I understand why people are upset, but isn’t the operating system asking the user for age and then that age being used to get through service age gated the better path forward?
I would much rather be able to tell my computer I’m an adult and be able to go to an adult site and have it use that instead of the adult site having to handle the load of age verification. If the age is set per-user, kid profiles and parent profiles can both work to limit content for kids without impacting what the parents see. Hell, even just not having to click through those stupid steam prompts every time I look at a game with an m rating or whatever would be awesome. Especially since my account is over 18yo on its own…
The best analogy I’ve heard for this, to help understand why it’s a ‘null’ {i need a better word here} topic was said as… "Parents to be doing the parenting, versus, a government doing the parenting and unbeknownst applies it to everyone ". And it is speaking of widely available tools that are already available such as parental controls in routers, devices, etc.
The analogy discounts “little hackers” or minors that intentionally will break laws to get what they want; in which then no “age verification” service (made by anyone) will work in practice.
Windows has Limited User account, Family Safety in the control panel, and a advanced Firewall. 3rd party Net Nanny was\is a net filtering\alerting software that had visiting-server-side support in case the kid knew how to onion route or obfuscate a url or ip.
Androids can install firewall software like PersonalDNSFilter, AdGuardDNS, or RethinkDNS (the premium version creates for you a custom dns server – no software needed.
Androids have profiles built-in, that act like windows user accounts.
Pi-Hole is a hardware thing you attach to your network.
Windows has Limited User account, Family Safety in the control panel, and a advanced Firewall. 3rd party Net Nanny was\is a net filtering\alerting software that had visiting-server-side support in case the kid knew how to onion route or obfuscate a url or ip.
limited, as in, not an administrator? that does not help much with limiting a kids computer use.
family safety only works for the microsoft edge browser, which is not at all private. and it seems it requires a microsoft account, and accepting its shitty terms of service and privacy policy.
netnanny seems to require a microsoft account too.
Androids can install firewall software like PersonalDNSFilter, AdGuardDNS, or RethinkDNS (the premium version creates for you a custom dns server – no software needed.
and they can’t be just disabled by the user of the device, right?
these and pihole… are useful but not for this. even if they can’t disable the system VPN app, the kid just enables secure DNS in either firefox or chrome, and bam! its worked around.
Correct. A (non-admistrator) user of a Android cannot disable software. This too also applies to a Windows Limited user.
Pi-Hole + packet inspection + whitelisting + switch routing = universal lockdown against every known form of data obfuscation. This is now a server machine.
Switch routing is network hardware that manages only one side\subnet\layer of clients – it’s like one layer of an onion will only ever see the next layer.
Parental controls already exist. There is no reason to force this invasive bullshit on us. If parents want to restrict/monitor their kids online all the tools they need to do so are already available. The government need not be involved.
Completely agreed, but our opinions don’t change reality, and we see the same sort of requests from countries across the world. If something like this is going to happen, it’s better to fight for the version you want instead of holding your ground in absolute terms and getting whatever is given to you.
I’d much rather this didn’t exist at all, but if they’re going to do it anyway, this way is much less invasive and could be a lot better for our privacy.
Even taking this past the parental control aspect, there are plenty of sites that are mandated to age gated, and having that built in and able to dismiss those with a binary of ‘of age’/‘underage’ (confirm to send, obviously) would be great, and would remove the need for some of the existing privacy nightmare ID validation sites. Which would be a overall benefit.
You’re identifying yourself lock-step to the government to run your computer. That telemetry is now theirs. Everything you ever do on that computer is now tracked or trackable to you and stored in a giant data center, probably eventually into a trained model of you.
You look at news about protestors, you leave a scathing review about a business supporting ICE, you post anonymously on a web forum that you’re displeased with the administration, All that needs to happen in the current climate is an executive order and the next time you go to update your passport or hop on a flight, you’re being detained as a terrorist.
Giving them this all willingly is a horrible idea and they will eventually use it against you.
