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EFF launches Age Verification Hub

(www.eff.org)
347 points iamnothere | 7 comments | 10 Dec 25 20:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.446s | source | bottom

Also: We built a resource hub to fight back against age verification https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/age-verification-comin...
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zmmmmm ◴[11 Dec 25 21:29 UTC] No.46237414[source]▶
I feel like the EFF has stretched a bit far on this one. They need to be advocating for good solutions, not portraying age verification as fundamentally about surveillance and censorship.

As many are pointing out zero knowledge proofs exist and resolve most of the issues they are referring to. And it doesn't have to be complex. A government (or bank, or anybody that has an actual reason to know your identity) provided service that mints a verifiable one time code the user can plug into a web site is very simple and probably sufficient. Pretty standard PKI can do it.

The real battle to be lost here is that uploading actual identity to random web sites becomes normalised. Or worse, governments have to know what web sites you are going to. That's what needs to be fought against.

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1. stvltvs ◴[11 Dec 25 22:31 UTC] No.46238218[source]▶
What good solutions are there that prevent the age verification service and the website from comparing notes (because Big Brother told them to) and figuring out who you are and what you're doing?
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2. zmmmmm ◴[11 Dec 25 22:49 UTC] No.46238423[source]▶
If they voluntarily collude then yes, you can't avoid that. It's like third party cookies - once two parties collude it's game over. But that just outlines a situation where the user's chosen trusted service is hostile to their interests and they need to find one that isn't.

If Big Brother starts mandating the collusion - then yes, there's a hill to die on. But in some ways that's the point here. There are hills to die on - this just isn't it. And if you pick the wrong hill then you already died so you are losing the ones that really mattered. If the EFF pointed out to everyone that there is a privacy preserving answer to the core issue that is driving this, they could then mount a strong defense for the part that is truly problematic, since it isn't actually required to solve the problem.

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3. Seattle3503 ◴[11 Dec 25 22:59 UTC] No.46238521[source]▶
This is only hypothetical for government ID's, but in theory government IDs could provide pairwise pseudonymous identifiers with services. Your ID with a single service is stable, but it is different with each service.
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4. pseudalopex ◴[12 Dec 25 00:03 UTC] No.46239165[source]▶
> If they voluntarily collude then yes, you can't avoid that.

You may accept this. Others will not.

> But that just outlines a situation where the user's chosen trusted service is hostile to their interests and they need to find one that isn't.

Just?

5. pseudalopex ◴[12 Dec 25 00:06 UTC] No.46239197[source]▶
They imagined a scenario where the state ordered 2 companies to identify users. How would replacing 1 company with the state improve this?
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6. Seattle3503 ◴[12 Dec 25 05:40 UTC] No.46241214{3}[source]▶
What would the state force you to do in this case?
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7. stvltvs ◴[12 Dec 25 07:55 UTC] No.46241873{4}[source]▶
Is your question about what authoritarian states do with information about everyone's private lives?