On-device face scans and cross-platform age keys decrease privacy risks, but trust issues abound.
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I remain puzzled as to why anonymity on the internet is considered sacred (or even desirable). In the pre-internet world I grew up in, there was no expectation of anonymity—if you walked into a public space and spouted insanities and threats to others, you could expect to be held accountable. If you went into libraries and researched subjects related to bomb-making, you could expect the paper trail to incriminate you. As for our democracy, it appears to have suffered its greatest damage in the past few decades from anonymous and unaccountable purveyors of online bullshit.
Bazzite is working normally, as it is Arch. There is a variant of Arch, Arch32 that blocked itself from Brazil. There is also a Bsd variant, MidnightBSD, that is showing messages that they will never be able to comply with the new regulation on Brazil, but the access is ok.Linux download access is getting turned off in Brazil due to their age verification law. Bazzite and Arch both are now blocked from being downloaded there.
Are you 18 years of age or older? (Yes/No)
I want to back this up. Used to work in primarily low-income schools. As in 90-97% free and reduced lunch. I worked with a lot of kids who had siblings and single mothers that worked multiple jobs just to keep a roof over their heads and some food on the table. A lot of kids barely see their parent or parents. Or guardians.For some people stuck with multiple jobs, yes, it really can be.
And you seem to be underestimating just how sneaky kids, even little ones, can be.
The worst part is that this monstrous invasion of privacy isn't even effective anymore, if it ever was.We are rapidly approaching a time where companies and governments will be arguing that cameras have to be ALWAYS ON. This is pretext. They'll say no one will see any private scenes, only the AIs will be watching to determine whether or not the person behind the screen is of legal age or the appropriate demographic. Feel free to come back to this comment in five years (does Ars have a Redditesque "remind me" bot?)
The blueprint is too vague. Things like "the link between user and proof provider is cut" without reference to how it would be implemented are wishes, not design.If you follow the links in the overview article you will eventually get to some fact sheets and a blueprint. This one gives a high-level technical overview:
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa....ification-solution-help-protect-minors-online
This one mentions who the developers are and the expected timeline including the availability of a vettable, open-source implementation:
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-makes-available-age-verification-blueprint
For those really interested, here is the technical deep dive:
https://ageverification.dev/#quick-start-with-hosted-test-services
@Ars: Fixed that for you.
Imagine turning on your camera, which automatically detects if it’s seeing or hearing an 84-year-old woman or a 13-year-old boy. Accurate age signals could be logged without ever sharing identity, Tewari suggested.
This is far the best take in this comment section thus far and worth reading in full.Privacy and potential for leaks is not the only issue with age verification, and the sooner people get this, the sooner people will realize that it's not worth engaging in any discussion around this. Same for AI and stuff like AI equipped cameras, same for ICE, same for massive sovereignty violations, same for bombing schools and hospitals.
The solution for the problem is rejecting it altogether. Reject all platforms that asks for positive ID for age verification purposes, reject all businesses and corporations dwelling on how to do it, reject all promises of doing it in a "private manner", period.
In a similar manner that the only winning move is not to play.
Age gating via positive ID is entirely a play to collect more user info, and the entire political campaign towards this has been funded by Big Tech with vested interests in escaping liability, and collecting private user data. Let me reinforce this point - Big Tech is funding the push towards making everyone else but themselves responsible for verifying age, for their own purposes. This is not about protecting children, as most legislation that targets this often is not - this is a play on liability and profit for the monopolistic corporations that control America today.
This is happening along with the realization that social media as it has grown today is the source of most major issues we have globally today. It is among several desperate measures to retain status quo, and avoid liability and responsibility for the evils they knowingly and willingly brought upon societies worldwide. It is because people are finally collectively realizing the damages American Big Tech has done globally, that they are trying everything to avoid responsibility.
So, above all that - this is about balance of power, about erosion of fundamental pillars in democracy, and about fundamental human rights. For the profit of a few, as per usual.
You don't need to worry, discuss, and argue about the details on how the meat is processed, because the problem is the meat being processed - not how it'll be done.
Forcing everyone to show positive ID to prove they are not kids, is not democracy - it's totalitarianism. It's what famously happens in totalitarian dictatorships, like the Nazi regime - papers, please. It is guilty until proven innocent by an unreliable and unverifiable opaque system, which means it's mostly guilty even when proven not guilty, with the penalty being endless exploitation and brainwashing or radicalization.
Now, countries like the US already ignored the encroachment of late-stage capitalism systems that led to the neo-fascist state that it's currently going through. It ignored radical hate-based populist propaganda to put representatives in power that are setting US geopolitics back centuries in a global context. It ignored it's own set of anti-trust laws to protect the population from monopolistic, cartel-style and criminal mob and abuses, and let a parallel shady economy of mass private data collection and selling to happen. It is on a constant stream of unbalanced de-regulatory and criminal manipulation of information to favor enterprises that politically align themselves with the current administration to put profit above public safety and public interests. It has let criminal, anti-democratic, scammy and scummy, grift mercenary based political system to take over all of the branches of government and rule the country like a despotic kingdom - in executive, legislative, judiciary and press.
So, given all of this and much more - relegating and accepting that age-gating is "inevitable" is yet another step towards surrendering your private and individual citizen rights and power of choice towards a project for power mounted by profit above all else private corporation schemes, and project for power by a neo-fascist regime.
