For once Yen and I see eye to eye.
given it’s just because it will hurt his business, but i’m still happy for some W
I’ll stop interacting online outside of a professional context. So this obviously sucks from an online perspective. It’s will dampen online organization. But hopefully it increases community level interactions IRL. It’ll probably be good for day-to-day mental health.
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This is an easy fix. We just make our own internet. With the usual, blackjack and hookers.
There are other protocols one can use.
That’s the plan. It’s about control.
I’m glad someone else sees it. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills every day lately. People don’t give a single shit, will minimize the danger and do anything they can to give up their rights, time and time again.
A few of us see it, sadly too few to matter.
People in the privacy communities have known this for a while.
But because it’s slightly technical at minimum, and nuanced, and about something not immediately tied directly to people’s financial interest, the average person will never ever know, understand, or care about this.
Whats wrong with you?! Why aren’t you thinking of the children??!
already been accused/harassed on here of being pro-pedo for not being pro age-verification.
it’s always the yahoo idiot opinions that gain political traction, and rarely the common sense ones.
already been accused/harassed on here of being pro-pedo for not being pro age-verification.
it sounds like you should switch instances to one where this opinion (fact) is shared by most.
that’s not how it works. most of my harassment comes from .ml and far left instances. .ml users are especially aggressive and ignorant and eager to call you names. basically pro-authoritarian leftists.
i’m on .world. it’s the most moderate instance in my experience. db0 and blahj are also instances from which i get a lot of harassment.
sadly lemmy doesn’t let you block instances, only users or communities. so my user block list is like 500+ now.
Are you kidding? Instance blocking is almost necessary for surviving on Lemmy. Use a different client. Jesus bro, ya gotta block.
lemmy is a client. piefed is the only one i know that lets you block all users from an instance.
why lie about a group that is strongly anti-age-verification attacking you for being anti-age-verification and off endorsements from another group that is strongly pro-age-verification supporting you for your anti-age-verification opinions?
lemmy.ml isn’t a unified group. it’s individual people who think all sorts of crazy shit, that is often downright contradictory.
the only stance your instance takes is being pro marixist leninist. that has nothing to do with age-verification. if anything it’s pro-authoritarian bent would most likely have it align with mechanisms mass state control of individuals .
The good times are gone, fascism is back.
But it’s in a new wrapper. Now it says “Good for humanity” on the label, still the same shit tho…
They’ve always done it “for the children”. Same wrapper.
So if you don’t accept this “age verification patch” to your OS (and you know they won’t stop with that), I assume that any attempt to connect to a website that does this check will fail and you won’t be able to connect to it, right?
Well, I am just FINE with that. If I can’t connect to a website, I will treat it like any other broken website and move on to another one. This is how the Internet routes around damage.
Totally valid idea, you just need to hope that there are enough people with you to give that decision weight or you’ll eventually run out of alternatives.
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…and extend the ability of governments and especially corporations to control what you see and hear. From ads to what “facts” they want you to see.
Lawmakers who are pushing age verification: “Win - win”
if they want to censor and monitor the internet, its time to start building on a new one that’s private and encrypted by default: https://reticulum.network/
I LOVE reticulum, the idea anyway. I2P is a great idea too. I run an I2P node just to contribute.
I started up reticulum on my Linux box, added sideband to my Android, setup an rnode. it was marginal. Text chat worked 90% of the time, I got a single image to come through, then never again. Something about it was either broken, or something I was doing was incompatible, but there weren’t enough logs for me to figure it out.
I’m down with the while second internet over encryption, but none of them are straight forward enough I could get anyone outside of my extreme tech circle to consider it.
I agree with the notion, but I’m mildly concerned with the fragmentation of solutions. We already have I2P, Yggdrasil Network, Gemini Network, the cjdns ecosystem, just to name a few. You can just run nodes on all of them at once, but that restricts accessibility to those who have the raw compute (and bandwidth) necessary, which isn’t exactly conducive to what I’d consider a truly “open” internet, especially in the third world.
I think fragmentation is great. Shows there’s varied interest in the space and allows them to evolve. Let the best one stand the test of time!
A quick overview of the difference in the tech stacks:
Network Can run without IP? Can run without ISP? Primary Physical Medium Reticulum Yes (Identity-based) Yes Radio (LoRa/HF), Serial, Wi-Fi Mesh, Ethernet Yggdrasil No (Uses crypto IP) Yes Wi-Fi Mesh, Ethernet cjdns No (Uses crypto IP) Yes Wi-Fi Mesh, Ethernet I2P No (Overlay) Mostly No Existing Internet (TCP/UDP) Gemini No (Application) No Existing Internet (TCP)
Either that or don’t play by their rules. If I refuse this patch and I can’t connect to a website because of this check, I’ll will just treat that wesite like any other broken website and move on to another one
This is interesting, I think people should be aware of and check out i2p as well. I actually don’t use it (because there’s not that much of a community yet 😭) but I run a i2p router to support the network, that bitch does ~15TB a month in bandwidth. I think the main use of the network is torrenting currently.
