War on Texas law requiring ID to savor smut online heads to Supreme Court A Texas law requiring adults to show their ID to access online pornography will be heard by the US Supreme Court, setting up a potential domino effect that could undo - or reinforce - similar laws in 18 other states. The appeal to SCOTUS was filed in April by groups headed by the Free Speech Coalition, the trade association …
The nice part of this is, they are validating what state a user is in by IP number blocks. So even when your state hasn't passed any law, if your ISP's IP blocks are used across state lines you can still be hit with the age verification. I'm not sure how your phone number or credit card verifies your age, but they are asking for those. Or you can give some unknown 3rd party an image of your driver's license.
It's a good time to be in the VPN business.
My prediction is that if the laws are allowed to stand, they will be expanded to other things a vocal minority finds morally objectionable. The 3rd party verifiers will get hacked, but won't be held responsible, and either criminals will have a goldmine of info for identity fraud or government agencies will somehow 'acquire' activity logs.
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"you can give some unknown 3rd party an image of your driver's license" You could give them an image of someone else's driver's license. The parler hack provides plenty.
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While cruising the dank cellars of the internet yesterday, I came across somebody selling a Photoshop template for a UK driving license. I didn't see a price, but it goes to show that there are options. If I handed a web site a DL from Uzbekistan, what are the chances they'd know if it was legit or not? Way back when I worked in a bar, we got very good at knowing what was cricket since there was a bounty on catching fake ID's. That was with the document in hand. If I can't feel it and tilt it to see holograms and watermarks, it's much easier to fake. One thing that many under 18's have is time. They'll find the fake ID tutorials and share with their friends. Now, if they weren't allowed a computer in their bedroom and had to use one in a common area of the home and might get grief for certain classes of visuals, would they take the risk? Good parenting is the key and government is a cesspool of filth, as they constantly demonstrate, so they're not on the moral high ground to be trying to usurp parental responsibilities.
It's not quite that easy. Every "ID age verification" check I've seen includes "Selfie to compare against ID", and the one for the IRS I think requires a video selfie. Wasn't exactly comfortable sending that out to a third-party (no, "ID.me" is not a government run website, it's run by a contractor), but if I wanted to check any of my IRS tax info online, there was no other choice.
I wouldn't expect any other ID check website not to compare a recent photo against the ID.
I suppose one good thing would be, if Senator Ted Cruz visits a porn site that does ID verification, they'll know for sure who he is. No more blaming the social media intern for liking the wrong photo.
> I'm not sure how your phone number or credit card verifies your age, but they are asking for those.
A credit card verifies your age because you have to be 18 to have one.
Your phone number verifies your age because it's been your human serial number for more than a decade now. By itself it doesn't do anything, but it is used to link to other materials that do show your age (social media profiles, car insurance, basically anything else that has ever asked you for your phone number, including apps on said phone saying "I need to know your phone number to work"). Because that information has been, and is being sold on the open market by a variety of actors.
Your phone number has been your human serial number for a good amount longer than a decade now. It's harder to change a phone number (and untangle the mess of everything that is tied to it) than it is to get a new Social Security Number (for those in the US). This has been the reason why everyone always asks you for your phone number: your SSN may change, but your phone number stays the same!
Based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_CARD_Act_of_2009, I presume you are either the co-signer on the card, your child is an authorized user on a card that is actually in your name, or your child has a very lucrative lemonade stand/paper route/...?
Your point stands, the CC should (and could) thus not be used to establish age, but that doesn't mean they still won't do that (as is the same with the whole "don't use an SSN as an identifier or secret value"-guidance issued by the SSA). I guess their assumption is "if you have a CC, you are over 18", which is indeed the default for almost all CCs, and your child is one of the (un)lucky few to have a CC before their 18th.
That being said, I'm not quite sure why so many thumbs-down on the GP. Do people just get ticked off because of the "human serial number" part? Not liking it doesn't make it less true...
> Do people just get ticked off because of the "human serial number" part? Not liking it doesn't make it less true...
>> but your phone number stays the same!
Got a new phone number last time I changed provider (about 18 months ago, IIRC), doesn't seem worth the bother to get the old one moved over. The people (and banks) who I wanted to know about the change were told soon enough. Any companies who still have the old number - well, for 99% I have no idea why they thought they needed it, didn't seem to help me them knowing, they are welcome to try ringing the old number.
Probably do the same again soon enough, as another mobile service supplier becomes the cheapest that fits my meagre needs.
"A credit card verifies your age because you have to be 18 to have one."
My youngest (half) sister had one at 8-9. It was under her dad's account, but had her name on it and she had a state ID card to go with it. She didn't get to keep it full time, but my other sister and I would try to be allowed to "take her shopping" when we needed things. It was also a hoot when we'd all go out to eat and we'd direct the waitress to her to settle up the bill.
Need a alias credit card # - privacy.com or any number of other services.
Need a alias phone # - Hushed or any number of other services.
Need a alias email address - SimpleLogin or any number of other services.
"Children" are not surfing pr0n. Teens surfing pr0n are already fkking their friends + using VPNs and all of the above.
Don't be a (R)epublicunt!
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> I know there's an attitude prevalent in government - well, more of a desperate hope - that technology can fix any problem.
