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System76 on Age Verification Laws (blog.system76.com)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.zip
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[–] 25 points 8 months ago (26 children)

Its a local, safe option for reducing child access to things they shouldn’t access.

With the proposed measures in place, any app can know exactly which devices children are using, something noone can do now.

When you implement a feature, there's no way in the world you can guarantee only "good people" can use it, and malicious individuals are way more interested in getting info about children than anyone else.

That doesn't protect children, it puts them even in more danger than they are now.

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  • [+] -8 points 8 months ago (25 children)

    I mean, from my understanding, this would be both hyper-illegal and extremely impractical. You'd need to have a large enough site to lure users in, and collect identitying information and republish it, but can't draw enough attention to become a target for data poisoning (given that this flag is freely set by the user) or for law enforcement. It seems like this would be unlikely enough that the benifit gained from having this flag would far outweigh the risks, esspecially in the modern, hyper-corporate internet.

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  • [–] 19 points 8 months ago* (2 children)

    Individual sites will have their data leaked then aggregated by data brokers. Those data brokers both sell the aggregated data and experience data leaks themselves. The data keeps moving from actor to actor while the aggregation is continued until eventually finding it's way into a public repo or security researcher data sets.

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  • [–] -2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 child)

    This is a compelling argument, but do you think its really a significant attack vector? Its already illegal to share or leak (even unintentionally) this data, and from my understanding, if you chose to set your age to a lower bracket via this process, companies sharing (also collecting? Currently unclear on this.) this data would also break CCPA and possibly COPPA, and from my understanding, the companies are required to provide additional data privacy measures under California Civil Code.

    Yes, these laws will be broken, but will it be on a significant enough scale, and with reliable enough information to be worth-while? Like, since this bans the use of data from those who set their age low, wouldn't this likely reduce the data collection pool overall, not to mention inventiving adults to poison this data. For those who do illegally collect this data anyway, is it that much of an advantage compared to just asking the user's age upon reaching the site as most sites currently do? Beyond that, when these sites operating illegally do leak their data, will that data be a realistic attack vector? Like I said to another commenter, collating data in this way seems extremely impractical and unreliable for predators. Wouldn't those who want to seek out children just go to existing spaces where they can connect directly like Roblox or Discord? Like, don't get me wrong, I don't like data collection, but compared to everything else, this seems like a relatively unreliable and unhelpful data point, esspecially given all the legal restrictions.

    Edit: also, would be interested to hear if your opinion changes if even storing this value is illegal, if unnecessary data collection as a whole is banned, and/or if this value has a legally defined default of using the 18+ value, and doesn't have to be made obvious in account setup.

    Edit 2: Also, wantted to say thanks for responding genuinely and with a well-articulated argument. I know the Fediverse tends to be very... unfriendly... towards anything that may impact privacy and towards government regulation in general, so your civility is really appreciated.

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  • [+] 1 point 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 child)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

    Honestly, I re-read the legislation, and I while I'm still not convinced something like this is a bad idea, all the specifics are.

    Like, ultimately, its a user-set flag, stored locally, and would provide users more choice in content filtering. That could be useful, for parents and non-parents alike.

    Most people are going to provide accurate data so the amount of people trying to poison is low enough that the brokers still get good data along with new data showing who wants to poison broker data.

    You're right, and the design of this law basically ensures that. I was thinking of it being implemented (at least in user-friendly UI) as a dropdown showing the four provided age brackets. Instead, it is required to be a numeric or date of birth input, seemingly without allowing a default value, which means users are more likely to enter accurate data. Similarly, stored age information isn't required to use the brackets provided. This means that a lazy or immoral developer will use the exact age, rather than abstracting it as the law suggests. I had misinterpreted 1798.500. (b) and thought that the abstraction of age data as suggested was required.

    If something like this is to be implemented, it needs to use a more abstracted format (ideally with a default value), and if its going to be implemented into law, it should be a better, more granular system of content filter than simply using an age-based metric.

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  • [–] 12 points 8 months ago (14 children)

    would be both hyper-illegal and extremely impractical

    Does that ever stopped criminals before?

