[HN Gopher] Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance
___________________________________________________________________
Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance
Author : hn_acker
Score : 209 points
Date : 2025-03-07 18:34 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.eff.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.eff.org)
| 9283409232 wrote:
| The people behind these "save the children" age verification
| bills are funded by verification companies looking for contracts.
| Russell Vought, Mr.Project 2025 himself, is also a massive
| proponent of using porn as an excuse for more surveillance.
| dinkblam wrote:
| age verification should be backed into the browser and not into
| websites.
|
| parents should be able to access a (password protected) setting
| in any browser that can exclude some types of websites (like
| porn).
|
| governments should be free to go after any website not respecting
| that setting.
|
| but forcing the age-verification onto websites is just moronic.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _age verification should be backed into the browser_
|
| You want a mandated block of government code in every browser?
| dinkblam wrote:
| why government code?
|
| having a checkbox that corresponds to info passed with the
| HTTP requests is hardly something that requires a library or
| more than a few lines of code
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _why government code?_
|
| Legal age verification in the browser means legislated
| code. Not line by line, necessarily, but state code in the
| browser.
| michaelmior wrote:
| Such a law doesn't necessarily have to require that every
| browser include the content filtering code. Only that
| websites must correctly report the content they serve. Of
| course then the obvious workaround for someone wanting to
| access restricted content is just to install a browser that
| does not enforce the restrictions. But that's a problem even
| if browsers were "forced" to implement this anyway. There
| would always be a browser out there that didn't adhere to
| this rule anyway.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Of course then the obvious workaround for someone
| wanting to access restricted content is just to install a
| browser that does not enforce the restrictions_
|
| You really see a world where such a law is passed and such
| browsers aren't outlawed?
| michaelmior wrote:
| Yes and no. There are (at least) two ways to effectively
| outlaw such browsers. One is penalties for the browser
| distributor. However, this really only applies to
| entities that are subject to US law. Of course the law
| could go one step further and try to go after ISPs for
| allowing access to download them, but that's already
| proved difficult in other arenas.
|
| The other way to limit access to such browsers is
| penalties for users of those browsers. But that feels
| even less likely. Even if such a law were on the books,
| how would it be enforced? Either someone would have to
| report someone using an "illegal" browser or perhaps some
| method of fingerprinting that is somehow tied back to the
| actual user. Both of these seem far-fetched to me.
|
| So perhaps such browsers would be outlawed, but I'm not
| sure it would practically do much.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| > Of course then the obvious workaround for someone wanting
| to access restricted content is just to install a browser
| that does not enforce the restrictions. But that's a
| problem even if browsers were "forced" to implement this
| anyway. There would always be a browser out there that
| didn't adhere to this rule anyway
|
| So why are you for it if the solution isn't valid?
| bobthepanda wrote:
| it would be less terrible if there were some simple, Apple ID-
| like way to simply get redirected to a govt website, put in
| your driver's license, and the website only gets a token back
| that says "yes over age/no underage".
|
| The data already exists, it's what bars use to scan IDs with
| handheld readers IIRC.
| dinkblam wrote:
| i wasn't really talking about about any "verification". just
| a way for parents to disable what they want their kid to be
| able to browse. if parents don't care to change the setting,
| their kids would be free to browse anything.
| baby_souffle wrote:
| > The data already exists, it's what bars use to scan IDs
| with handheld readers IIRC.
|
| Sorta, yeah.
|
| But the reason that works is because there's a human guarding
| the door that can assert that the hand presenting the ID is
| attached to a face that looks just like the one on the ID.
|
| Otherwise a very smart 17 year old would just get their hands
| on the UUID or whatever for literally any ID that belongs to
| somebody that's 18+. Within _hours_ of this type of system
| going into effect, you'd have the age/id version of
| bugmenot.com
| burnished wrote:
| You're implying smart 17 year olds don't make it into bars.
|
| You rarely need anything approaching %100 compliance in
| order to have an effective policy, so if anything you're
| advocating for its effectiveness when you suggest the only
| people that would be in violation are the rare precocious
| kid.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| As far as I've done, I've had to upload drivers licenses to
| websites before (e.g. to open an online banking account or
| whatever) and I don't recall doing anything other than
| uploading the license.
| monksy wrote:
| That barcode contains a lot more than just your birthday. It
| contains all of the info on the license front (which includes
| your drivers license). It's a bit absurd that the bar is
| copying down your details in order to get into their bar.
| (They often store it and can/will use it for bar bans)
| mrweasel wrote:
| Countries like Denmark already have this. It's called MitID,
| and it a online government run sign in solutions used by
| banks, government institutions, online marketplace as so on.
| I believe it already contains an age "claim", so you can get
| just the age of the person logging in and nothing else. It's
| built on OAuth/OAuth2 I think, so it should be fairly simple
| to add the age information if it's not already there.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| The biggest selling point of those handheld readers bars use
| is to gather data from your ID, not to in any way verify your
| age. It's the exact opposite of what you said.
| cls59 wrote:
| And then kinds just learn how to download and run an open-
| source browser produced outside of the country that does not
| implement the setting on the client side.
| mrweasel wrote:
| I was going to say that it's a great way to teach teenagers
| how to modify and compile a browser.
|
| Moving the verification to sites also isn't going you any
| good, as the site owners could just move to more liberal
| countries.
