Cloudflare starts blocking pirate sites for UK users

Shouldn't surprise absolutely nobody, once you become the gatekeeper of the Internet, you're going to gatekeep.

Now it's torrent sites and next it's going to be other things the party in charge doesn't like.

About a decade ago, there were proposals for a "driver's license for the internet."

Nowadays... I actually think it might be a lesser evil. Picture such an ID, if there were a standard for it, enrolled into your computer.

If it were properly built, your computer could provide proof of age, identity, or other verified attributes on approval. The ID could also have micro-transaction support, for allowing convenient pay-as-you-go 10 cents per article instead of paywalls, advertising, and subscriptions everywhere. Websites could just block all non-human traffic; awfully convenient in this era of growing spam, malware, AI slop, revenge porn, etc. Website operators, such as those of small forums, would have far less moderation and abuse prevention overhead.

Theoretically, it would also massively improve cybersecurity, if websites didn't actually need your credit card number and unique identity anymore. Theoretically, if it was tied to your ID, it's like Privacy.com but for every website; much lower transaction friction but much higher security.

I think that's the future at this rate. The only question is who decides how it is implemented.

oh good, and your authoritarian government can know you're in the closet and trying to figure out how to leave the country, too!

no, fuck this idea so hard. if this is inevitable, our duty is to build technology that defeats it

Local ID Proofs =/= Surveillance

it absolutely will mean surveillance, unless you were born yesterday. governments will implement what you're describing in a way that is not privacy preserving

this is supposed to be HACKER news, not fucking bootlicker news

Yes, and we're losing. Why do you think the internet is covered in ads, 25% Cloudflare, infested with CAPTCHAs and IP blocking, and the problem gets worse every year?

There are real problems that haven't been fixed; the driver's license concept correctly implemented might be better than continuing down this path. I view it as we can make a good standard; or let a bad standard be dictated.