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  • [+] -7 points 8 months ago (13 children)

    illegal

    Yes, in that they can be stopped if noticed. Police are incompetent, but if something is that bad, and draws enough attention, the person will generally be arrested.

    extremely impractical

    Yes, all the time. Thats why safes, passwords and similar exist. Or, more relevant in this case, the adage that the best way to avoid a break-in is to be a less appealing target than your neighbors. Roblox, Minecraft, Discord, and other platforms where kids gather and regularly self-identify are still going to exist, and they are far safer and far more appealing for targetted abuse of children. On the other hand, setting up a public website/app and trying to lure children to it is expensive, risky, and unlikely to succeed on the modern internet.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago (12 children)

    On the other hand, setting up a public website/app and trying to lure children to it is expensive, risky, and unlikely to succeed on the modern internet.

    Right, when has any website become a platform where kids gather and regularly self-identify?

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  • [–] -1 points 8 months ago (11 children)

    You're completely ignoring my argument. How many of these websites where children gather and self-identity are created and maintained by paedophiles specifically to prey on childen? So far as I know, there has never been a site like this on the modern internet, nonetheless one that remains up and has been running for an extended period. I don't see any reason to expect this to change.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (9 children)

    How many of these websites where children gather and self-identity are created and maintained by paedophiles specifically to prey on childen?

    In light of the Epstein files I would hesitate to say that number is zero. Nevermind that most such platforms are smaller than the giants you mentioned. Or that anyone working for or with kid-filled sites of any size could make it incidentally about preying on said kids. Apparently people manage when they're just anonymous users.

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  • [–] -1 points 8 months ago* (8 children)

    Or that anyone working for or with kid-filled sites of any size could make it incidentally about preying on said kids. Apparently people manage when they're just anonymous users.

    But like, thats exactly my point. Its platforms like Roblox that predators seek out to prey on children. They don't create their own. An age verification law will have no effect on that. A hidden backend value thats illegal to share doesn't make it significantly easier for predators. Even if they did have unrestricted access to user data, wouldn't a hundred other variables better identify vulnerable users, like use of voice chat and past text messages? Hell, I would expect children with the age flag left at a default value to be more vulnerable, given that it would likely mean the parent is less likely to be tech-savy and/or less likely to be paying attention to their child, but again, its ambiguous.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (7 children)

    'This law is fine because it won't affect child predators' is a brave argument.

    What is it for? You've found so many ways to say it's toothless, optional, trivially dodged. So why fucking bother? Critics seem to agree, it's a foot in the door for all of the other privacy-defeating efforts going on, now running in protection ring zero. What does this nonsense do, besides set off those red flags? What impact do you honestly expect, versus telling websites to have an '18+ only' click-through?

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  • [–] -2 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    'This law is fine because it won't affect child predators' is a brave argument.

    This obviously isn't the argument I'm making. This law obviously isn't meant to stop predators. Its meant to provide a parental control option for parents to limit their own children's access to potentially harmfull or mature materials.

    Critics seem to agree, it's a foot in the door for all of the other privacy-defeating efforts going on, now running in protection ring zero. What does this nonsense do, besides set off those red flags?

    This huge uproar is the point of my confusion. You and others in the field seem certain that this is a direct first step towards ID and AI data collection. Meanwhile, before this, I actually saw this occasionally proposed as a good option in privacy-related blogs/communities specifically because it was optional and entirely handled by the users.

    What impact do you honestly expect, versus telling websites to have an '18+ only' click-through?

    More convenience for adults (not having to click "yes" every time), and having a more effective way of slowing down children accessing content that might be dangerous. For example, if I was a parent who had access to this, I'd likely set up two accounts for my kids: one set to 18+ for when I'm directly supervising them, and one set to under 18 for when I'm supervising them less thoroughly.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    Software freely adding an option to somehow report 'this user is underage' is unavoidably distinct from the government mandating any form of requesting, storing, or sharing the user's age.

    Even if you honestly believe there's no connection to states demanding ID collection before looking at porn - how can you not understand the people recoiling at this? 'I get it but you're mistaken' would see a polite argument. Your apparent bewilderment is inexplicable. 'Microsoft legally requires your birthdate before you boot up and the internet will work differently based on that' must be a dark aside in some Cory Doctorow story. How is it our actual reality, which some people think is normal?

