Persona’s exposed code compares your selfie to watchlist photos using facial recognition, screens you against 14 categories of adverse media from mentions of terrorism to espionage, and tags reports with codenames from active intelligence programs consisting of public-private partnerships to combat online child exploitative material, cannabis trafficking, fentanyl trafficking, romance fraud, money laundering, and illegal wildlife trade

In the 1930's, IBM subsidiary companies were responsible for the census data and concentration camp cataloguing systems in Nazi Germany (and it's invaded territories). The numbers tattooed on prisoners were five-digit IBM Hollerith numbers, corresponding to their dedicated punch card. With an estimated 40k+ camps of different types, the machine leases would have been very lucrative for IBM. They won't say how lucrative, and they made sure they had complex financial setups through "neutral" countries.

IBM systems also underpinned the concentration "internment" camps in the US holding people of Japanese background. But of course, they're much louder about their 1930's history in winning the US Social Security contract - older SSNs were also Hollerith numbers.

It would be amusing that punch cards were a more secure system if history didn't look like it was rapidly repeating.

I mean, yeah. It's the entire point. The governments around the globe never cared about protecting children.

“The state wants to see everything. The corporations want to see everything. And they’ve learned to work together.” -> mostly we just call the unification of Capitalists scum and state for "Fascism".. Congratulations to Merica and its vassal states for reaching the end-state of Capitalism. You made it - faster than any other nation in history..

Yeeeeaaaaahhhhhh.......not doing that, because duh.

No way. Who could have seen that coming?

The solution, boycott

Yep been obvious from the beginning what the point is to this agenda at least by the non grassroots.

Once a user verifies their identity with Persona, the software performs 269 distinct verification checks and scours the internet and government sources for potential matches, such as by matching your face to politically exposed persons (PEPs), and generating risk and similarity scores for each individual. IP addresses, browser fingerprints, device fingerprints, government ID numbers, phone numbers, names, faces, and even selfie backgrounds are analyzed and retained for up to three years.

Literaly Skynet surveillance database from a Peter Thiel owned company. The height of Liberal faced governments, an identidity behind all similar legislation, is to pursure total nazi control over all of us.

I could not be less surprised.

Let's be real, we all knew this was coming. I'm not even surprised.

"Because of the kids!"

It's funny that it, using children as a form of gaslighting, is an attitude so obviously wrong it was the plot twist of Unbreakable, but when it's happening in reality with people who are more openly nefarious people don't seem to care. One thing that I consider proved beyond doubt is that most people can't really be taught even when it's easily digestible entertainment media, the core basic critical thinking skills to bridge the gap from one context to another just aren't there, otherwise politicians wouldn't be able to continue using the same form of gaslighting over and over and over again.

In other news: "Duh."

Loyal Moses has been on about this. Apparently the bills require third party cloud storage of the information in addition to an online requirement (for logging in???), and continuous telemetry to in use apps on the desktop environment.

“Child safety” has simply become the marketing department for a rent-seeking surveillance industry.

Damn ain't that the truth.

Was looking at a used car online. Found a site that had option to 'reserve' the car until paperwork was done. Started innocuously with email and phone info, to text updates. Fine. Then it asked to verify info, with scans of driver's license.

Persona.

Noped right out.

The Epstein class wants to reliably know who is (and therefore isn't) an adult on the internet.

Great article! Some writing cannot be accused of AI-generation... Because it's good.

read part 2

Thing that was predicted to happen mysteriously happens.

“Child safety” has simply become the marketing department for a rent-seeking surveillance industry.

In shocking twist, "think of the children!" used once again as an excuse.

Every single time you mandate age verification, you are mandating the creation of a centralized database of extraordinarily sensitive personal information. Government IDs. Biometric facial data. The kind of data that, once breached, cannot be “changed” like a password. You get one face. You get one government ID number. When those leak—and they will leak—the damage is permanent.

Now do KYC verifications

these very firms are now lobbying for stricter age verification mandates. They’ve positioned themselves as protectors of children while actively working to expand the legal requirements that guarantee their revenue stream.

Lawmakers mandate an impossible task, VC-backed startups pop up to sell a “solution,” those startups then lobby for even stricter mandates to protect their market, and the cycle repeats.

“Child safety” has simply become the marketing department for a rent-seeking surveillance industry.

Excellent point

Hey, not two days ago someone said that connections between Peter Thiel and age verification was a "conspiracy theory". Apart from the above link, the article states:

And as these mandates create a captive market worth billions of dollars, a whole ecosystem of venture-backed “identity-as-a-service” startups has sprung up to serve it. Persona, valued at $2 billion and backed by Peter Thiel’s investment network, is just one of many.

Unrelated to the above, but I like the wording too much:

“Child safety” has simply become the marketing department for a rent-seeking surveillance industry.

A note on the US v EU thing

Is this an US-only thing? There are several articles over the past few months hinting at US Big-Tech lobbying efforts in the EU. Thiel makes a living as a contractor of the surveillance apparatus. It is only in his interest to expand his business in the highly regulated EU, and I have not even started on his Dark Enlightment politics.

von der Leyen has no spine in this, if she isn't actively complicit.

wait, they actually designed this shit with biometrics?

I thought they tried to placate us with zero knowledge proofs, at least? No?!?

Children are in real danger of harm, as a result of this. I am thinking of the general safety for children, in wanting them to not be individually identified and targeted for manipulation and have their data sold.

It also equally applies to everyone else. What absolute ghouls and/or dimwits that are pushing for this.

Kids need a little danger to grow.

Hopefully, we will have the means to strip out or spoof the SystemDOGE verification in Linux. Or even better, something akin to torrenting, where many false IDs are manufactured and shared, constantly replaced as needed by automated AI.

I truly don't trust the corporations and government that wants to connect our physical and digital selves together.

I hope people learn that this how age verification trend is a massive Trojan horse for tyranny.

Techdirt says 2,456 files as if it's 2,456 separate things, but it's actually just the source code for their web frontend and that source code is comprised of 2,456 files. Normally, the source code for the web frontend isn't a big deal, but apparently the frontend that they're exposing is for a service that normal people aren't supposed to be able to see, and the capabilities of the service are made public. There's still a lot that could be going on behind the scenes and not surfaced through the frontend.

By hackers they mean people who can read. Clownshoes news headlines .

No way will I ever be trusting any type of "age verification" methods, I would much rather just not use those services.

Together with two other researchers, they set out to look into Persona, the San Francisco-based startup that’s used by Discord for biometric identity verification – and found a Persona frontend exposed to the open internet on a US government authorized server.

In 2,456 publicly accessible files, the code revealed the extensive surveillance Persona software performs on its users, bundled in an interface that pairs facial recognition with financial reporting – and a parallel implementation that appears designed to serve federal agencies.

The company that wants to collect and compile all of your most sensitive data can’t even protect its own source code. They know this surveillance isn’t safe, and they don’t care. They want the power it bestows.

We need preemptive laws that prevent any identifying age checks.

It's the whole purpose behind these things.