[cocoto]

The real and robust method will be generating artificial video input instead of the real webcam. I really don’t think any platform will be able to counter this. If they start requiring to use a phone with harder to spoof camera input, you will simply be able to put the camera in front of a high resolution screen. The cat and mouse game will not last long.

[michaelt]

> I really don’t think any platform will be able to counter this.

Do platforms want to counter it?

Seems to me with an unreliable video selfie age verification:

* Reasonable people with common sense don't need to upload scans of their driving licenses and passports

* The platform gets to retain users without too much hassle

* Porn site users are forced to create accounts; this enables tracking, boosting ad revenue and growth numbers.

* Politicians get to announce that they have introduced age controls.

* People who claimed age checks wouldn't invade people's privacy don't get proven wrong

* Teens can sidestep the age checks and retain their access; teens trying to hide their porn from their parents is an age-old tradition.

* Parents don't see their teens accessing porn. They feel reassured without having to have any awkward conversations or figure out any baffling smartphone parental controls.

Everyone wins.

[ulrikrasmussen]

I think you forgot :

* authorities get to selectively crack down on sites for not implementing "proper" age verification. The sites never had a widespread problem with grooming to begin with but just so happened to have a lot of other activity that the authorities didn't like.

Having everyone operate in a gray area is dangerous and threatens the rule of law.

[nofriend]

It depends. If the law says "you must perform such-and-such steps to verify age" then no, they don't care if you can counter it. If the law says "you must use an approach that is at least x% effective" then yes they do care if enough people counter it.

We already had a half-assed solution, where websites would require you to press the button that says "I am over 18". Clearly somebody decided that wasn't good enough. That person is not going to stop until good enough is achieved.

[internetter]

Until somebody (likely a politician or anti-porn advocacy group) decides to poke the bear and ruin it

[tjoff]

If we normalize this shit everyone will lose.

> Reasonable people with common sense don't need to upload scans of their driving licenses and passports

Cue random bans.

> People who claimed age checks wouldn't invade people's privacy don't get proven wrong

And? Is that supposed to change anything?

[raincole]

> Everyone wins.

Only if the lawmakers agreed.

[ge96]

> Porn site users are forced to create accounts

I'm curious the sites that enforce this like 'your state has banned...' what traffic loss they have. Because I'm not gonna sign up for a porn site lmao, the stigma

[gclawes]

Don't Windows Hello camera devices have some kind of hardware attestation? I'm sure verification schemes like this will eventually go down that path soon.

My guess is that's probably one of the reasons Google tried to push for Play Store only apps, provide a measurable/verifiable software chain for stuff like this.

[nitwit005]

That the camera is real doesn't imply the thing it's viewing is real.

[OptionOfT]

Yes they do. Part of the reason why you can't use certain webcams that are Windows Hello compatible (I.e. with IR) in recent versions of Windows.

[KellyCriterion]

IIRC they had these fingerprinting pads?

[jsheard]

They already support ID checks as an alternative to face scanning, if the latter proves to be untenable then it's literally a case of flipping a switch to mandate ID instead.

[Gigachad]

The long term solution would have to be some kind of integration with a government platform where the platform doesn’t see your ID and the government doesn’t see what you are signing up for.

I don’t this will happen in the US but I can see it in more privacy responding countries.

Apple and Google may also add some kind of “child flag” parents can enable which tells websites and apps this user is a child and all age checks should immediately fail.

[alright2565]

ID is much easier to forge, it's just a flat 2-d shape. None of the physical security features come through in images.

[arcologies1985]

They can't feasibly do this in the US since many people don't have drivers licenses or passports.

[beambot]

Personal Identity Verification (PIV) and Common Access Card (CAC) credentials used by US government & military via NFC already work on web browsers. States should just move to digital IDs stored on smartphones, with chain of trust up through the secure element...

[airstrike]

And lose every user in the process

[Forgeties79]

Most people under the driving age don’t have ID’s, at least in the US.

[darth_avocado]

> The cat and mouse game will not last long.

Yes but for completely different reasons: I will not bother to play the game and stop using the platform.

[gnarbarian]

you counter this by using an id verified service like login.gov or okta verify.

