[Aurornis]

People love these proposals until they read the details and think of the consequences. Anything that requires "robust age-checks" means that everyone using the site must go through an ID check and validation process. No more viewing anything without first logging in via your ID-checked account

> 1. Carry out robust age-checks to stop children accessing harmful content

> Our draft Codes expect much greater use of highly-effective age-assurance[2] so that services know which of their users are children in order to keep them safe.

> In practice, this means that all services which do not ban harmful content, and those at higher risk of it being shared on their service, will be expected to implement highly effective age-checks to prevent children from seeing it. In some cases, this will mean preventing children from accessing the entire site or app. In others it might mean age-restricting parts of their site or app for adults-only access, or restricting children’s access to identified harmful content.

Before people try to brush aside these regulations as only applying to sites you don't think you use, the proposal is vague about what is included in the guidelines. It includes things like "harmful substances", meaning any discussion of drugs or mushrooms could be included, for example.

Think twice before encouraging regulations that would bring ID checking requirements to large parts of the internet. If you enjoy viewing sites like Reddit or Hacker News or Twitter without logging in or handing over your ID, these proposals are not good for you at all.

[jorvi]

Already happening in the EU. Give your phone number, credit card number, or government ID number if you want to watch age-gated YouTube.

The best solution would be a government or banking API that emits a one-time token. No logging, and it self-destructs upon verification.

But aside from the user, no other party has detriment from the current situation.

[s1artibartfast]

That's a really interesting idea. I was just wondering how any of this could be prevented in a way that preserves user choice.

[g_p]

While there's some complexity in the details of how you'd implement the protocol and avoid replay "attacks", there are potentially ways to use Chaumian blind signatures so that an age verifying authority can (blindly) sign a token you present after verifying your age (through some means that likely won't be anonymous), in an unlinkable way

As an overly simple thought experiment, you could generate a random ed25519 ephemeral public key, hash it, then send it (blinded, and thus unreadable) to an age verification service (with some long term age verification credential or similar).

The age verification provider does a blind signature on your (blinded) public key hash, and sends it back to you. You un-blind that signature (meaning that provider can't identify which identifiable request led to it, but now it bears the hash of your public key), and you can now authenticate to a service by signing a challenge with your ephemeral ed25519 private key.

The service only knows your ephemeral public key, and that it has been "vouched" (signed) by the age verification provider.

The age verification provider knows "you" asked for a token , but doesn't know what public key you used.

Clearly there are challenges with replaying (authorised user could share the private key every day with a group of others), and revocation of a credential whose private key gets shared among a group is hard (beyond providers blocking a public key).

The risk is that this becomes a race towards "DRM" and platform attestation/authentication to try and prevent private keys being exported.

[mamonster]

Maybe someone could chime in (cryptography is not my strong mathematical field), but isn't the entire point of ZK proofs(which are the hot buzzword in crypto) that you should be able to be verify certain information (i.e that you are of a certain age) without leaking any other information(which is similar to what you are proposing)?

Surely this is a better application of that rather than proposing another L2 to scale Ethereum?

[g_p]

Good question.

By my understanding , in principle yes you could use ZK proofs - you can imagine it as a way to prove a certain assertion (age >= 18) in a way that isn't directly linked to other data. You sometimes see this in conceptual ID card specifications - using keys on a smart card to give a signed attestation about a single attribute without sharing other ones.

Ultimately though, when you need to actually implement it, you'll end up needing the same core concept as the thought experiment above - you'll need one or more "trusted central authorities" whose word is trusted on a given asserted attribute (age, etc).

They'll need a way to prove that they vouched for a user (as there's no digital way to validate their age as that's an unverifiable claim). You'll then need a way for the "bearer" of a ZK proof to tie themselves to that trusted central authority's attestation, and you'll need a way to prevent the information needed to generate that ZK proof being shared with others for replay.

A ZK proof will still need that external trusted authority for an attribute like age, because age isn't something you can root some kind of cryptographic trust from.

I'm not an expert in the ZK crypto either, but it doesn't deliver a magical ability to prove a (biological analog world claim) without chaining back to a trusted verifier of said claim, and effectively delivering that sort of "thought experiment" protocol.

Sometimes though, the complex solutions tend towards the simple - you could issue people "age verification" smart cards (if you have enough confidence in CC EAL6 or similar cards, and their side channel resistance) which are "group keyed" with common attestation signing keys for every million (or another suitable anonymity threshold) users, and share the public keys used (to allow verification you haven't been given a special unique public key), and then allow signed card-issued anonymous attestations. That would work for as long as you can keep the smartcard-backed key secure against side channel/ key extraction attacks.

