On-device face scans and cross-platform age keys decrease privacy risks, but trust issues abound.
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After Discord fiasco, age-check tech promises privacy by running locally. Does it work?
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I think this is the real crux of it. These days applying a voice/face filter can be done on modest hardware, and if that's what it takes to trick these solutions then a bunch of businesses will rush to market with software offering exactly that.
Then these age verification firms will want kernel level access to verify that nothing is altering camera or audio input...
And this is before even considering that the easiest method of bypassing these controls is to simply visit sites or use services that don't implement them. Something which we have absolutely no realistic way to prevent.
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* looks around * Hate to break it to ya, bud... we already live in that dystopian world. And it's only getting worse.
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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.
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.
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Anyone can build their own chat server, or use another platform like Stoat and not surrender their anonymity to unknown data brokers or state actors.
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The Operating System Age Check laws in several US state legislatures are being promoted by a Facebook backed organization, and they will host the data exclusively. There is no carve out for open source organizations or devices or privacy, and the data will be in private corporate hands at all times, by law.
It's appalling. Haven't we fallen far enough?
It's appalling. Haven't we fallen far enough?
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A bit OT, but I had reason to call the Australian Taxation Office a few days ago - think IRS for those in the USA... and I was shocked that they — still! — tout their "highly secure" voice print BS, and almost force you into recording your voice so they can "authenticate" "you".
Nope. Hard pass on that one.
With all the mics and cams around, who knows who has my voice and likeness that they can feed into a slop-generator and scam their way into the ATO.
What could they possibly gain by doing so, you might ask? They could trigger an audit - so some script kiddie getting their jollies making others' miserable (think swatting equivalent, just less immediate) or someone with a grudge against you, or get information to then scam you with (either directly, or via banks and other third parties once they have enough information on you).
Nope. Hard pass on that one.
With all the mics and cams around, who knows who has my voice and likeness that they can feed into a slop-generator and scam their way into the ATO.
What could they possibly gain by doing so, you might ask? They could trigger an audit - so some script kiddie getting their jollies making others' miserable (think swatting equivalent, just less immediate) or someone with a grudge against you, or get information to then scam you with (either directly, or via banks and other third parties once they have enough information on you).
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No such thing as "on device verification"
There is no way to verify anything without phoning home to the mothership.
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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?)
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Or, simply provide a privacy-focused solution that doesn't involve "It's private, just trust me."
It's not like it's especially hard to do.
Let's go with something like a credit bureau, DMV, or even a function of Login.Gov, who knows your age since it's linked to your Social Security account as the authenticator.
Site you want to access gives you a token:
{ hash( site_name + user_id + SECRET_SALT ), "age >= 18" }
You take the token, and paste it into one of those above places to authenticate it. If the rule is true, they sign it. You pass signed token back to the original site who checks it against the authenticator's public key.
There. Done. Your age is verified, the authenticator doesn't know what places you've accessed, the site doesn't know any information about you aside you've met the rules required, and you know everybody played nice because you can see the rule that was verified.
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Ok, not a parent here. But assuming that I'm this day and age we're mostly talking about content consumption on phones and tablets, and assuming that the parent is buying them, is it really too complicated just to have a password-protected age filter in the OS and firmly instruct parents to set it up when buying a device for children? It seems the least of parenting requirements compared with actually monitoring the child.
Can kids get around it? Sure, but they'll get around anything.
I'm not sure how this is harder than dynamic explicit checks.
Can kids get around it? Sure, but they'll get around anything.
I'm not sure how this is harder than dynamic explicit checks.
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The "AIs", as in the Kenyans [or insert other cheap as possible labour source here]?
https://meincmagazine.com/gadgets/202...ta-shot-footage-of-people-using-the-bathroom/
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Exactly. It's always going to be a lie, people with no chance of recourse will continue to be exploited, and the Epstein class will continue to devour everyone and everything.
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My PC doesn't have a camera. And I will bang this drum to no end: devices are not people. Every device in my home is used by multiple people and only the PC has multiple user accounts. Well... And the consoles I guess.
