alt Hacker NewsEU Age Control: The trojan horse for digital IDs
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With the way elections changed after social media became big. Govts want to have control back, like they did before. And are increasingly curbing open internet with boogeyman CP or terrorists, new fear of mass AI CP. Ultimately we'll get 2nd hand version of great firewall and social credit system. Some "liberal democracies" already have root of such systems implemented.
> In any case, it was always presented as a toolbox that countries should adapt into their apps – so judging the app by itself does not make much sense, it depends on how these techniques are implemented in each country’s verification app. There will be no single EU app, despite what the honchos of EU say.
Even more reason to make the "demo" app do things correctly because it's very unlikely that all member states actually implement things correctly.
> The internet is scary, parents think they can’t protect their children from many bad things happening, and someone came to provide a “solution."
A simple solution is just not providing your kids with a phone or computer.
Don't forget that many sources of porn will not obey this. Think the pirate bay will ask for age verification? If they obeyed the law they wouldn't even exist.
It's a solution for nothing, as the article points out too.
It seems unlikely that a true Zero Knowledge Proof system for things like age verification would ever be allowed.
Also, remote attestation doesn't work that way and for good reason. Under a true ZKP system, a single defector (extracted/leaked/etc key) would be able to generate an infinite number of false attestations without detection.
Not a fan, but unfortunately a "digital proof of citizenship" seems to inevitable due to the en-shitification of the internet, autocratic state actor's doctrines to destabilise free societies through disinformation that matches well with social media's en-rage-ment business model, and the more recent AI slopification / AI bots running wild.
The question is whether citizens can build enough pressure for such verification systems to be state-based and truly zero-knowledge (akin to the EU's) versus having the private sector 'verify' each user to siphon data, profit off it (Thiel's Persona) and fortify surveillance-capitalism and autocratic administrations.
We’ve had eID for a long time and I’m fine with it becoming more prominent online. Same for age verification, once we settle on a way to do it without US/Palantir being involved in the process.
Where is the big to what we have now?
Not much more freedom, but the control is outside voters reach.
Just ask Nicolas Guillou
Interesting point about ZKP systems. The challenge with age verification is balancing privacy with enforcement — any centralized solution creates a honeypot for data breaches.
> There will be no single EU app, despite what the honchos of EU say.
This shows that the EU commission is systematically lying.
This problem used to exist in the past with Leyen - she is ultimately a lobbyist and that has to stop. Friedrich Merz too by the way - there is a reason why recent polls indicate that the german voters want him out of politics at once.
The EU needs to reform. Right now lobbyists have too much abuse-power. The age sniffing is a great example here - isn't it suspicious how this goes in sync right now in so many countries? Who is paying for this? Nobody needs that, except for some companies.
> Big platforms must verify age for certain content.
But why is their concern, suddenly my concern? I see no need to be in support of any law that would require people to ID in order to access information on the world wide web. That's very obviously the real goal and agenda - everyone with a bit of brains sees this.
> It is the same EU that hates these American corporations and wants EU alternatives for everything
That's not true. The EU commission I consider a lobbyist group, for instance. They lie and lie and lie.
The EU parliament is not much better - you can buy legislation quite easily: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_corruption_scandal_at_th...
Nothing will seriously changed. The current way how the EU is structure is totally wrong; and it will not be fixed because those in the system, benefit from it financially. See the recent attempt to force EU taxpayers to pay more for those goons. They constantly try to inflate their own budget, at our cost.
> yet no one can make a phone usable for age verification without the blessing of Google
Indeed. We have total incompetence at the leadership level. It should be replaced with technical prowess, but as long as lobbyists such as Leyen are running the show, nothing will change. See the corruption scandals when she was still in Germany. Interestingly the AfD is also full of that, yet voters don't see it - Weidel was working for many years for Goldman sucks. So a next generation of lobbyists will replace the older generation soon. That's why this system how it is, is unfixable. It is broken by design.
ai;dr
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Site seems slashdotted? Or HNd? Do we call it that here? :)
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Digital ids are inevitable in my view, just as digital currency has become inescapable because it is more convenient and efficient, these ids will be issued and things like paper proofs of identity will fall away over time. Physical tokens like bank cards and driving licenses are neither necessary nor a good solution in a networked world.
Our focus therefore should be controlling what governments can do with them - for example disallowing blocking/removing someone’s id, just as we should disallow removing citizenship.