4 ms·

"Let’s say I downloaded the app, proved that I am over 18, then my nephew can take my phone, unlock my app and use it to prove he is over 18." - and how is that

by soco 6mo ago

"Let’s say I downloaded the app, proved that I am over 18, then my nephew can take my phone, unlock my app and use it to prove he is over 18." - and how is that something that could, or should, be addressed by the app? Are we even serious??

kdheiwns 6mo ago
Because people share phones with their kids. It's not rare or even mildly unusual. The problem isn't that the app needs to solve this. The problem is the app is useless, along with this whole bizarre "need for age verification" plot that poofed out of existence simultaneously around the whole globe mysteriously a few months ago.
- Sweepi 6mo ago
  Well, reality called and says: Like ID, drivers license, credit cards and guns: Phones are sth. you dont just "share" with your kids. Also there is an option to guard the ID App with an additional PIN/Biometric.
  - kdheiwns 6mo ago
    A phone isn't going to run off the road and kill 7 people. This is nonsense and you know it. And yes, phones are something parents do "just" share with their kids because nobody is bizarre enough to look at a phone the same way as a gun or a car. It's the YouTube device that can talk to grandma. All you have to do to see proof that it's something people "just" share is to walk into a grocery store and look at parents pushing kids in carts while those kids watch videos. 25 years ago those phones were Game Boys. Nobody is seeing them as a gun. That's the most disconnected from reality take I've seen in my life.
    - Sweepi 6mo ago
      Whats the diff between today giving you phone to your 8-year and making sure /having trust that they do not use it to e.g. order a new toy from Amazon and tomorrow that he is not using to verify they are an adult? I mean, most things today (like accessing porn, buying alcohol) do not require any extra age verification. They can just do it using your phone/accounts.
      - kdheiwns 6mo ago
        Not everyone views their child as an enemy that just happens to be in close quarters with them. Most people trust their kids to generally not do bad things. People keep knives in their kitchen and kids, explain the danger, and kids are generally responsible enough to not play with them. If this is a concept that you can't grasp, then words will never convey it. It's simply a detachment from reality to think people are viewing their phones as a loaded gun and their child as someone hellbent on betraying them and causing massive societal damage. The phone is the YouTube device. If they get a notification that their kid ordered from Amazon, they'll cancel the order and tell their kid not to do it again. It's seriously that simple. Just go and talk to a parent. They'll think viewing their phones as a WMD is insane.
        JimDabell 6mo ago
        > Most people trust their kids to generally not do bad things. Okay, so trust them not to access age-gated sites using your credentials then.
        kdheiwns 6mo ago
        Then just get rid of the age gating and verification entirely because it's useless.
        JimDabell 6mo ago
        Other parents have different opinions to you about the value of this.
        JoshTriplett 6mo ago
        The problem comes in when they feel their opinions should carry weight about other people's kids. There are very limited ways in which we should allow that, and to an oversimplified approximation, they boil down to "don't do kids harm that prevents them from becoming an intact person society treats as a human allowed to make their own decisions". And then the problem is that some people think some websites do such damage, and other people think some websites provide help to survive such damage.
  - mrweasel 6mo ago
    That's not reality for many of us. I don't consider my phone a secure device by any means. It has nothing on it that I'd regard as something I'd need to guard against my family. I know a fair number of especially elderly people who want to disable PIN and bio-metrics from their phone, because they view it as a pain to deal with. PINs can also be guessed or someone might look you over the shoulder and steal it that way. Many phones still doesn't have biometrics, or people don't want to use it. Our realities might be different, but in my reality a cell phone, which you almost by definition brings with you out in the world, should never be considered a secure device.
    - Mashimo 6mo ago
