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Posted by dreadsword 5 days ago

Kids can bypass some age checks with a drawn-on mustache(www.theregister.com)
245 points | 192 comments
gloosx 4 days ago|
When I was a kid, I went as far as to install a key-logger on the computer to get the master password from the parental controls, silently disabling them when I wanted and enabling them again when I'm done so parents would never notice.

It's almost sad this AI age verification bs doesn't even pose too big of a challenge for kid's creativity

aussieguy1234 4 days ago||
Sounds like you were more sophisticated as a kid than your adult parents
OkayPhysicist 4 days ago|||
Kids are highly motivated, and have a lot of free time. They make truly obnoxious adversaries.
cortesoft 3 days ago||
A true Advance Persistent Threat, although not always that advanced, but definitely persistent.
gloosx 3 days ago||||
Most kids are more sophisticated than their parents, who are usually too tired by the burdens of life to notice
davkan 4 days ago|||
Necessity is the mother of invention.
dreadsword 4 days ago||
Hardcore!
zeec123 5 days ago||
The result will be age verification with a passport or ID "to protect the children". Probably this was the goal all along.
Cakez0r 4 days ago||
Tier 1 networks legally not allowed to route packets that aren't digitally signed by a cryptographic ID linked to you
voxic11 2 days ago|||
Additionally tier 1 networks legally not allowed to route packets that don't include an attestation that they were produced by a computer running only approved software.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220814024158/https://gabrielsi...

Denatonium 4 days ago||||
Hopefully they exempt UDP traffic with a destination port of 53. Or suspiciously-large ICMP echo request and echo response packets.
dreadsword 4 days ago|||
Yeesh thats chilling
riffraff 5 days ago|||
The EU age id app is this, with some extra privacy hurdles (the id is only on your phone not on the remote server).
thisislife2 5 days ago||
And this will then be used by the Apple and Google to make "security" on the OS "stronger" so that "we can protect the children" better (i.e. lock down the OS even more and take control away from us consumers). In this new idiocracy, this this is how corporates and government work together to take away our rights ...
riffraff 4 days ago||
it's the other way around: the app mandates usage of ios and google because they already provide those lock downs.
RunningDroid 4 days ago|||
I've heard Turkey's age verification law jumps straight to "no internet access without ID"
delfinom 4 days ago|||
Politicians worldwide are salivating at the chance of throwing their opposition and critics in prison.
kjkjadksj 3 days ago||
As if that took the internet to do
Cthulhu_ 5 days ago|||
Already a thing for a lot of services (like financial), but still. There's better ways that don't involve sending your ID or facial scans to a first or third party.
pjc50 5 days ago||
Yeah, I set up a trading212 account lately and they wanted ID scan + live video. I mind that a bit less for finance: identity theft is real, and there are significant disadvantages to me if someone can set up a bank account in my name without getting ID checked.

I'm not doing it for bloody discord or bsky DMs.

echelon_musk 4 days ago||
I'm paying Fidelity's fees instead of completing the verification process with Trading 212.
seydor 4 days ago||
I assume that everyone's ID is identifiable by willing state actors (at least adults) . Perhaps they want to create databases of possible child terrorists?
nick486 5 days ago||
I guess thats one important upside of age verification systems I didn't think of. They encourage creativity and a healthy disregard for stupid rules.
spelk 4 days ago||
In a similar vein: A while ago, Chinese adolescents were bypassing age restrictions for playtime in Mainland China by using the published national ID numbers of insolvent debtors (which are apparently published online to ensure that no financial institutions extend credit to them) to sign up for accounts. From what I understand, they started partially masking these national ID numbers in response to that.
pkphilip 5 days ago||
The governments know fully well that simple checks for age verification will be bypassed. So they will "fix" this issue by demanding a digital id.
13x29a 4 days ago||
I firmly believe that society should rather focus on education, not new restrictions for the broadest audience.

Mandatory age verification may limit some from accessing some types of content, but that's ulikely to actually help with anything other than narrowing perception tunnel for many and maybe stimulating some to hack around like the title suggests.

And that brings costs to society, such as increased security risks (even ZKP - government seeing the data is still a massive point of failure), and infringement of privacy. And populations learn to comply with bs regulations.