| TylerE wrote:
| Or just uses any of a gazillion proxies that strips the "I"m
| under 18" bit.
| johnnyjeans wrote:
| I consider that a feature. Working and training problem
| solving skills and persistence through trial-and-error to the
| degree required for that kind of thing is great. I feel it's
| underappreciated in potential that treating a wide swath of
| these kinds of rules as nothing more than cattle-fences can
| have a shockingly positive effect.
|
| One of the biggest problems that grows with each generation,
| is how do you get the youth to actually engage in
| constructive development of real skills? How do you get them
| to be interested in something that will be useful for society
| down the line? Quietly looking the other way while a
| statistical minority breaks some of the safety-rails of
| society basically solves that problem. Breaking the rules is
| cool. You're basically exploiting the rebellious nature of
| the youth to trick them into learning useful skillsets. So
| long as the hurdles to circumvent the rules remain reasonably
| involved to overcome, and the secret intention remains
| unspoken, you basically double up the rewards of the rules.
| notatoad wrote:
| the point should not be to make it impossible for some people
| to view certain content. the point should be to make it
| possible for a parent who controls their child's device to
| put restrictions on what that device can do - and that might
| include removing the ability to run unapproved apps.
| baby_souffle wrote:
| > but forcing the age-verification onto websites is just
| moronic.
|
| Agree.
|
| > parents should be able to access a (password protected)
| setting in any browser that can exclude some types of websites
| (like porn).
|
| How would this work? Who's going to set up the taxonomy /
| classification tree for every domain/site on the internet just
| so a guardian can say "yes to drugs, no to porn, no to news, no
| to weapons..."?
|
| Or if that's not the implementation, how would an arbitrary
| site signal to the browser what the age limit is? Once you move
| beyond a binary "require parent consent for $domain" flag,
| you're quickly approaching traditional parental control
| software.
|
| I know I'm not the only one one this site that made a bit of
| spare $ back in the day helping kids at school go _around_
| overbearing parental controls.
| generalizations wrote:
| This is the core fallacy I see in proponents of such rules:
| they think the rules can be enforced.
| convolvatron wrote:
| I think the parent had an even more important fallacy -
| that the rules can't even be _stated_. there is an implicit
| presumption that everyone everywhere agrees on what
| material is appropriate for what people and at what age.
| evil-olive wrote:
| yes, and that presumption is even older than the
| internet. this is from a 1964 Supreme Court decision [0]:
|
| > I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds
| of material I understand to be embraced within that
| shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and
| perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so.
| But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture
| involved in this case is not that.
|
| 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
| simion314 wrote:
| >How would this work?
|
| Pornhub knows they do not want to have trouble so they will
| respect the browser setting and not serve minors. There could
| be an institution that can receive complains about websites
| not using this API and those wbsites can be blocked from the
| country and fined if possible until they implement the API.
|
| We need all mobile and desktop OSes to make it easy for
| parents to setup accounts for their children, the church
| could also educated the people instead of just complaining.
|
| It is not perfect, soem clever kid can find a way to reset
| the BIOS/UEFI and install Ubuntu with a fake age on his PC ,
| but most parents can feel safe and we would not have to show
| our ID card to Pornhub or even Steam because some game shows
| nipples and nipples are more dangerous in USA then nazi
| propaganda.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _We need all mobile and desktop OSes to make it easy for
| parents to setup accounts for their children_
|
| How about don't give your children devices until they're
| old enough for them. The kids of the rich are already
| mostly device free. Attention spans and eye contact
| shouldn't be a privilege.
| simion314 wrote:
| >How about don't give your children devices until they're
| old enough for them. The kids of the rich are already
| mostly device free. Attention spans and eye contact
| shouldn't be a privilege.
|
| I had access to a computer since 14, my bother since 10,
| we are both OK.
|
| My solution is to protect us the normal people from the
| extremists that want the government to protect their
| children, this solution is making the parent responsible
| if their children get access to bad websites or apps. But
| as I said is not 100% perfect.
|
| But I agree that you should not give your child a device
| and at teh same time demand the government to do your job
| for you.
| michaelmior wrote:
| > How would this work? Who's going to set up the taxonomy /
| classification tree for every domain/site on the internet
| just so a guardian can say "yes to drugs, no to porn, no to
| news, no to weapons..."?
|
| This isn't really an answer, but the same problem exists with
| current age verification laws. I think the main difference
| with traditional parental control software is that the burden
| would be on the site maintainer to accurately report the
| appropriateness of their content. If not, they would be
| legally liable. Of course this introduces the problem that
| foreign entities not subject to the law are effectively
| exempt from the requirement.
| stvltvs wrote:
| Have browsers default block anything that doesn't label
| their content (allow this setting to be disabled and locked
| down in parental controls), then hold websites liable for
| willfully or negligently mislabeling. Exceptions for good
| faith efforts to label correctly. Maybe a special label for
| user generated content that holds companies a bit less
| liable for it.
| michaelmior wrote:
| > Have browsers default block anything that doesn't label
| their content
|
| This doesn't solve the case for entities not subject to
| this law. They can just label their content as totally
| safe and not have to worry about penalties.
