For starters you did not answer my main question: How exactly does any of this stop the authorities from just making the app close source and changing it to do whatever the fuck they want?

Yeah good concerns, same for the chat control thing.

Further: Who gives you the “white card without any private data”? How do you for sure it doesn’t have some kind of ID and it’s not in some database right linked with your personal info?

I mean if its open source we can check it ourselves lol

Sources for ZKP: https://ageverification.dev/av-doc-technical-specification/docs/annexes/annex-B/annex-B-zkp/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_Curve_Digital_Signature_Algorithm
Vulnerabilities: https://www.encryptionconsulting.com/education-center/what-is-ecdsa/
[Api2025] Rutchathon Chairattana-Apirom, Franklin Harding, Anna Lysyanskaya, and Stefano Tessaro, “Server-Aided Anonymous Credentials,” available at https://eprint.iacr.org/2025/513, 2025

Next “recognized child safety organizations” just moves the problem of “who choses what gets blocked” around. Who “recognizes” an organisation as genuinelly for child safety? Who authorizes them to add photo-hashes to the blockchain? What is the official process for all of that? Where is the Judicial oversight? Where is the fucking Judicial oversight? You know, the way by which for example an artist can get their tasteful drawing which is not adult but “had too much skin” for some moralistic type in one of those organisations taken of the blockchain.

Yeah true … But Bitcoin and Estonia also uses blockchain to ensure the identity of people, because it’s transparant and it’s immutable, and you have a digital identity without one central database, governments don’t know how to regulate this. So at least for immutable and transparency we have the option blockchain but then the organizations themselves, I mean what about existing organizations? How do we know they are not corrupt

Further, you can hardly reconstruct the picture for validation from the hashes in blockchain, so it’s not really public, now is it?! The hashes are public but the content represented by them is not, so de facto the list of what’s being blocked is not public, so how would the public know that it’s actually correct and not, say, some moralist blocking sex-education images?

The list wont be made public anyway cause then people can avoid it and bypass it etc, almost all servers from google and microsoft are already doing this actually, scanning on hashes etc

I mean a very common trick by politicians in areas prone to Corruption, such as public contracts or public-private initiatives is to set some shit up with potential to abuse and then a toothless or captured “independent” overseer - it provides the appearence of honesty whilst in practice being the very opposite.

You’re so right tho fr. Didn’t China’s social credit system start the same way as this European age verification app started?

Further, your answer is again superficial. “Child safety organisations”? Meaningless without a detailed definition of what’s considered child safety

Jup exactly thats why I said with clear criteria but if does are not in place then its meaningless like almost everything i say lmao xd thanks for replying anyway, I didn’t know about that ISP thing for example

it’s a process problem and a regulatory problem - if this is not done properly whatever technical appearence of anynomity you have can be defeated by the process side of things

You’re totally right and I totally agree, maybe in that case blockchain is a good technical process which can’t be abused, now the human system behind it, in Estonia only government recognized organizations get access to add to the blockchain, so if your country has a stable democracy, cemented in law, with laws preventing it from ever becoming non-democratic, but you can never guarantee that a country will remain a stable democracy in the future. So then this human, and thus blockchain, system, and thus age verification, can’t be fault-proof indeed

ISP’s with parental control modes and teaching parents and kids which you suggested is a way better approach I fully agree and thanks for explaining also 🙏🙏

I meant the blockchain for the chatcontrol app, not for the age verification app btw, and you make good points for sure.

Is there a group of independent experts analysing each and every version of the protocol and the app to make sure it’s not just directly anonymous but also resilient to de-anonimization?

I mean it’s open-source and we have privacy watch-dogs so yes? and maybe they will create a group for it, like Germany

Next, even assuming the whole thing is perfect and has been checked and confirmed by independent experts, how do you guarantee that once the infrastructure is in place the whole age-gating software isn’t just made closed source and covertly of changed to turn it into a full-blown civil society surveillance system?

For chat control app: blockchain where only recognized child safety organizations can add photo-hashes For age verification app: it’s zero knowledge proof, so you get a white card without any private data? so how can that turn into full blown surveillance system? The only thing I don’t like is uploading my ID online to the app, let me get verified by showing my ID to municipal services without uploading it, would be good ig

Also, who gets to chose which sites are locked behind age-gates and which are not. Is the list open? Can it be appealed? How easy it is the appeals process? Is there Court supervision of the whole process or is it some people in a closed room with no Judicial oversight choosing what gets put behind that lock and what doesn’t.

Child safety organizations? Independent organizations with clear criteria or something? But yeah good questions idk

Beyond that, it’s the responsibility of parents to watch over and control what their children are doing, not everybody else. The whole focus should be on giving parents the tools for that (for example, with a standard protocol for sites to inform browsers and home firewalls that they’re serving adult content, thus allowing parents to block it internally without the information of who is watching what ever leaving their home network), not mandated government software supposedly controlling the access of the whole fucking civil society to arbitrary web-sites and who knows what else.

Then you must make sure the parents aren’t tech-illiterate and invest in educating parents for parental controls etc but truth, good point… Child-safe should be the standard in new devices and browsers if those parents stay being tech illiterates.

easiest to achieve option to have the websites push out standard markers for “adult content” to browsers and home firewalls so that parents can restrict their children’s access

Yeah agreed that this is the best solution but how do you make sure those websites apply for such a marker? Use AI to scan them lol And its still the best solution, together with focussing on education parents as well as children and to educate parents on parental control and screen time, and let them sort it out locally, instead of enforcing age verification deffo agreed on that

😂😂 Care to explain why?