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  • [–] -1 points 8 months ago* (4 children)

    Well, from a privacy/freedom standpoint, how is this different from a website requiring you to enter your age and/or asking you to confirm that you're 18? They record your age, store it with your data, then let you continue (or don't). The fact that baffles me is that this is widely accepted as standard practice, and not a significant privacy concern, while having an account-level flag that does the exact same thing isn't. Like, is it because its managed by the browser/OS/app store? In that case, why isn't there the same backlash against the existance of things like system theme flags, user agents, and even usernames.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago* (3 children)

    As if there's no backlash for those things! No popular culture reflecting the baby boom on January 1st, 1900. No widespread browser plugins to make e-mail nags and sign-in pop-ups fuck off.

    As if legally mandatory age reporting is in any way the same thing as haphazard adoption of a Dark Mode flag. Wikipedia's not even smart enough to make Automatic the default.

    On some level, a website named Porn Hub needing an interstitial that says 'btw, you might see tits' is the original sin of the internet. It's borne of the same puritanical horseshit that tried banning pornography entirely. It's not about children. They're the excuse. This ongoing moral panic uses them in a widespread and not entirely unsuccessful effort to deny adult-ass adults the things that most of them want. This has been happening my entire life, and yours, and is why I cannot respect the hair-splitting insistence that forcing your OS to report your age is - somehow! - totally unrelated, utterly disconnected, having nothing to do with the many conservative governments who want to track every video you ever jerked off to.

    For the children.

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  • [–] -3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    I'm trying to give you the benifit of the doubt, but at this point you seem to increasing be resorting to insults, and arguing against stawmen, to the point where I'm having trouble even understanding what you're saying. I'm doing my best to remain respectful and civil, but you aren't returning the favour. That said, I am trying to give you a chance, and want to be open to being convinced. So...

    If I understand what you're trying to say, you think there should never be any prompt, warning, or other safety measure on any content? Not gore videos, not dating sites, not shock sites? Am I understanding you correctly, and if not, can you please restate your argument more clearly.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I don't think I've said shit about you, as a person, beyond 'your arguments are bad and you should feel bad,' with an abundant side of 'and here's why.' You're getting the toned-down version of reflexive sarcasm at some baffling things you continue to say. By all means, let loose, because blunt honesty might get us closer to sharing the same reality.

    I've already linked to where I said, content warnings good, age gating bad. You think this should replace all 'I am 18' prompts.

    I've belabored the distinction between freely adopted implementation and any form of state enforcement. Like, there's plenty wrong with user-agent strings, but even a simple requirement to accurately report browser version would be quietly horrifying. Robbing software developers of the ability to say 'that was a bad security decision, let's just not do it,' is intrinsically fucked.

    If you need it restated:

    I despise the idea of my own damn machine needing to know my birthdate. Largely, but not entirely, because that points toward verification demands which you agree would be intolerable. The internet should not work differently based on who you are.

    I don't think this law will achieve anything worthwhile, and I'm not convinced you do either. Your defense of it is full of things I would say as condemnation.

    I fully expect this to get worse, based on all recent visible trends. Countries are banning young people from using entire categories of website. Glorified chatrooms are asking to see your driver's license. The last thing a liberated internet needs is more personal information.

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  • [–] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

    even a simple requirement to accurately report browser version would be quietly horrifying

    Maybe this is where the confusion comes from. The reason I think this is an acceptable idea, is specifically because there is no requirement for it to be accurate, and technically, it doesn't seem possible to tack on a more intrusive system after the fact (owing to the fact that everything is stored locally). In effect, it seems to just be a, "filtering level" flag - something a user can chose to use (or not) to filter different types of content. This seems like its happening in parallel of government/corporate survailance, rather than in service to it.

    Robbing software developers of the ability to say 'that was a bad security decision, let's just not do it,' is intrinsically fucked.

    Actually, this is the part I have the biggest issue with - esspecially because I don't agree with some of the implementation details, like the requirement that the original input be a numerical/date input field, labeled as age rather than a bracket selection, or something else more clear and granular. At the same time, I think there is something to be said for government intervention in areas where private companies have failed to innovate/standardize, USB-C being the prime example.

    That said, honestly, thinking about how suboptimal this is, even as a content filtering system... I think you're right that this is the wrong approach. Something like flags marked for "hide sexual content", "hide gore", and "hude potentially disturbing content" would make far more sense than a set of unified age brackets. So, at least as a technical standard, consider me convinced that it shouldn't be implemented.