| evil-olive wrote:
| > Have browsers default block anything that doesn't label
| their content
|
| "have" is a bit ambiguous here. I assume you actually
| mean " _have the government require_ "?
|
| in other words, if I develop a browser, I could be fined
| or thrown in jail for not implementing your "default to
| blocking anything unlabeled" strategy?
|
| since implementing a browser is a vast undertaking, what
| about if I maintained a fork of Chromium or Firefox that
| simply disabled that check?
|
| we had this exact same debate 20ish years ago [0] except
| it was about the specter of TV piracy and file-sharing.
| the proposed solution was the same, though - require
| software that could be used for piracy to incorporate a
| specific check, and make it illegal to distribute
| software without that check. it was a terrible idea then,
| and remains a terrible idea now.
|
| 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_flag
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| I'd say the real issue is that it's difficult to outsource
| parenting to government agencies without some collateral
| damage
| notatoad wrote:
| i think it would be reasonable to legally require websites to
| classify themselves.
|
| if it's illegal to show porn to minors, all a website should
| have to do to comply with the law is to send a header saying
| "this is porn" and leave it up to the browser to decide
| whether or not the human using the browser can see it or not.
| Terr_ wrote:
| I wouldn't say _every_ browser, but the correct place for the
| policy is on the device of the parent who is demanding the
| special feature. Sites ' obligations should be limited to basic
| disclosure of "this site might contain X" metadata.
|
| Benefits:
|
| 1. Orwellian abuse: No creepy-ass super-abuseable government
| panopticon knowing every goddamn service you've ever made an
| account on, with the ability to arbitrarily revoke them and/or
| block new ones.
|
| 2. Costs: The majority of the costs of creating and maintaining
| the system fall upon the people who actually use it and want it
| to exist, rather than a bunch of other adults across the globe.
|
| 3. Parent focus: Most enforcement exists in a physical realm
| where parents/guardians at least have a _chance_ of
| understanding, monitoring, and managing it. "Little Timmy is
| using Daddy's phone" can be determined instantly at a glance.
|
| 4. Exceptions: If the child has some health-class homework and
| can't access the right Wikipedia pages anymore, the parent can
| easily grant exceptions and revoke them.
|
| 5. If someone's religion says that unclad ankles are smut, then
| their church can create their own site-rating-site and
| adherents configure their family's devices to it.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| What if a site doesn't comply or lies? Who is enforcing this
| barnabee wrote:
| Age verification should be baked into the parenting.
|
| It's about the only place it might have the intended effect
| anyway, and has the advantage of not enabling mass
| surveillance.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| Why
| bobthepanda wrote:
| While I don't support age verification (I don't think that would
| solve anything) two of the targeted product categories, skincare
| and diet foods/supplements, are some of the heaviest spending ad
| categories I see nowadays, and feel very huckster-y as well.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| The answer isn't age verification but putting them under the
| scrutiny of the FDA. Supplements have almost no regulation and
| will soon actually have none since the head of the FDA is a big
| fan of supplements and has a supplement company. Supplements
| being regulated would fix so many issues in this space.
| saurik wrote:
| This should be held up as a visceral demonstration of how the
| "slippery slope" isn't inherently a fallacy, as many oft like to
| claim: it is merely a form of argument that is easy enough to get
| wrong--leading to a fallacy when the cause is disconnected--that
| people have become overly-wary of it, reacting to the premise of
| the conclusion without even bothering to analyze how steep the
| slope might be before tuning the idea out :(.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Exactly. It's a fallacy when dealing with logical entities, but
| humans aren't logical entities.
| ls612 wrote:
| It's only a fallacy when dealing with logical relations under
| certainty. Once uncertainty and probability is introduced the
| slippery slope just is relating Bayes' Rule in plain English.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Whatever. Point being, calling it a "fallacy" isn't useful
| or predictive when dealing with people who follow impulses
| rather than principles.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It's only a fallacy when dealing with logical relations
| under certainty.
|
| Incorrect. Slippery slope is an informal fallacy, which
| applies to arguments based on evidence not logical
| relations under certainty. But it is a component of the
| slippery slope fallacy that the implicit premise (that the
| precondition that is the subject of the argument is likely
| to lead to the result that is the endpoint of the slippery
| slope) is inadequately justified, not merely that a slope
| from the precondition to the endpoint is presented.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| But laws are not human only made by humans and should be
| logical
| nkozyra wrote:
| If you look at it less as "if A then B" and more like "if A
| then possibly B" as it's usually intended then I think you can
| strip the fallacy.
|
| Almost anything is possible, but even in this case it was never
| inevitable or inherently true that age verification for X meant
| age verification for Y. Which means the value - if any - for a
| slippery slope argument is "consider the possibilities X might
| open up"
| II2II wrote:
| It depends upon what Y is. If X and Y require age
| verification for in-person purchases _and_ age verification
| is required to purchase X online, it is reasonable to assume
| that age verification for Y will follow. Some may call that a
| slippery slope. In reality it is simply a loophole in the
| law. Either way, it is reasonable to assume there is a bottom
| to that slope. It is not reasonable to assume that X opens up
| all possibilities.
