[stymaar]

“Age verification” isn't a problem in itself, the problem is how it's done. They could issue a physical id card with a cryptographic chip and do the age verification in a zero-knowledge fashion and it would be perfectly fine.

The problem is the lack of thinking about the solution and just handwaving “age verification” as a political posture, which is why we end up with half-baked systems.

[ball_of_lint]

I strongly disagree.

You're framing this as some desirable thing that could be good except that a bad implementation erodes privacy. That's wrong at every step. These bills originate from big tech such as Meta that literally profit from collecting as much personal info from you as possible. https://old.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/1rsn1tm/it_a...

But even beyond their tainted origins, you can't implement your way out of something badly formed in the first place. You handwave "zero knowledge" but that doesn't do for your privacy what you're hoping it will. That id card will still have a serial number and CCTV of you purchasing it and you will de facto end up trusting some government binary blob to implement this cryptography correctly without backdoors. Snowden was a decade ago. This will have a backdoor. This will be used for surveillance, tomorrow even if by some miracle not today.

And finally, this makes the internet worse. There will be a section of people who are, for one reason or another, not able to pass this bar. Much of the goodness of the internet comes from being able to interact with anyone on it.

[MaKey]

This assumes good faith, which doesn't match reality. It's about control, not protecting children.

Also age verification is still a problem in itself. Given your idea of a physical card, kids will find a way to use the card of their parents. Even if the card couldn't be misused by others - you give platforms the knowledge of whom is a minor, which means they can be targeted better.

[stymaar]

> This assumes good faith, which doesn't match reality. It's about control, not protecting children.

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

> Given your idea of a physical card, kids will find a way to use the card of their parents.

Sure there are kids who have access to their parents credit card with the PIN, but how frequent is that? In every system, fraud will exist, but that doesn't mean the system is worthless. “The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero”: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra...

[ball_of_lint]

I linked it in my direct reply, but - we don't need to guess at why these bills are being introduced or why. We have evidence. It's malice. https://old.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/1rsn1tm/it_a...

[applfanboysbgon]

> “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

This is not an argument, it's just a stupid quip. And I would sooner suggest that you "never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice". Humans are overwhelmingly selfish and more than willing to harm others to serve themselves.

[mdp2021]

> and it would be perfectly fine

Unless a tiny chance exists that some system in the middle is not secure. Then you have the problem of those who orient their acceptance to the "oh well" shrug, and then systemic faults get downplayed by default. (Edit: I re-read and notice 'half-baked systems': seemingly, we agree.)

> as a political posture

Which is the core problem of masses accepting pseudo-heartly and not-brainy unacceptable figures. And again, systemic faults incarnated as administrations get downplayed by default.

[g42gregory]

"Age verification" is designed to attribute your identity to your online presence. As such, it's done just right.