I do not want to share my info with services. I do not trust them to not be stupid, and I also don't trust them to not be malicious. They have been time and time proven to be both those things. I also don't trust the government right now, but at least they would be theoretically more transparent. A better system than allowing companies to willy nilly implement age checks that may or may not be accurate or easily defeated and may or may not actually scrape your data and reduce privacy for users (including the minors everyone allegedly seems to think have such a problem suddenly) is to have a governmental system of ID in place where an anonymized token of yes/no, not the ID itself, is returned. Even that can be abused to leak age data.
I do not want to share my info with services. I do not trust them to not be stupid, and I also don't trust them to not be malicious. They have been time and time proven to be both those things. I also don't trust the government right now, but at least they would be theoretically more transparent. A better system than allowing companies to willy nilly implement age checks that may or may not be accurate or easily defeated and may or may not actually scrape your data and reduce privacy for users (including the minors everyone allegedly seems to think have such a problem suddenly) is to have a governmental system of ID in place where an anonymized token of yes/no, not the ID itself, is returned. Even that can be abused to leak age data.
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One issue regarding age-gated content I'm worried is what content is being age-gated. It's going to happen, it's inevitable, governments and private industry are going to require this - but we're in the day and age where governments are passing laws that declare anything LGBT+ as inherently adult only. They want to restrict the 13-year old boy from visiting sites which can help him come to terms with being a gay kid in his primarily straight school, or the 12-year old transgender girl from accessing resources, or the 17-year old lesbian from finding a way to get out of her abusive family.
(Also I hate that 90% line being trotted out cause that's probably the 90% of people who access Discord without viewing adult content...)
(Also I hate that 90% line being trotted out cause that's probably the 90% of people who access Discord without viewing adult content...)
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What about self sovereign Identity and verifiable credentials.
Age verification is extensively discussed there.
One needs to provide e-ID infrastructure as in EU, but from there you can verify age without other personal information disclosure.
Age verification is extensively discussed there.
One needs to provide e-ID infrastructure as in EU, but from there you can verify age without other personal information disclosure.
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Should probably also talk about who is behind these checks and why. They don't make us safer, they let social companies off the hook for actually making their platforms safe.
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They also make a great harvest of private data to sell to the highest bidder.
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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!
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!
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Entirely correct and something I didn't personally think about. With this federal government in the U.S. right now, it's about targeting outliers and maybe trying to make them less troublesome or even stay closeted.
The federal government wants to bypass, and does already, judicial protections by buying people's data from vendors. Nothing these days is actually about the children and always ties back to who's lobbying for what. The federal government only answers to lobbyists anymore... ESPECIALLY this current one!
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The problem with all of these systems and schemes, even in the hands of 'trustworthy' entities like Apple.... they're trustworthy now, but in the future? They may get bought out (smaller entities), they may change leadership and go in a different, enshittified, direction, or various governments might step in and force them to "share"... I agree with @Wanzerr - we all need to resist and resist hard.
So, it's inevitable.
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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.
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That doesn’t solve the real problem (from their point of view). They want to know who is accessing what and when. It discourages people from accessing content that can’t be outright banned. The push to gate adult content is less about protecting children and more about morality policing.
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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.
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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.
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I'm old enough to remember when location tracking was extremely controversial - my wife worked for EFF when we were dating. And unfortunately, in almost every battle I've seen on this front during my lifetime, user privacy has lost.
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An issue I can see with age-keys is that they seem to be set up to allow a user to pick whichever 'age provider' service they prefer. Which opens up the possibility of a 'rogue' age provider springing up and (eg) verifying all it's users as being 18+. Services (eg Discord), would have to pick and choose which age providers to trust, which would probably result in there only being a handful of large providers dominating the market.
However technically neat it is, it doesn't solve the underlying problems, and actually creates new ones.
However technically neat it is, it doesn't solve the underlying problems, and actually creates new ones.
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So how does this work when you don't have a camera? Or setting up a system that won't have internet access?
These still exist in the real world. My desktops at home have no cameras, my work laptop the camera is disabled administratively.
These still exist in the real world. My desktops at home have no cameras, my work laptop the camera is disabled administratively.
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It could get worse than "just" LGBT+ being age gated. Basic health/sex education is an easy "think of the children" opportunity. Sites with resources for other marginalized groups are another juicy target.
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Age checks solve little. It’s not minors who fell for disinformation and voted Trump or believe all dumbest crap they see online. Clearly adults are plenty vulnerable too.
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