Pornhub prepares to block five more states rather than check IDs

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/06/adult-sites-blocking-more-states-this-summer-to-protest-age-verification-laws/

by perihelions • 2 years ago

55 68 2 years ago

arstechnica.com

andy_ppp• 2 years ago

Is there a way to prove your age without being identified/logging in? Surely some kind of OpenID style protocol can be invented for this with zero knowledge of personal information ending up with pornhub or which sites were being given age verification?

Veliladon• 2 years ago

Yes. Apple has the tech already with their digital driver's license initiative. It's probably more secure at stopping kids from accessing porn because it involves the on device FaceID authentication of the ID holder and could be verified and attested to each session vs just punching in a DL or CC number.

znpy• 2 years ago

You're still trusting apple. It's all fun and games, until it isn't.

Apple is what it is today, might not be the same Apple tomorrow.

tanbog45• 2 years ago

Someone would have to gather that data. It's not like a password that can be detached from physical reality. Your date of birth is somewhat inherent to your identity.

lotsofpulp4• 2 years ago

The federal government could offer it as a service, just like they do in the physical world with physical IDs.

globular-toast3• 2 years ago

Sure, a digital signature from an authority would do it. Similar to how HTTPS CAs verify that people really own domains and issue signed certificates.

bilbo0s• 2 years ago

The problem is that authority would be central, and that authority would know who you are. I think the questioner was looking for solutions that have no authority. Least of all centralized authority.

CodesInChaos• 2 years ago

I think German id cards already support a zero-knowledge proof of age.

askonomm• 2 years ago

As do Estonian ID cards as well

sofixa• 2 years ago

It's the whole of the EU, it's the new EU ID card standard, with biometrics and NFC on the card itself.

I'm not aware of any large scale user implementations of the protocol though (people have been getting compatible ID cards for years, but I don't know any software that uses them outside of probably cigarette vending machines in Spain). Do you know any?

MzHN• 2 years ago

Also via the EU "Digital Identity Wallet" as a mobile app when it's ready https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/eudi-doc-archi...

The problem will probably be adoption by services. It's a lot more tempting to get more information than just age, if you go through the hassle in the first place.

williamcotton3• 2 years ago

In the US, DMVs could issue IDs with Common Access Card support, a cheap and widely available digital system used by the DoD.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we knew we were interacting with a real person and not a chat bot?

lelandfe• 2 years ago

…on Pornhub? Why does it matter?

williamcotton3• 2 years ago

Do y’all not get how this would just be based on certificate authorities and would be privacy friendly?

ranger_danger• 2 years ago

the kids will just swipe a parent or older sibling's card

_heimdall3• 2 years ago

Whether that solves it just depends on who you're worried about having your data. Something like OpenID would keep your identifying data away from PornHub but it would allow the OpenID provider know when you visit PornHub.

For PornHub that also gives other companies, the OpenID providers, the power to censor PornHub but refusing to verify age or identity.

tigeroil• 2 years ago

I dare say this would actually be even more harmful than Pornhub holding people's IDs, as it would then give OpenID immense power to track not only the fact that you watch porn, but also what other services you use as well...

megadal2• 2 years ago

Verifiable Credentials can be used in place of OpenID to allow a user to make verifiable attestations about themselves without the authority having to be present.

It would still have many of the same flaws as OpenID, but at least you accessing a site wouldnt notify the authority.

lucianbr• 2 years ago

One thing all the crypto coins show is that a central authority has its uses. What if you want to fix a bug in the protocol or upgrade it? What if due to some mistake you are identified as underage when you are over, or over when you are underage? There's nobody to reach out to.

A zero-trust protocol or computer system is all well and good, for some uses at least. A zero-trust society will not work. Or at least it will be significantly worse than societies with trust.

verdverm2• 2 years ago

There are definitely components from the cryptocoin realm that could be repurposed in trust based systems.

zk proofs could be used to solve this problem.

- Govt runs a zk-prove-ident service

- User goes to PH and starts verification process

- PH does proof with Govt, this could be anonymous

Ideally the user's keys are part of their ID, if you lose your ID, you can get a new one. It's still a permissioned system, so no miners/stakers needed, we can make it possible to change/replace keys behind the scenes so the UX for the common people does not amount to "lose your keys, lose your money"

michaelt• 2 years ago

No, this is not possible.