|
| That said, I understand where the EFF is coming from. Data
| collection and "sharing" is rampant these days. Any
| meaningful form of age verification opens up the potential
| for abuse. What I don't understand is their failure to
| address how to handle restricted goods.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| IMO slippery slope is a fallacy when the small step only
| supports the big step symbolically, shifting the "Overton
| Window". It's true that the Overton Window has some effect, but
| we shouldn't avoid taking a step towards the middle just
| because it's also a step towards the opposite bad side, if the
| middle is good.
|
| Wrt. privacy, the real issue is that the small step helps the
| big step not just symbolically. ID-based age-verification, even
| when used for good reasons, gives the state and government
| access to its people's history of age-restricted content. If
| this government decides to, say, prosecute anyone who
| viewed/bought/consumed (inane) X, it's far easier vs. a
| government that doesn't have age-verification. Both governments
| face major opposition, but the latter government's opposition
| is more effective, because the former's has already shared
| their history.
|
| One thing the article doesn't state but implies, that I don't
| agree with, is: the slippery slope is still a fallacy, when a
| government first decides to age-gate reasonable X (e.g. porn)
| then unreasonable Y (e.g. history books). Because said
| government will receive almost as much opposition and people
| doing work-arounds for Y, as if they went straight to age-
| gating Y; although not _exactly_ as much, I generally assume
| (and hope) the difference doesn 't outweigh the benefits of
| "stepping towards the middle". In the article, X is porn, and Y
| is facial cream, dating apps, and diet pills. But these things
| arguably should be age-gated; and even the article's talking
| points are not that these are OK for children, but that gating
| them gives the government data on more people (which is a real
| slippery-slope, not a fallacy, as explained in the above
| paragraph), specifically people who don't watch porn (perhaps
| some of the readers don't mind porn viewers being monitored
| because they aren't one of them). If states were to actually
| start age-gating history books, I guarantee there would be
| serious opposition, including from people who are completely
| fine with age-gating porn.
| miki123211 wrote:
| IMO the problem isn't ID-based age verification specifically,
| it's that such verification is usually impelemnted in a way
| where the service in question gets a lot more data than they
| need, with no real control over how that data is kept and
| processed.
|
| It would absolutely be possible to implement that stuff in a
| fully privacy-preserving way, with nothing but basic
| cryptography, and the government could absolutely enforce
| that implementation.
|
| Nobody is actually interested in promoting that though, the
| anti-big-tech crowd just wants verification no matter what,
| and the pro-privacy crowd just wants something to get angry
| about. Nobody is looking for a reasonable compromise here.
| devilbunny wrote:
| Yeah, the whole "we have to scan your driver's license"
| which has my name, address, etc., encoded is _way_ more
| than I want to share. I am mostly bald and even my beard is
| gray. There is no plausible situation where you think I
| might be under 21.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| They no longer teach Rhetoric at schools. Rhetorical arguments
| have been completely forgotten and debased in the public mind.
|
| Rhetorical arguments are more important than ever in the age of
| AI, because AI is our attempt to simulate that. Probabilistic
| AI mimics rhetoric (inexpertly). It uses past knowledge to
| predict future behavior (rather, just the next token) based on
| probability.
|
| To be clear - I'm not arguing that logical argument aren't
| important; I am a logical person, and prefer logical arguments
| to rhetorical ones. I prefer the certainty. I still recognize
| the need for rhetoric. Not everything is certain, and you have
| to make decisions based on probabilities and unknowns.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Also why "ad hominem" can be legit. Lawmakers' personal beliefs
| and incentives say a lot more than whatever generic arguments
| they pick.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| The slippery slope fallacy is not just the argument style, it
| is when the argument style is used by the event being held up
| as a cause is not justifiably believed to be likely to lead to
| the cited effect. (It is an informal fallacy, rather than a
| deductive fallacy, and, as such, requires evaluation of
| evidence, not mere shape of the argument.)
|
| Also, neither deductive nor informal fallacies mean that the
| conclusion of an argument is _wrong_ , in any case, so the
| conclusion of an argument being right does not disprove (or
| even provide strong counterevidence) that the argument
| contained a fallacy. Fallacies are about whether and to what
| degree a conclusion is supported by the reasoning (and
| evidence, in the case of informal fallacies) offered to support
| it, not about whether or not it is true.
| valicord wrote:
| Haven't checked the others, but at least for the skin cream bill,
| the text explicitly lists "a date of birth entry or checkbox
| verifying age system" as sufficient, so the outrage about privacy
| seems overblown.
|
| Of course this raises questions as to what is the point of
| requiring verification that doesn't actually verify anything, but
| that's an entirely separate problem.
| valicord wrote:
| Likewise the dietary pills bill only requires the ID to be
| verified either at a retail point of sale or when the online
| purchase is delivered, so there doesn't seem to be any invasive
| data collection required.
|
| To be clear: I'm strongly against any laws that require
| uploading government ID to sketchy websites, but at least 2 out
| of the 3 examples listed are not this.
| Teever wrote:
| What's the point of anytl of this though?
|
| Like what public interest is served by having a date of birth
| entry or a checkbox for 'verifying' age?
|
| To me it serves no public interest as it's functionally useless
| and it will only serve as a thin end of a wedge to normalize
| more egregious requirements.
| valicord wrote:
| Oh, I agree, it seems completely useless as written. I'm just
| saying that it's no more of a privacy violation than Steam
| asking for your birth date (which somehow happens to be
| January 1st, 1900 for a shocking percentage of the
| population) to watch a video game trailer. I assume the point
| is virtue signaling.
