Thoughts on these age verification bills for sites "Harmful to minors"

[Firesunspark]

Hello!

I am not an active member of this community nor Knowledgeable of its culture, but I do know that this forum knows a lot about doxing and getting info in wild places and internet privacy. and it has sparked my interest and curiosity about what you people think about this subject, an alarming amount of states and countries are proposing these really bad and possibly dangerous Age-verification laws meant to "Protect children" not knowing the data and privacy risks they contain. the scary part in my opinion is what would happen if these systems get compromised and leaked. non of these politicians are even considering it, there so high off their asses with "protecting children from harmful material" that there not considering the risks. and the risks will be dangerous and potentially deadly, as we're talking about the handling of personal information like your identity, driver's license, passport ETC


these systems will get hacked like the united states couldn't secure its own no-fly list and big tech gets hacked all the time I have 0 faith these systems won't be compromised or abused and it's terrifying that non of these politicians are not concerned by the risks it could cause if leaked, your identity isn't a credit card, and it can't be replaced. not to mention the biggest age-verification maker on the planet is owned by mindgeek and they have a really shady history with user data and getting hacked. not to mention these systems are brand new and really haven't been tested to work at all. hell, there is a rumor that the system they use for Louisiana is already being abused by scammers to pish for personal info.

https://www.npr.org/2023/01/08/1147762020/louisianas-new-porn-law-carries-user-privacy-risks

How age verification systems can threaten user privacy

Why the Louisiana Adult ID verification law is a disaster for user privacy

www.pulse.ng

Ineffective, Unconstitutional, and Dangerous: The Problem with Age Verification Mandates – Action Center

action.freespeechcoalition.com

Opinion: This bill would hurt children while trying to help them

Utah lawmakers are considering SB152, which would require children and adults to provide proof of age to internet sites in order to gain access

www.deseret.com

Now back on topic, I know this forum isn't some deep web hacking forum or a "creepy stalker forum" and most of you are not "Doxxers who get personal info" or whatever but I do know that most of you have seen how people here get info and things like addresses and the like. and I ask what are your thoughts on these systems and what you think will happen if they get compromised or leaked.

and would this site technically be "harmful to children" and thus have to be forced with an AVS system or be fined or blocked, some of you are probably anti-porn but like, you really think governments will stop at just porn like Utah wants laws so that you need your ID to sign up to fucking Twitter or TIKTOK.

anyways I like to hear your thoughts on this subject as I am actually really curious, what do you think will happen?

 

[Vecr]

I think it's a bad idea, makes the Internet even more a permissioned system than it already is. Currently, as long as you can get on any part of the Internet that's not totally not locked down, you can hop around using things like Tor and proxies/VPNs to get to pretty much any site. If the US and EU/UK "small 'i' internets" required permissions non-citizens (Russians for example) can't get, that ideal is dead. Once you get done hopping around, you hit a brick permission wall you can't get through without stealing or buying someone's ID.

 

[NOT Satoshi Nakamoto]

Know Your Customer (KYC) laws exist to make it easier for glowniggers to SWAT and harass civilians (they're to lazy and stupid to do their own research).



Security by obscurity is always the best policy, which is why everybody's afraid of the KF.

Fortunately the porn / abortion / etc. industries will probably throw enough money at these laws to make them go away. If not you can buy dox on breached or cryptbb or some other site.

 

[topsykrets]

minors shouldn't have acess to the internet to begin with.

 

[Firesunspark]

Know Your Customer (KYC) laws exist to make it easier for glowniggers to SWAT and harass civilians (they're to lazy and stupid to do their own research).



Security by obscurity is always the best policy, which is why everybody's afraid of the KF.

Fortunately the porn / abortion / etc. industries will probably throw enough money at these laws to make them go away. If not you can buy dox on breached or cryptbb or some other site.

personally, when these systems get compromised or leaked (and they will get compromised) or some other horrible scandal, I bet porn/bigtech lobbyists are gonna have a really fun day telling these governments "we told you so" and since the government is probably embarrassed or might crack under pressure they might have removed or ban these systems because these systems will be used to kill people and cause suicides as this is prime for blackmail. and when people die, they can't use "Think of the children excuse" or "were protecting minors" anymore

 

[Firesunspark]

like we all think governments are super smart big and scary and that this is all a plot for some new world economic forum order censored internet blah blah blah. but...

what if they actually believe this, like seriously what if the politicians who implement these systems believe they are actually helping children with these laws? like... from what I have seen from these politicians they seem to actually believe they are doing a good thing. like non of them are talking about privacy or data. which is funny as these people are screaming that Tiktok is spying and taking data. like the copycat law in south-Dakota the politicians there are actually concerned about what classifies as "Adult content"

that's what makes these laws so scary, the people who write them believe that they are actually doing a good thing

 

[Nero Fiddled]

The reality is that all these "ideas" come from either activist groups , who know nothing about the technical limitations of such a system, or politicians who know fuck all about anything.

For this to even stand a chance of working, all countries would have to sign up to it, and some countries can barely even agree what day of the week it is.

I'm sure most kids know how to use a VPN that emulates their presence in a country that doesn't have an age verification requirement - and if they don't, they soon will.

 

[Firesunspark]

The reality is that all these "ideas" come from either activist groups , who know nothing about the technical limitations of such a system, or politicians who know fuck all about anything.

For this to even stand a chance of working, all countries would have to sign up to it, and some countries can barely even agree what day of the week it is.

I'm sure most kids know how to use a VPN that emulates their presence in a country that doesn't have an age verification requirement - and if they don't, they soon will.

