Hacker News: EmbarrassedHelp

New comment by EmbarrassedHelp in "Michigan 'digital age' bills pulled after privacy concerns raised"

EmbarrassedHelp — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 20:15:28 +0000

Outside of better parental controls and restricting accounts based on self declared age, there isn't a way to perform age verification anonymously or privately.

New comment by EmbarrassedHelp in "Michigan 'digital age' bills pulled after privacy concerns raised"

EmbarrassedHelp — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 20:14:34 +0000

Age verification isn't free. If you sell age verification services then you can get obscenely rich off the government forcing people to use services like yours.

Sam Altman owns an identity verification company for example.

Canada's Liberal party adopts motion to restrict kids from social media

EmbarrassedHelp — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 20:12:06 +0000

Article URL: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2026/04/11/liberal-party-adopts-motion-to-restrict-kids-from-social-media/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47733596

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

New comment by EmbarrassedHelp in "Reaffirming our commitment to child safety in the face of EuropeanUnion inaction"

EmbarrassedHelp — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 02:49:02 +0000

In terms of censorship, it is impossible to confirm that every hash in the database is what the database owner claims it to be.

Its also completely unacceptable for encrypted/private messages, according to some of the top experts on the subject, "Bugs in our Pockets: The Risks of Client-Side Scanning": https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.07450

New comment by EmbarrassedHelp in "German implementation of eIDAS will require an Apple/Google account to function"

EmbarrassedHelp — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 02:37:36 +0000

There are attempts make it almost mandatory through mandatory age verification. Which would mean that you'd have to submit to privacy violations or be cut off from a sizeable portion of the internet.

New comment by EmbarrassedHelp in "German implementation of eIDAS will require an Apple/Google account to function"

EmbarrassedHelp — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 02:36:16 +0000

That just puts the power to allow/ban rooting and operating systems in the hands of a different set of companies. Its still unacceptable.

New comment by EmbarrassedHelp in "German implementation of eIDAS will require an Apple/Google account to function"

EmbarrassedHelp — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 02:34:09 +0000

They are also trying to shoehorn in age verification with it.

New comment by EmbarrassedHelp in "German implementation of eIDAS will require an Apple/Google account to function"

EmbarrassedHelp — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 02:32:59 +0000

Why not explicitly forbid the German version of the eDIAS from being used for things like age verification then? That'd solve a ton of privacy issues with the implementation.

New comment by EmbarrassedHelp in "German implementation of eIDAS will require an Apple/Google account to function"

EmbarrassedHelp — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 02:29:55 +0000

The German version of the eDIAS app should be completely banned from being used for age verification, if they wish to continue the project. Otherwise it effectively bans you from a sizeable portion of the internet, unless you accept unacceptable privacy violations.

New comment by EmbarrassedHelp in "Reaffirming our commitment to child safety in the face of EuropeanUnion inaction"

EmbarrassedHelp — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 23:36:25 +0000

In the UK, Apple recently restricted web browsers, private messaging, and other stuff on IOS devices unless you let them violate your privacy with age verification. They weren't required to do this by law in the UK, yet they did it anyways.

New comment by EmbarrassedHelp in "Reaffirming our commitment to child safety in the face of EuropeanUnion inaction"

EmbarrassedHelp — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 23:33:30 +0000

Basically the EU had voluntary scanning, but that wasn't enough for "child safety" idiots who wanted to spy on everyone, all the time. They got greedy and tried to go full authoritarian by targeting encrypted messaging. The resulting backlash has resulted in these wannabe authoritarians having nothing, which is pretty funny.

New comment by EmbarrassedHelp in "Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak"

EmbarrassedHelp — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 21:39:38 +0000

The issue though with "age indication" is that it creates an additional flag that can be used to fingerprint users. But it is infinitely preferable to any sort of age verification or age assurance.

New comment by EmbarrassedHelp in "Android Developer Verification"

EmbarrassedHelp — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 23:27:13 +0000

I'm wondering if the EU is complicit in this somehow, despite claiming that they want to fight back against tech companies.

The EU Commission is currently pushing the shitty EU Identity Wallet for mandatory age verification, and it requires GooglePlay Services to be installed for "anti-tampering". That also means a ban on non official versions of Android like LineageOS and GrapheneOS.