| evil-olive wrote:
| > Haven't checked the others, but at least for the skin cream
| bill
|
| if you did check the other two, you'd notice that they're much
| more restrictive.
|
| from the NY bill, apologies for the all-caps but it's in the
| original [0]:
|
| > "IDENTITY VERIFICATION" SHALL MEAN THE USE OF AN ON-DEMAND
| SELF-PHOTOGRAPH TO VERIFY THE OWNERSHIP OF A PERSON'S
| GOVERNMENT-ISSUED IDENTIFICATION;
|
| > "LICENSE VERIFICATION" SHALL MEAN THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY TO
| VERIFY A PERSON'S GOVERNMENT-ISSUED IDENTIFICATION;
|
| and the one in WA [1]:
|
| > For the purposes of this section, proof of legal age includes
| any of the following officially issued identification that
| shows the purchaser's age and bears the purchaser's signature
| and photograph:
|
| 0: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/A3323
|
| 1 (PDF):
| https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2025-26/Pdf/Bills/Se...
| valicord wrote:
| I did check the others later, the WA bill only requires IRL
| verification, same as purchasing alcohol, so it also doesn't
| really fit the theme of the article either.
|
| 2/3 examples being heavily exaggerated is a pretty bad look
| for the author (even though I agree with the article
| sentiment in general).
| pakitan wrote:
| One could argue it's the first step of the slippery slope
| process. First you introduce a checkbox as a "non-intrusive
| way" to for age verification, knowing full well it's useless.
| Next step is you say "Ok, we clearly agree there is a need for
| age verification, we all voted for the checkbox but kids are
| lying so we must put into place a system that cannot be gamed.
| Think of the children!"
| drdaeman wrote:
| If we don't trust the legislative and see them as malevolent
| entities with their own agendas unaligned with those of their
| constituents, then, yes, a checkbox opens a path for further
| abuse.
|
| If we trust the legislative to have a modicum of common sense
| and don't try to invent a technical solution to a non-
| technical problem, then a warning "what you're going to see
| is not for the younger audiences" might be a reasonable
| compromise.
|
| And it's a shame we live in a world where the former doesn't
| sound completely nuts.
| plasma_beam wrote:
| Am I missing something here? Entirely possible and likely. When I
| go to pornhub I have to click a button that days I'm 18. Some
| other sites I've seen actually make me enter a birthdate.
| Slightly more annoying but I always make one up. Is this what
| people are upset about? I get actual age verification with an
| account required or checking my ID is more invasive..but I guess
| I've not experienced this as an actual problem yet.
| mandevil wrote:
| This is about a Texas Law that went before the Supreme Court
| recently.
|
| Texas' law, H.B. 1181, requires people visiting porn websites
| to prove their age by either uploading government-issued
| identification or a "commercially reasonable method" such as
| bank information. More than a dozen other states have passed
| similar bills, though they are all on hold pending what the
| Supreme Court decides.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| There's just too much money to be made selling porn to
| children.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| No, there isn't. Almost all porn that is accessible to
| children is on freely available social media like instagram
| and twitter. Not on Pornhub.
| RDaneel0livaw wrote:
| I live in a state where they have banned all porn sites
| entirely. If I try to go to pornhub there's a statement from
| the company saying I can't access it at all. Period. It's
| beyond absurd into the realm of comedy levels of incompetence
| from the gov.
| ryandvm wrote:
| Certain US states are requiring the porn sites actually do
| rigorous age verification via scanned documents. I believe
| PornHub just opted to stay out of those states entirely hoping
| that their "reverse boycott" would cause enough of a backlash
| to get the laws changed. I'm not sure it's working.
|
| That said, as a parent to teenagers, I don't know that I
| believe that age verification is such a terrible idea. The
| reality is that there's a lot of fucked up porn out there and
| blocking it effectively across all networks and every device is
| non-trivial. I understand this is a minority viewpoint on HN.
|
| Of course I have absolutely no interest in uploading scans of
| my drivers license to porn sites so I don't know what the right
| answer is. I'm sure there's some cryptographic scheme whereby a
| 3rd party could verify my identity without knowing for what
| purpose and then the porn sites could validate that
| verification without disclosing who or what I'm doing. I dunno.
| jay-barronville wrote:
| > That said, as a parent to teenagers, I don't know that I
| believe that age verification is such a terrible idea. The
| reality is that there's a lot of fucked up porn out there and
| blocking it effectively across all networks and every device
| is non-trivial. I understand this is a minority viewpoint on
| HN.
|
| I agree with you. I'm very pro-privacy/anti-surveillance and
| pro-freedom, so I'm entirely against the invasive ID-based
| systems, but the problem you highlight is pretty real and has
| to be addressed somehow, and I'm just not sure what the
| solution is.
|
| As a parent of very young children, I'd hope that we've
| already figured this out by the time my children are
| teenagers.
|
| Also, I doubt your viewpoint is actually a minority viewpoint
| here--it's more likely those with your viewpoint just won't
| post it here.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| > I agree with you. I'm very pro-privacy/anti-surveillance
| and pro-freedom, so I'm entirely against the invasive ID-
| based systems, but the problem you highlight is pretty real
| and has to be addressed somehow, and I'm just not sure what
| the solution is.
