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- Hacker News
- Also a very good game, https://store.steampowered.com/app/239030/Papers_Please/by DrammBA
- I’m glad this is finally becoming the cause célèbre du jour. This feels like THE FIGHT or at least one of the TOP 3 THE FIGHTS and it hasn’t had even a fraction of the public’s attention until now.by miiiiiike
- I appreciate the wealth of technical solutions that don't violate privacy, but isn't this overlooking an important point: that children don't need to be connected to the Internet at all times from such an early age? Many internet and cell phone providers seem to take it for granted that children must be online, which is already a net loss for their privacy as they mature.
- The path ahead in the next few years (at least for the UK)
1. Age gating + VPN ban under the guise of protecting children from social media
2. Few years pass, Identity Passport gets ushered in under guise of convenience of not having to repeat those pesky age verification checks.
3. Utilities start to require ID Passport. Including signing up with an ISP.
4. Renting starts to require ID Passport.
5. Work requires ID Passport.
6. Well done, you built the torment nexus!
by AJRF - Assuming no revolutionary changes are coming to the USA, I am planning to opt out of the digital world when I retire. Physical media only. No subscriptions. Spend lots of time in the library. Find like-minded people and meet in person. Will only keep the bare minimum for survival, like banking.
- > you’re criticizing a powerful politician, or talking about your experiences with abuse or addiction, or discussing embarrassing medical issues you’re facing
This is not the problem. Even if, like millions, you are not talking about these things online, these systems still place you in danger. Even if you are a perfect, clean, compliant citizen these privacy-destroying systems place you in danger.
Fundamentally these systems expose you to coercion, extortion, blackmail, ID theft, etc. by criminals and immoral people who want money or power over you. There are countless examples of bad actors inside and outside these systems obtaining access to innocent people's private data and misusing it to their detriment.
This is the strongest argument against these bad ideas. Arguments that paint innocent, privacy-seeking people as suspicious or immoral in any way, should not be used.
It is rational and moral to seek privacy for your own safety and the safety of those you care for. Don't let them argue otherwise.
by chr15m - > You’re not happy about it, but you hand over a photo of your passport and hope it doesn’t come back to haunt you.
I think for this argument to carry weight with voters, privacy advocates need to be much more specific about what "coming back to haunt you" looks like. They do a little bit of it later on[1], but I think most people do a rough cost benefit in their head and decide that the small benefit outweighs the small risk (to them).
[1] "And that creates a lot of risks for data breaches, overly broad data collection and retention, censorial legal demands for collected data, corporate and governmental malfeasance, pressure to self-censor, and perhaps blatant First Amendment violations. Every new layer and every new mandate brings more potential for risk. As we’ve unfortunately seen many times over the years, people including high-level government officials will maliciously seek to root out the identities of their critics, so the more layers of anonymity we can preserve in online speech, the better."
by tqi - There are at least some technological solutions here, such as anonymous credentials. [1] Modern versions of this technique allow one to associate metadata (like a proof of age exceeding a threshold) in such a way that the verifier can't even correlate repeated requests across users.
Governments that are serious about age verification and individual privacy (which, doubtful they truly are) should agree on a protocol and set up certificate issuers that are associated with a digital ID. Then age verification will not be an invasive procedure or risk data leaks or insider threats.
[1]: https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2026/03/02/anonymou...
by j2kun