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submitted 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) by Deep@mander.xyz to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[-] yggstyle@lemmy.world 31 points 5 hours ago

As someone who spent my formative days figuring out how to bypass early digital locks my school was putting in place to "protect us" ... The system loses this game. Every time. You are taking kids with nothing but time, no apparent drawbacks, and everything to gain... And placing them against "good enough" implemented by people who could give two shits about it.

This will continue to lose until they twist the knobs too tight and hit false positive central... And oops now the populace hates it. Control for thee is fine until its for me.

Tale as old as technology itself.

[-] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 1 points 42 minutes ago

Mine was simple, but great. IE was hidden/removed in our typing class, maybe 5th grade. I guessed you could type a www.domain.tld in Word and when you pressed space, got a clickable URL that was still tied to IE. I knew about the URL, but learned it would still open with IE hidden. 🤣🤣

[-] MimicJar@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

Even with false positives it won't change anything. It's just a small group of people. It's worth it to "save the children". If "the system" rejects you, then you must be at fault. Maybe we can even sell a "Super ID Check". Just a one time $200 fee and then the system will leave you alone. (For 3 years, then pay the fee again, but renewal is even faster this time.)

[-] yggstyle@lemmy.world 4 points 3 hours ago

I'm not saying its going to happen quickly... But filtering in many forms has been tried in the past and they all died similarly. Some vocal group gets inconvenienced by it and then, under scrutiny, the blemishes get paraded out and the project dies a slow ugly death.

The actual reason for the push right now is meta (among others) just want to wash their hands of the responsibility... And that aligns with some tech bros wanting to hoover up peoples ids and resell that info. The whole thing will sour once there's a significant leak that ties risk into that bottom line and nobody will want to carry it.

[-] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 44 points 8 hours ago

How about instead of trying every complicated stupid way to regulate users and especially children ..... you regulate and control companies and corporations instead.

[-] 4am@lemmy.zip 51 points 7 hours ago

It’s not about the kids. It’s about knowing who is organizing protests, unions, and calling out wage theft, polluters, and whistleblowing illegal activities performed by the government and Epstein class.

It’s about preventing access to online spaces, monetary transactions, and basically letting them erase you from society if you don’t offer them full-throated gratuity and allegiance.

You know, just like ChInAs sOcIaL cReDiT sYsTeM.

As usual here in the West, every accusation is a confession (or at least an idea for later)

[-] StarryPhoenix97@lemmy.world 10 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

It’s been that way for ages around the world. The 2000s were full of news stories from places like Russia, with protests about the actions of their government and the treatment of political opposition. Those stories have largely died down, not because Russia changed, but because they clamped down on dissent. The US is just catching up. It wasn’t just Russia either. We’ve seen this globally with most major political activities over the last decade or more. Where once we were getting video of events in real time, now they’ve learned to shut down the internet, censor the digital forums, 'flood the zone'. Where once you could be critical of this government or that, it has become an internet of heavily commercialized influencers. It sucks, man.

Like...Russia, China, India, Iran, Isreal, UK, and a handful of others that I can't remember.

It's happening everywhere and all in slightly different ways but it's not JUST the US. I just tend to remember Russia the best because they are the closest to what seems to be happening in the US at a visual level. The old videos of arrests and protests in Russia almost mirror the modern ICE videos. I suspect it will only get worse.

[-] SynonymousStoat@lemmy.world 16 points 7 hours ago

Or, ya know, make parents take responsibility for their own children and monitor what they are doing online. If you don't want your kids seeing or participating in things online then don't give them unfettered access to smart phones and computers!

[-] Zagorath@quokk.au 4 points 5 hours ago

I agree, letting parents do their job of parenting is the best way to deal with this. But the problem is that that's very difficult, and they currently lack adequate tools.

The best method would be to make sure operating systems support parental controls that parents can set, and require websites to respect those settings (and browsers to support an API passthrough of the OS setting). That way there's no need to do any age verification that sends sensitive data like ID or faces to third-parties with sketchy privacy policies.

Unfortunately, when moves were actually taken to implement this kind of solution, reactionaries pushed back and made sure it didn't happen.

[-] knatschus@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 5 hours ago

Combine both and demand parental controls for devices and services. The isp is paid for by an adult that's the only age check websites should need. Parents should have easily accessible tools to mark a os or browser as used by a minor.

[-] p4rzivalrp2@piefed.social 1 points 4 hours ago

Wifi/router side parental controls are laughably easy to get around

[-] Vorticity@lemmy.world 9 points 7 hours ago

I kind fo agree and kind of don't. I agree in that parents should take accountability for their children. That said, social media has been shown to be addictive and kids are frequently ahead of their parents technologically. One thing that could help is an education campaign that teaches parents how to effectively monitor their kid's online activity. Parents need some help figuring out what tools to use and how to use them I think.

[-] SynonymousStoat@lemmy.world 4 points 3 hours ago

You are correct and I'm a little upset at myself that I left out the fact that educating parents should be something we put money and effort into as well.