But with governments and tech companies getting so oppressive hopefully i2p and other similar systems can flourish into the new free net.
Same, but with Yggdrasil. We need to keep these encrypted layer networks going and spread them through the fediverse to gain popularity. 1000% SCREW Better OR Worse. Mirror your site to all of them!
You can run XMPP on yggdrasil and i2p, torrents, host all manner of things, it’s quite impressive.
I didn’t read the whole doc. How would this prevent kill switch network if the government can just tell internet service providers to shutdown the network?
Reticulum is a backbone mesh. It speaks on all communication interfaces. Bluetooth, Wifi, LoRa, Serial.
Conceptually, if you can see your neighbors wifi, you could mesh. Suburbs could be pretty well connected. I doubt it’ll scale past a small suburb, though. If someone has a high tower, you could LoRa line of sight to anywhere. The upside is, if you have a faster connection that LoRa, it can use it. If you just have LoRa, you can chat or maybe send small images or low quality voice chat.
Well in theory it can communicate over other networks. Like radio
Because reticulum don’t use providers internet you nice it is used well enough
Can you rephrase that? I’m not sure what “you nice it is used well enough” is supposed to mean.
The death of anonymity for most people, yes. Not me though. I’m going to make my own internet. With blackjack. And hookers. And protonmail too, probably.
How would one HYPOTHETICALLY get in on this at the ground floor?
I mean, the fediverse that you’re already on already kind of is the ground floor. Most of these places are not going to be affected by age verification.
But if you want to climb a few floors up to where the blackjack and hookers are probably hanging out, there are things like I2P it’s delightfully sketchy. the best kind of sketchy.
It actively divests itself from any centralized shit like SSL or DNS, it’s a raw HTTP only darknet that operates through its own peer-to-peer proxy network, totally anonymized and encrypted and segregated from any hint of open network traffic.
That makes no sense, when the age verification is being pushed to the OS and ISP levels.
Sure, you can connect to Lemmy, and not have to prove your identity to Lemmy, but Windows users will have to prove to microsoft, and also you’ll have to prove it to Verizon, or Comcast, or whomever your ISP is.
So before you even turn on your computer, you’ve already proved your identity twice.
I don’t have to worry about my OS because it’s open source. Yours should be too. They can’t actually enforce age verification on an open source OS because my OS can lie, and I can use its source code to make it lie if I have to (which I won’t, because many other people will do it for me). For that matter they’ll find ways to make Windows lie too, but you still shouldn’t be using it, it’s shit.
I don’t have to worry about my ISP either because I live in a still-civilized country, but yeah, if they really lock it down at that level that’s going to be tough, you’ll probably have to identify someone for that if that’s the next place where they go to. There are countermeasures and workarounds though. VPN, mesh networking, borrowing somebody else’s wifi or mobile data hotspot, finding open networks. Maybe we’ll get to the point where we need point to point links, pirate satellites, datajacking ourselves into communication lines, who knows.
But we’re not there yet. We’ll continue to develop more countermeasures as these sorts of hostile police surveillance state measures encroach on our freedom as it becomes necessary. You don’t have to let your identity be associated with anything beyond your ISP if you’re only using your ISP to get to somewhere you do trust with a VPN. If they block VPNs, then we will find other ways around the blocks. Are you familiar with I2P? If you aren’t, maybe you should get familiar with it. We already have plenty of ways of sneaking information into and out of even more totalitarian of states like China, Russia, at least until there’s an absolute shutdown like in Iran. You should also consider not living in a totalitarian country, and doing what you can to stop yours from becoming more totalitarian, because it’s only going to get harder the longer you let them do this. Give them your ID in exchange for internet access for now if you absolutely have to and can’t find any other option, but you might not absolutely have to, yet. And if you do have to, do it with caution: start learning and planning what you’re going to have to do after that and how you’re going to get very active in your resistance to being monitored and observed.
You sound like you’ve got a little bit of learned helplessness, but people in shitty, scary countries have been dealing with this for a long, long time. Yes, it sucks, but it’s not the end of freedom. You have to learn how to fight it.
As far as I’m aware, mesh networks don’t have the bandwidth for large data transfers. They can send packets of a thousand or so bytes tops, so even with compression you’d barely be able to send/receive anything.
You might be able to do SSH and run a few commands remotely, but with really high latency.
For a decentralized replacement for the modern internet, you would need major infrastructure like cables and/or cell towers and satellites.
Ugh. That’s disgusting on a thousand levels. Even proposing such a bill should be considered a jailable violation of the constitution, as an example to the rest of the authoritarian bastards.
I mean, I agree with you, but this isn’t just a United States thing. China has had this since forever. They have something called a “social credit score”.
So if you litter, and cameras catch you littering, your social credit goes down. And you best believe they track and monitor every single online interaction.
The UK the past year has been really slamming hard on online verification.
This is a global thing that is seeping into the united states, but it’s by no means the only point of contention.