The user adoption challenge in all this is getting users onboard and demonstrating it's a private solution rather than an excuse to oversee their online activities more, but I do believe you could do this in a manner that's going to make it easier to just identify them from IP address and adtech trackers or similar external means.

[lotsofpulp]

There are so many inefficiencies and security risks that individuals have to put up with simply because the US federal government (or any other federal government) have not provided an identity verification API.

From banking to buying concert tickets, a way to prove one is human could be invaluable to ridding the system of the myriad proxies we currently use that inevitably result in discrimination.

The crazy thing is it would be dead simple, the hardest part, having physical infrastructure all over the country is already done. The US Postal Service already verifies people's identity for US passports.

Combine this with a constitutional inalienable right to receiving and transferring money to an electronic money account operated by the federal government, and we could get rid of so many inefficiencies.

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

The so-called "tech" companies love to tell the world, especially their advertiser customers, how they know "everything" about the people who use their websites, with ridicuouls claims such as knowing more about users than users' own friends and family. Certainly the knowledge they claim to have would include the age. If not, then any claims by so-called "tech" companies that they can serve targeted advertising to people in a certain age bracket are false.

Whereas if their claims are true, and they do know the age of their website users, then these so-called "tech" companies can solve this problem without needing to do age verfication. By not targeting people in certain age brackets with certain content, they can stop the politicians from proposing legislation that requires age verification. But they refuse to do so.

Interesting.

[em-bee]

wouldn't they have to guarantee no false positives ever? so any child being misidentified as an adult would be a problem. the result would be that the targeting is so strict that to many adults would be excluded. and that matters even more if we consider that young adults are among the most lucrative demographic, which makes false positives more likely.

you can easily tell a 30 year old from a 10 year old. but can you tell a 12 year old from a 15 year old? or a 15yr old from a 20yr old?

so tech companies want a system that is approved so that they are not responsible if it fails

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

Oddly, I think I agree with you. What we really need, and that is the reason why it does not even enter the conversation, is standard default that we can agree upon.

By this I mean, no more fucking around with timeline. We agree that any corporation introducing a feed based on anything other than date from newest to oldest is subject to penalties and sanctions.

Will it stop 'innovation'? God I hope so. I am tired of innovation that farms up rage.

edit: From here we can start working on what algos CAN be included in customer facing crapola.

[whimsicalism]

maybe we shouldn’t use government intervention and force as the default in all of these things.

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

What I can tell you for sure is that self-regulation was not very beneficial to the society as a whole ( see current cell phone impact on youth ). As to whether government regulation is a bad idea, at this point I believe it is an interesting academic objection thrown in that happens to be true often enough to an extent, but then hijacked by corporations trying to avoid actual regulation.. ie. biased at best.

[s1artibartfast]

I don't think you can write off self regulation so easily. I don't think anyone is claiming that it's a complete and perfect harm reduction. It usually takes time for social norms to develop, especially in the face of rapidly changing technology.

However, the alternative is very grim. It is essentially conceding that the average human is not capable of directing their actions, and they should be controlled by a higher power.

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

And this is the argument that I am willing to accept. We should be able to find some happy medium. I would hate to be told that from this point on I can only use quick sort by government decree, but you have to admit that current social media/tech has gotten out of hand in terms of power they wield.

[s1artibartfast]

I would argue that the governments have also gotten out of hand in terms of the power they wield. As a result, I think that we should be careful to ensure that any new developments are clearly empowering the individual, and not just claiming to benefit them.

Im for regulatory options that put more power in the hands of users so that they can solve their problems. I haven't decided what this means for age verification and algorithms, but there are some interesting options in this thread.

[whimsicalism]

As someone from the cell phone impacted generation, I wish our elders would spend less time trying to protect us from the internet and more time building homes.

[s1artibartfast]

But who would buy them? Generation Y+ can't afford them.

I'm only half joking: The issue isn't the supply of new housing, it is the cost of building new housing. If we fix the cost issue, the new houses will follow.

[whimsicalism]

> The issue isn't the supply of new housing, it is the cost of building new housing.

I fail to see the distinction. The cost barriers (most of which are legal/zoning related) reduce quantity supplied.

I don't believe it costs 2 million in materials or labor to make a condo in California.

