Comment by Aurornis
7 hours ago
> If a minor is caught with it, then law enforcement has local access to the minor's hardware and can probably view the private data.
And then what? You think the police are going to make a case out of getting a token blacklisted or start an investigation into the person who the token came from? Also confiscate their devices as part of the investigation? I guarantee that the token source will be someone in another state or another country or just a stolen ID being used to sell their tokens.
I can’t believe we’re getting to the point where we’re talking about sending the police to deal with cases where a minor is suspected of, what, accessing social media? To confiscate their device and do forensic analysis of the tokens on it?
Do you realize how insane this is getting? How does anyone think this is feasible, let alone a good idea?
I'm saying a system like this is preferable to attaching our real identities to everything we do online, as countries are attempting right now. We can verify age without losing privacy or anonymous speech.
It's still my preference to have no verification at all. On the internet, nobody should know you're a dog.
> I'm saying a system like this is preferable to attaching our real identities to everything we do online, as countries are attempting right now. We can verify age without losing privacy or anonymous speech.
The problem with your hypothetical was that you casually introduced the police as an enforcement mechanism for cases of a minor accessing an over-18 website. The implication is that the physical police are now involved in our access of websites, and you’re saying the tokens involved in us accessing websites will have some evidence that they can use in the investigation of that access.
This is why we keep saying that the anonymous token schemes don’t preserve privacy. It always turns into a slippery slope of adding escape hatches to the anonymity to enforce violations. The very implication that the police are going to be tasked with going out and confiscating devices to investigate suspected age token violations is an indicator of how far the window has shifted on Internet privacy.