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I don't want the market solving this. If we are going to do age checks it should be based on public key cryptography, be open source, and handled by the governm
by K0nserv 2mo ago
I don't want the market solving this. If we are going to do age checks it should be based on public key cryptography, be open source, and handled by the government. You verify with the government (or don't since they already know your age), you get some form of cryptographic attestation, present said attestation to websites/apps.
I'm not a fan of age verification in the first place, but I am extremely not a fan of random third parties doing the verifying.
- zx8080 2mo agoIn this case will it be a transparent traceability and the mapping to user real identity close to 100%?
- oneeyedpigeon 2mo agoIf it has to happen, this is exactly how it should. Please feel for those of us in the UK who are currently denied access to some pretty significant services unless we send our passport to a random third party.
- sisve 2mo agoThis is how it's planned in the EU is it not?
- oneeyedpigeon 2mo agoMaybe? I'm not sure since the UK is no longer part of the EU; we're running quite a bit behind on this kind of thing now.
- sisve 2mo agohttps://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-age-verification https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-age-ver...
- bossyTeacher 2mo ago> some pretty significant services What services are those other than p*rn?
- inigyou 2mo agoNo. It should be none of that. It should be a checkbox either set by the phone store when you buy the phone or set during the first boot process.
- sschueller 2mo agoWhy do we need to verify age? You can't tell me that these social media companies don't already know exactly how old someone is just based on the enormous data that is collected.
- satvikpendem 2mo agoThey do already like YouTube and ChatGPT, so they'll ask for your age only when they're unsure.
- creatacc 2mo agochatgpt began to spam me pretty hard for last a few months. chatgpt basically never sent email and it's regular now - like 2 4 emails per month so, it doesn't look great for chatgpt
- EmbarrassedHelp 2mo agoAnd that should be highly illegal to demand that a user submits to age verification.
- satvikpendem 2mo agoWhy? Sounds like it'd be the exact opposite, if they're showing age gated stuff of course they'd ask for your age.
- palata 2mo agoA big concern around age verification is that some people will be locked out because they can't prove their age. Your solution here has the same flaw, I think. If the algorithm thinks I'm underage, I'm locked out.
- creatacc 2mo agobeing locked out = less profit = firing management by shareholders it will solve by consumers, don't worry
- perpetuallunch 2mo agoI’m from The Government, and I’m here to help. One not entirely inaccurate definition of government is a loose agglomeration of third parties. Or, less flatteringly, a stupendously large way too loose agglomeration of way too many third parties welding way too much power way too arbitrarily.
- usrnm 2mo agoThe difference here is that in a functioning democracy people have some control over their government. All the institutions are specifically built to be transparent and work for the public good, at least, in some sense of the word. A corporation, especially a monopoly doesn't care what you think, you have no control over it and the only thing that really matters to them is their bottom line. Are governments perfect? Of course not. Are random corpos better? Again, of course not.
- mmooss 2mo agoDespite that fun trope, in reality democratic government reguarly delivers very well: Traffic safety systems work easily, dependably, economically. The Internet was developed by the government, the web at a government-funded research institution. NASA is the most cutting edge, most adventurous organization in the history of humanity. The US military created GPS for example, and has more globalized operations than any other organization has ever imagined, and from the bottom of the sea to GEO. Diseases are managed and contained, etc. (Now if the people want to tear apart government, democracy delivers that too.)
- perpetuallunch 2mo agoGood points. Governments haven't been all bad. Although more recently, at least in Australia, it would be difficult to claim the federal government, and the Victorian state government, have done anything good. By any metric one might care to measure they've made everything worse.
- 0x696C6961 2mo agoThis is scary though too. If the gov managed a key server like this, almost all companies would start requiring it. But this effectively gives the gov a very easy way to lock you out of everything.
- jacooper 2mo agoThis will be possible if done by third parties anyway, it will just be apple, google and maybe meta, a single phone call is enough to cut you off. At least if the government is doing it, the app doesn't get your id.
- account42 2mo agoEither the app will get the id, you will be prevented from running arbitrary software on your device, or the whole thing will not work because it becomes trivial to sell your age verification tokens.
