Comment by ThatPlayer

5 days ago

> How does the OS know that you moved from the "13-15" bracket to the "16-17" bracket without knowing your DoB?

No one says it has to be automatic. The OS could require the parent to manually update it.

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ThatPlayer

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godelski  4 days ago 

  > The OS could require the parent to manually update it.

How is their age verified?

At some point one of two things is required:

  1) A promise that the user is a certain age
    - Which puts us exactly where we are
  2) Official identification is used to verify age
    - Which creates a PII nightmare

That's it. There's only those two options. You may not believe #2 is going to be a privacy nightmare but we're already seeing it happen with Discord/OpenAI/LinkedIn and everyone else that uses Persona[1]. They aren't doing the minimal security things and already aren't doing what they claimed (processed on device, then deleted). This "hack" couldn't happen if that was true

[0] https://cybernews.com/privacy/persona-leak-exposes-global-su...

[1] https://withpersona.com/customers

  • ThatPlayer  4 days ago

    > Which puts us exactly where we are

    The difference here is it can be set by the parent on the OS and locked. Requiring sudo equivalent to change.

    The way it is now, there's nothing stopping a (18-) user from logging out of a 'parental control enabled' account and making a new account without those controls on any service from Facebook to Steam. So the only effective option at that point is to entirely block that app or service.

    This gives more power to parental control software. And yeah moves the responsibility from the service to the parents, which is what the services want cuz COPPA and other similar laws.

    • godelski  4 days ago

      That doesn't change anything I said.

      But you do bring up another issue people aren't discussing. That the default setting is under 18.

      So we protect the children from adults by... having no way to actually verify someone is a child?

      The problem is less kids getting access to porn and more pedos getting accounts to spaces designed for children. Places like Club Penguin or very famously Roblox.

      Here's the problem, you can't verify children. They don't have identification in the same way adults do. And worse, if we gave them that then it only makes them more vulnerable!

      Then we have the whole problem of a global internet. VPN usage is already skyrocketing to circumvent these policies.

      So the only real "solution" to this is global identification systems where essentially everyone is carrying around some dystopian FIDO key (definitely your phone) that has all your personal information on it and you sign every device you touch. Because everything from your fridge to your car is connected to the Internet.

      But that's a cure worse than the poison. I mean what the fuck happens to IOT devices? Do we just not allow them on the internet? That they're assumed 18+? So all kids need to do is get a raspberry pi? All they need to do is install a VM on their phone? On their computer? You might think that kids won't do this but when I was in high school 20 years ago we all knew how to set up proxies. That information spread like wildfire and you bet it got easier as the smarter kids put in the legwork.

      This is a losing battle. It's not a cat and mouse game it's While E Coyote vs Road Runner.

      We're on HN FFS. If there's anywhere on the Internet that the average user is going to understand how impossible this is it should be here. We haven't even talked about hacking! And yes, teenage script kiddies do exist.

      These policies don't protect kids, they endanger them. On top of that they endanger the rest of us. Seriously, just try to work it out. Try to create a solution and then actually try to defeat your solution. Don't be fucking Don Quixote.

      6 replies →

mittensc  5 days ago

So the kid boots up linux off a USB stick and makes it all pointless