I have a solution to the age verification problem. There is a way to affirmatively prove someone is a real human adult without invasions of privacy. We can use the same ID verification system we’ve been using for centuries: public notaries.
Governments could hand anonymous cryptographic tokens to notaries. These contain no information on the individual. They’re simply a unique cryptographic token. You can go to a notary, pay a nominal fee, show your ID, and grab one of the tokens (possibly just a code printed on a card) from a large bin of them. You can then use this token to register for any number of sites. The notary themselves does not need to note which cryptographic token you grab. The notary doesn’t even know what token you received. The goal is merely to prove you’re an adult human, not to create a cryptographic key tied to your specific identity.
I would then let people do this as many times as they want. You can get a hundred such IDs. They wouldn’t cost much, a few dollar or Euros. This would be no barrier to individuals accessing the net, but it would make them unsuitable for mass spamming.
Maybe I missed something, but with your proposed solution, what would stop someone from just handing the adult cryptographic token to a kid? It sounds like it would be a similar situation to or even easier to do than fake ID cards or adults buying alcohol for underage people.
Nothing. Who says a solution has to be perfect? If “good enough” is good enough for handling the sale of alcohol, it can certainly be good enough for accessing web sites. No solution to any problem is perfect. You always have to find a balance between preventing the thing you want to stop and the negative effects of your efforts to prevent that thing.
It’s a legit idea, and there’s a thing like that, called Zero Knowledge Proofs (ZKP).
IMO it’s possible in theory. Like set up and managed in good faith, it can work mathematically, and you can prove it does.
My worry tho is that it wouldn’t be in good faith. It’ll be corrupted somehow. Or it turns out that enough other signals leak that it isn’t very effective. Like fingerprinting and stylometry and w/e allow ID’ing despite the ZKP layer.
I have a solution to the age verification problem. There is a way to affirmatively prove someone is a real human adult without invasions of privacy. We can use the same ID verification system we’ve been using for centuries: public notaries.
Governments could hand anonymous cryptographic tokens to notaries. These contain no information on the individual. They’re simply a unique cryptographic token. You can go to a notary, pay a nominal fee, show your ID, and grab one of the tokens (possibly just a code printed on a card) from a large bin of them. You can then use this token to register for any number of sites. The notary themselves does not need to note which cryptographic token you grab. The notary doesn’t even know what token you received. The goal is merely to prove you’re an adult human, not to create a cryptographic key tied to your specific identity.
I would then let people do this as many times as they want. You can get a hundred such IDs. They wouldn’t cost much, a few dollar or Euros. This would be no barrier to individuals accessing the net, but it would make them unsuitable for mass spamming.
Maybe I missed something, but with your proposed solution, what would stop someone from just handing the adult cryptographic token to a kid? It sounds like it would be a similar situation to or even easier to do than fake ID cards or adults buying alcohol for underage people.
Nothing. Who says a solution has to be perfect? If “good enough” is good enough for handling the sale of alcohol, it can certainly be good enough for accessing web sites. No solution to any problem is perfect. You always have to find a balance between preventing the thing you want to stop and the negative effects of your efforts to prevent that thing.
In that case, I suppose I agree with your solution.
It’s a legit idea, and there’s a thing like that, called Zero Knowledge Proofs (ZKP).
IMO it’s possible in theory. Like set up and managed in good faith, it can work mathematically, and you can prove it does.
My worry tho is that it wouldn’t be in good faith. It’ll be corrupted somehow. Or it turns out that enough other signals leak that it isn’t very effective. Like fingerprinting and stylometry and w/e allow ID’ing despite the ZKP layer.