Even if every state started putting contactless chips into drivers licenses to provide anonymous age attestation, you'd still have the problem a kid can just use a parent's or older sibling's card.

And even if such cards did exist and they were considered legally adequate, you've still got the problem that nothing except smartphones can read them. And you've got the problem browsers don't support them, and app stores don't welcome porn-viewing apps.

Of course, this is all intentional - the religious anti-pornography groups that push for these laws consider it a good thing that complying with the law is essentially impossible. They want a full ban on pornography, but that would get struck down as unconstitutional, so they have to get a ban by indirect means.

zimbatm• 2 years ago

Why not turn this around?

1. Introduce a X-PEGI HTTP header that sites can use to change the content. This would also be useful for other contexts such as cybercafes and whatnot.

2. Mandate that porn website abide by these headers.

3. Have responsible parents, lock their children's computers and add the appropriate header.

The adults then have access to the adult internet with no extra restrictions.

lisper• 2 years ago

responsible parents

There's yer problem right there.

Aurornis• 2 years ago

Is there a way to prove your age without being identified/logging in?

This comes up every time, but the purpose of the identity check is to ascertain (to the extent possible) that the person logging in is the person whose age you’re verifying.

If you completely separate identity from age checking using some cryptographic method, the loophole is that a single identity token with an adult age can now be used by everyone, everywhere to tell websites that they are above a certain age. So as soon as you did that, someone would just share (or steal) a token of valid age and post it online for everyone to use. Entire system subverted.

You could try to use a 3rd-party service that handles age check functions and implements some level of rate limiting to prevent this, but then you’re trusting that party to know about all of the porn websites and other places the person is trying to log in to. If that 3rd party is the government, well you’ve just created a convenient place for the government to collect stats about people logging in to porn websites.

globular-toast3• 2 years ago

Does the currently proposed method prevent someone posting their ID online?

belorn• 2 years ago

If you completely separate identity from age checking using some cryptographic method, the loophole is that a single identity token with an adult age can now be used by everyone, everywhere to tell websites that they are above a certain age

There a two counter techniques used to address that problem. Tokens can get time limited down to a number of seconds (10-30?), and a single token is only valid for one session at a given website (assuming the website honor those restriction on their side).

In addition, token providers may rate limit how many tokens a person may generate, and the application that request tokens may require a bit of work from the user (like typing a pin). Any person who need to do more age verification could be required to contact customer support to unlock such features, which also mean the provider can keep a closer eye on accounts that generate tokens in strange or abnormal patterns. Depending on how the market for identity providers are, different providers may provide different service and different levels of authentication.

In Sweden currently we are in a situation where there are multiple competing identify providers. They have to follow a certain certification, but the exact details of the technology varies a lot. There is a bit of talk to make those an open standard, including defining exactly what information the provider and the recipient should get. There is also the hope that the user application could be made generic, so switching/choosing provider becomes easy.

The problem with the technology in term of privacy is not so much in the protocols or cryptographic methods, but rather a social one. You can not create an fair identification system if all it does is ID control for porn sites, just as one can not create a VPN if all it can access is porn sites.

MattPalmer1086• 2 years ago

Most systems would require you to anonymously prove ownership of a the credential, not have an unchanging bearer token.

So yes, you could steal the private key I guess. But that is no worse than if you have to prove your identity; someone could get your password to your account.

Mindwipe• 2 years ago

No.

It's literally impossible.

You can either have a zero knowledge system where the tokens are immediately compromised and widely shared that provides no authentication whatsoever, or you can have a system that has the ability to revoke compromised tokens that is not zero knowledge.

Or as we are likely to get, you can have a system that is both easily compromised and does not have zero knowledge, and the age verification industry is simply engaged in industrial scale lying to try and get themselves written into law...

megadal2• 2 years ago

Verifiable Credentials - https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model-2.0/

ramses0• 2 years ago

This seems to be a Trojan horse for even further "personalizing" (de-anonymizing) the internet.

If one site can require FaceID (or any sort of attestation) then either some, all, or arbitrary sites can require the same.

I'm in the same boat... banking would be nice to support "non-anonymously", but why are they chasing against porn sites vs finance sites?

It's such a slippery slope imagining requiring "age verification" for dating sites/apps, then same-same for access to email, then it's only going to be news sites that don't require age verification.