|
| The solution is client-side filtering/blocking software on
| the machines you own. And if your response is "but that's
| _hard_ ", that should _in_ crease your confidence that
| server-side filtering and verification are unacceptable. If
| even tech-savvy people can't get verification working on a
| local device-- which has the full, correct context who is
| using it and what should be blocked-- then certainly it's
| not going to get any better by mandating a solution at
| scale on the public Internet, where there is much less
| context about the individual user, credentials can be
| mocked, proxies can be used, and so on.
| mandevil wrote:
| "Hoping that technology can magically solve this without
| destroying privacy" seems to be where the Supreme Court is
| heading, at least that was what observers thought after
| watching the Court's hearing on the Texas bill a few weeks
| ago.
|
| Which is one reason that the EFF is trying to lay down their
| argument that the technology won't work.
| evil-olive wrote:
| your confusion is understandable, because "age verification"
| can mean anything from "check the box that says you're 18" to
| "upload a picture of the front and back of your driver's
| license".
|
| > When I go to pornhub I have to click a button that days I'm
| 18.
|
| if you were in Texas, it'd be not reachable at all [0]. this is
| due to a bill [1] that would have required Pornhub to use the
| more intrusive age-verification options. it also allows for
| significant fines for non-compliance. if a 16 year old kid used
| their 19 year old brother's ID to get through the verification,
| Pornhub could potentially be liable for up to $250k. and the
| broadest reading of that bill would mean that quarter-million
| fine applies _every time_ a minor bypassed the age-verification
| check.
|
| 0: https://www.texastribune.org/2024/03/14/texas-pornhub-5th-
| ci...
|
| 1:
| https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/html/HB01181F...
| ndriscoll wrote:
| That fine applies if they don't have a system at all, not for
| scenarios like you posted.
| weaksauce wrote:
| to buy vape products online in california you have to submit
| your id to a third party id verification service. that's
| incredibly intrusive and could be where these laws go.
| AtNightWeCode wrote:
| Preteen girls using peeling skin cream is a thing where I live.
| It causes skin damage. Tiktok bs.
| weaksauce wrote:
| ok but the solution should be "parent better" vs. "legislate
| our privacy away"
| quickthrowman wrote:
| How is a preteen girl ordering products from a website?
| fortran77 wrote:
| Parents can choose to restrict their kids internet access. That's
| the best way of handling this.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| The Internet is so ubiquitous and intertwined in daily life
| that that's impossible and you know it.
| michaelmior wrote:
| I don't think the parent comment was suggesting disallowing
| access to the Internet entirely, but restricting the content
| that is accessible. Accessing pornographic material is
| obviously not a necessity for kids. That said, kids of course
| do often find a way around any blocks or filters put in
| place.
| Lanolderen wrote:
| Never underestimate being horny, curious and having copious
| amounts of free time. Having to go through hoops does make
| it clear you shouldn't be looking at it though.
| natebc wrote:
| And "porn" (or anything you might want your children not to
| see?) is also ubiquitous and so intertwined with the internet
| that it's impossible to block ... and you also know it.
|
| Responsibility really is the only fix here. I know we love
| technical solutions to problems but either porn is illegal
| for everyone or it isn't.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| For kids?
| rickandmortyy wrote:
| lmao it's hilarious when free folk talk about surveillance like
| cars on road aren't collecting data
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| Whataboutism AND to top off how little value your comment
| brings there have been a large number of posts about that on HN
| mjevans wrote:
| The Internet should be Unrated and thus Adults Only by default.
| Just like public spaces. (Would you allow an 8 year old to wander
| New York City unattended? Arguments can be made for more
| controlled spaces but...)
|
| Have a website and want the chance for kids to see it? Advertise
| in the headers that it's moderated and intended to be a given
| rating. Various indexers can pick that up. Complaints can be
| forward to relevant government agencies (E.G. for a US based
| website the FTC, false advertising), or as usual other agencies
| for harder crimes.
|
| Parents can mark computer accounts as Child accounts and Browsers
| configured to follow a set of list filtering rules selected by
| the parent or current guardian (E.G. schools).
|
| So again. Internet == Unrated Free Zone -- Child Mode == Allow
| List filtered content.
| paulvnickerson wrote:
| we arrest people who have sex in public...
| mjevans wrote:
| Only the ones who make a display of it (get seen by others).
|
| We don't randomly go around asking Papers Please! to everyone
| on the street.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| We do require ID to enter e.g. porn stores and bars though,
| or to make age restricted purchases.
|
| I also recall walking a few miles to e.g. the mall, target,
| walmart, etc. without any adults when I was around 10. I'm
| not sure I'd characterize public spaces as adult oriented
| by default.
| choo-t wrote:
| > We do require ID to enter e.g. porn stores and bars
| though
|
| Only if you look too young (and for the bars it's only
| for certain beverages), so the affected population is
| only a small parts of the customers.
| ysofunny wrote:
| ...not yet... (and I hope, not ever)
| inetknght wrote:
| Maybe we shouldn't.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Would you allow an 8 year old to wander New York City
| unattended?
|
| At age 8 I was wandering in Munich unattended.
|
| But okay, gotta admit, this is Germany we're talking about, so
| not many issues with hordes of mentally ill and/or homeless
| people doing anything from drugs to defecating on the sidewalk
| right next to big tech's offices [1].