That's the endgame and what the EU really wants. No poasting unless they can arrest you for inconvenient memes.

[leftouterjoins]

Yes this is spot on. Apple & Google mobile platforms are locked down tight for this reason. Try installing okta verify on graphene OS. You cannot.

[apeters]

Wow. The EU.

[kevinh]

Alternatively, hand someone $20 and your phone and have them do the verification for you.

[pfych]

This is just what I did, and plan to continue to do.

[zjaffee]

There's no need to counter it, the whole point is to hit the social aspect of being on these platforms. If even half the kids can't figure out how to make it work, then a massive part of the problem is solved because a much larger percentage are only using it due to network effects.

[EGreg]

Actually, there are many ways. For example they change colors on your screen and check in real time how it reflects on your face, eyes, etc. Very hard for a model to be trained to respond this quickly to what's on the screen.

They also have you move your head in multiple directions.

[cocoto]

You could always generate a random face model with real time rendering with enough details to trick any AI detector (or even human) and then you can do real time animation to orders or screen light tricks. You could also simply use some face filter on your face and these ones are really convincing these days (like on Snapchat and such).

[lazzlazzlazz]

Apple is believed to be adding multispectral imaging to future generations of the iPhone. This and 3d mapping are more than enough to defeat the "point the camera at a high res screen" trick.

The issue is that age verifiers (like Discord) are not really trying.

[bob1029]

They could do what a bank does and run everyone's ID through chexsystems. It's really hard to defeat this. Fake identities don't exist in the system and stolen ones would get flagged by geographic, time of use and velocity rules.

[decimalenough]

Doesn't work for places like Australia, where the social media ban applies only to under-16s. Teenagers rarely have ID, especially in countries where the minimum driving age is higher than 16 (read: most of the world outside the US).

[shevy-java]

But how many users will do so? 1%? 5%?

Also, they will probably find that out, and the moment people do so, they become suspicious to state actors. I understand the rationale behind the work around you described; I just don't think it will be a huge factor. I see this elsewhere too - for instance, I use ublock origin a lot. But how many people world wide use it? I think never above 30%, most likely significantly fewer (or perhaps all anti-advertisement extensions, I think it most definitely is below 50% and probably below 30% too).

[tjpnz]

Death Stranding 2 photo-mode works well for this.

[TheDong]

There is an easy solution to this - require a government ID, and only permit government IDs that can be verified with the state's government.

There are a lot of countries and US states where such validation is possible.

Given the state is mandating these checks, it only makes sense that the state should be responsible for making it possible to perform these checks.

[darth_avocado]

Remind me again, why do people need government approved ids to access discord in the first place? Everyone in this thread is solutioning how we could make government ids work, but no one seems to be asking if that’s a good idea.

[toomuchtodo]

You require a human to identity proof in real life and bind that to a digital identity with a strong authenticator. Anti fraud detection systems can suspend or ban if evasion attempts are detected. Perfect is not the target, it doesn’t have to be.

See: Login.gov (USPS offline proofing) and other national identity systems.

(digital identity is a component of my work)

[gruez]

>You require a human to identity proof in real life and bind that to a digital identity

That's going to be a no from me, dawg. I'm sympathetic to ID checks like if you're buying beer or whatever, but not linking my real life identity to discord or whatever.

[MrDrMcCoy]

Which is by nature transient. There are many more and quite dangerous strings attached to doing this online. You never know if all parties involved in the verification are trustworthy.

[vagab0nd]

> you will simply be able to put the camera in front of a high resolution screen

Are you sure it's that simple? How high does the resolution need to be for the camera to not be able to tell? And I'm sure there are sublet clues. Remember, you can't modify the photo or change the camera.

[ddtaylor]

I did this with OBS Virtual Camera for a thing in Oregon and it worked.

[geniium]

This is the right question. Who will benefits from blocking young people? Probably not the platform.

[nicman23]

hardware attestation webcams :) . in the dark future of the 2k there is only windows

[qwertox]

you put a flickering light, pwm creating artifacts in the video and have it apologize for it, to hopefully break some watermarks. my led light started acting up since yesterday, i have no other bulb.

[mudkipdev]

If it was that easy, Face ID wouldn't be used