If you still care about democratic values and what the US was build on historically, you do not need to go into discussions on the details of how this will be done. This should be a direct rejection. Do not waste time looking into how these companies are promising to do it - the fact that they are offering to do it is already wrong by itself. The how does not matter here, only the why.
Many of the recent laws seem to be saying that age verification needs to be part of the OS installation/setup...not just for accessing content though.The UK use credit card verification. You have to be over 18 to have one. Its not rockets science. If you don't have Internet access you can't actually access places that need age verification
Some laws though seem to want the age checks baked into the OS setup and don't seem to consider whether or not its connected to anything elseCameras are an issue. But systems that won't have internet access obviously don't need any mechanism to access age-gated services on the internet.
Having a really hard time figuring out what services I use that are valuable enough to me to bother with this. I know it's not for everyone, but I'm OK just cutting anything doing this out of my life entirely.
Hot take:
Children should not have access to the internet.
I created an account just to like this comment. It's important to not give the people trying to erode an inalienable right even a single inch.No. No. No.
You fight this at every level, we do not write a spineless "here's how it works" about the inevitability of the whole operation.
The anonymous internet is more important for democracy than the printing press.
Nobody should be anonymous on the internet.
Because of this we have the Donald's and his pals elected.
Americans have this irrational fear of the "government surveillance" and fear nothing about many real issues.
Anonymous access to the internet is not an inalienable right.I created an account just to like this comment. It's important to not give the people trying to erode an inalienable right even a single inch.
Is this actually true?The anonymous internet is more important for democracy than the printing press.
If only it was that simple. From the article:But local software can scan a face, then phone back a simple yes/no.
It's not about the 1st Amendment getting violated Supreme Court! It's about the 4th!
Japan has been verifying age at the phone account level since 2007. It's up to the parent to not buy their kids GTA VI, or let them watch R or NC-17 movies, or not buy them vapes/cigarettes, or let them tote guns around under the legal age. It's about actually parenting and not using the decades old "save the children" excuse to make all of the U.S.(or the world) worse and more difficult!
What a Brave New World we live in!![]()
An on-device "evil bit" for under18s is amazingly simple and adult websites would GLADLY obey it.Easy solution seems to be let the user decide. If a user wants their device to send an “under 18” flag to apps and websites they can. Lock it by parental controls and you put the power entirely in parents’ hands. No one ever has to send data anywhere.
Very, very few people are teaching their kids how to use the internet safely. Yes, it 'should' be getting done. It's not. We need to recognize the reality of the world we live in, not the one we think we should be living in.Disagreement:
The Internet is an inherent part of society nowadays. Teaching children early on how to use the Internet in a safe manner is important. However, parental guidance should be maintained when younger, and check-ins and monitoring should be always expected and anticipated. It should be on the parents rather than software or external sources to control where, when, and how their children access it.
I use a fingerprint to log into my machine, access my password manager etc. No information leaves my device.No such thing as "on device verification"
There is no way to verify anything without phoning home to the mothership.
Very, very few people are teaching their kids how to use the internet safely. Yes, it 'should' be getting done. It's not. We need to recognize the reality of the world we live in, not the one we think we should be living in.
50% of parents are below average as parentsVery, very few people are teaching their kids how to use the internet safely. Yes, it 'should' be getting done. It's not. We need to recognize the reality of the world we live in, not the one we think we should be living in.
Agree. The title of this piece is weird, like Ars want it to happen, better ad targeting maybe, or just clickbait?No. No. No. You fight this at every level, we do not write a spineless "here's how it works" about the inevitability of the whole operation.
That's probably true most of the time, but in just the past twelve months I've helped or seen about six people start using Linux that hadn't before, mostly driven by the Windows 11 switch over. They've downloaded the ISO, put it on a USB stick and installed the OS. They obviously have enough knowledge to try out different distributions merely by going to websites.The only silver lining to this is anyone who'd made up their mind to use Linux will already know how to get the distros elsewhere.
Agree. The title of this piece is weird, like Ars want it to happen, better ad targeting maybe, or just clickbait?
There have been many ideas like this over the years, but a lot of "ifs" between those and embrace by govt, the public and the rest of tech. And a lot of people hate this one. Good luck with that.
I'd go a LOT further than that. Having to guess who's (legally) handling your information means the system is already broken. Information sharing disclosure should be law in all civilized nations. No new laws should be able to be created that depend on information sharing without first definining and legislating information sharing itself.Discord also vowed to be more transparent about age-check partners, with Vishnevskiy agreeing that “you shouldn’t have to guess who’s handling your information.”
The large distros are all looking at compliance to some extent, although with no specific solutions as yet.That's probably true most of the time, but in just the past twelve months I've helped or seen about six people start using Linux that hadn't before, mostly driven by the Windows 11 switch over. They've downloaded the ISO, put it on a USB stick and installed the OS. They obviously have enough knowledge to try out different distributions merely by going to websites.
None of them are comfortable on the command line nor do they understand networking in general. They don't have to. Most Linux distributions these days are that easy to install and use. So blocking Linux distributions probably will have an effect. How big? I don't know.
(Standard disclaimers about anecdotes and data apply)