All roads lead back to the only people who can stop the problem they created.This report was assisted by:Nick Devor at Barron's - https://www.barrons.com/art...
When they were asked to implement age verification in Germany, they simply pulled anything off their platform in the country that would require it instead. Mind you Germany has a system that makes age verification anonymous so if privacy concerns you, you could just implement it. (Almost no platform does because they want your data though.)
Valve doesn’t want to touch age verification with a 10 yard stick and that tells me it is probably the way to go here. Because once they have it, the path for more regulations is clear.
In this arena, more regulation is needed. Anonymous age verification is a good idea, but I question the actual anonymity. It usually depends on trust of some entity. And I just can’t fathom an entity that can really be trusted.
Foreign corporations are much more aggressive about harvesting data than the German government so you should think twice about using their products in the first place. Most of the time the German government is under fire for privacy concerns it’s because they trusted products from Microsoft or Huawei and the like.
My bad, I had the german government mixed up with probably the brits who are constantly saying they need to be able to read everyone’s messages.
That said. It’s hard to know what the intelligence arm of a government is really doing. So if they give themselves a backdoor, it’s hard to ensure only they come in. And the government is always only one election away from dramatic policy changes.
As long as the part asking for ID trusts the part verifying the ID, there is no need for anonymity to be broken, since the verifier just has to confirm what the asking part needs to know.
Think of it like someone owns a bar and needs to know if a patron is old enough to drink, and the bar owners brother or best friend says “I know that guy, he is old enough”.
When they were asked to implement age verification in Germany, they simply pulled anything off their platform in the country that would require it instead. Mind you Germany has a system that makes age verification anonymous so if privacy concerns you, you could just implement it. (Almost no platform does because they want your data though.)
Valve doesn’t want to touch age verification with a 10 yard stick and that tells me it is probably the way to go here. Because once they have it, the path for more regulations is clear.
In this arena, more regulation is needed. Anonymous age verification is a good idea, but I question the actual anonymity. It usually depends on trust of some entity. And I just can’t fathom an entity that can really be trusted.
Well the entity is the government. You know, the guys who create your ID in the first place. It’s not perfect but it’s the best one I could conceive.
You can trust them to create the ID because it benefits them. But to guard you anonymity… that actually hurts them. So you can be sure they won’t.
Foreign corporations are much more aggressive about harvesting data than the German government so you should think twice about using their products in the first place. Most of the time the German government is under fire for privacy concerns it’s because they trusted products from Microsoft or Huawei and the like.
My bad, I had the german government mixed up with probably the brits who are constantly saying they need to be able to read everyone’s messages. That said. It’s hard to know what the intelligence arm of a government is really doing. So if they give themselves a backdoor, it’s hard to ensure only they come in. And the government is always only one election away from dramatic policy changes.
This. ID and anonymity are antithetical
If all the ID consists of, then no it’s not.
As long as the part asking for ID trusts the part verifying the ID, there is no need for anonymity to be broken, since the verifier just has to confirm what the asking part needs to know.
Think of it like someone owns a bar and needs to know if a patron is old enough to drink, and the bar owners brother or best friend says “I know that guy, he is old enough”.
Not necessarily. As another user noted, zero-knowledge proofs might be able to be used to anonymously age-verify people, if done correctly.