Some children are drawing on fake moustaches to bypass online age checks

latexr 21 points 6 comments May 05, 2026
www.independent.co.uk · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (5 comments)

WarOnPrivacy

I supported my kids circumventing arbitrary tech restrictions. Son #3's highschool shut off 2.4GHz wifi for some reason. This was before 5Ghz was common (802.11a inc). He bridged 2 wifi adapters and made his laptop an open 2.4GHz Hotspot. I was so proud.

bitwize

And this is why you need digitally attestable government IDs, and devices that run government-approved operating systems that can securely check these IDs in a tamper-resistant way. Anything else won't survive the "three kids in a trenchcoat" problem.

ua709

This is one of those news stories that when you read it you think it’s so ridiculous, on so many levels, that it can’t possibly be true. But then I look at the calendar and I’m reminded it’s 2026, which means it probably is true.

countWSS

That a media push to make "it more secure" i.e. closer to Chinese Internet ID.

skybrian

None of this would be needed if it were up to parents to only give their kids child-locked devices, and society backed up the parents on that by making it easy to turn on child locks, not selling unlocked devices to kids, etc. Also, you should be able to block child-locked devices from reaching your website with a simple config setting that puts your website on a list, and not the same setting that causes Google to think you're a porn site. Also, it doesn't have to work perfectly to change kid culture.

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