While tracking and addictive algos could be blanket banned for everyone regardless of age.

jl6 5 days ago||
Maybe age verification will encourage kids to be more social in person, because they’ll need to have at least two inside the trenchcoat.
bcjdjsndon 4 days ago|
Kids also not allowed outside..
Hoodedcrow 4 days ago||
How so? You never see kids outdoors?
qball 4 days ago|||
Most parents are too afraid of the State kidnappers (and the Karens who call them) for that.
Hoodedcrow 4 days ago|||
IDK about "most", there are plenty of kids on the streets. Like, just going to and from school and extracurriculars gives opportunities.
throwawaytea 4 days ago||
Come on be honest.. it's like 10% of what it was in the past.
bcjdjsndon 4 days ago|||
I mean I see em, but I feel like there should be a lot more playing in the street.
noosphr 4 days ago||
Streets are for cars now.
kleiba2 5 days ago||
They also use VPNs, as anyone would have predicted within two seconds.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn72ydj70g5o

Consequently, we're now discussing VPN bans for under 18 year olds <insert facepalm emoji>.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn438z3ejxyo

interstice 5 days ago||
Collectively we have fought long and hard for internet freedom, it's depressing that all it takes is a generation and some bureaucratic idiocy for all that to be undone.
bcjdjsndon 4 days ago||
> internet freedom

This "freedom" runs exactly inverse to how many normies know about the internet. The more accessible it's become, the worse it's got for freedom. They weren't regulating what they didn't know about back in the glory days

contubernio 4 days ago|||
The vpn ban movement also has support from powerful (and corrupt) entities like the Spanish football federation ...
anthk 4 days ago||
Go tell Tebas that the AEPD fines over LaLiga app can be astronomically huge. Also, telecomms' disruption and suplantation (MITM) in Spain can make both Tebas, the ISP CEO's (and mid managers) among the judge jailed in the spot.
heavyset_go 5 days ago|||
I've never seen efforts to make laws as damn bulletproof like this.

They must really be scared of the voice and power anonymity gives normal people who wouldn't normally have it.

2ndorderthought 5 days ago|||
Vpns are really under attack this year. All the LLM providers desperately don't want to have the majority of users using them.

It's basically the leading reason why quantum computing is being funded. They gotta break your encryption to read your activity.

Pretty sad world.

anthk 4 days ago|||
I2PD supports quantum-resistant encryption schemes. On LLM's, no sane hacker would use that turd ever. Free as in freedom software it's incompatible with a 66GB slopware acting as a SAAS with source stealing and relicense laundering.
Permit 4 days ago|||
> It's basically the leading reason why quantum computing is being funded.

What? Can you provide any evidence for this claim?

2ndorderthought 4 days ago||
Why do you think Google, the world's largest ad company, is paying money out of its ears to research those topics? The sooner people realize all major us tech companies are contractors for the us department of war the better.
bcjdjsndon 4 days ago|||
> Why do you think Google, the world's largest ad company, is paying money out of its ears to research those topics?

The numerous commercially viable applications of quantum computing. No conspiracy theory needed, you nutjob

2ndorderthought 4 days ago||
First time I have been called a nut job. Nice
worldsavior 4 days ago|||
That's FUD.
2ndorderthought 4 days ago|||
Alright then.

Go ahead use metas verifier, give your biometrics to openai, type all your personal and financial information into copilot for advice, email your boss tell him anthropics boris was right you are now redundant, click on all of the ads you see, only engage with your peers on Facebook to let the algorithm decide how that goes, only drive in roads with flock cameras to stay safe, turn off your ad blocker, don't use vpns, etc. it's your life.

Or ... https://www.npr.org/2026/03/25/nx-s1-5752369/ice-surveillanc...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2025/02/27/us-go...

https://www.wired.com/story/dhs-surveillance-phone-tracking-...

anthk 4 days ago|||
Meta it's behind all age laws. Guess why.
marcus_holmes 5 days ago||
it's funny, but this is not going to end well.
silon42 5 days ago||
Time to go back to modems (over phone maybe) and BBSs?
Morromist 5 days ago||
The next age verification tech will involve checking tallness so we'll have kids standing on eachother's shoulders in a big trenchcoat to do the very adult act of installing linux.
glenngillen 4 days ago||
My 12yo son is already significantly taller than me! We had to use his passport to prove he’s much younger than these systems report because they were locking him out from chatting to his friends (said the age gap was too big)
antiframe 4 days ago|||
Wait, am I understanding correctly: for your child to chat with their friends you had you send a copy of their passport to a stranger in the Internet because "a system" thought they were older looking that their friends?

What are we doing even?

mschuster91 4 days ago|||
> What are we doing even?

