Technology

Hm, I'm going to need some software engineers to critique an idea I have that could at least partially solve the fears people have about their personal details being tied to their porn habits.

The system will be called the Adult Content Verification System (or Wank Card if you want to be funny). It's a physical card, printed by the government with a unique key printed on it. Those cards are then sold by any shop that has an alcohol license (premises or personal). You go in, show your ID to the clerk, buy the card. That card is proof that you're over 18, but it is not directly tied to you, you just have to be over 18 to buy it. The punishment for selling a Wank Card to someone under the age of 18 is the same as if you sold alcohol to someone under 18.

When you go to the porn site, they check if you're from the UK, they check if you have a key associated with your account. If not, they ask for one, you provide the key to the site, the site does an API call to https://wankcard.gov.uk/api/verify with the site's API key (freely generated) and the key on the card, gets a response saying "Yep! This is a valid key!" and hey presto, free to wank and nobody knows it's you! If you don't have an account, the verification would have to be tied to a cookie or something that disappears after a while for all you anonymous people.

As a result, you can both prove that you're over 18 (because you have the card) and some company over in San Francisco doesn't get your personal data, because you never actually record it anywhere. All you have is keys, and while yes, the government could record "Oh this key was used to verify on this site", they'd have to know which shop the key was bought from, who sold it, and who bought it, which is a lot more difficult to do unless the shopkeeper keeps records of everyone he's ever sold to.

So... Good idea? Bad idea? Better than the current approach anyway, I think.

I keep thinking about some of RPs I've done in my life. Hot, vile, smutty text based RPs. I think about them and wonder if there will ever be a time when those words would be considered illegal and I would be arrested for posting them. This doesn't just protect minors. It tags deviance. Some of you may know the darker corners of Reddit. Imagine if an AI flagged your subs. The delete-rebuild cycle doesn't work anymore. Reddit will always know. If the law asks for suspects for newly illegal thought crime, Reddit will be able to point to all the users on those dark corners. We are moving into a future where privacy doesn't matter and I fear what that means for the kinky among us.

Years later, you will find many then teen’s 80yo grandmas’ photos in the leaked database

That said, as someone who has posted stuff like that and had it spread without my consent, screw (very much not literally) consuming that shit without taking the same risks as the people sharing what they get off to.

I do think its gross to require it for the other NSFW stuff. Drug forums are very important resources for harm reduction.

“Reddit has stressed that this system is only to verify users' age, and it has no interest in your identity. Lee further stated that Persona won't know what subreddits you visit, and has promised it won't keep users' uploaded images more than seven days.”

Press X to doubt.

The “won’t somebody please think of the children” rhetorical tactic is always just a pretext for authoritarianism, mass surveillance and data privacy intrusion. Always. It’s the perfect motte-and-bailey: when you attack the actual motives, the motte becomes, “So you don’t care about children?”

This is a combination of terrible legislation in the UK meets awful social media site.

The Online Safety Act is an abomination, compromising the privacy and freedom of the vast majority of the UK in the name of "protecting children".

I'm of the view parents are responsible for protecting their children. I know it's hard but the Online Safety Act is not a solution.

All it will.do is compromise the privacy and security of law abiding adults while kids will still access porn and all the other really bad stuff on the Internet will actually be unaffected. The dark illegal shit on the Internet is not happening on Pornhub or Reddit.

The UK is gradually sliding further and further into censorship, and authoritarianism and all the in the name of do gooders. It's scary to watch.

Next in the news: "500k Usernames, Passwords and biometric data leaked in the latest hack"

Yeah, I will definitely trust an internet stranger with my face so they can verify that I'm not underage to access content which could, in case of being leaked, damage my reputation or even destroy my life.

DEFINITELY