(Whoops! Except NYT, WaPo, and the rest all have paywalls, and there's Fox ~News~ propaganda waiting in the wings to be "free, but needs your identity")

Slippery slippery slopes here, and it must be intentional.

tbihl• 2 years ago

but why are they chasing against porn sites vs finance sites?

They view pornography as a purely or at least sufficiently negative presence, justifying going after it. Legislating to withhold it from children is more straightforward and politically palatable than an outright ban. The deanonymization of the internet is probably an acceptable risk more than a desired outcome.

I assume it's the same mindset as people who end free speech to crusade against hate speech.

7thpower• 2 years ago

Why are people so upset?

Because this is not like ID’ing for cigarettes and alcohol.

Largely speaking, people do not want there highly personal, sensitive activity and preferences to be attached to their identity and maintained by some entity that either may get hacked or may use it in any number of nefarious ways.

Once again, porn may be on the forefront of pushing technology (VPNs) mainstream. I’m (Much more nuanced takes in the article. Ars is one of my favorite publications for this reason)

chasd00• 2 years ago

Have they started to offer a vpn service or is it only on the roadmap?

phendrenad2• 2 years ago

Why not allow liquor stores and other establishments that check IDs anyway issue a digital certificate that you are of age? Here's my ID, here's my pornhub account name, here's a service fee, digitally attest to the fact that I proved that I'm of legal age.

Seems like the real motive here is deanonymization.

hunter2_• 2 years ago

When someone of age consistently buys liquor for minors, they'll eventually get caught in many cases, due to the likely rambunctiousness of inexperienced drinkers. Would the same be true here?

jmclnx• 2 years ago

Maybe, but most of these purchases are by someone 21 (US Age) or a bit older to buy for friends. Very unlikely they will get caught. When I was young, everyone knew this was happening and these people were called "rum runners". And nothing was done. I doubt much as changed.

Back to pornhub. There is no way to verify age, have security and anonymity at the same time on the internet. What would be stopping a "rum runner" from sharing his ID with a friend ?

I think this is the main reason pornhub is blocking these states. They know it is really impossible to comply with the laws. They also know their customers want both security and anonymity. Once that trust is breached, customers will leave. For a good example there was that "affair" site a few years ago that had a breach and I think ended up folding.

justsomehnguy• 2 years ago

they'll eventually get caught in many cases

Can you share how exactly 'caught' and in how much 'many cases'?

I'm exceptionally skeptical this works for any settlement bigger than a 1000 people.

ralferoo2• 2 years ago

I am certain that Pornhub isn't doing this because they actually care about PII. However, I can think of a number of reason why they are taking this stance:

* They don't want the work to do the verification to be their problem, and to be legally responsible when (not if) it goes wrong.

* They know that age restricted devices are few and far between, so this is just an effort to kick the can down the road another decade.

* Even if all new devices support age restrictions, there will be a myriad of legacy devices that will continue to have access.

* They know people in the affected states will just use a VPN to another state anyway. If all the US eventually adopts these laws, they'll block the site entirely from the US and secretly fund and post informational videos on how to use VPNs to get around the restrictions.

* By blocking the states, they get more publicity for themselves, but also potentially anger a group of people into arguing their cause.

One thing that I think is interesting is that they are placing a lot of trust on reliable state-level geo-IP. They're only a few bad DB records or a BGP failure that routes people from these states to other servers away from a potentially costly fine. But maybe given the benefits above, this is just another cost of doing business for them.

teeray• 2 years ago

they are placing a lot of trust on reliable state-level geo-IP

Trust that could be contractually guaranteed, no? “We believe in our database so much that we’ll pay the fine if we’re wrong.”

magicalist• 2 years ago

I am certain that Pornhub isn't doing this because they actually care about PII
They don't want the work to do the verification to be their problem, and to be legally responsible when (not if) it goes wrong.

That's literally caring about PII. Quite a bit more than the state legislative sponsors of and "think of the children" advocates for these laws, too.

ralferoo2• 2 years ago

I guess I didn't phrase that quite right. My meaning was that I'm sure they don't actually care about protecting the privacy of your PII. I'm pretty certain that they'd sell it if they had the chance and/or use it to sell adverts.