New comment by EmbarrassedHelp in "UK Politicians Continue to Miss the Point in Latest Social Media Ban Proposal"

EmbarrassedHelp — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 23:20:24 +0000

UK politicians love to attack and privacy at any chance they get.

New comment by EmbarrassedHelp in "End of "Chat Control": EU parliament stops mass surveillance"

EmbarrassedHelp — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 22:25:36 +0000

Then we keep fighting them.

New comment by EmbarrassedHelp in "End of "Chat Control": EU parliament stops mass surveillance"

EmbarrassedHelp — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 22:24:42 +0000

It was actually voluntary, and then the EU Commission got greedy and tried to make it mandatory. Now they have nothing.

New comment by EmbarrassedHelp in "End of "Chat Control": EU parliament stops mass surveillance"

EmbarrassedHelp — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 22:17:24 +0000

I have a list of organizations who are lobbying for Chat Control as well, compiled from investigative reporting articles:

> Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P), the International Justice Mission (IJM), ECPAT, the Children's Rights Network, World Vision, Terre des Hommes, Innocence in Danger, the World Childhood Foundation, the Stiftung digitale Chancen, the Children's Rights Network Germany, SafeToNet Foundation, Thorn, Ecpat network, the Brave organization, the PR agency Purpose, Justice Initiative, Oak Foundation, Eurochild, Missing Children Europe, Molly Rose Foundation, NSPCC, Hopewell Fund, Heat Initiative, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation

In the past two years, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has been spearheading the lobbying efforts. The CEO of the IWF is Kerry Smith, and she sometimes shares her delusional beliefs on Linkedin in addition to her blog.

Many of these groups receive funding to lobby for Chat Control from the Hopewell Fund, Oak Foundation, and Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF). The British billionaire Alan M. Parker controls the Oak Foundation, and British billionaire Christopher Hohn controls the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. The Hopewell Fund is controlled by Arabella Advisors (rebranded to Sunflower Services), and they work hard to conceal the sources of their dark money.

Sources for the organizations:

* https://netzpolitik.org/2022/dude-wheres-my-privacy-how-a-ho...

* https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/29/europol-sought-unlimite...

* https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the...

* https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2023/09/26/t...

* https://theintercept.com/2023/10/01/apple-encryption-iphone-...

* https://www.politico.eu/article/one-man-spam-campaign-ravage...

* https://www.heise.de/en/background/Missing-Link-Prevention-a...

The Spanish Prime Minster Pedro Sánchez can also be added to the list of Chat Control supporters.

New comment by EmbarrassedHelp in "The EU still wants to scan your private messages and photos"

EmbarrassedHelp — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 21:52:25 +0000

In the UK, Apple is now blocking users from using any web browser to access "non-PG" content unless the user submits to privacy violating age verification. Apple blocks you at the OS level, making VPNs useless.

New comment by EmbarrassedHelp in "GrapheneOS will remain usable by anyone without requiring personal information"

EmbarrassedHelp — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 03:07:46 +0000

I wonder if GrapheneOS or someone modifying it could add a feature that would filter with keyword matching or something to determine what priority an alter should actually be.

New comment by EmbarrassedHelp in "GrapheneOS will remain usable by anyone without requiring personal information"

EmbarrassedHelp — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:15:06 +0000

Carney also recently signaled that he was open to a "debate" on a child social media ban. Such a ban would likely be enforced by age verification.

You should preemptively be messaging the Liberal cabinet ministers. And make sure to explicitly demand that anything that could force age verification or age assurance on Canadians is rejected:

> Marc Miller (Heritage Minister, the minister responsible for the upcoming online harms legislation that might implement such a ban): Marc.Miller@parl.gc.ca

> Sean Fraser (Justice Minister): sean.fraser@parl.gc.ca

> Mark Carney (Prime Minister): mark.carney@parl.gc.ca

> Mélanie Joly (Minister of Industry): melanie.joly@parl.gc.ca

It may also be worth messaging:

> Gary Anandasangaree (Minister of Public Safety): gary.anand@parl.gc.ca

> Rechie Valdez (Minister of Women and Gender Equality): rechie.valdez@parl.gc.ca