    Edit: I reread it and despite using the term "age bracket data" almost exclusively, the data is also not actually required to be abstracted. Given that the user is required to enter a numerical value or date, this means lazy and immoral developer will store it unabstracted, which is obviously unnecessary and makes it far less anonymous. That is completely unacceptable, esspecially for something being written into law, while far better solutions exist.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    There is no benefit.

    You can't glibly assert that people can just lie, so it's not a big deal - and then pretend it'll do the thing it's for. Which again, is a bad idea anyway, which this approach would not achieve, if it even worked. It's fractally stupid. It is dangerous bullshit, at every scale.

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  • [+] -7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

    There is no benefit.

    This is obvious hyperbole and know it. Kids are stupid and vulnerable, and measures to protect them aren't useless. That said, I am open to the idea that this law isn't worth the cost. Basically every other age verification law (esspecially those based on use ID or AI) is very clearly not. I just haven't seen a compelling argument as to why this one isn't.

    You can't glibly assert that people can just lie, so it's not a big deal - and then pretend it'll do the thing it's for. Which again, is a bad idea anyway, which this approach would not achieve, if it even worked. It's fractally stupid. It is dangerous bullshit, at every scale.

    Okay, but why? You keep repeating that its dangerous, limits freedoms, and causes privacy issues, but so far, the only argument I've seen is that it can help kids identity themselves, but given that its handled locally and is unreliable, I don't see this being usable on any meaningful scale. Setting up a, "free candy" website or app is going to be way less effective and way more dangerous than just creating a Roblox account. Is there something I'm missing?

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    Companies shouldn't even be allowed to demand more than a username and password, on any machine I could pick up and throw. Making anything beyond that a legal requirement is intolerable, in itself. My age is not this object's business. It sure isn't this website's business.

    Stop excusing these intrusions against adult life, for the sake of children who will bypass them anyway. You know they will. You use the flimsiness of this alleged protection as an excuse for enabling it. There is literally no benefit if it doesn't fucking work. Even pretending the immediate goal is something you should want - this won't do that.

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  • [–] -4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

    Companies shouldn't even be allowed to demand more than a username and password, on any machine I could pick up and throw. Making anything beyond that a legal requirement is intolerable, in itself. My age is not this object's business. It sure isn't this website's business.

    Edit, because I forgot this part: I agree to this, but it isn't realistic, unfortunately. That said, even with this law, you can still make unnecessary storage, or sharing of user data illegal.

    Stop excusing these intrusions against adult life, for the sake of children who will bypass them anyway. You know they will. You use the flimsiness of this alleged protection as an excuse for enabling it. There is literally no benefit if it doesn't fucking work. Even pretending the immediate goal is something you should want - this won't do that.

    I do know they will. The whole reason I'm even okay idea is because it is completely optional for the user. I don't see how it'll impact adult life. That is why I'm so confused at the backlash. Its asking for an option to increase user control and user choice over their experience. Hell, from my understanding, this would provide a means for users to make it actually illegal to collect any user data, but I need to re-read the CCPA to confirm this. It seems that the benifits of user choice provided by this option far outweight the loss of having one more fingerprinting metric - nonetheless one that is illegal to share.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    If I had to take a photo of my genitals to sign into my own computer, promises against storage or sharing are not addressing my complaints about privacy. Asking my age is a lot less personal - but it's still information about me, which this object does not need.

    'I'm only okay with this idea because I know it won't work' is, just, why are we even talking? What is the function of an argument when you're not listening to yourself?

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  • [–] -4 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    If I had to take a photo of my genitals to sign into my own computer, promises against storage or sharing are not addressing my complaints about privacy. Asking my age is a lot less personal - but it's still information about me, which this object does not need.

    If you're that concerned, leave the field at its default value, or (since its your PC and there will absolutely be a way to) set it to a null value. Or set it based on the amount of legal protections you want on your data, because that also appears to work.

    'I'm only okay with this idea because I know it won't work' is, just, why are we even talking? What is the function of an argument when you're not listening to yourself?

    Saying it can be bypassed doesn't mean it doesn't work. Like most safety and security measures, the point is to disincentivise and prevent errs of convenience - esspecially since children particularly lack impulse control. In the same way, having a railing or fence on a cliff won't prevent people from passing, but will make them think twice. It doesn't mean having that railing/fence is pointless.

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