💀💀💀💀🤣🤣🤣🤣

😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 I love yall

Estonia has this system for a decade already btw and uses block chain to make it transparant and for integrity, and the verification app will be zero-knowledge proof, and is open-source. Literally the best two specs you want for privacy… The only thing I would want is a decentralized system where you can get verified by showing your ID to your local municipal services, not uploading it.

But the chat control has to go away asap fr
maybe a compromis for chat control would be a decentralized database of photo hashes that are scanned by the chat control app where only trusted organizations for childrens safety can add hashes to, supported by block chain so we have full transparency of who adds what… wdyt of this?

This way there is no single point of control. Blockchain provides full transparency because every addition of a hash is recorded as a transaction that anyone can verify, showing who added it and when, and since the blockchain is immutable, hashes can’t be secretly altered or deleted. Digital signatures prove which trusted org added each hash.

Russia’s VPN crackdown disrupts banks, marketplaces and government services

And so if I’m in Utah as a traveller I can’t check my local news by vpn? Ok

Did you run gpg yourself to generate the key pair, then exchange pub keys with your chat partner? Or did Facebook generate the keys for you from within a closed source application?

Huh but WhatsApp’s server only stores public keys (to route messages). The server cannot decrypt the message because it lacks the private key which is stored locally on your phone? WhatsApp uses the Signal Protocol (developed by Signal Messenger), which is considered the gold standard for E2EE. This protocol ensures that keys are temporary and regularly refreshed.

Each user (and each device) has a unique key pair (public and private key). The recipient’s public key is used to encrypt messages. Only the recipient’s private key can decrypt them. The private keys (required to decrypt messages) remain locally on your device. WhatsApp’s servers do not have access to your private key. However, public keys (which are not sensitive) are stored on the server to route messages.

Only you and the recipient can read the messages. WhatsApp (and Meta/Facebook) cannot read the content of your messages if they are properly encrypted. This applies to text, images, videos, voice messages, and calls (including group chats).

Mastodon.social loops.video

truth lmao

Ooo mb you’re right yeah, also when you use backups I read… ok something to look into for myself to understand better fr, thanks for this comment btw

if it has a backdoor it’s literally not end-to-end encryption at least, and they say it is so… idk so they are literally breaking the law and we can fine them again?

How do they get the key? Isn’t that stored on me and my chatpartners literal phone? You can only get is by physically unlocking it? Show me technical proof? Meta says they only collect metadata, but the actual data is encrypted… ofc that guy lies but then we can drag him in front of a judge. And you’re right ruzzia also hacked meta recently by their linked devices or support bots… U got proof or just a hunch

It says Google will already fight the lawsuit and zuckerberg wants to as well, lmao and he says he wants to protect children but he won’t even admit fault with victims? Asshole. There’s literally a docu about it: Molly vs the machines.

The two companies probably have to pay more than 3 million dollars. In the next phase of the trial, the jury examines the so-called punitive damages. These are additional damages, intended as an additional penalty.

And because of this instagram will also remove end-to-end encryption and add age-verification

The New Mexico case also raised concerns that allowing teens to use end-to-end encryption on Instagram chats — a privacy measure that blocks anyone other than sender and receiver from viewing a conversation — could make it harder for law enforcement to catch predators. Midway through trial, Meta said it would stop supporting end-to-end-encrypted messaging on Instagram later this year.

Regarding the encryption decision, a Meta spokesperson told CNN that, “very few people were opting in to end-to-end encrypted messaging in DMs, so we’re removing this option from Instagram in the coming months. Anyone who wants to keep messaging with end-to-end encryption can easily do that on WhatsApp.”

– https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/24/tech/meta-new-mexico-trial-jury-deliberation

In May, Judge Bryan Biedscheid is slated to hold a trial without a jury on the state’s claims that Meta created a public nuisance that harmed state residents’ health and safety. The state will ask Biedscheid to direct Meta to make changes to its platforms, including adding effective age verification and removing predators, it said Tuesday.

– https://www.msn.com/en-us/crime/general/meta-ordered-to-pay-375-million-in-new-mexico-trial-over-child-exploitation-user-safety-claims/ar-AA1ZkHhq

Yeah cause of this trial thats been going on https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/24/tech/meta-new-mexico-trial-jury-deliberation

And because of this trial, instagram will remove end-to-end encryption and add age-verification

The New Mexico case also raised concerns that allowing teens to use end-to-end encryption on Instagram chats — a privacy measure that blocks anyone other than sender and receiver from viewing a conversation — could make it harder for law enforcement to catch predators. Midway through trial, Meta said it would stop supporting end-to-end-encrypted messaging on Instagram later this year.

Regarding the encryption decision, a Meta spokesperson told CNN that, “very few people were opting in to end-to-end encrypted messaging in DMs, so we’re removing this option from Instagram in the coming months. Anyone who wants to keep messaging with end-to-end encryption can easily do that on WhatsApp.”

– https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/24/tech/meta-new-mexico-trial-jury-deliberation

In May, Judge Bryan Biedscheid is slated to hold a trial without a jury on the state’s claims that Meta created a public nuisance that harmed state residents’ health and safety. The state will ask Biedscheid to direct Meta to make changes to its platforms, including adding effective age verification and removing predators, it said Tuesday.

– https://www.msn.com/en-us/crime/general/meta-ordered-to-pay-375-million-in-new-mexico-trial-over-child-exploitation-user-safety-claims/ar-AA1ZkHhq

https://lemmy.world/c/librewolf@lemmy.ml

Zuckerberg had to testify last week ‘in an unprecedented social media trial that questions whether Meta’s platforms deliberately addict and harm children’ https://lemmy.world/post/43284616

download yt videos and lets reupload everything onto peertube idk