I would turn it upside down:
There's an attitude prevalent in tech that any societal problem can be fixed by them/by technology.
And a bunch of places are all too eager to abdicate responsibility^W^W I mean use tech so they can point at it and say "Something must be done, this is something, therefore this is what we shall do".
It's hardly ever a tech problem, it's almost always a human problem.
Who is this other camp in your quest for whataboutism or is it just a cheap dig at Islam? There are extreme followers of all religions. We are talking about the extreme follows of Jesus who would cast aside sinners which is pretty much against the central theme of Christianity. Not sure why you said what you said really. It comes across as a bit sad and petty to be honest.
Amercian Taliban? Soon. Its Supreme Leader gathered his followers in 2016 and cemented their loyalty -- one that transcends actual "law and order" -- in 2020. Come November: if they win, they take power, consolidate the power, and all dissent becomes prosecuted/persecuted; if they lose, the jihad [1] begins and we get the same outcome.
And while they may carry the name of Jesus of Nazareth, they are certainly NOT Christians, if we may judge them by the outward hatred they demonstrate ("know them by their fruits"). Such hatred is certainly un-Biblical. You labeled the result "Jesusland" but it won't look anything like the Kingdom of Heaven that He preached.
1. Literally "struggle", but I'm using it like most folks to mean violence motivated by deep/strong beliefs, whether religious or almost like it.
Censorship is appealing to both Democrats and Republicans over there, so one has to assume that in this particular case this was the result of a Republican dominated assembly. Just next door the great state of Louisiana is readying itself for it's new law of surgically castrating sex offenders
Perhaps the endgame is to castrate porn viewers.
https://boingboing.net/2024/07/01/louisiana-ready-to-take-something-other-than-an-eye-for-an-eye.html
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ludicrously boingboing ends: Who knows what the SCOTUS will do with this, as cruelty seems to be something they feel the founding fathers would stand behind.
This is actually within the great tradition of the tar and feathering Revolution. The Apostle of Freedom, Arch-republican Thomas Jefferson specifically prescribed castration for rape and buggery in his proposed Virginian legal system. His admirers defend this in that probably it was not purposed for his fellow burgesses, but mainly to keep the black folks down.
Pornhub should leak a list of IPs associated with the Texas state legislature, governor's office, and US Supreme Court that have visited its site. Let people go digging and see if they can match up names to IPs and out the hypocrites.
The funny thing is that even if US based sites are required to get IDs in a few backwards states, there is SO MUCH porn out there based in other countries where this law can't touch them that this is a futile exercise. It is like trying to bail out a flooded city with a teaspoon.
The funny thing is that even if US based sites are required to get IDs in a few backwards states,
According to Newsweek, 16 states have approved legislation to require sites to verify age. With more in the process of doing so. If nearly 1/3 of the nation is doing it, can you still call them 'backwards states'?
And hypocrisy isn't a problem, Jesus told them to lie if it puts more money in their pockets.
Well hold your horses if Trump wins and the Christian nationalists he'll be bringing along get into government en masse. All the worst policies from red states around the country will apply nationwide by executive order, and his lapdog Supreme Court won't lift a finger to stop it.
You think it is backwards now, you won't even recognize it in four years. Which will be about three years after I've left, likely for good as if he gets into office he's not leaving except in a coffin.
Several of those states can't enforce the legislation, because their local state courts have said, "against state Constitution" to the idea. Texas Sen Ted Cruz even argued in favor of Texas "6 or more sex toys = state felony of possession with intent to promote" law before the US Supreme Court, and lost. He's been salty about it ever since.
Yes, those who were the "loyal opposition" and opposed pretty much everything as a matter of principle, will be in power and introduce all the "usual suspect" policies they previously opposed, with new names and slightly tweaked, while the current mob, becoming the new "loyal opposition" will decry those policies as draconian, unworkable and a drain on peoples finances and freedoms. Same old, same old.
If anyone reading is too young to be that cynical yet, just look at each parties attempts to bring in national ID cards each time they get into power and how strongly they oppose it when in opposition :-)
> each parties attempts to bring in national ID cards each time they get into power and how strongly they oppose it when in opposition
Photo ID to vote - just one step in that direction ("Why must local polling offices have to learn what all these different forms of ID look like, just have one that everybody has")
TBF, which politician is actually going to stand up and defend the right of adults to watch pr0n? Even the "I was looking at tractor pictures and my cursor slipped" guy wouldn't defend it once caught. (Yes, looking at work, as he was, is another matter entirely, whereas I'm talking about the general principle).
Dreadfully simple solution: Get genAI to create a vast swath of nonsense, such as "100,000 jello recipes for a fun Sunday afternoon snack" and "totally g-rated pictures of alien landscapes"; ingest content from large public-domain repositories; use a fractal generator to develop hours of low-storage, long-duration video. Then, for each item of adult content, have 2.001 items of chaff -- and you've skirted the "more than 1/3 of your content is naughty" threshold requiring verification.
Some enterprising soul (where did I put my server?) could even create "chaff as a service" for more than one fun site, saving them from having to host all that harmless "cover" content on their own.
Add a simple, "Show me ... material" filter at the top of the page and it's back to business as usual -- before the ink has dried on the last Christofascist signature.
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