I worked in a bank for a bit. Literally any transaction that's large and unusual for the account will be flagged. Also people do bonkers things with their money for the stupidest reasons all the time so all that one has to do if they're making large transactions is be prepared to talk to the bank and explain what's going on. Unless of course you are handling money in relation to organized crime, in which case you were fucked the moment the money touched the banking system

The grift goes nuclear. No surprise.

Why mention it? Because the media has a DUTY to call out a corrupt government! Because they're not doing their job!

I hate google enough to pay 5$/mo for Kagi - it puts a smile on my face everytime I go to search and know that I'm not supporting google

A fairer comparison would be Eliza vs ChatGPT.

Definitely don't want to be painting my face every day

You don’t understand. The tracking and spying is the entire point of the maneuver. The ‘children are accessing porn’ thing is just a Trojan horse to justify the spying. I understand what are you saying, I simply don't consider to check if a law is applied as a Trojan horse in itself. I would agree if the EU had said to these sites "give us all the the access log, a list of your subscriber, every data you gather and a list of every IP it ever connected to your site", and even this way does not imply that with only the IP you could know who the user is without even asking the telecom company for help. So, is it a Trojan horse ? Maybe, it heavily depend on how the EU want to do it. If they just ask "show me how you try to avoid that a minor access your material", which normally is the fist step, I don't see how it could be a Trojan horse. It could become, I agree on that. As you pointed out, it’s already illegal for them to access it, and parents are legally required to prevent their children from accessing it. No, parents are not legally required to prevent it. The seller (or provider) is legally required. It is a subtle but important difference. But you don’t lock down the entire population, or institute pre-crime surveillance policies, just because some parents are not going to follow the law. True. You simply impose laws that make mandatories for the provider to check if he can sell/serve something to someone. I mean asking that the cashier of mall check if I am an adult when I buy a bottle of wine is no different than asking to Pornhub to check if the viewer is an adult. I agree that in one case is really simple and in the other is really hard (and it is becoming harder by the day). You then charge the guilty parents after the offense. Ok, it would work, but then how do you caught the offendind parents if not checking what everyone do ? Is it not simpler to try to prevent it instead ?