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Comment by saghm | Hacker News Reader

This is a sacrifice we just have to be willing to make as a society if we want to project kids from the horror of using the internet

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I think there's a number of people reading this who clearly didn't detect the satirical nature of this single sentence. It's blunt and obvious, but even so...

Yeah, I thought it was obvious enough, but then again, I also seem to get a lot of disagreement every time I directly express the opinion that ID verification for internet use is a terrible idea, so I have no confidence which side the downvotes came from (maybe both!)

The politicians really want to know who to prosecute if someone on the internet says bad things (about them).

This is precisely why the authority doing these checks needs to be the government that already issues the IDs.

Using ZKP as the EU proposes is the only way to prevent this data being leaked to unreliable third parties and leaves the knowledge with the institution it derives from in the first place.

I don't know why HN rails against it constantly, it is the obvious technical and organizational solution to this issue.

Government systems leak information all the time. The type of institution managing the data makes little difference. Its how the institution manages the data that matters.

But the government inherently has that data, as it comes from there. They're the ones issuing the IDs in the first place.

Theres no avoiding this, structurally. So the best thing you can do is not to introduce any additional points of failure.

All previous systems avoided this. The government issued me an ID in the past, yet had no record of when I used it, or for what.

I am so much more afraid of monopolies invading my privacy than roving hackers, or my corner store. Governments are the ultimate monopoly.

The government doesn't know what you use your ID for in a properly implemented ZKP system, either.

And clearly, the alternative is not the corner store. It's private monopolies building databases of 153M IDs.

I think the point is that if I have to use some system to tell the government "this is me", that's pretty much equivalent to the ID. It doesn't matter that they have the info already, it's that I now need to send them it in order to use the internet to like, file my taxes or send a message to my doctor or pay my electricity bill or any number of mundane things that aren't particularly worth the extra attack vector to try to protect against.

I think you're conflating a few things here.

With ZKP, you specifically don't have to do that. That's precisely what the Zero Knowledge in Zero Knowledge Proof means. Those are good for stuff like age checks.

But for the other stuff, of course you need to tell the government who you are??? How else are you gonna pay your taxes? Just send them some money anonymously and hope that settles it? Of course they need to know who's paying their taxes?

> But for the other stuff, of course you need to tell the government who you are??? How else are you gonna pay your taxes? Just send them some money anonymously and hope that settles it? Of course they need to know who's paying their taxes?

The fact that the things that require me to identify myself for functional reasons already do is exactly why it's ridiculous to propose that I do it in order to use the internet at all.

Something having downsides but being worthwhile for certain purposes doesn't mean that it's reasonable to require it in all circumstances. Pumping your body with radiation is not something you want to do in most circumstances, but it's worthwhile sometimes as a way to try to kill cancer cells before they kill you. Transmitting information that can be used to impersonate you is useful if you want to pay taxes, but that's no reason to think that it would be better to do literally every time you open a browser.

It is European which means that it is both anti-capitalist and communist and therefore must be spit upon.

> I don't know why HN rails against it [ZKP for age verification] constantly

Because on its own as often presented, it still has the glaring shortcoming that anybody can proxy an ID verification for anybody else without any form of accountability for having done so. Which means that the only way for it to actually be secure is for the implementation to also required locked down computing devices. Hence why the EU scheme insists on proprietary Apple/Google devices, and why Google research has written nerd sniping blog posts to market it.

There, now you know!

> Because on its own as often presented, it still has the glaring shortcoming that anybody can proxy an ID verification for anybody else without any form of accountability for having done so.

As do physical IDs, as somebody who's bought his younger brother beers growing up.

No, that's proxying the service. Presumably if your younger brother had asked you to buy ten handles of pure grain alcohol, you would have asked some questions.

Proxying the credential means something like letting your brother use your ID. But note there are still avenues of accountability here - for your brother if he would have gotten caught, and possibly for you for loaning him your ID.

These dynamics don't translate to Internet scale, where all it takes is literally one person to go "I disagree with this age check scheme on principle, and I will proxy my credential to anyone who asks".

At any rate, you had started off saying you didn't understand why there was criticism and now you know why, regardless of whether you accept that criticism.

I still don't understand why the simplest approach isn't used: ban kids from using the Internet unsupervised. There's really no good reason why a six year old should have internet access.