      Oh man, if the kid gets hold of both of their parents phones with login, they could divorce them. I don't have kids yet, so this might change, but I would not give them login and / or unsupervised access. I don't think you can guess pins, as the phones locks after a few failed attempts.
      - 9991 6mo ago
        That's not a realistic concern for most people. Children don't generally want their parents to divorce.
    - close04 6mo ago
      You keep using the term “secure” that it sounds like you think education is like a prison sentence. You’re not doing this for security but for safety. A stair gate or drawer child-proofing lock are by no means secure but you use them anyway for the child’s safety. You can’t just leave every dangerous thing out in the open because you “view it as a pain to deal with” storing them safely and then blame everyone else for the situation that follows. Our realities might be different but in my reality if you put 0 (zero) effort to keep some critical things safely away from your child because it’s too much of a hassle to do it, or they’ll get around that anyway, etc. then you’re failing your children.
      - mrweasel 6mo ago
  - nalekberov 6mo ago
    In theory, maybe yes. But in practice people do share their phones with their kids.
    - grey-area 6mo ago
      Sure and when they do that they share unfiltered access to their banking apps, email, messages, the entire intent including unwholesome bits etc. Not much the government should or could do about that - it’s a parental decision.
- JoshTriplett 6mo ago
  Exactly. "Age verification" is the "think of the children" marketing campaign for "identity verification". Governments don't like anonymity; it makes it harder to find those they consider enemies. But it's hard to market something people don't want and get no benefit from. So, you dress it up in fear and make it easy to villify people who argue against it.
  - sofixa 6mo ago
    Stop with the scaremongering. This is a reference app implementation that uses a detailed framework which explicitly has as a core tenet double blindness. The place you prove your age to has no idea about anything other than you being of age, and the thing you use to prove your age has no idea about where you're using that proof.
    - kdheiwns 6mo ago
      If you trust mega corps and the government when they say they're not accessing and monitoring your personal info, then I think that's very interesting.
    - themaninthedark 6mo ago
      Why do I need to prove my age again? Right because a child might get online with a phone or computer and see something bad. I think you should take your own advice: >Stop with the scaremongering.
      - sofixa 6mo ago
        Few pretty good reasons. First, yes, it has been proven that there are things online children accessing is damaging to their development. From social media to porn. Second, and much more important to me, proof that you are actually a human from an approved location. Bots and spam are a problem in general, but specifically foreign meddling in critical moments like elections and referenda is extremely dangerous for democracies. Being able to gatekeep participation in public forums based on you actually being a human in that country would kneecap foreign interference. It can't do anything against local interference, but at least it restricts its volume/scale, which is better than nothing.
- subscribed 6mo ago
  My kid can take my phone and not be able to transfer any money form my bank account, because it's protected by pin and biometrics. That's a solved problem and making an immense vulnerability out of it is silly.
- Cthulhu_ 6mo ago
  That's why a lot of apps have a secondary login (PIN code, biometrics).
ramon156 6mo ago
The Solution: constant face tracking /s
mr_mitm 6mo ago
The phone also needs to be rooted for any of the attacks to work. At least that's what the manufacturer's AI generated article says: https://eidas-pro.com/blog/eu-age-verification-app-hack-explained https://eidas-pro.com/blog/eu-age-verification-app-hack-expl...
dbvn 6mo ago
well of course because the whole reason you're making free men and women verify their identity with government-issued documents... was supposed to be to prevent that. If its not going to prevent such an easy work-around ITS NOT WORTH IT (not that it was in the first place)
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
rcxdude 6mo ago
When there's severe downsides to an measure to try to improve something else, the efficacy of it matters. This isn't about the app specifically, it's about the requirement for this kind of verification in the first place.