We forced parents to both work 40 hours and more including commutes and mandatory overtime, which led to an insane demand to have "safe spaces" for children where they do not need a parent.

glenngillen 1 day ago|||
yeah :( I'm definitely not in the pro "kids need to be protected from the internet/social media/whatever" camp as I'd much rather teach my kids to make smart decisions and manage it ourselves vs the government mandated solution we now have. The way it's implemented though means services (Roblox in this case) have to verify the age of the child. Those kids can only talk to other kids that are +/- some range from their own age. So it was either let him continue playing as though he's a 16yo but not actually be able to play with any of his friends, or use the identity verification provider they have to prove he's not. The whole thing is a gross mess imo.
MyHonestOpinon 3 days ago|||
How do they know how tall he was ? Oh perhaps his face looks older too ?
glenngillen 1 day ago||
yeah, his face looks older too I guess. Was mostly calling out that height isn't going to necessarily help either.
bilekas 5 days ago|||
And when they need to find a way to circumvent this, they will ask for the full height picture without clothes on. Instead of addressing the problem of this entire idea and implementation they will continue to double down on it.
lazyasciiart 5 days ago||
And that’s how the laws designed to protect children ended up producing the worlds largest collection of photos of naked children.
Someone 5 days ago|||
Mostly naked grownups, with a few fairly tall children who are naked, except for the fake pubic hair.
wongarsu 4 days ago||
Don't worry, most "protect the children" regulation casts a web so wide it includes plenty of pubic hair and sexually active teens
jermaustin1 4 days ago|||
The UK government already has one of if not THE largest collection of CSAM in the world, called the CAID (Child Abuse Image Database).
2ndorderthought 5 days ago|||
Lol. Or standing next to a dollhouse or something.

Let's be realistic here. All this age verification stuff is pseudoscience and more importantly it isn't tested or standardized at all. It's just theater so the creeps get all the data on your children they can.

Meta has made a killing, literally, exploiting children psychology. Social media is the orphan crunching machine for nonorphans or something.

cucumber3732842 5 days ago||
>All this age verification stuff is pseudoscience and more importantly it isn't tested or standardized at all. It's just theater

<lightbulb moment>

Abdicating responsibility, standards and government enforcement are three of white collar America's favorite things.

Seems like an opportunity for someone to become a billionaire by creating a standardization and licensing agency and then paying for some shills to get the ball rolling. Give it 5yr and everyone will have to do business with you lest the feds kick in their door. Give it 10yr and the useful idiots will be in the comment section talking about how XYZ age verification mechanism must be good because it's "certified" by your garbage and that the sky will fall if we get rid of it.

I hope I'm too jaded, but frankly I don't think I'm jaded enough.

azinman2 4 days ago|||
So what would you do to combat the very real problems associated with (unlimited) access to known cognitive harms for minors?
stevenicr 16 hours ago||
not op, but my thoughts..

1 - hold the parents accountable for putting a dangerous weapon in the hands of munchkins without supervision.

2 - phone manufactures and or internet providers that sell and connect them, must include a bouncer bot system like a locked phone. The parents get to choose and change which set of bouncers filter the phones.

These can be simple like 18 and over content according to your jurisdiction block.. but I would hope they would spend time to choose multiple bouncers that block different things for different values and offer ways to request access to blocked things.

I have posted more details previously.

2ndorderthought 5 days ago|||
They are trying for it that's for sure. It reminds me of the us war on drugs for some reason. Obviously I don't want kids doing drugs but it had ludicrous takes that were terrible for society. I guess there aren't enough wars going on? Have to go to war against the Internet or something now.
christophilus 4 days ago||
It reminds me of Tipper Gore and her righteous crusade against video games.
general1465 4 days ago||
I can already see angry post on reddit that some short king failed a verification test.
creaturemachine 4 days ago||
This is the new version of being IDed while in your 30's.
amanaplanacanal 4 days ago||
Grey beard here who still has to show id to buy beer (even non-alcoholic beer) at a certain grocery store chain.
ProllyInfamous 4 days ago||
I bought beer in Tennessee, with my visiting mother (obviously 21+), and they ID'd us both (as state law requires).

It tickled her silly that she "got ID'd for the first time in decades."

I didn't have the heart to tell her they HAVE to ID everybody at purchase, here.

She glowed all day, so very happily #RIPmommabear

raffael_de 5 days ago|
I think the reverse Hanlon's Razor applies here:

"Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice."

The Helen Lovejoy argument "will somebody please think of the children" provided for the foot in the door. The intended outcome is that only iris scans will allow for full child protection ... and that was the plan all along.

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