I am pretty sure kids know what VPNS are when their favorite youtuber or TIKTOKER is probably being sponsored by surfshark or nord. even if the ones being sponsored are paywalled, there are tons of free VPNS out there

 

[Firesunspark]

well now it gets spicy it turns out that in the USA, forcing these age verification systems are Unconstitutional, so... does this mean these laws are unenforceable

Ineffective, Unconstitutional, and Dangerous: The Problem with Age Verification Mandates – Action Center

action.freespeechcoalition.com

 

[Rozzy]

minors shouldn't have access to the internet to begin with.

Other than having age-verification and parental control built into device firmware there's no way of stopping minors accessing the Internet. Many will be more tech savvy than their parents and will circumvent any measures put in place to restrict Internet access.

 

[topsykrets]

Other than having age-verification and parental control built into device firmware there's no way of stopping minors accessing the Internet. Many will be more tech savvy than their parents and will circumvent any measures put in place to restrict Internet access.

are you dumb? you just gotta slap em around and take their toys away. y'know stop being a shitty parent that's lets their kid do what the fuck they want.

 

[byuu]

Just make all of the internet 18+.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Other than having age-verification and parental control built into device firmware there's no way of stopping minors accessing the Internet. Many will be more tech savvy than their parents and will circumvent any measures put in place to restrict Internet access.

This argument is 30 years old by now, for 99% of the kids the parents should already know how technology works.

Anyways, I've come to the conclusion that every law made "for the children" is primarily to remove civil rights and will usually hurt children far more than it helps. If the government cared about children they'd ban Tik Tok and Discord, since a boy watching boobies is far less harmful than getting groomed by a tranny.

 

[AmpleApricots]

that every law made "for the children" is primarily to remove civil rights

Oldest trick in the book. If you oppose such laws it implies you don't care about children and the implication sometimes even is that you're possibly a pedophile. In Europe they've been trying to push a law (thankfully unsuccessfully so far) that basically not only gives the governments a backdoor into every private chat software, but also regulates mandatory logging of those. Yep, the official line is that it's all about the "protection of children" and if you're against it you obviously just want to groom children in peace and wouldn't mind your privacy being invaded in such a heinous way otherwise. It's all just laid out to put you into a worse argumentative position from the get go and to encourage that you keep your mouth shut. It is disgusting.

 

[A-Stump]

I always find it funny that most people scared of the government cracking down on them also have no problem carrying what is essentially an eavesdropping and tracking device on their persons at all times.

 

[Slav Power]

I have a better idea for a government bill: make it so the feds beat the living shit out of parents so that they'll start taking responsibility of raising their own child instead of crying to big daddy government to completely trample over everyone's freedoms just because they're too fucking lazy to take care of what their kids look at on the Internet, and instead give them an iPad with unrestricted Internet access as a substitute for raising their kids.

 

[Cpt. Stud Beefpile]

Currently, we do absolutely nothing to protect kids. Let's be real: telling parents and schools "it's all up to you to keep Junior from even accidentally running into the worst kinds of fetish porn" is tantamount to saying "we do not really give a shit about the harm of exposing vulnerable young children to pornography; any laws regarding same are nothing but self delusion and an occasional extra way to prosecute someone for pedophilia"

That being said...

This is NOT the correct approach. For many reasons. Foremost is it makes ANOTHER treasure-trove of PII that WILL be breached for massive harm to the end users, who will be inadequately compensated if at all.

A much better idea would be to require all websites showing adult material to be registered on a ".xxx" domain, which can then be handily category-blocked by even the dumbest admin or parent. Sites that want to have separate safe/adult sections like Deviantart or (ugh) Furaffinity can have subdomains that require a verified phone number and email, which are far less damaging in case of a leak than your damn driver's license.

REALLY dedicated horny kids can still get around that, sure, but it turns a completely hopeless game of whack-a-mole into a situation where someone who cares about their kid(s) can have a fighting chance.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

Other than having age-verification and parental control built into device firmware there's no way of stopping minors accessing the Internet. Many will be more tech savvy than their parents and will circumvent any measures put in place to restrict Internet access.

I don't think that's true these days, the youth are utterly tech retarded because they use devices that "just works" and if it doesn't work they get the "oppsie whoopsie *tee-hee* something wen't wrong!" error message that they will never investigate. It's not the 90's or 00's anymore.

Personally I don't give a shit if a list of hundreds of millions leak and it is showing that [my real name] watched porn. If someone doing an expose on whatever confronted me with it and asked "did you knowingly visit pornhub?" I would say yes. I obviously did that, 100%, it was not a typo. I'm not gay.

What bothers me is the attempt to implement a digital passport obviously aimed at adults and with time it will be mandatory for everyone everywhere. Keep kids away from porn of course and OP is probably a minor, furry or troon groomer.

 

[Firesunspark]

Personally I don't give a shit if a list of hundreds of millions leak and it is showing that [my real name] watched porn. If someone doing an expose on whatever confronted me with it and asked "did you knowingly visit pornhub?" I would say yes. I obviously did that, 100%, it was not a typo. I'm not gay.

Sure you might not care if it's porn now, but if this site or any other you visited is forced with an AVS system and requires you to sign up with your real ID. and I don't know... maybe Kiwifarms gets compromised again or the AVS system in your state/country could be breached and it found out you visited kiwifarms.net with your real name, address, etc. would you be singing the same song now, especially when there is a type of people who are... not fond of this site and its users. and will do nothing but try and ruin the lives of the people who use this site

 

[White Devil]

I always find it funny that most people scared of the government cracking down on them also have no problem carrying what is essentially an eavesdropping and tracking device on their persons at all times.

A lot of people have no choice now. Mandatory work phones or clock in / clock out apps on your personal phone, etc.