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[-] deliriousdreams@fedia.io 4 points 6 hours ago

Utah is trying. They claim they want to hold websites liable for Utahians who use VPNs to bypass ID checks. I don't think that's going to work, mostly because I have a lot of questions about how that could possible be enforced. But it's funny to think about.

[-] muffedtrims@lemmy.world 4 points 7 hours ago

And who's ~~payroll~~ campaign donations are the politicians that are pushing these policy coming from?

[-] Longmactoppedup@aussie.zone 6 points 5 hours ago

I couldn't stop laughing when one of my kids showed me a picture of his 10 year old friend's effort with the texta. We are talking comical magician curly moustache. Roblox verified that account as 18 though and now that account can't talk to his school friends.

[-] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 144 points 10 hours ago

Age verification bypass tool soon to be made illegal:

[-] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 23 points 10 hours ago
[-] pwxd@lemmy.zip 4 points 5 hours ago
[-] EpeeGnome@feddit.online 6 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Well, obviously an adult, but I admit I'm a little unsure about which one. Hope that helps.

[-] Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone 15 points 7 hours ago

It’s simply impossible to tell.

[-] jaybone@lemmy.zip 4 points 6 hours ago
[-] StillAlive@piefed.world 20 points 9 hours ago

John Oliver

[-] tarball@lemmy.zip 4 points 7 hours ago

It was Norman Reedus

[-] its_kim_love 159 points 11 hours ago

Literally every type of age verification ever put into place has been circumvented by children. EVERY SINGLE ONE.

[-] Watermark710@piefed.social 75 points 10 hours ago

When I was little, my mom used to send me to the store with a note that said to sell me cigarettes, and that they were for her. When I started smoking, I used to reuse the notes to get my own smokes. I got my first fake ID at 13 so I could buy beer.

[-] i078@europe.pub 44 points 10 hours ago

When I was 13 I could just buy beer, the trick was to make it look like you are helping your parents with groceries. So also pickup stuff like a carton of eggs, potatoes and milk. I never had any issue, but it was a different time and in Europe

[-] jaybone@lemmy.zip 9 points 6 hours ago

Yeah, that last bit is key.

In German I think we were drinking in the clubs at that age. No “helping the parents with the eggs and milk” lol

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[-] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 hours ago

Fake mustache selling out fast

[-] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 39 points 10 hours ago
[-] yoshisaur 16 points 8 hours ago

I went to the stock market today and did a business

[-] Insekticus@aussie.zone 13 points 8 hours ago

I wonder how the business industry is going these days?

[-] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 15 points 8 hours ago
[-] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 66 points 11 hours ago

I can’t wait to email this to my MP

Canada Bill S209 needs to die. It’s bad legislation.

[-] fizzle@quokk.au 1 points 2 hours ago

Politicians don't seem to function this way though. They don't concern themselves with implementation details. People will vote for age verification even if it doesn't work.

[-] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 6 points 8 hours ago

Fuck, didn’t realize this cancer had reached Canada

[-] Iconoclast@feddit.uk 55 points 11 hours ago

I'm in my mid thirties and I'd still buy a mask or something to trick these systems if and when this becomes a thing in my country.

[-] crank0271@lemmy.world 23 points 11 hours ago

Guy Fawkes uses a lot of online services.

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[-] 5too@lemmy.world 6 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

As I understand it, most adult content producers aren't actually interested in having minors using their sites. It seems like the easiest thing to do would be to have them add some "Adult Material" flag in their metadata, and let consumers respond as they wish to that tag - whether that's done through browser settings, router nannyware, or whatever.

Is there a technical reason this isn't what's being pushed for? I'm sure there's lobbying and "optics" reasons for not doing this, but is there any practical reason for not pursuing this, or something like it?

[-] SynonymousStoat@lemmy.world 14 points 7 hours ago

We already have multiple solutions for blocking children from websites that parents don't want them to access and the companies providing those situations maintain their own databases of different types of content tagged so that parents can have some control over what is blocked and what is not. This stuff has existed since the 90s it's nothing new. It requires parents taking the initiative though and really when we get down to it this is another, "but think of the children, " sort of situation where they are using child safety as cover for making it easier to collect biometric data of people online.

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[-] Donebrach@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

we need to go back to the tried and true method of a calendar field to prove age. i know that kept me out of all the dirty sites back when i was born in 1979 through 84.

[-] violentfart@lemmy.world 12 points 9 hours ago

Is it legal to “verify” my age to be a minor? Would less of my information be collected?

…not that any of it is accurate anyway.

[-] sundray@lemmus.org 12 points 9 hours ago

Good, good -- teach the children that authority is bullshit. This kind of thing is more effective than book learnin'.

[-] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 5 points 8 hours ago

I guess now we must ban pens and markers because children might draw fake mustaches and bypass age verification.

So long humble pen. We will miss you.

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this post was submitted on 04 May 2026
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