Proof of age system moves net ID a step closer

The UK moved one step closer to online ID for all last week as the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) decided to give accreditation to NetIDme’s age verification software. But for once this may be not cause for complete doom and gloom. Also added to the list are GB Group (with their URU product) and 192.com. In one …

[Robin Bradshaw]

Why?

Unless they are going to require kids to verify their age before firing up their favourite P2P client and categorise torrents with age restrictions then its is just a new form of DRM to annoy potential customers with.

Who cares if kids are paying to download unsuitable material from online content sellers, Just rejoice in the fact they are paying for it and not stealing it.

How many people are going to find themselves faced with having to fill in some extra stuff when they order and jump through some additional hoops and just think sod it ill grab it off usenet/bittorrent/FTP site/get a copy off a mate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Children should be banned from the NET

It's simple, we don't allow children on the internet. We don't let them see action movies do we? No!

Most of the movie is nothing, people talking, some driving etc,, but the occasional blood and guts splatter fest scene might give the kids nightmares, so we don't let them see the whole movie.

Likewise the NET has some stuff might upset them, therefore we don't let them on the whole internet.

Problem solved!

Oh and Jacqui Smith, the intolerant bitch who thinks her most minor moral choices should be imposed on everyone by force of criminal law, she shouldn't be allowed on either. She obviously is constantly upset by stuff she reads there, so she should be banned too, Glasgow East byelection results for instance, I bet that upsets her. Best if she's not allowed to type 'http' ever again.

Tolerate tolerant people but never tolerate intolerant people.

/rant

[Fred]

Well whoopee

I always encourage my boy 9 & 11 to provide fake login details for anything they want to do on the web, even if it is legitimate. They are not interested in sex yet, "yecchh kissing", but when they are I guess they will be ready, whatever age that happens to be. They actually told the truth about their age on one site, and it came back with some nonsense about wanting me to fax permission for them to join, easier and quicker to just create another false id.

[Anonymous Coward]

bbfc

can shuve it up their arse and so can that fascist Jaqui Smith.

[TimB]

Control?

"the government now needs to seriously consider whether filtering software has reached the point where some elements of internet policing may safely be placed back in the hands of parents"

When exactly was it taken out of the hands of parents? Or does the government just assume control regardless?

[Tom]

@TimB

You've got to remember, even though this is register.co.uk, 70% of these articles are written by yanks, so when John says 'government' he means the yankee government, and they decided in 1998 that it was a criminal offence for an American to put any content on the internet that may be offensive to minors, unless it is protected by a credit-card backed age verification system.

IIRC thats also why Fred was asked to fax in confirmation of his acceptance of allowing his kids on a forum.

Internet laws should be run past the IETF first, most of them would get thrown out as pointless or unenforceable..

[Anonymous Coward]

Re Children should be banned from the NET

Totally agree, really pi$$es me off when I see people calling for more Censorship of the NET, when all they need to do is actually pay attention to what their bloody Progeny are actually up to.

If you are too stupid to understand what your kids are doing on the Internet, either learn or don't give them NET access. It's simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this at all secure?

Read-world ID cards have your face on them so you can't use your parents'. What's to stop you using somebody else's details with this scheme? I'm sure kids will soon be trading their parents' or older brothers' login details.

[pctechxp]

@AC Children should not be allowed on the net

motion seconded, give that man/woman a beer on me.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree

Remember those 'phone cards a bit ago? The one's where you dialed 144 etc etc? Well, a friend of a friend found one, then wrote said number down on several bits of paper along with the words "If you want free 'phone calls, ring this number, then dial the number you want". It got absolutely hammered, to a point where it no longer worked.

<rant>

Jacqui Smith trades mostly on "I'm a mum too" credentials, but is only a "bog standard" politician when it comes to policy and "radical" thinking. She ain't sorted the knife crisis nor the binge drinking out with her stupid adverts has she?

</rant>

[Mortvent]

Can they verify who is using the data or is at the computer?