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

We all wish for an ideal future and, heavens know, it is a good thing that I am not an emperor for a day as a lot would change. Personally, and I mean it in a nice way, I am not obligated to build you a home. I am not even obligated to do it for my kid. Frankly, neither is the society as a whole.

You want your elders build you a home for you. No deal. Best I can do is help you along by pulling you away from your cell and saving your attention span a little.

[silverquiet]

I've always sort of felt that the whole "society is little removed from anarchy and no one owes anyone anything" is not all that far removed from "I can hit you on the head with a hammer and take your stuff if I feel like it".

[whimsicalism]

> Personally, and I mean it in a nice way, I am not obligated to build you a home. I am not even obligated to do it for my kid. Frankly, neither is the society as a whole.

I'll happily pay many multiples of what homes used to cost - just make it legal to build homes.

Let us do the things we want without having to cut through a thicket of laws intended to help and protect us. We don't want them.

Please, we've had more than enough of y'all's help.

[infecto]

Such a rule is impossible to write.

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

It is a lot of things ( overbearing, difficult to implement, world-changing ), but is not impossible. If you have any doubts, check OFAC rules and regulations ( and note how some seem contradictory in nature ) and see how regulated institutions respond to those.

[rustcleaner]

These kinds of proposals will hand the 'net to the darknet [its proper successor]. I can't wait for Freenet/Hyphanet to eventually get onion routing!

[manlobster]

It's not clear to me that every site would have to perform age verification themselves. Seems like the "I am a minor" flag could be managed at the client operating system level (e.g. as a property of the cell account on mobile devices, or as a property of the user account on a laptop or desktop machine), and transmitted per-request (e.g. in a HTTP header).

[Aerroon]

Then we would have mandatory online-only accounts for the OS "for your safety". This sounds even worse.

[whimsicalism]

This might only be marginally relevant, but California’s digital id has a way of verifying age without revealing anything else about your identity called “TruAge”

[Aurornis]

> California’s digital id has a way of verifying age without revealing anything else about your identity called “TruAge”

I'm not familiar with the system, but I assume it would necessarily have to reveal the sites you're verifying with to the State of California.

So it's less of a big deal, as long as you're okay with sending a record to the government about what site you're visiting every time you want to sign up somewhere or re-verify your age.

I'm sure someone in the comments will propose some cryptographic solution where neither party knows anything other than the fact that someone, somewhere, possesses a token associated with a person over the age of 18. If you think this is viable, you're not thinking like a kid trying to get around this system, nor a blackhat trying to take advantage of it: Many people would immediately set up a service that handed out age verification tokens in exchange for viewing some ads (the file sharing site model) if there were no limits and nobody could trace it back to the source. Any ID verification system must necessarily have some party able to verify the person to avoid abuse like this.

[whimsicalism]

> TruAge encrypts your data points and then protects them even further by creating anonymous tokens. These anonymous tokens cannot be traced back to you without legal authorization from a court-issued subpoena

Yes, I think you are right. There is probably a way to make a fully anonymous scheme.

[Aurornis]

> There is probably a way to make a fully anonymous scheme.

A fully anonymous scheme would be ripe for abuse: People would immediately take their keys and set up websites that exchanged age verification tokens for watching ads. Kids would visit these websites, watch an ad for 60 seconds, and get a fully anonymous age verification token in exchange.

Identity verification systems only work if everyone involved has some incentive to protect their identity. If the identity means nothing and nothing can be traced back to you, the tokens will be generated for next to nothing and handed out freely.

The idea is DOA.

[rustcleaner]

>legal authorization from a court-issued subpoena

No good technological solutions which min-max on maximizing user sovereignty and privacy will allow the possibility of [GREENTEXT].

[throwup238]

I always figured it'd be implemented Stripe style where completing age verification just gives the site a token that they can use to validate the third party age check.

The problem is how to make the provider side anonymized so that they don't know what sites your visiting, but that could be probably solved with legislation. In California, at least. I wouldn't trust Congress with a bill like this.

[brevitea]

Agree. The idea is to verify your age, not harvest all your PII data across every login and viewing session. Companies can easily implement this privacy-preserving step, they just won't until it is strictly enforced.

[ricardo81]

Agree in your vision of the ramifications, but I feel that it's their response to a basically unregulated big tech. Their powers are limited.

[dyauspitr]

Who cares. I want the internet to be an ecosystem without any privacy (which is a drastic change from what I believed for most of my life). I believe anything of value will be available even without anonymity. For something that absolutely needs anonymity people will find workarounds and I appreciate the extra technical barrier when they have to do so so it’s not available to very pleb.