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/18/san-
| fr...
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| If your politicians back then had wanted to cultivate your
| fear badly enough, they'd easily have been able to find
| anecdotes or instances to scare you with.
| Juliate wrote:
| Not _everything_ is in the hands of politicians.
| Communities, medias have a significant role too, where they
| can shame politicians trying stupid takes to shape the
| reality to their wishes.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| >homeless people doing anything from drugs to defecating on
| the sidewalk right next to big tech's offices
|
| And this harms people how?
| qball wrote:
| Littering degrades the commons.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| In rural areas animals shit all over farms and areas
| where people exist and commingle
| kennysoona wrote:
| > The Internet should be Unrated and thus Adults Only by
| default.
|
| As much as I kind of agree, I want to fight so much for open
| access to the internet because it was so useful to me as a
| child, thirsty for information and starving for nourishment.
|
| I will say I think these laws are bonkers. Restrict what
| companies can do with child data, make it clear an account is a
| minors, that should be more than sufficient.
| haswell wrote:
| > _I want to fight so much for open access to the internet
| because it was so useful to me as a child_
|
| As a child of the 80s who benefited greatly from the Internet
| as a kid (repressive religious parents, and the Internet was
| a lifeline), I feel extremely conflicted.
|
| On the one hand, I absolutely want to preserve the kind of
| benefit we received growing up. On the other, the Internet
| looks nothing like it did when I was a kid.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Here's a list of things that I wouldn't want the police to do,
| but should be done:
|
| - Kids should be in bed by 8.
|
| - They shouldn't light fires in the back yard.
|
| - They shouldn't run with knives.
|
| If someone tried to use my support for those things as a basis
| for 24/7 surveillance of bedrooms, back yards and knife
| drawers, they'd be insane.
| isaacremuant wrote:
| Should be done? Lol. Talking about culture ethnocentrism
| taking to the extreme. No one forces you not to take your kid
| to bed at 8, or you for that matter. Stay out of my life.
|
| The anglosphere is so full of authoritarian people wanting to
| get into people's lives and even when arguing against
| surveillance you think there's an agreeable common goal we
| should all strive to. No. We don't.
| qball wrote:
| >Adults Only by default. Just like public spaces.
|
| This is the attitude that led us to this problem in the first
| place.
|
| >Would you allow an 8 year old to wander New York City
| unattended?
|
| They're at much higher risk of being arrested/abducted by the
| police than they are anything else. This is a uniquely North
| American neurosis; this happens every day in every other
| nation. They take the subway to work/school or walk, like
| everyone else.
| ty6853 wrote:
| The Karens seem to perish in the backcountry. I have seen
| multiple elementary age children operating dirt bikes and
| heavy construction equipment on desert dirt roads.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| Why NYC and what harm are you referring to? General crime like
| murder?
| cameldrv wrote:
| Public spaces are most definitely not "Adults Only" by default.
| You're not allowed to have a big billboard with porn on it, you
| have to show ID to get into a bar, you have to show ID to buy a
| pack of cigarettes, and in many states the cigarettes have to
| be in an opaque cabinet. You can't walk around naked. You can't
| be drunk in public.
|
| Now admittedly many of these things are unevenly enforced, but
| society absolutely does a lot in the physical world to make it
| appropriate for children.
| ty6853 wrote:
| The children didn't seem worse off in the days where a 2nd
| grader could bike 5 miles to the grocery store to buy mom a
| pack of smokes and dad a six pack.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| https://www.lung.org/research/trends-in-lung-
| disease/tobacco...
|
| > Long term, smoking rates have fallen 73% among adults,
| from 42.6% in 1965 to 11.6% in 2022.
|
| > Long term, smoking rates have fallen 86% among youth,
| from 36.4% in 1997 to 3.8% in 2021.
|
| I'd say that's better off, not just in childhood but with
| long term effects.
| ty6853 wrote:
| Now do obesity rates.
| mjevans wrote:
| Nuanced difference: Everyone _has_ to traverse all of public
| to get anywhere, hence 'decency laws' so parents can take
| kids around without blindfolds.
|
| You're taking the metaphor a bit too literally.
| butlike wrote:
| Attended or unattended, you still hear people cussin' and
| ranting and raving on the NYC subway lines.
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| Who could have predicted this, though? If only there were some,
| no, any benevolent corporate deity poised to provide trusted
| global identity services for an event exactly like this.
|
| If only this hadn't come out of the blue, maybe there'd be
| someone out there, right now, who could make it so that your
| identity traveled with you everywhere across the internet, an
| authentic digital fingerprint and passport so invisible that you
| can't even see or access it to keep people from having to prove
| themselves over and over and over again.
|
| What a solution in search of a problem that would have been!
| 3np wrote:
| How have you not heard about Worldcoin?
|
| /s/s
| paulvnickerson wrote:
| The solution to this is trusted third party age verification
| services, such as SSL signing authorities, which are baked into
| browsers.
| drdaeman wrote:
| I don't think so. This is _not_ a technical problem - modern
| computers simply have no means to know who 's sitting in front
| of them. And even if someone tries to invent some contraption
| to do so (idk, IR cameras, voice verification, DNA sequencers),
| I must remind that whoever has physical access can still feed
| computer any signals. For simpler methods (like a basic face
| recognition with a webcam to match the ID) spoofing is cheaper
| than the camera, and more sophisticated methods are extremely
| costly and full of undesirable side effects.