I understand why people are upset, but isn’t the operating system asking the user for age and then that age being used to get through service age gated the better path forward?
I would much rather be able to tell my computer I’m an adult and be able to go to an adult site and have it use that instead of the adult site having to handle the load of age verification. If the age is set per-user, kid profiles and parent profiles can both work to limit content for kids without impacting what the parents see. Hell, even just not having to click through those stupid steam prompts every time I look at a game with an m rating or whatever would be awesome. Especially since my account is over 18yo on its own…
The best analogy I’ve heard for this, to help understand why it’s a ‘null’ {i need a better word here} topic was said as… "Parents to be doing the parenting, versus, a government doing the parenting and unbeknownst applies it to everyone ". And it is speaking of widely available tools that are already available such as parental controls in routers, devices, etc.
The analogy discounts “little hackers” or minors that intentionally will break laws to get what they want; in which then no “age verification” service (made by anyone) will work in practice.
widely available? what kind of parental controls are available in
?
Windows has Limited User account, Family Safety in the control panel, and a advanced Firewall. 3rd party Net Nanny was\is a net filtering\alerting software that had visiting-server-side support in case the kid knew how to onion route or obfuscate a url or ip.
Androids can install firewall software like PersonalDNSFilter, AdGuardDNS, or RethinkDNS (the premium version creates for you a custom dns server – no software needed.
Androids have profiles built-in, that act like windows user accounts.
Pi-Hole is a hardware thing you attach to your network.
There should be plenty more.
limited, as in, not an administrator? that does not help much with limiting a kids computer use.
family safety only works for the microsoft edge browser, which is not at all private. and it seems it requires a microsoft account, and accepting its shitty terms of service and privacy policy.
netnanny seems to require a microsoft account too.
and they can’t be just disabled by the user of the device, right?
these and pihole… are useful but not for this. even if they can’t disable the system VPN app, the kid just enables secure DNS in either firefox or chrome, and bam! its worked around.
Correct. A (non-admistrator) user of a Android cannot disable software. This too also applies to a Windows Limited user.
Pi-Hole + packet inspection + whitelisting + switch routing = universal lockdown against every known form of data obfuscation. This is now a server machine.
switch routing? what is that? and what solution do you use for packet inspection?
Switch routing is network hardware that manages only one side\subnet\layer of clients – it’s like one layer of an onion will only ever see the next layer.
This reddit thread cites a real-world parent’s example of packet inspection solutions…
https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/piarcj/selfhosted_parental_control/
Parental controls already exist. There is no reason to force this invasive bullshit on us. If parents want to restrict/monitor their kids online all the tools they need to do so are already available. The government need not be involved.
Completely agreed, but our opinions don’t change reality, and we see the same sort of requests from countries across the world. If something like this is going to happen, it’s better to fight for the version you want instead of holding your ground in absolute terms and getting whatever is given to you.
I’d much rather this didn’t exist at all, but if they’re going to do it anyway, this way is much less invasive and could be a lot better for our privacy.
Even taking this past the parental control aspect, there are plenty of sites that are mandated to age gated, and having that built in and able to dismiss those with a binary of ‘of age’/‘underage’ (confirm to send, obviously) would be great, and would remove the need for some of the existing privacy nightmare ID validation sites. Which would be a overall benefit.
The better path forward is to drop all this age verification bullshit. Completely and fully stop. NONE of it is needed. NONE of it.
You’re identifying yourself lock-step to the government to run your computer. That telemetry is now theirs. Everything you ever do on that computer is now tracked or trackable to you and stored in a giant data center, probably eventually into a trained model of you.
You look at news about protestors, you leave a scathing review about a business supporting ICE, you post anonymously on a web forum that you’re displeased with the administration, All that needs to happen in the current climate is an executive order and the next time you go to update your passport or hop on a flight, you’re being detained as a terrorist.
Giving them this all willingly is a horrible idea and they will eventually use it against you.