Comment on Trial finds age assurance can be done, as social media ban deadline looms
Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 weeks agoYou’ve basically got it.
A parent would be required to activate a ‘child lock’ feature on a device before handing it to their kids.
Unfortunately, all governments are too chicken-shit scared to compel parents to do this small thing.
My proposal provides two separate options. One, the one I prefer, is exactly what you said. Inactive by default.
But there is a fallback option that I still think is significantly better than any alternative age verification. Which is that if inactive, social media sites would be required to presume you are underage. This would give governments an extra bit of leeway from the problems you’ve described here. It would require everyone to provide “age verification” (in the form of stating your age to the system, proving only that you have admin access to the device which parents should not be giving to children) without compelling turning over sensitive data like photo ID.
TimePencil@infosec.exchange 3 weeks ago
@Zagorath
Yeah. I used to encounter something akin to the 'fall back' solution when trying to watch the odd video on YT. (The video would usually be something as innocuous as 'Bambi Meets Godzilla'... and f**king Google would want me to Sign In to view it. No.)
No matter how the government tries to protect our community's 'precious little darlings' within a week or two, some teenager will release a fully encrypted app that's onboarded by 'invitation only', where they'll collectively plan to kill us all in our beds!
Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
The key difference with the YouTube example is that Google requires you to create an account (which helps them track you) and specify the account’s age. They also require proof of ID these days to give you access to age-gated content, which is possible, but quite tricky, to bypass.
The idea with my fallback solution is that it could work completely accountless. Your browser just reads from your operating system what your age is, the same way they can read what screen resolution you have or what version of your browser you’re running.
With robust parental controls in place, an OS should be able to prevent a child from installing any software without the parent’s consent (by the parent typing in a password that the child should not know). If it’s done robustly, the only way a child should be able to get around it is by dual-booting (or live USB-ing) into an entirely separate petition that their parents don’t control. And I’mma be honest, any kid who can figure that part out deserves free reign over their computer.
TimePencil@infosec.exchange 3 weeks ago
@Zagorath
Oh, I do agree with you, Zag!
I detest the notion of citizens having to provide ID, and solutions - at the device or OS level - could be implemented.
It should be a responsibility of parents to limit the social media access by their children, and NOT the 'surveillance state' solution of compelling the entire population to hand over their 'Australia Card' just to crap on about something here!
Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
The problem at the moment is that the technology does not aid parents in this.
Personally, I would like to see the existence of this sort of age-gating API be mandatory, and set some government guidelines, but leave it up to parents whether or not they wish to use it. Because right now, unless they are hovering over the shoulder of their children every moment they’re on a computer, there’s literally nothing they can do with available technology to prevent children accessing age-inappropriate material. So a law that can help them out without forcing their hand would be great.