- arlcode 2mo agoThis is really nothing new and has always be the case It's not possible to tech yourself out of a political problem. So if there is something being done we should choose a solution that has at least some accountability to the general public (through elected representatives). The alternative is Google, Apple etc where almost anyone has exactly zero influence and the government can still block as they like.
- 2mo ago
- LeBit 2mo agoThat makes the most sense. And, that public key of yours must be used only on given platforms. You want to participate on Facebook or Reddit, then you use that public key to prove who you are. Which platforms require verification is another issue. But it should still be legal and allowed to access conventional forums, Usenet , tor accessible discord servers without having to prove who you are. Otherwise , the right to organize is over and we effectively live in an authoritarian regime .
- testdelacc1 2mo agoI want the market solving this but I don’t want to give any information to anyone who asks. I want Apple to verify me once, and then others to trust Apple that the device accessing their service is owned by someone over 18. I’ll bet that most people are in the same boat - they trust their device manufacturer with information like their credit card number, but not anyone else. And I think it’s a pragmatic compromise.
- K0nserv 2mo agoHow does this work if you use Linux or Graphene OS?
- stvltvs 2mo agoIt's not supposed to. Just one more way to limit our freedom to control our own devices.
- nativeit 2mo agoI’d personally prefer if nobody verified me ever, and people stopped asking for it altogether. It’s not a compromise, because nothing about this is pragmatic, necessary, or for any benefit of society—this is yet more creeping authoritarian control, and I’m absolutely floored how readily everyone else bends over for it. I say no. Fuck no. I will sabotage and obfuscate every aspect of this at every opportunity. The people clutching pearls and screaming “what about the children” can deliver universal healthcare, child care, parental leave, and free education FIRST, and then I will extend a modicum of trust for their overriding “concerns”. Until then, I’m gonna treat this as the bad faith power grab that it very clearly is.
- johnnyanmac 2mo agoAnd the market won't solve it in a way without perverse incentive unless you have government regulations. Too much money on the line at this point.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- Ajedi32 2mo agoYou're seriously proposing letting governments decide which of their citizens are allowed unrestricted access to the internet? Of all the 3rd parties who could be responsible for this, I trust the government the least. But really the best solution here is no third party. The device owner (e.g. parents) should be responsible for setting the user's age when setting up the device. Anything that tries to take that responsibility away from parents and give it to a third party is necessarily going to be highly authoritarian; putting that third party in the role of parent for everyone, adults included.
- gambiting 2mo ago>>Of all the 3rd parties who could be responsible for this, I trust the government the least. Really? can you name any 3rd party you'd trust with this more than your own government? Given that you know, the government already has all of this info on us. This isn't a choice between "the government doesn't know how old I am" and "the government has all the info on me". Governments usually already do. They have enough data already to issue such proof just by the virtue of us living in the country. Tax records, birth records, driving licences, council taxes, passport info, medical information - there's more than enough to give me a cryptographic certificate that says "yes, gambiting is definitely 18 years old" without me having to do anything. Compared to literally any third party that cannot do any of this, unless they buy my marketing cookies on the open market or something, or yes - I actually go out of my way to give them my passport/credit card/selfies etc.
- kelvinjps10 2mo agoIt’s not really about the info but restricting access to people. Imagine they restrict access to social medial to people with different political opinions as the ruling party in the government
- gambiting 2mo agoThe whole idea is that the government gives you a cryptographic token that proves you are over 18, but that token can be used anywhere. They don't get to say what websites can look at it, because...how would they.
- dgellow 2mo agoWhy not just let the parents set an age on the device via parental controls? Why do we need a whole cryptographic system and the government in between, for something that is really just a way to say « this device doesn’t want to have adult content »? It’s way simpler to have that at the device level, and would enable even adults who don’t want adult content to block it for themselves Edit: I just realized that’s exactly what Android is announcing in the article, so that’s pretty neat
- onel 2mo agoIt is a scary thought but I kind of like this idea. Having a yubi key that is issued by the government that is unique to you and has your age saved on it, it's by far the most private and secure way to verify your age.
- 11mariom 2mo agoI don't want anyone to solving this. This is problem generated by govt, and they just want to solve it with "children safety" as excuse. This is parents problem, not my problem.