Comment by simoncion
12 hours ago
> Even though what they are doing is...
I suppose you missed the part where I said
Australia has been a shithole for a long time now.
This "You must present ID to use a computer" shit is relatively new.
> You're not really describing a client-side solution, you're describing legislation of something like the old Do Not Track header, which is a server-side solution...
Mmm. No, there are three systems being described here.
1) "Beefed up Parental Controls", where all service-restriction information is entered and stored client-side and sent server-side as needed.
2) "Age Please!", where a "guardian account" associates the birthdate/year of one or more users to their respective accounts using the client device. This information is entered and stored client-side and is sent server-side as needed.
3) "Papers Please!" -which is what #2 will become-, where a user uses their client device to photograph their government-issued photo ID to be sent to a third-party and processed server-side.
Because we're talking about accessing an Internet-hosted service, your apparent confusion about the need to send some information to the services servers is -itself- confusing.
> You don't seem to be against age verification in principle...
I'm 100% against it. I'm 100% for guardian-controlled content-restriction policies. I'm also completely fine with a "How old is your cutie? What things do you want them to not see or do?" wizard that populates those policies with some defaults that the guardian can fine-tune if they wish to.
> It's not even about being "all niceys" it's about recognising that the concern people have is genuinely held, and addressing it.
An equally important skill is recognizing when those concerns are not genuinely held. Anyone who should know about "Parental Controls" and chooses "Papers Please!" or "Age Please!" is evil. Lawmakers and regulators pushing for this stuff are in this bucket. Anyone who -once introduced to the concept- claims to see no world in which "Parental Controls" can be beefed up and also claims that "Age Please!" or "Papers Please!" is the only viable option is -at minimum- unrecoverably stupid, and is probably also evil.
> I suppose you missed the part where I said
The part that I quoted? That would be quite a feat. Either way I think it's definitely a choice to entirely ignore what a country is doing in this area due to historical reasons, when the country you're interested in making changes to appears to be doing worse.
> Mmm. No, there are three systems being described here.
There are more than three options here. Here are more possibilities (already in use in some places) -
4. Service providers make an informed guess about who might be a kid, based on usage patterns and scanning the pictures they've uploaded.
5. Anonymous credentials systems, as described in the link in my first post that you responded to.
Neither of these is a 'papers please' solution.
> your apparent confusion about the need to send some information to the services servers is -itself- confusing.
So you're also implicitly ignoring solution 6, which a lot of people elsewhere in this thread are arguing for, which is parents using existing parental control systems built into their devices, which work 100% client side?
> I'm 100% for guardian-controlled content-restriction policies.
That's age verification of a sort by the guardian, enforced server-side. So no, you're not against these systems in principle, you're just proposing a solution that you find palatable.
> Anyone who should know about "Parental Controls" and chooses "Papers Please!" or "Age Please!" is evil.
Why? Parental controls at the moment are patchy, poorly understood and certainly don't operate in the way you're proposing they should in future. It's easy to see why people might declare that such schemes are inadequate.
I am finding it very funny that you are determined to put yourself in the category of "People Nursie disagrees with because they dismiss the entire thing as a conspiracy", even while you're not actually doing that, you're arguing in good faith and I applaud it!
> So you're also implicitly ignoring solution 6, which a lot of people elsewhere in this thread are arguing for, which is parents using existing parental control systems built into their devices, which work 100% client side?
I'm 100% fine with those, but people report that they're "insufficient" for vague reasons. That's why I suggest we beef them up. Also...
> Why? Parental controls at the moment are patchy, poorly understood and certainly don't operate in the way you're proposing they should in future.
you seem to agree with the reports I'm hearing. That's why I suggest beefing them up.
> The part that I quoted? That would be quite a feat.
One that you managed, somehow. Gratz.
> ...they dismiss the entire thing as a conspiracy
Unless you're using the "Two or more people get together to plan something" definition of the word "conspiracy" -which happens to neatly cover planning to go to lunch-, I don't consider this to be a conspiracy. [0]
> There are more than three options here.
I was only discussing three, and I'm sure we can come up with way more than five in total, but sure, let's go.
> 4. Service providers make an informed guess...
That's happening now and has been for a while now. We all see how willing the larger operators are to rely on their guesses rather than relying on the judgment of a third-party. Having said that... when last I checked, 4chan was one of the operators who are doing the noble thing in the face of all this hysteria. [1] It sure is something when 4chan is on the right side of an issue and the big guys aren't.
> 5. Anonymous credentials systems...
They're absolutely not going to be anonymous in practice. As I mentioned earlier:
> That's age verification of a sort by the guardian...
Absolutely not. Do explain where the restricted account has either its age, documents that contain its user's age, or documents that can be used to look up its user's age entered into it. A helpful hint is to ask yourself how you'd distinguish between the content restrictions set for a precocious eleven-year-old and those set for an adult suffering from both PTSD and advanced dementia who needs to be protected from both scammers and graphic depictions of sex and violence.
[0] Yes, I read ahead to the end of the sentence I quoted. The statement to which this footnote is attached is included for completeness' sake.
[1] <https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c624330lg1ko>
> Unless you're using the "Two or more people get together to plan something" definition of the word "conspiracy" -which happens to neatly cover planning to go to lunch-, I don't consider this to be a conspiracy.
Yes that's the entire point of this whole thread, congrats for getting there in the end.
You don't consider this a conspiracy.
People like the article author do, and in doing so they miss the mark on having any effect on the wider conversation because they aren't willing to even acknowledge the existence of the problem. You are actually engaging with the topic and putting forwards ideas and engaging with solutions. You have thoughts about how something might be made to work. You are not who I1 am complaining about.
(As an aside, why not actually try reading the link about anonymous credentials? It's very informative and it shows you what's possible even if you're too cynical to believe anyone would ever implement it)