Government sets up page to verify age. You head to it, no referrer. Age check happens by trusted entity (your government, not some sketchy big tech ass), they create a signed cert with a short lifespan to prevent your kid using the one you created yesterday and without the knowledge which service it is for. It does not contain a reference to your identity. You share that cert with the service you want to use, they verify the signature, your age, save the passing and everyone is happy. Your government doesn't know that you're into ladies with big booties, the big booty service doesn't know your identity and you wank along in private.

But oh no, that wouldn't work because think of the... I have no clue.

I give it 2 years till Netflix requires you to have an ID every time you open the app because it has rated R movies.

This is the same principle. The account holder agreement should make the account holder responsible for the use of the service.

The government shouldn't be parenting our minors, their guardians should be.

Otherswise we should put digital locks on every beer bottle, pack of cigarettes, blunt raps, car door, etc. That requires you to scan your ID before every use.

"Kids shouldn't be driving cars, it isn't safe!"
Yes, but somehow we have made it 100 years without requiring proof of age/license to start the car.

And the car is far more deadly than them seeing someone naked.

Government sets up page to verify age. You head to it, no referrer. Age check happens by trusted entity (your government, not some sketchy big tech ass), they create a signed cert with a short lifespan to prevent your kid using the one you created yesterday and without the knowledge which service it is for. It does not contain a reference to your identity. You share that cert with the service you want to use, they verify the signature, your age, save the passing and everyone is happy. Your government doesn't know that you're into ladies with big booties, the big booty service doesn't know your identity and you wank along in private.

But oh no, that wouldn't work because think of the... I have no clue.

Oh, I was thinking the certificate would only be needed for signups - once the account is created, it absolutely should be on the account holder, not the service provider.

That sounds like a very functional and rational solution to the problem of age verification. But age verification isn't the ultimate goal, it's mass surveillance, which your solution doesn't work for.

Lucky for Mastodon and other ActivityPub projects, they don't need to host any servers. People outside of regions where age verification is required can host the servers instead.

Age check happens by trusted entity (your government, not some sketchy big tech ass), they create a signed cert with a short lifespan to prevent your kid using the one you created yesterday and without the knowledge which service it is for.

Sorry, not sufficient.

Not secure.

" I certify that somebody is >18, but I don't say who - just somebody "

This is an open invitation to fraud. You are going to create at least a black market for these certificates, since they are anonymous but valid.

And I'm sure some real fraudsters have even stronger ideas than I have.

But what if govt block the site hosted outside? And the VPNs require you to do an age verification?

Government sets up page to verify age. You head to it, no referrer. Age check happens by trusted entity (your government, not some sketchy big tech ass), they create a signed cert with a short lifespan to prevent your kid using the one you created yesterday and without the knowledge which service it is for. It does not contain a reference to your identity. You share that cert with the service you want to use, they verify the signature, your age, save the passing and everyone is happy. Your government doesn't know that you're into ladies with big booties, the big booty service doesn't know your identity and you wank along in private.

But oh no, that wouldn't work because think of the... I have no clue.

It does not contain a reference to your identity.

but they know who they issued it to, and can secretly subpoena your data from your instance.

no thank you.

Why not apply this to the ISP account holder and trust them to protect their own kids the way they see fit?

Philosophically I agree with you. I was just discussing a technological way to accomplish age verification without giving up users' identities to a service provider, or the government knowing what service you're using. Unfortunately, too many governments want to know what you're doing inside your pants.

Government sets up page to verify age. You head to it, no referrer. Age check happens by trusted entity (your government, not some sketchy big tech ass), they create a signed cert with a short lifespan to prevent your kid using the one you created yesterday and without the knowledge which service it is for. It does not contain a reference to your identity. You share that cert with the service you want to use, they verify the signature, your age, save the passing and everyone is happy. Your government doesn't know that you're into ladies with big booties, the big booty service doesn't know your identity and you wank along in private.

But oh no, that wouldn't work because think of the... I have no clue.

That sounds like a very functional and rational solution to the problem of age verification. But age verification isn't the ultimate goal, it's mass surveillance, which your solution doesn't work for.

What stops non-anonymous certificates from being sold?

If John Doe views way too much porn, then you expect the site to shut him down? They have no ability to track other site usage. The authorities have to block him after the 10,000th download.

At that point, why does the site need to know? Either the government blocks someone's ID or they don't

The fact that they haven't gone for this approach that delivers age verification without disclosing ID, when it's a common and well known pattern in IT services, very strongly suggests that age verification was never the goal. The goal is to associate your real identity with all the information data brokers have on you, and make that available to state security services and law enforcement. And to do this they will gradually make it impossible to use the internet until they have your ID.

We really need to move community-run sites behind Tor or into i2p or something similar. We need networks where these laws just can't practically be enforced and information can continue to circulate openly.

The other day my kid wanted me to tweak the parental settings on their Roblox account. I tried to do so and was confronted by a demand for my government-issued ID and a selfie to prove my age. So I went to look at the privacy policy of the company behind it, Persona. Here's the policy, and it's without a doubt the worst I've ever seen. It basically says they'll take every last bit of information about you and sell it to everyone, including governments.

Just a moment...

(withpersona.com)

So I explained to my kid that I wasn't willing to do this. This is a taste of how everything will be soon.

I think this starts to not work when you start to include other states that want to do this, other countries, cities, counties, etc.. How many trusted authorities should there be and how do you prevent them from being compromised and exploited to falsely verify people? How do you prevent valid certs from being sold?

Some examples of the type of service you mentioned:

• https://www.realme.govt.nz/
• https://id.me/