The argument is that there are parents who are too stupid/lazy to enable parental controls on kids devices and society has a duty to protect kids even if their parents are negligent. Also, kids interact with other kids, so even if you do everything right your kids wind up with access/peer pressure through the kids with bad parents.

I dunno if I agree but I think that's the thrust of it.

There are systems in place dealing with negligent parents. They could be better, but they exist. If kids were banned, there couldn't be that much peer pressure.

Think about it, how many kids will get a gun just because some of the kids have access to guns through their negligent parents? If it's banned the path to getting it won't be straightforward.

Well I guess this begs the question how do you implement this ban without checking ids?

Your ISP knows this already, doesn't it? Internet cafés can ask for ID.

Sure, your parents can give you access, but your parents could also give you booze, porn and guns if they feel so inclined.

I feel like if we can throw parents in jail for allowing their children to walk unsupervised, we can probably toss them in prison for giving them unrestricted access to the internet.

it's pretty easy to enforce that for 6 year olds. not as easy for 12 year olds.

I don't think I care as much for a twelve year old seeing age inappropriate things, as that is what I was seeking out and enjoying at that age. And that was before Internet was a thing people had in their homes. I was watching horror movies like Alien and Terminator uncut on VHS.

im not particularly concerned myself, but any ban like you propose would almost certainly go up to age 12 (at least), making it effectively impossible to enforce.

i see your other comment about guns, so just to preempt that a little bit: the internet is far more ubiquitously available than guns are.

I'm not feeling strongly about enforcement. The point would be to not have websites be liable if things go wrong, the way that breweries aren't responsible if some drunk teen drives to his death.

Enforcement of banning alcohol for younglings (or drunk driving in general) is equally tricky, but it doesn't mean that it shouldn't be banned.

>The point would be to not have websites be liable if things go wrong

im mostly on board with that.

>Enforcement of banning alcohol for younglings (or drunk driving in general) is equally tricky

alcohol bans are way easier to enforce.

the internet is invisibly broadcast everywhere. most of my downtown & surrounding area has free wifi access. devices that can connect to the internet are also everywhere. phones, tablets, tvs, fridges, etc.

on the other hand, alcohol comes from licensed stores and requires a physical transaction to take place.

Without a device that you need to get from a physical transaction you won't be accessing the internet, either.

There are all kinds of restrictions on alcohol now. They haven't been there since the invention of alcohol, though.

All the kids will be safe now they're logging into porn sites as Pete Hegseth.

Only after they've had their mandatory scrotum inspection and testosterone check to join the military at age 18.

You guy don't have to show cock and balls to the military commission? It's a standard practice in post-Communist countries, including NATO ones.

There's a guy in the US military intake processing facility (MEPS) whose job is, among other things, to inspect your bunghole

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=MEPS+assh...

But more serious and non joking answer, the new thing from the "department of war" is testosterone level lab exams for existing servicemembers.

https://news.google.com/search?q=US%20military%20testosteron...

so... for military grade identification systems instead of face photo with id document next to it, you make banghole photo with id document next to it?

It's all good and fine until a scan of your combined face ID / bunghole ID is for sale on a russian based internet crime forum.

https://www.google.com/search?num=10&client=firefox-b-d&hs=Y...

In the olden days, the doc would hold your nuts and tell you to turn your head and cough. This was to detect if you had a hernia (which was a medical exception).

The bunghole inspection was to see if you were the receptive partner in anal intercourse because being a gay man was a criminal offense.

Allegedly, lesbianism was never outlawed because Queen Victoria was so offended by the idea of it that she prohibited the legislation from even being heard in Parliament.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_assent

How do you even conclude from inspecting a butthole that it is "a receptive one"? Every man was one butthole inspection away from being a criminal?

I mean if a poo can get out, something of its size can also go in, and quality toilet paper was not that available at all historically.

That was sarcasm.

Are you sure? It’s really hard to differentiate nowadays

> Are you sure? It’s really hard to differentiate nowadays

Case in point; I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not! :D

I cant event tell if you are being sarcastic or not :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

I am the one who said it, and I am sure. You can go back through my comment history to find me getting into arguments many times against the idea of ID verification for internet use.

Except this helps no child.

Isn't that the one that was left behind in 2002?

After a couple decades maybe it's time we do something for them!

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