Think of the children: How to force real ID for all internet traffic (2023)

orbital-decay

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.

mentalgear

> 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.

big85

<meta name="RATING" content="RTA-5042-1996-1400-1577-RTA" /> 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.

nonethewiser

Porn companies should be held liable for distributing porn to minors. Its already illegal. Denial about requiring basic KYC is causing all sorts of perverse solutions. Accept the requirement so we can have a sensible technical solution.

zapataband1

Taylor Lorenz has been sounding the alarm. Peter Thiel and all his pets have been pushing the same narrative https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0RRxR4LvK4&t=661s

keernan

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.

teddyh

20 years before that, there was “ The Digital Imprimatur ”: < https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/ >

edoceo

There has got to be a way to assert that a user is human, and over some age, without having to identify which specific human that is.

nodrog3000

Simple solution, Use your router to block whatever you need to, control your kids devices, the internet stays free and open. What are we talking about? There are no laws that will turn out well.

m12k

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.

asdff

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.

Svoka

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.

hakfoo

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)

Buttons840

I fully expect anonymity to disappear, but also certain causes will still be supported by massive amounts of bot accounts.