So what happens if the innocent kids borrow a parent's information, or daddy forgets to log out his user info on the browser...

Online age and identity verification is not really going to happen, no system can not be gamed to allow those you want to keep out from getting access

[JohnG]

Internet is global

How many Russian porn sites are going to follow UK legislation? Or simlar legislation from any other counries? These politicians are all thick as shit.

Maybe nulabour plans to have a great firewall of the UK, along the lines of the Chinese one. They could then filter all kinds of undesirable traffic - like election results, for example,

[john Jones]

NetIDme’s does not allow outside OpenID... so bad implementation

so NetIDme provide a OpenID = good

NetIDme does not allow you to use an existing OpenID = bad

it really would be as simple as keeping a database of all the verified OpenID's so that if someone said is openid "john.appleseed.name" or "[e-mail]" over 18 NetIDme could say yes...

its that simple manage the NetIDme profile and link it to the OpenID of choice i.e. Yahoo account (that are OpenID's) etc

(and if they dont have a OpenID then provide them with one which is what NetIDme’s already doing)

far more powerful and might get used

regards

John Jones

[Gilbert Wham]

"sorted the knife crisis nor the binge drinking out "

That's because there *isn't* a 'knife crisis' OR a 'binge drinking' crisis. There are a lot of people in this country. Some of them are idiots. Some of these idiots like to get idiotically drunk. We've all done that.

A tiny number of these idiots (a distinctly separate subset to 'people who like a drink on a friday', mark you) stab each other occasionally. A much larger set of idiots (we'll call these ones 'journalists' - not good ones, but still) write gibbering tosh to sell foolish newspapers to curtain twitching fools.

This allows another set of idiots to pass misguided legislation to further their own agendas. All driven by the selling of newspaper ads for shit that the curtain-twitchers don't need in the first place.

</ranrt> I

[Dennis Healey]

Russian Porn Ban

"How many Russian porn sites are going to follow UK legislation? Or simlar legislation from any other counries? These politicians are all thick as shit."

True - Russian sites will not play by our rules, but remember that your ISP will be inspecting your data and may need to Issue a stiff letter.

Paris - cos she knows to deal with stiff letters

[Anonymous from Mars]

"Step forward NetIDme. Under cover of a suitably unpronounceable brand name"

"Step forward NetIDme. Under cover of a suitably unpronounceable brand name"

I stared at NetIDme for about 20 seconds, gave up, and decided to call it "Net Dime."

Then I read the above quote. My sentiments exactly!

[Anonymous Coward]

Libertarians - v - Fascists (left or right) wing.

What we have here, is a metaphor for life...

Until 1997 the net was a fantastic thing, then government got involved... It's been downhill ever since.

Where, once there was information, now there is advertising.

Where, once there was the free exchange of ideas, now there is fear and loathing.

Where, once there was freedom, now there are threats.

What would be really handy, would be a way of identifying government stooges and slapping a BEWARE! label on. After all of their interventions (and this also applies to EVERY facet of life), the internet is no safer, no more secure, there is no more parity between rich and poor, etc. etc. The only result has been an increasing level of unhelpful interference and restriction/constriction.

Maybe it is time for right thinking libertarian people to start a new net, one where we can protect our privacy, where government fascists are given the "black spot" and avoided like the plague that they represent.

N.B. this should also apply to every facet of life, government should have ONLY ONE role, they should be there to stop something even nastier crawling out of the woodshed.

One would have thought that "Joe Public" would have learned by now, first we had the monarch, then we had the church and now we have the government, and all of them seem to think it is their right to inflict their ever changing morals upon us, and like rats in a cage, the more rules, the more people rebel and the tighter the fascist screws are applied.

There is only one world, everyone's shit stinks in the morning, and no one is better than anyone else.

[Gordon Pryra]

"Step forward NetIDme. Under cover of a suitably unpronounceable brand name"

Whats so hard with reading it?

Net Id me?

Am i missing something here?