To add to the list: KYC/AML-like regulations and practices (not necessarily financial) that shift the responsibility down the chain, outside the accountability zone, and result in preventive overly broad risk avoidance, self-censorship, and manipulation of your Overton window. See for example DMCA vs YouTube practices vs what actual channels choose to do to dodge both. Or algospeak. Or the PayPal situation which is mentioned in the article.
But it's all talk. Political pressure is like gas pressure. Gas expands to fill the available volume. What do you actually do to push back, besides talking about it on the web? This defines the available volume, if you don't do anything it's infinite.
> Pass laws requiring companies that use third party age or ID verification to take full legal culpability for that data. If any of the data is leaked they must pay each party $1 million dollars regardless of how or why the data was leaked. 300 identities leaked or sold? That will be 300 million dollars not counting criminal penalties. Should this lead to bankruptcy then it is working as intended as they are clearly not qualified to be guardians of this data much less the guardians of your children.
I wonder why the rating code is so complex. Pornhub.com has this code enabled, but it also uses a simpler <meta name="rating" content="adult">. 4chan also uses the latter.
There is no need for id. IMO granting children access to the internet is no different than handing a child a loaded gun with no safety. Both should be treated the same way. Make it illegal for parents or any adult to:
- purchase an internet capable device for anyone under the age of 18 (or whatever age is deemed appropriate to allow unfettered access without any ID)
- allow anyone under the age of 18 (or ##) to operate a device connected to the internet
That removes the government's attempted false flag operations to use "children's access to the internet" as the excuse to obtain the right to monitor every second of your online activity for the rest of your life.
And simultaneously likely saves our children's brains.
Edit: Hyperbole is an easy accusation. But the concept is straight forward:
If the internet is so dangerous as to require everyone to have government issued ID to get online, then change the law preventing smartphones and other internet mobile devices to be possessed by children. That's easy to do.
Put the burden on parents where it belongs to monitor their children in their own homes just as they do as gun owners (required to use gun lockers etc). If you are ok with your 10 year old being in his/her room online without you monitoring, then imo that's probably child abuser, but hey, go for it.
I feel genuinely conflicted: On the one hand I get the "authoritarian overreach heebie-jeebies", that I think a lot of people on HN probably share. On the other hand I'd also really like the West to harden its election processes from election interference by its adversaries (e.g. Russia) - and shoring up dysinfo on e.g. Facebook by requiring users to prove their identity with a government ID is one of the only ways to truly effectively combat this at its source (fact-checking just can't keep up with a firehose of dysinformation). Ideally I'd want "real id requirements" to be limited " partake in public discourse" (mainly Facebook and Twitter). But the slippery slop argument just feels pretty strong here too - once a mechanism like this is in place, its use will only ever expand, and it's much easier for a new government to commit overreach if it's already there and just needs expanding. And of course all this "think of the children" nonsense needs to stop.
What is the final defense? I suppose we create underground relay networks of radio networks within cities that allow for computers to connect directly to eachother, and from there we seed all our pirated content and discuss whatever the hell we'd like.
Maybe we'd have to contend with low bandwidth when we connect outside our own city network, using larger wavelength radio to bounce off the ionosphere across the planet.
As for the FCC, I don't really care. I will set up nodes on top of abandoned buildings. I will set up nodes in front of the local FCC field office. I will set up nodes in the middle of the forest. I will set up nodes on buoys out at sea. They may capture me or worse, so be it. I will not be around forever anyhow.
I pray there are still actual hackers out there on hacker news who might consider this idea and help further the technical side. This is a little out of my wheelhouse. I just can't accept this inevitable incoming future where all our communications will be IDed and censored. That is the end game for them. We can't allow for that to happen. This might be the biggest battle yet, bigger than all the other wars where power used us like pawns against the pawns of some other power, because for once in the history of civilization, we'd be fighting for our own right and not some elite group's right. I hope I am not alone in this line of thinking.
As much as I am completely against this in spirit, all that is needed is restricted access to frontier models and then it just a question of how do you want to see my papers sir?
… and over time you find you have become an ISP for child p*rn distributors, and that your only choice is whether you want to know it or not (Auschwitz guards recommend the second option, however that’s not available for unbroken human beings).
Yes, Mr. Market will pay you handsomely for helping someone anonymously stream a torture of kidnapped child.
No, as a society, we decided we don't want that to happen even though it is technically possible.
There are horrible people, and they are drawn as moths to any oblivious operator willing to close his eyes (sorry, wanted to say "use e2e encryption" of course).
In the world where people with authority lie casually and bots are cheaper and smarter than people, anonymity does not grant freedom or empower democracy anymore. West is hopelessly outgunned to modern polit&propaganda technologies of russia and China, still citing 1984 like this is 20th century.
We lost this war when we got bamboozled into putting the V-Chip into televisions.
The obvious tradeoff was that we should have been able to have all forms of offensive and pornographic choices on the public airwaves, because we've given those who are concerned the tools to explicitly block it. (not that "unplugging the set when the parents weren't around" wasn't a viable tool already).
We never got that.