From what I understand, social credit score is mostly an invented bogeyman to demonize China in the west, and while many frightening “consequences” of low social credit score were imagined, none ever materialized and it was rarely even actually tracked. Yes, they could, in theory, but we imagine a massive level of administrative competence and effectiveness that I think serves both western interests and Chinese ones without necessarily being reality. As far as I can tell (granted, not very far as I’m not in China and haven’t been for a very long time) it actually had very little real impact in China itself and has already been mostly forgotten. China’s got lots of problems, but social credit score isn’t really part of any of them. They don’t need to have social credit score to genocide Uighurs. They didn’t need social credit score to massacre Tienanmen square. They don’t need social credit score to prepare the South China Sea for war and try to subvert Taiwan. They’ve got bigger fish to fry, and they’re frying them, and social credit score is a silly distraction that nobody there is taking seriously and neither should we.
Oh yeah, 1000%.
It really sucks seeing supposed democratic nations having this forced on them. I really hate how little people understand the implications in practice.
China’s “cameras up everyone’s nose” approach should be a sign of failure and a caution to the world, not permission for other governments to “catch up”. :(
Well, are you a blackjack dealer or a hooker?
For the right money, either!
I’m probably a better hooker. I feel like I’d just let you down as a blackjack dealer.
So, as far as sex goes, you WOULD give it up, and as a blackjack dealer you WOULD let me down…
Guys, I don’t think this is Rick Astley.
How about a regular dealer?
Mesh net?
Over LoRa it’s useful for basic off-grid messaging, but the bandwidth is extremely limited.
A meshnet over the internet would have more bandwidth. Various things have been tried. I2P is a kind of logical meshnet over the internet.
Thanks, wondered about that vs. Tor!
yea. I already have my own internet with blackjack ans hooker and don’t really much on anything else. I’ll be fine. But the vast majority of people will willingly rush into 1984 instead of throwing their shit devices away.
Oh that sweet scrolling rush…
Proton mail is garbage and they will betray you.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted.
Proton CEO praised a Trump admin. I prefer my net neutrality folks to not ever kiss the ring of any government.
This is the obvious end goal. Never had anything to do with children.
Was promoted in Australia by the gambling industry seemingly in an effort to dodge a total gambling ad ban.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2025/12/12/pro-teen-social-media-ban-group-funded-firm-making-gambling-ads/The poor police forces and intelligence agencies can’t firebomb your house when you’re talking bad about the pedo class online without your ID attached.
Billionaires and politicians are people too, you know :'(
Children have no rights so they’re the first to be targets.
We should not platform idiots just because they state the obvious, when they promote bullshit out of the other side of their mouth.
Edit: removed the link because news site is grabby. Look it up, nerds.
Edit2: maybe this link is better idk https://techstory.in/proton-mail-faces-backlash-over-claims-of-political-neutrality-amid-ceos-praise-for-republican-party/
Glad to finally see the tide turning here. The ability of the Lemmyverse to ignore the deep seated asshole within Yen and praise Proton has always bothered me. He’s not as bad as scumbags like Tim Apple and Zuckerberg but when things are shiny on the outside but rotten at their core, it’s best to avoid.
I found some other articles that didn’t ask for my email.
That’s unfortunate. I was actually about to get Protonvpn next month. I did a quick search on Nordvpn and I can’t find anything about supporting or praising Republicans.
I looked into the features and specs of a lot of VPNs and it came down to those two. I was going to use Proton so I could set up my own mail and other accounts. Guess I’m using Nord
Sorry, it didn’t do that to me. Maybe my plugins. I went to look it up on archive.org and they ALL did it to me, lol.
It seems like you’ve completely lost the capability for any type of nuance.
I also lost the remaining value on my 2-year Proton subscription when I stopped using their services.
Are you okay?
The age verification is really just an alternate means for these companies to try to find out which of us are real people or not with the intent to scrape AI training materials more “cleanly”. But it’s all moot in the long run, as it turns out that it will be easy for anyone who wants to break the law to pretend to be someone they aren’t.
In a world where identity theft is more rampant than ever, you’d have to be some kind of numbskull to think that this will be effective at doing any of the intended affects. It’s literally a complete waste of time & money.
Unfortunately it seems like 90% of the population has to learn lessons by experience, constantly and repeatedly, rather than listen to the other 10%
The lost art of learning from other people’s mistakes (and/or history). Sigh.
I mean I’m absolutely going to be feeding it as much dogshit as possible, personally.
Yeah but that’s like my default interaction with the internet in the first place pre llm.
I’m in favor of identity theft being so rampant that identity documents become worthless
Pre-tech phone books were the death of anonymity and no one seemed to care. Now that capitalism has become more refined when extracting coin from the populace, everything has a price.
Pre-tech phone books could be opted out, and they didn’t track your every move, shopping habits and where you were every second of the day.
Now you’re talking sales, not anonymity. But I agree.
If you went to the next town over and had a coffee, no one knew who you were because you were in a phonebook. Your anonymity was intact. With these checks, any website anywhere will know exactly who you are.
The guy in the thumbnail looks like a mix between Bob Saget and Jimmy O. Yang.