| janci wrote:
| Our state-issued eID cards are supposed to have a function that
| allows anonymous age verification to a trusted party. It should
| work like this: a requesting party sends a request signed by
| state-issued certificate to the ID card, the card verifies the
| request authenticity and responds with a signed confirmation of
| legal age and that signature then can be verified by the
| requester.
|
| No personal information is shared.
|
| While I do not aggree with pervasive age restrictions, this is a
| nice technical solution to privacy preserving age verification
| drdaeman wrote:
| Just curious: 1) which country/eID is this? and 2) does it send
| the date of birth back, or does it perform a zero-knowledge
| proof that the date of birth is greater or equal than a given
| value (current date minus age requirement)?
| jer0me wrote:
| A handful of states, including California, have a digital ID
| that can do this. It only sends the fact that you're over a
| certain age.
|
| There's a video halfway down this page showing the process in
| Apple Wallet: https://learn.wallet.apple/id/ (notice "Age
| Over 21")
| giantg2 wrote:
| "no method of age verification is both privacy-protective and
| entirely accurate."
|
| No method of age verification is entirely actuate. It seem a
| hardline stance that we can't think up a process that would allow
| for a reasonable level of accuracy with privacy. It could
| literally be drawing a usb token from a bucket full of them after
| a human at the DMV visually checks your license.
| masfuerte wrote:
| There was a serious proposal to do something like this in the
| UK [1] the last time the government tried to introduce age
| checks for online porn. Age checks are becoming mandatory this
| July but the idea of having a privacy-respecting option seems
| to have been dropped.
|
| [1]: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/porn-
| passes-...
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| I have my California Drivers License in my Apple Wallet.
|
| I should be able to prove to iPhone apps that I am 18+ (only a
| binary yes/no with no metadata) by the apps making a local API
| call to iOS, which checks this information with the unexpired
| drivers license on device.
| inetknght wrote:
| What if you're born on February 29th?
|
| What if you're borth on March 1st and it's currently February
| 29, 18 years later?
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I don't know that I care for the solution, but why would the
| API have a problem with either of those scenarios? What
| datetime library are you using that does, and why haven't you
| switched?
| slyall wrote:
| Age Laws worry about dates. They don't care about leap years,
| time of birth or timezones.
| 3np wrote:
| That is trusting both Apple and the client, and also only works
| for iPhone.
|
| We can do better with zero-knowledge-proof-based schemes, which
| also allow securely decoupling issuance/certification from
| online verification.
|
| E.g. https://linc.cnil.fr/en/demonstration-privacy-preserving-
| age...
| whatshisface wrote:
| It's a privacy issue as long as Jim's Blackmail and
| Certificates, Inc. knows who they've certified.
| robto wrote:
| I wonder if there's any chance of technology like Verifiable
| Credentials[0] getting any adoption because of these laws. I
| think there are legitimate use cases where you would want to say,
| "hey, some third-party authority can vouch for me that ____", and
| not reveal to the third party who's asking for verification and
| not reveal to the party requiring verification any other claim
| besides the specific one that they need (say, age in this case).
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verifiable_credentials
| mannyv wrote:
| When the Internet was built there was an expectation of
| anonymity. But anonymity and privacy are not quite the same.
|
| And in fact, the Internet is not anonymous or private, as there
| are multiple ways to track and surveil members of the general
| public.
|
| IMO the next step in the Internet's evolution needs to be the
| authenticated internet. An Authenticated Internet pretty much
| removes all the security issues, since every connection is
| authenticated. And authentication doesn't necessarily mean you're
| not anonymous.
|
| Right now the Internet has become the worst of both worlds - not
| private, not anonymous, and all the problems associated with that
| (insecure, spoonable, etc).
|
| That's what the EFF has wrong: the Internet is already a backdoor
| to surveillance. They're trying to stick their finger in the
| dyke. But what needs to happen is to rebuild the whole thing.
| isaacremuant wrote:
| No. You want it because you want "total security" to feel safe
| but your authoritarian world doesn't make me and others feel
| safe. Thankfully, the government wants the power so they'll use
| it against dissidents when it matters hence you'll get a
| semblance of your way.
|
| You can't block technology though. Government or not. People
| find a way.
| isaacremuant wrote:
| Meh. Hackernews users will be mostly in favour of any authotarian
| measure if advertised for it enough because they're all for some
| "imposed greater good" and slightly disagree on "implementation".
|
| COVID policies managing to get mainstream support already proved
| that.
|
| Don't cry when they turn it up to 11. This is what they tell you
| to ask for and you do.
|
| The rest of us will continue fighting for "our freedumbs" no
| matter what governments do.
| JanisErdmanis wrote:
| It does sounds like that the author is not aware of existence of
| zero knowledge range proofs for identity based authetification.
| In essence they work as follows: a third party vouches a
| commitment for your birth year into a commitment with a
| signature. This then can be used for to be shown to a service
| provider along with a range proof to ensure that the age limit
| gets respected. That way service provider does not learn your
| year while can ensure that all members respect some required age
| limit.
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