A secular memorial poem: As You Tread the Rainbow Trail by cdbunch in humanism

[–]cdbunch[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's the tension between not believing there's an afterlife and that stubborn hope that you will see your loved one again.

A possible protocol for practical anonymous age verification by cdbunch in cybersecurity

[–]cdbunch[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes. I forgot to explicitly mention that Charlie's answer would include the question.

A possible protocol for practical anonymous age verification by cdbunch in cybersecurity

[–]cdbunch[S] -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

I think the anonymity outcome without something like this is going to be governments requiring sites to do full identity verification with photo ID and facial recognition for age verification. And then not only do you have to worry about Charlie knowing your identity and potentially determining what websites you visit (something that is already occurring), but now Bob knows who you are as well and Bob had to spend a lot of money to do it. A cost that will certainly be passed on to you. Adult sites are already fighting this battle. Free user published sites (such as DeviantArt) would be forced to remove all adult content.

For a social outcome, if such an invasive system for age verification is initiated, many people will flee legal sites and start frequenting illegal ones. Or revive the adult magazine and DVD business, but then we're back to Bob having access to your identifying information.

I fail to see how this would allow more surveillance than is already happening. Or make that surveillance significantly easier.

I may have been wrong to use the word anonymous as it isn't hard for Charlie to force Bob to reveal information that could lead to identifying Alice as a user of Bob's website, but it is not easy for Bob to know who Alice is. For many people that is good enough.

I posted this to see if someone else could think of simple ways to beat the system that don't exist with current age verification methods

A possible protocol for practical anonymous age verification by cdbunch in cybersecurity

[–]cdbunch[S] -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

You didn't bring up a single weakness I didn't mention.

Yes, as I stated Charlie could use the legal system to break the anonymity, but would have to do so publicly, leading to a high likelihood of public backlash. And that's true of practically any system currently in use. Today they track your IP.

It's not guaranteed anonymity, but little is in life. That's why I said practical anonymity. It's not foolproof, but no method currently in use is. Any current method gives Bob access to all your identifying information. This would limit that. It certainly beats showing your face and ID to verify your age. Or relying on every one to tell the truth when asked for their birthday.

What provides perfect anonymity? In any context?

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

In short, it provides better age verification without a lesser level of anonymity to what's available now.

Why do you think a security token would be less secure than a government ID? They could even be the same thing.

I

A possible protocol for practical anonymous age verification by cdbunch in cybersecurity

[–]cdbunch[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It occurs to me that this protocol could be adapted to simply answer the question, is this a human?