Comment by DennisP
1 day ago
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.
I don't know how many times I can repeat that I agree with that.
"Here is a plan that is bad in an obvious way, but not near as bad as what the government actually plans to do."
"Omg you proposed something bad."
Aside from that, I was mainly interested in the narrow point that pervasive surveillance is not the only way to do age verification. If you don't insist on near perfection, then you don't need to bother sending police around. If you do insist on near perfection, then my plan is better than the universal surveillance plan.