Comment by bradley13
3 months ago
The article makes one mistake: praising Europe for having a better approach. Governments here are pushing hard to force ID requirements. Sure, they start by pretending it's "for the children" and they "only want age verification". They also claim that e-IDs will be voluntary. Camel. Nose. Tent.
These are the same governments that file criminal charges when you compare lying leader to Pinocchio (Germany). The UK records something like 30 arrests per day for social media posts. Just imagine how much better they could do, if you were not pseudo-anonymous in the Internet!
I quite like the EU approach. It's a decent spec. Most countries already have digital apps to verify identity, like Denmark's MitID (https://www.mitid.dk/en-gb/get-started-with-mitid/). These could be expanded to fully EUDI compliant wallets and deliver encrypted proof-of-age without exposing any other identity.
For example a gambling site could require MitID auth, but only request proof-of-age and nothing else. You can see in the app which information is being requested, like with OAuth.
If there's no information provided beyond proof-of-age, what's stopping my friend's 18 year old brother from lending his ID to every 14 year old at school? IRL that's negated by the liquor store clerk looking at the kid who is obviously underage and seeing that his face doesn't match the borrowed card he just nervously presented.
> what's stopping my friend's 18 year old brother from lending his ID to every 14 year old at school?
MitID is 2fa. You log in with username, then you have to open the app, enter password or scan biometric, then scan the QR code of the screen* and you are logged in.
He would need to be next to you every time you log in. I think that is too high friction to make it feasible on large scale.
* Assuming you open the website on the Desktop, and MitID on phone. If both on phone, skip this step.
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I don’t mean to be as aggressive as this sounds but the frogs probably liked the increasingly warm water too until it started boiling. How many steps between MitID and a fork that is used to enforce extreme censorship?
MitID is run by the government. How would anyone fork it? Any service implementing MitID auth can verify through signatures that they're connecting to the official service.
I don't want my kids to have access to gambling websites like Stake, but I also want to keep my digital identity anonymous. The eIDAS is a solution that achieves both of these goals.
If you can choose between the discord shitshow with a face scan, or a digital encrypted proof-of-age in a 2FA app you already use, issues and verified only by the government of your country (who have all your personal details anyway), what would you choose?
> During the 19th century, several experiments were performed to observe the reaction of frogs to slowly heated water. In 1869, while doing experiments searching for the location of the soul, German physiologist Friedrich Goltz demonstrated that a frog that has had its brain removed will remain in slowly heated water, but an intact frog attempted to escape the water when it reached 25 °C.
From wikipedia.
Having the government be the issuer and verifier of personal IDs is hardly a "boiling frog" situation anywhere in the world.
Everything is a slippery slope if you tilt & twist it enough...
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Gambling sites already have payment information, which should include real names! (no, you should not be allowed to do non-KYC gambling, that's just money laundering)
But how do you go from real name to age verification?
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Regarding the Pinocchio thing: Local police said „that‘s probably insult“ and sent it to public prosecutors. Public prosecutors investigated and said „nope, free speech“.
I really don’t see the problem.
If you can disturb enough people that think differently, independent of the final result, you can end up silencing them. Is the same that happens with bogus DCMA claims in Youtube channels, when they negative reviews of products. For a normal guy, having the police showing up, going to court, lawyer, etc, can be a significant burden. I DO see a problem.
Indeed, police misusing their authority is a problem, and they require constant oversight. But this is true completely independently from if you need to provide an age to order drugs online.
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Yes, I agree.
But I can not see how the legal framework could be better. Insults are illegal. Prosecution needs to look into all reported cases.
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The investigation and the threat against your freedom and safety (the implication of prison is always that you'll be harmed in there) WAS the punishment.
Sure, but the fact remains that it was referred for criminal prosecution. They didn't follow through, this time, but the victim still had his "lesson" about insulting his betters.
And Germany really did sentence people for calling Mr. Habeck "Schwachkopf", which is about as mild an insult as you can find.
> And Germany really did sentence people for calling Mr. Habeck "Schwachkopf", which is about as mild an insult as you can find.
Did not know about this, here is the wiki: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwachkopf-Aff%C3%A4re
His house was searched because of it, but he did not get sentenced for it.
Reminds me of Pimmelgate https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Grote#Umstrittene_Reaktio...
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Germany really did not. Where do you get such nonsense?
The guy was sentenced for distributing forbidden Nazi materials.
The initial insult investigation was dropped, because of it being insignificant.
It is almost like every government is shit and politics only attract psychopaths who want more power over other people.