In fact, I'd hazard a guess that the only reason they have the ability to block users from certain states is because they already had that information as it made their data more valuable to advertisers. They're probably already sharing information down to the city or district level with advertisers.

nickpeterson• 2 years ago

Just make the law also apply to gun websites and watch it disappear.

bitcharmer• 2 years ago

I will never understand American culture. Titty visible - bad, dead schoolkids - ok. In many ways the country is spiralling into Gliead-esqe state from Handsmaid Tales and I can't stop watching it.

cowgoesmoo• 2 years ago

It's really quite simple. Guns are protected by the constitution so citizens have a fighting chance to overthrow a tyrannical government, porn is not. Whether or not guns are a net positive to society is a different discussion, but the reasoning is clear and simple.

inemesitaffia• 2 years ago

Autobhan speeds

shrimp_emoji2• 2 years ago

In many ways the country is spiralling into Gliead-esqe state from Handsmaid Tales

After having more progressive abortion and trans care laws than Europe (where parties like the "Christian Democrats" in Germany rule), how exactly?

The Republicans want to performatively participate in their moral panic by asking for (stupid) age verification; meanwhile, the Democrats control tech and media, AI stonecolds prompts with "Trump" as "dangerous content", they want to ban everything off the Internet they don't like, and would oppress free speech with Canada's new hate speech laws if they could.

Ferret74462• 2 years ago

That's not really relevant? Gun sellers are required to verify the identities of purchasers, which already precludes children.

So the law equally prohibits distribution of guns and pornography to children.

michael_vo• 2 years ago

VPN companies celebrate.

prirun• 2 years ago

It's really sad to me that our politicians (and other people pushing for this kind of regulation) think that viewing naked people online, even having sex, is more damaging to "the children" than seeing people's guts splayed out all over the place on TV and video games, heads chopped off with blood spurting everywhere, getting limbs chopped off, using machine guns to kill people, seeing kids severely bullied at school, and so on.

Of course, I don't really think the politicians give much of a shit about porn. They just want the mechanisms in place to monitor everyone's activities online, and porn is the easiest place to start. Then it will expand to everything else.

Ferret74462• 2 years ago

I think the people who support this (for the children) also support preventing children from seeing violence.

(And I agree that seeing either is bad for children, I just don't think requiring age verification actually helps in anyway.)

noodlesUK2• 2 years ago

I feel like there are three places that you can conceivably do age restrictions, each with their respective pros and cons.

On the client: The typical parental controls situation with a blocklist. Responsible adult sites could send an HTTP header like X-Adult-Content or something to ensure they would be blocked by clients with the controls on. This could be enforced by regulation, with devices for children required to respect that header in addition to shipping with a blocklist. This couldn't be bypassed with something like a VPN (which you probably couldn't install with parental controls on anyway), because it would be baked into the client.

In the network: Similar blocklist style situation - this already exists to a certain extent in some countries. Mobile phone providers and ISPs would be required to block adult content (via dns or similar) by default, with a toggle to switch it off available to the adult account owner. We already block illegal content this way.

On the server side: This requires adult websites to be cooperative, which they will only be if they care about the jurisdiction in question. This potentially pushes kids/others to access sketchier sites which wouldn't be blocked.

I am strongly for pushing this down the stack to the client. I don't have kids, but I'm pretty sure iOS and Android as well as MacOS and Windows all have robust parental control systems. I'm sure people use them, and we can safely encourage people to use them more. If they aren't on by default already for children, they could be.

Short of biometric verification with presence detection I don't see how it's possible to do remote age verification in a good enough way that you couldn't just use an adult's credit card or device to bypass it.

Anyone who knows anything about tech knows this is just a wedge issue, and people aren't interested in solutions to the actual problem of kids accessing inappropriate material, only soundbites.

cykros• 2 years ago

In other news, residents of these states are reminded of the fact that Pornhub is perhaps among the most vanilla porn and above board porn sites out there compared with the likes of heavy-r, motherless, efukt, and no doubt far more depraved content a simple click away, and under the radar of these morality crusaders.

Don't assume that just because Pornhub doesn't include scat, drugged, zoophilic, voyeur, nonconsentual, and other more frowned upon content that it isn't still entirely available if you're foolish enough to let your kid on the Internet without monitoring.

shrimp_emoji2• 2 years ago

The Internet is for porn.