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Comment by codedokode | Hacker News Reader

There is actually a way to prove the age anonymously. Yubikey-like devices support attestation - they can have a private key proving authenticity of a device.

So some organization could release Yubikeys with a certain private key and distribute them in stores that allow only adult customers - like liquor stores or sex shops. Owning a key proves that one is adult without disclosing identity. Keys support USB and bluetooth and can be easily supported on any device.

Also, OS developers should implement simple parent mode - such that parents only need to flip a switch and set a password, and do not have to whitelist apps or websites - the OS should use government-provided lists. You might not like the government, but 99% of parents do not want to bother compiling white lists manually.

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The problem with that is, parents be like:

>Here kid, take my key, go get me some beer.

Everyone everywhere gets forced to deal with bullshit, then the people it is supposed to be protecting circumvent it directly.

The same can happen with any type of authentication, unless you are ok with someone pointing a webcam and authenticating you non stop.

No, I think there are parents who would find a long enough webcam cable to point the cam at themselves while Jeff Epstein is grooming their kids in roblox.

The core point is that it isn't my responsiblity to take care of your children. When less than half of millennials (40% men, 55% women) have children, the "think of the children" catchphrase really starts to fall flat. Why should I think of the children? I don't even have children. It's the parents' problem, not mine. Stop making it my problem.

This is underselling it -- an adult can sell these yubikeys untraceably, pocket the cash, and never think about it again in their life.

If we tie the person's identity to the token (THIS IS A BAD IDEA) then if underage use is detected, the adult who sold the token can be prosecuted for selling adult tokens to minors.

An adult could also sell alcohol or drugs to minors so what? Should we add a code to every bottle and require passport to buy them?

Adults can be prosecuted for selling alcohol to minors (I mean, they can be prosecuted for selling drugs to other adults even). Because there is a physical handoff, there is risk in doing so, and thus there is high friction, which we deem to be sufficient to curtail the risk.

No such friction or accountability can possibly exist when we're talking about a bunch of yubikeys, unless we attach identity to them (THIS IS A BAD IDEA).

It it not difficult to make selling age verification tokens to minors illegal.

It is the easiest thing in the world to make it illegal. But while making the sale of alcohol to minors has some teeth, as above, the sale of these "tokens" is so low friction as to be laughable.

This is another of the many many solutions in the "the age limitations that exist currently are easily circumvented" class. While it may be effective in some limited ways, it's not clear that it's better than say parental controls. And it is obviously deficient compared to identity verification solutions that do not preserve anonymity. You can't pretend that this solution is "just as good" when it isn't. The identity verification solution is bad not because it is ineffective at its direct aims but because it has disastrous side effects.

When I was 8 or 9, my Father would often give me 50p to go down to the nearby pub to get him 20 cigarettes and a half-pound bar of chocolate, which came to 48p. Always "and where's my change then?" when I returned. Tight git.

Sounds like your father would have noticed a missing cigarette.

Also, let's be honest, outside of some loud privacy concerned voices, most people don't care and they will prefer to scan their faces with the phone they have at home which is an action they are already used to do than to spend money to buy some nerdy device.

Phones have the nerdy device built into them too (secure elements/TPM chips) — it should be pretty easy to have the TPM-based key verified by the government once.

But even if it just confirmed adult vs under 18, it would allow for easy segregation and building a database of kids.

That's just one of dozens of ways it could be done, hundreds probably. But ultimately proving that you're an adult is not the point, the point has always been profiling people with the excuse of that. Most of these verifications are done by Palantir shell corps even.

I can already generate a QR code that proofs my age anonymously. It's signed by the goverment. There are libraries to check the QR code. No extra device needed.

How can you be sure that it is anonymous? And why it is not used instead of selfies?

It's an open and documented standard. There are open source implementation.

You're missing the point. The complaints are consistently that age/children is just an excuse for control. Your comment is ironically, "offtopic". The rage is about forced identification.

Although, pointing out how actual age verification would work won't hurt. It helps to make it more clear that these pending laws are draconian.

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