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Age verification obliviates anonymity on the internet. If everything you do, _can_ be tracked by the government, it _will_ be. Allowing for more effective prop

by shakna 8mo ago

Age verification obliviates anonymity on the internet. If everything you do, _can_ be tracked by the government, it _will_ be. Allowing for more effective propaganda, electrol control, and lights a fire on the concept of a government _representing_ anyone.

Almondsetat 8mo ago
Ok, and? Presenting your ID at a number of IRL estamblishments also heavily reduces anonymity
- gschizas 8mo ago
  The difference is that IRL establishments don't sell off that data to anyone else, nor do they have the ability to collate that data with data from other establishments to make a profile of you. (at least not yet)
  - fragmede 8mo ago
    If you think the nightclub that scans your driver's license magstripe isn't selling your data off, when they could be making money off of it? Between PatronScan,Intellicheck, Scantek, and TokenWorks, yeah a dingy bar where it's a dude visually checking isn't it, but a nightclub and quick swipe totally is.
- shakna 8mo ago
  But to get that ID from the bottleo, you need to hold them at gunpoint. To get it from Discord you need to sneeze. The internet has scale and availability, that physical locations do not.
Nursie 8mo ago
> Age verification obliviates anonymity on the internet. How so? Please explain in detail, because there are already schemes such as "verifiable credentials" which allow people to prove they are of age without handing over ID to online services.
- afiori 8mo ago
  because most implementations are not going to be like that.
  - Nursie 8mo ago
    In the context of "Age verification should be banned" though, we're already talking about legislative intervention. If there's no particular problem with schemes that are like that then we don't necessarily need a blanket ban on age verification. Perhaps what we're really saying is "Ban age verification that collects lots of personal information". Or perhaps we could distil it down further to "Ban unnecessary collection and storage of PII". In which case, Congrats! You've arrived back at the GDPR :) Which I think is a good thing, and should be strengthened further. (Also the other response to "because most implementations are not going to be like that" is "why not?". People are already building such ecosystems.)
    - AnthonyMouse 8mo ago
      > If there's no particular problem with schemes that are like that then we don't necessarily need a blanket ban on age verification. There is a problem with schemes like that. The way computer security works is, attacks always get better, they never get worse. A scheme that nobody has found any privacy holes in when it's enacted will have one found a week after. The way governments work is, the compromise bill passes if the people who care about privacy support it because then it has the votes of the people who care about privacy and the people who want to ID everyone. But then when the vulnerability is found, the people who care about privacy can't get it fixed because they can't pass a new bill without also having the votes of the people who want to ID everyone, and those people already have what they want. More specifically, many of them then have what they really want, which is to invade everyone's privacy, as they were hoping to do once the vulnerability was found. Which means you need it to be perfect the first time or it's already ossified and can't be fixed. But the chances of that happening in practice are zero, which means it needs to not happen at all.
      - 8mo ago

by shakna 8mo ago

Almondsetat 8mo ago

Ok, and? Presenting your ID at a number of IRL estamblishments also heavily reduces anonymity

gschizas 8mo ago
The difference is that IRL establishments don't sell off that data to anyone else, nor do they have the ability to collate that data with data from other establishments to make a profile of you. (at least not yet)
- fragmede 8mo ago
  If you think the nightclub that scans your driver's license magstripe isn't selling your data off, when they could be making money off of it? Between PatronScan,Intellicheck, Scantek, and TokenWorks, yeah a dingy bar where it's a dude visually checking isn't it, but a nightclub and quick swipe totally is.
shakna 8mo ago
But to get that ID from the bottleo, you need to hold them at gunpoint. To get it from Discord you need to sneeze. The internet has scale and availability, that physical locations do not.

Nursie 8mo ago

> Age verification obliviates anonymity on the internet. How so? Please explain in detail, because there are already schemes such as "verifiable credentials" which allow people to prove they are of age without handing over ID to online services.

afiori 8mo ago
because most implementations are not going to be like that.
- Nursie 8mo ago
  In the context of "Age verification should be banned" though, we're already talking about legislative intervention. If there's no particular problem with schemes that are like that then we don't necessarily need a blanket ban on age verification. Perhaps what we're really saying is "Ban age verification that collects lots of personal information". Or perhaps we could distil it down further to "Ban unnecessary collection and storage of PII". In which case, Congrats! You've arrived back at the GDPR :) Which I think is a good thing, and should be strengthened further. (Also the other response to "because most implementations are not going to be like that" is "why not?". People are already building such ecosystems.)
  - AnthonyMouse 8mo ago
    > If there's no particular problem with schemes that are like that then we don't necessarily need a blanket ban on age verification. There is a problem with schemes like that. The way computer security works is, attacks always get better, they never get worse. A scheme that nobody has found any privacy holes in when it's enacted will have one found a week after. The way governments work is, the compromise bill passes if the people who care about privacy support it because then it has the votes of the people who care about privacy and the people who want to ID everyone. But then when the vulnerability is found, the people who care about privacy can't get it fixed because they can't pass a new bill without also having the votes of the people who want to ID everyone, and those people already have what they want. More specifically, many of them then have what they really want, which is to invade everyone's privacy, as they were hoping to do once the vulnerability was found. Which means you need it to be perfect the first time or it's already ossified and can't be fixed. But the chances of that happening in practice are zero, which means it needs to not happen at all.
    - 8mo ago