Comment by xorcist | Hacker News Reader

Comment by xorcist | Hacker News Reader

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> all you have to do to bypass age verification is steal their ID for a few minutes?

There are numerous interesting and/or problematic aspects of this, but this question is perhaps the least interesting.

If your kid, or anyone else really, steals your ID then age verification is the least of your problems. They could transfer all your money, move house, get married, change your name or a myriad of other much more serious things. Willingly letting your kid use your ID would be borderline illegal and not an insurance in the world would cover it.

> literally over 2.5 million

These people have never borrowed a book, visited a doctor, paid taxes or opened a bank account? There are many things in society that require validating who you are. Surely they have some form of ID. Perhaps just a more insecure one than a cryptographically signed.

I don't think a federal identity is as far fetched as you make it sound, for better and for worse.

> If your kid, or anyone else really, steals your ID then age verification is the least of your problems. They could transfer all your money, move house, get married, change your name or a myriad of other much more serious things. Willingly letting your kid use your ID would be borderline illegal and not an insurance in the world would cover it.

Yes, for most people, your kid absolutely could accomplish all of that. I absolutely could've done that as a kid. This is well-documented, you can find many cases of it actually happening. Kids can also steal your car keys and crash it, they do that. It's just that most kids don't just randomly go and commit crimes like steal all of your money, but they absolutely lie about being 18 and bypass restrictions meant for them. (Like for example, clicking 'I am 18' on websites when they're not. I've never done that, of course.)

> These people have never borrowed a book, visited a doctor, paid taxes or opened a bank account? There are many things in society that require validating who you are. Surely they have some form of ID. Perhaps just a more insecure one than a cryptographically signed.

> I don't think a federal identity is as far fetched as you make it sound, for better and for worse.

There's a lot of Americans who would have some choice words about that, and I suspect that is why we have 2.5 million Americans with no form of photo ID.

Also, I actually agree a federal ID is generally doable. I don't think it's a good solution for this problem, and I think it will be very difficult to enforce this one in the U.S. for cultural reasons.

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