I do wonder how much of it is directly that the "won't someone think of the children" demographic is politically loud and courtable in and of itself, and how much of it has been fostered by firms that see it as a conduit for more nefarious aims (i. e. commercial social providers who want desperately for a legal CYA so they don't have to do the dance of COPPA compliance and have an incentive in the verified demographic details age attestation provides)
we are having similar issues here in Australia with the government very quickly trying to become the overall "Lord of our Lives". Digital Id, banning kids from whatever/whenever the government dreams up another idea "to keep them (and us) safe". Nope, that is the job of the parents. Digital currency is another "awesome" idea, as far as they are concerned. Because, you see, we should not travel too far or eat too much meat, etc. And the "good old" Agenda 2030, where it sounds so wonderful, where "you will own nothing and be happy". Of course that won't include the elites - they will be very happy and own everything
Friendly reminder this is lobbied into existence by advertising companies since the advent of AI they aren't sure what is real traffic anymore, tying all traffic to a government ID solves that.
Looking at that page, it cites the rating string "RTA-5042-1996-1400-1577-RTA" with no indication what those numbers mean or why the RTA is repeated. Googling that string, it just seems to be some random fixed token. Why have we got this nonsense?
Also, why is this restricted to only marking up adult sites? There should be an equivalent for marking sites that are specifically designed for children (e.g. educational material) and specifically tested as designed for adults but safe for children (e.g. news).
Without the safe opt-in, this scheme can never work, as the majority of the sites will be considered safe for children when they are not, and nobody will be able to trust it. Better to have an opt-in safe marker, and some enforcement against websites that mark their content as child-safe when it's not.
An example of why you need to force people to opt-in is e.g. HTTPS, which was available for years but only really taken up by banking websites etc. It was only adopted by everybody when it was enforced by the browser. Until website owners are forced to take an action to explicitly mark their content as safe or adult, it simply won't happen at scale.
22 comments
[ 0.28 ms ] story [ 43.7 ms ] threadBut it's all talk. Political pressure is like gas pressure. Gas expands to fill the available volume. What do you actually do to push back, besides talking about it on the web? This defines the available volume, if you don't do anything it's infinite.
I wonder why the rating code is so complex. Pornhub.com has this code enabled, but it also uses a simpler <meta name="rating" content="adult">. 4chan also uses the latter.
Denial about requiring basic KYC is causing all sorts of perverse solutions. Accept the requirement so we can have a sensible technical solution.
- purchase an internet capable device for anyone under the age of 18 (or whatever age is deemed appropriate to allow unfettered access without any ID)
- allow anyone under the age of 18 (or ##) to operate a device connected to the internet
That removes the government's attempted false flag operations to use "children's access to the internet" as the excuse to obtain the right to monitor every second of your online activity for the rest of your life.
And simultaneously likely saves our children's brains.
Edit: Hyperbole is an easy accusation. But the concept is straight forward:
If the internet is so dangerous as to require everyone to have government issued ID to get online, then change the law preventing smartphones and other internet mobile devices to be possessed by children. That's easy to do.
Put the burden on parents where it belongs to monitor their children in their own homes just as they do as gun owners (required to use gun lockers etc). If you are ok with your 10 year old being in his/her room online without you monitoring, then imo that's probably child abuser, but hey, go for it.
What are we talking about?
There are no laws that will turn out well.
Maybe we'd have to contend with low bandwidth when we connect outside our own city network, using larger wavelength radio to bounce off the ionosphere across the planet.
As for the FCC, I don't really care. I will set up nodes on top of abandoned buildings. I will set up nodes in front of the local FCC field office. I will set up nodes in the middle of the forest. I will set up nodes on buoys out at sea. They may capture me or worse, so be it. I will not be around forever anyhow.
I pray there are still actual hackers out there on hacker news who might consider this idea and help further the technical side. This is a little out of my wheelhouse. I just can't accept this inevitable incoming future where all our communications will be IDed and censored. That is the end game for them. We can't allow for that to happen. This might be the biggest battle yet, bigger than all the other wars where power used us like pawns against the pawns of some other power, because for once in the history of civilization, we'd be fighting for our own right and not some elite group's right. I hope I am not alone in this line of thinking.
You want access to Fable? Show us your ID.
As much as I am completely against this in spirit, all that is needed is restricted access to frontier models and then it just a question of how do you want to see my papers sir?
Yes, Mr. Market will pay you handsomely for helping someone anonymously stream a torture of kidnapped child.
No, as a society, we decided we don't want that to happen even though it is technically possible.
There are horrible people, and they are drawn as moths to any oblivious operator willing to close his eyes (sorry, wanted to say "use e2e encryption" of course).
The obvious tradeoff was that we should have been able to have all forms of offensive and pornographic choices on the public airwaves, because we've given those who are concerned the tools to explicitly block it. (not that "unplugging the set when the parents weren't around" wasn't a viable tool already).
We never got that.
I do wonder how much of it is directly that the "won't someone think of the children" demographic is politically loud and courtable in and of itself, and how much of it has been fostered by firms that see it as a conduit for more nefarious aims (i. e. commercial social providers who want desperately for a legal CYA so they don't have to do the dance of COPPA compliance and have an incentive in the verified demographic details age attestation provides)
Cool. Thanks for the memories, internet.
Also, why is this restricted to only marking up adult sites? There should be an equivalent for marking sites that are specifically designed for children (e.g. educational material) and specifically tested as designed for adults but safe for children (e.g. news).
Without the safe opt-in, this scheme can never work, as the majority of the sites will be considered safe for children when they are not, and nobody will be able to trust it. Better to have an opt-in safe marker, and some enforcement against websites that mark their content as child-safe when it's not.
An example of why you need to force people to opt-in is e.g. HTTPS, which was available for years but only really taken up by banking websites etc. It was only adopted by everybody when it was enforced by the browser. Until website owners are forced to take an action to explicitly mark their content as safe or adult, it simply won't happen at scale.