe the goal of 'age verification' has anything to do with children. Politicians have been very explicit objecting to anonymous people online complaining about them including calling them 'fat'.

wolvoleo 10mo ago
Yeah like those politicians that are calling a slim female journalist "piggy". One rule for me and one for thee.
- throwaway85825 10mo ago
  As long as there is an anonymous internet I could not care less what words are used by politicians.
  - wolvoleo 10mo ago
    Well this would bother me from anyone. But leaders are supposed to set a good example. Totally agree that the internet should remain anonymous though.
    - throwaway85825 10mo ago
      I care more about what they do than what they say.
triceratops 10mo ago
> I don't believe the goal of 'age verification' has anything to do with children. Some people pushing for it are sincere. I believe keeping children away from social media or adult content online is good. But I also believe most of the existing proposals to do it dangerously erode adults' privacy. And that's the real end goal for many politicians. Implementing a fully anonymous, pretty-good-but-not-perfect age verification system can cut the legs out from all the demands to upload ID to "protect the children". I've proposed a relatively simple one that doesn't rely on zero knowledge proofs or something else the general public can't understand.,

wolvoleo 10mo ago

Sounds good. Except the reverify thing. The whole reverification is becoming a bit of a disease lately. I've already had my bank AND my mobile provider demanding an updated scan of my ID. Which is completely BS, after all I'm still the same person. I didn't suddenly become someone else. It's ridiculous they demand it. But these cards sound like a better solution than using government ID yes.

Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 10mo ago

I had a very similar idea with a few differences: 1. You can go to the mayor's house to get the token. No need to associate tobacco/alcohol to it. 2. It's free. 3. It's culturally enforced to exchange tokens with other people. This way users themselves help make sure it's truly impossible to trace their activity. 4. It's illegal to publish your or someone else's token. It's like a paper ID, with a QR code. 5. Can be reused. Expires after 5 years . This way if you want 5 pornhub accounts you don't have to buy 5 stamps. You are also extra sure that the tokens cannot be linked to you because you can exchange it with anyone.

triceratops 10mo ago
My proposal doesn't prohibit exchanges or buying tokens for other people. Just like it's legal to buy or give someone of legal age a beer.

hackable_sand 10mo ago

I was going to be mean, but here we are in 2026, so let me be nice. Your idea is garbage.

hopingtomuch 10mo ago
[dead]
triceratops 10mo ago
It's ok to be mean if you're constructive. You aren't. Your comment violates site guidelines. But here we are in 2026 so instead of flagging you, let me be nice. Give me a reason why my idea is "garbage" that hasn't already been covered in the comments. I'll summarize the current comments and my responses: 1. "Age verification is censorship and evil"/"This is the parents' job, not the state's" - That's a valid point of view, and I understand where it's coming from. But IMO it's increasingly a losing one. 2. "It's not perfect/it can be circumvented by ..." - All of the same circumventions also apply to tobacco and alcohol. Everyone accepts that and the world goes on. We prosecute people who break those laws. Whatever the harms of social media and adult content, they aren't worse than literal poisons that cause car accidents and cancer. 3. "It doesn't preserve privacy because they record ID where I live" - Fix the law. Ban scanning ID where you live. I can't believe you ever accepted that for tobacco or alcohol but now's your chance. 4. "Why do I have to pay? This should be provided by the government" - Then we're back to ZKPs (not comprehensible to laypeople) and paranoia that governments are tracking you anyway. But hey, I'm not a policy or crypto expert, so I'll defer to people who are. Maybe this aspect can be improved. 5. "This requires a lot of new legislation" - Yes. Governments are already at work writing legislation for age verification. Do you want to be proactive to make it privacy forward or sit passively while they decide for us?

Jackson__ 10mo ago

>6. Once validated, the code is good for 1 year (or 6 months or 3 months, adjust based on how stringent you want to make it) - then it expires and a new one must be purchased. > 7. A separate token is required for each website/each account. I propose instead: A single code valid for 10 packets sent to a single IP address, or 30 seconds, whichever expires first.

jodrellblank 10mo ago

What happens with point 7 when you verify your age to Google Plus and then you go to Reddit and “sign in with Google?”. If your verification doesn’t transfer, that would be silly because you aren’t a different age. Trying to start a new social network in your world either has “every new signup must go to a store and spend money” or every new social network becomes tied to “sign in with Google”. Your plan locks us into the current social networking forever?

triceratops 10mo ago
A good point that I hadn't thought about. You are correct that the choices are "accept lock-in" or "new site, new card". I lean to the latter.

tsoukase 10mo ago

Not only this but every age verification system will create an immense motive for the kids to obtain an "adult pass". Money, uncles, "family engineering" on parents or obscure paths will be used by the kid to become a hero to their peers. In a few months/years the system will degenerate and become abandoned.

triceratops 10mo ago
That (mostly) doesn't happen for booze or cigs today. You're alleging that kids will behave like heroin junkies in order to access social media. If that's true, social media is more dangerous than we thought, and we should be having a very different conversation.
- tsoukase 10mo ago
  Electronic screens are "audiovisual drugs" delivered in hour-dosages through the sensory organs. After any type of ban there will be a craze by spoiled kids and/or spoiling parents to get a pass. And these are the people that the ban targets in the first place. Results from Australia's expirement are coming mediocre.
  - triceratops 10mo ago
    Like I said, if social media is actually more like heroin than tobacco then mere age-restriction is not the answer. We're going to, as they say, need a bigger boat.