Comment by DennisP
8 hours ago
Sure, but then you're partnering with someone you probably don't know to take payment for doing something illegal, and that partner knows your device and where to send the money.
And if it's a phone app, it's not going to be on app stores and you already know the person giving you the app is a criminal.
So you're installing an untrustworthy app to risk criminal charges, and the customers of this scheme are kids who mostly don't have a lot of money.
You’re missing the point. If the tokens are truly anonymous then none of this matters. There’s no way to discover or prove where the tokens came from. It could be someone in another country with stolen IDs, which are now a goldmine for minting tokens and selling on the internet.
So the schemes inherently add some traceability, which makes the tokens no longer actually anonymous.
This is the back door used to make the tokens double as ID tokens.
I'm not missing the point, and if you'll think about my scheme for a bit you'll see that anonymity is maintained in normal circumstances even though there's incentive to protect your credentials. Let's go through scenarios:
1) You give a teenager your full credentials. Teenager is careless, as teenagers often are, and posts something revealing who he is. Cops have option to search teenager's phone, see who you are, and at least revoke the credentials.
2) You install a relay app on your phone, for money. Now you've installed an untrustworthy app from a criminal, who might hack you, or might be arrested and reveal details of your device and where they're sending your money.
Neither scenario happens because the age verification is traceable.
3) Your credentials get stolen, and used in a foreign country to implement a relay scheme.
This one, I admit, my scheme can't do anything about. But this means our teenager has to pay a foreign entity. Teenagers can also pay foreign porn sites directly, if porn is our concern.
On top of that, the age verification systems we've seen so far have their own security holes that teenagers are exploiting without having to pay anything.
My personal view is that the whole thing is ridiculous and we shouldn't bother with any of this. My point is just that we can implement reasonably good age verification without eliminating anonymity on the internet.