by soco 6mo ago

kdheiwns 6mo ago

Because people share phones with their kids. It's not rare or even mildly unusual. The problem isn't that the app needs to solve this. The problem is the app is useless, along with this whole bizarre "need for age verification" plot that poofed out of existence simultaneously around the whole globe mysteriously a few months ago.

Sweepi 6mo ago
Well, reality called and says: Like ID, drivers license, credit cards and guns: Phones are sth. you dont just "share" with your kids. Also there is an option to guard the ID App with an additional PIN/Biometric.
- kdheiwns 6mo ago
  A phone isn't going to run off the road and kill 7 people. This is nonsense and you know it. And yes, phones are something parents do "just" share with their kids because nobody is bizarre enough to look at a phone the same way as a gun or a car. It's the YouTube device that can talk to grandma. All you have to do to see proof that it's something people "just" share is to walk into a grocery store and look at parents pushing kids in carts while those kids watch videos. 25 years ago those phones were Game Boys. Nobody is seeing them as a gun. That's the most disconnected from reality take I've seen in my life.
  - Sweepi 6mo ago
    Whats the diff between today giving you phone to your 8-year and making sure /having trust that they do not use it to e.g. order a new toy from Amazon and tomorrow that he is not using to verify they are an adult? I mean, most things today (like accessing porn, buying alcohol) do not require any extra age verification. They can just do it using your phone/accounts.
    - kdheiwns 6mo ago
      Not everyone views their child as an enemy that just happens to be in close quarters with them. Most people trust their kids to generally not do bad things. People keep knives in their kitchen and kids, explain the danger, and kids are generally responsible enough to not play with them. If this is a concept that you can't grasp, then words will never convey it. It's simply a detachment from reality to think people are viewing their phones as a loaded gun and their child as someone hellbent on betraying them and causing massive societal damage. The phone is the YouTube device. If they get a notification that their kid ordered from Amazon, they'll cancel the order and tell their kid not to do it again. It's seriously that simple. Just go and talk to a parent. They'll think viewing their phones as a WMD is insane.
      - JimDabell 6mo ago
        > Most people trust their kids to generally not do bad things. Okay, so trust them not to access age-gated sites using your credentials then.
        kdheiwns 6mo ago
        Then just get rid of the age gating and verification entirely because it's useless.
        JimDabell 6mo ago
        Other parents have different opinions to you about the value of this.
        JoshTriplett 6mo ago
        The problem comes in when they feel their opinions should carry weight about other people's kids. There are very limited ways in which we should allow that, and to an oversimplified approximation, they boil down to "don't do kids harm that prevents them from becoming an intact person society treats as a human allowed to make their own decisions". And then the problem is that some people think some websites do such damage, and other people think some websites provide help to survive such damage.
- mrweasel 6mo ago
  That's not reality for many of us. I don't consider my phone a secure device by any means. It has nothing on it that I'd regard as something I'd need to guard against my family. I know a fair number of especially elderly people who want to disable PIN and bio-metrics from their phone, because they view it as a pain to deal with. PINs can also be guessed or someone might look you over the shoulder and steal it that way. Many phones still doesn't have biometrics, or people don't want to use it. Our realities might be different, but in my reality a cell phone, which you almost by definition brings with you out in the world, should never be considered a secure device.
  - Mashimo 6mo ago
    Oh man, if the kid gets hold of both of their parents phones with login, they could divorce them. I don't have kids yet, so this might change, but I would not give them login and / or unsupervised access. I don't think you can guess pins, as the phones locks after a few failed attempts.
    - 9991 6mo ago
      That's not a realistic concern for most people. Children don't generally want their parents to divorce.
  - close04 6mo ago
    You keep using the term “secure” that it sounds like you think education is like a prison sentence. You’re not doing this for security but for safety. A stair gate or drawer child-proofing lock are by no means secure but you use them anyway for the child’s safety. You can’t just leave every dangerous thing out in the open because you “view it as a pain to deal with” storing them safely and then blame everyone else for the situation that follows. Our realities might be different but in my reality if you put 0 (zero) effort to keep some critical things safely away from your child because it’s too much of a hassle to do it, or they’ll get around that anyway, etc. then you’re failing your children.
    - mrweasel 6mo ago
- nalekberov 6mo ago
  In theory, maybe yes. But in practice people do share their phones with their kids.
  - grey-area 6mo ago
    Sure and when they do that they share unfiltered access to their banking apps, email, messages, the entire intent including unwholesome bits etc. Not much the government should or could do about that - it’s a parental decision.
JoshTriplett 6mo ago
Exactly. "Age verification" is the "think of the children" marketing campaign for "identity verification". Governments don't like anonymity; it makes it harder to find those they consider enemies. But it's hard to market something people don't want and get no benefit from. So, you dress it up in fear and make it easy to villify people who argue against it.
- sofixa 6mo ago
  Stop with the scaremongering. This is a reference app implementation that uses a detailed framework which explicitly has as a core tenet double blindness. The place you prove your age to has no idea about anything other than you being of age, and the thing you use to prove your age has no idea about where you're using that proof.
  - kdheiwns 6mo ago
    If you trust mega corps and the government when they say they're not accessing and monitoring your personal info, then I think that's very interesting.
  - themaninthedark 6mo ago
    Why do I need to prove my age again? Right because a child might get online with a phone or computer and see something bad. I think you should take your own advice: >Stop with the scaremongering.
    - sofixa 6mo ago
      Few pretty good reasons. First, yes, it has been proven that there are things online children accessing is damaging to their development. From social media to porn. Second, and much more important to me, proof that you are actually a human from an approved location. Bots and spam are a problem in general, but specifically foreign meddling in critical moments like elections and referenda is extremely dangerous for democracies. Being able to gatekeep participation in public forums based on you actually being a human in that country would kneecap foreign interference. It can't do anything against local interference, but at least it restricts its volume/scale, which is better than nothing.
subscribed 6mo ago
My kid can take my phone and not be able to transfer any money form my bank account, because it's protected by pin and biometrics. That's a solved problem and making an immense vulnerability out of it is silly.
Cthulhu_ 6mo ago
That's why a lot of apps have a secondary login (PIN code, biometrics).

ramon156 6mo ago

The Solution: constant face tracking /s

mr_mitm 6mo ago

The phone also needs to be rooted for any of the attacks to work. At least that's what the manufacturer's AI generated article says: https://eidas-pro.com/blog/eu-age-verification-app-hack-explained https://eidas-pro.com/blog/eu-age-verification-app-hack-expl...

dbvn 6mo ago

well of course because the whole reason you're making free men and women verify their identity with government-issued documents... was supposed to be to prevent that. If its not going to prevent such an easy work-around ITS NOT WORTH IT (not that it was in the first place)

deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]

rcxdude 6mo ago

When there's severe downsides to an measure to try to improve something else, the efficacy of it matters. This isn't about the app specifically, it's about the requirement for this kind of verification in the first place.