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Such a proof does not exist. It is already the case that your porn viewing habits can be leaked. It’s just that at present the one storing the information is not the government.

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RHSeeger 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Then create one, or something much better than is being demanded, first; before demanding companies use it.

If a porn company has to collect all the information about me (name, address, age, etc) and keep it in their database then, if they get hacked, then all that information, connected to what I viewed, is available to the hackers.

If the porn company has an ID that it assigns each person, and it reaches out to some government agency to say "is this person of age" (without their internal ID), then stores "yes/no" with the ID; then hacking cannot (or is much less likely to be able to) connect "what account has viewed what" with "what human being is attached to the account".

Effectively, by making the porn site need to collect and maintain personal information, privacy is made less safe. If the government is going to demand proof of age, then the government is on the hook for supplying a reasonable way to check it.

	▲	redczar 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Then create one, or something much better than is being demanded, first; before demanding companies use it. Before demanding car companies build safer vehicles I first invented the seat belt.

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fc417fc802 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Can they? It seems highly unlikely to me that most web site operators are colluding with my VPN provider to unmask me.

(Yes fingerprinting is a huge issue but the implications of that get fairly complicated.)

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redczar 4 days ago | parent [-]

Years ago Google released anonymized browsing data to researchers. The researchers were able to determine who did the searches. I imagine a state actor can already determine almost everyone’s online activity.

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fc417fc802 4 days ago | parent [-]

There's definitely some critical information missing there. I don't think you could individually identify me if all you had to go on was the text and timestamp of the searches I made within the past 24 hours. At least yesterday I didn't even look up any local businesses on maps.

State actor and porn site operator are two very different things. Pointing to the former in this context reads like a non sequitur to me.

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redczar 4 days ago | parent [-]

I believe most websites keep track of viewing history and ip addresses of where that history comes from. I believe if the government wanted to determine what your internet history is they could do so with a great deal of accuracy. As such I think the complaint that requiring proof of age would be a privacy nightmare is not relevant.

We already live in an age of relatively little privacy.

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fc417fc802 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

A targeted investigation by the government is not the same as dragnet surveillance is not the same as sharing the equivalent of my driver's license with some random site operator who can potentially turn around and sell that data (or just inadvertently leak it). The complaint is relevant because the proposed measure would make the status quo significantly worse than it currently is. That applies regardless of how bad it already is at present.

The government could fairly easily gain access to the contents of a security deposit box. That doesn't justify a policy requiring proactively declaring their contents to the authorities.

And all of that is before we even get to the essential question - would the proposed measure actually accomplish the officially stated goal?

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redczar 4 days ago | parent [-]

Since Obama’s presidency we know dragnet surveillance by the government is already the norm.

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fc417fc802 4 days ago | parent [-]

So after a protracted back and forth your reasoning comes down to the following. The government is already engaging in dragnet surveillance. Somehow this automagically unmasks VPN usage (global dragnet (as opposed to targeted) traffic correlation on that scale would be a seriously impressive feat) in addition to any other privacy measures a typical individual might take. Therefore we should be okay with a system that enables the government to see you registering with various websites, or alternatively with a system that reveals various personal information to said website operator, or alternatively both simultaneously.

Or to summarize, the situation is already organically bad so everyone should be okay if we enact laws that artificially make it even worse in new ways.

To be blunt your reasoning seems entirely specious to me.

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redczar 4 days ago | parent [-]

It’s not ok to allow easy access to hardcore pornography by minors. There is already virtually no privacy in these matters in the sense that Google and others already track us so the argument against age verification on privacy grounds is weak. As with most things there are tradeoffs and there is no perfect solution. I favor age verification being the law. You don’t.

The choice between you and others keeping the belief that your porn viewing habits are completely anonymous vs. allowing minors unfettered access to hardcore pornography I choose the latter as the more important issue.

	▲	fc417fc802 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> It’s not ok to allow easy access to hardcore pornography by minors. I don't believe anyone here suggested that it was. > Google and others already track us This is not related to the discussion at hand. I already explained to you. Google does not track me on non-google sites. My state government does not track my browsing history. Neither does the federal government. > the argument against age verification on privacy grounds is weak You are responding with nonsense and ignoring the information I provided. > As with most things there are tradeoffs and there is no perfect solution. An empty platitude. The thing you are arguing for fundamentally does not work to accomplish the stated goal, although it is quite likely to accomplish other unstated goals. The "tradeoff" is a systematic loss of privacy that is likely to weaken civil liberties in the long run. > keeping the belief that your porn viewing habits are completely anonymous vs. allowing minors unfettered access Yet another misrepresentation. At this point I have to assume that your behavior is intentional. I'm left with the impression that you are an ideologically motivated actor who is fully aware that you don't have a leg to stand on but is attempting to sway the perception of an unseen audience anyhow. The actual choice presented here is between a "solution" that openly invites government overreach without actually solving the stated problem versus the current status quo or possibly some alternative approach. Honestly I've yet to be convinced of the issue with the current status quo. Parental controls exist. Whitelists exist. Why can't we expect parents to do their jobs by parenting? The mainstream social networks don't permit nudity. If you really have so little faith in your own child's judgment then whitelist Facebook, Wikipedia, and a few others and call it a day. Although I do have to wonder. Assuming they're a teenager, why do you have so little faith in their cognitive abilities? In the end I'm reasonably certain that unfettered access to social networks is far worse for development than unfettered access to hardcore pornography. C'est la vie.

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RHSeeger 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The fact that there are already many threats to our privacy is not a reason to not push back on new threats. Rather, it's a reason to push back harder, and then try to fix the existing threats, too.