[−]semi-extrinsic · 2026-07-02 Thu 05:10 UTC ·
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> Some people want to require device attestation, so you could only do this handshake from a government approved device running a government approved operating system. Forget using Linux or maybe even a general purpose computer at all.
The reason this is a non-problem for the purpose being discussed (age verification on social media) is that you can simply allow anyone with a de-Googled phone or using Linux on a laptop (or even Mac or Windows) to bypass the age check. You don't need a 100.0% accuracy solution, anything above 90% is fine.
Essentially all teenagers are using social media on Android or iOS with apps from the official app store. If you make social media unavailable only on those devices, they are not going to be switching en masse to SailfishOS or start to carry around backpacks with laptops.
Maybe a few will. But then they're going to be very lonely on their social media and subsequently stop caring.
Social media is something people want. A large part of why people buy smartphones in the first place (especially at that age) is to be on social media. If you need to buy some weird kind of smartphone to do it, or ask your tech-savvy friend to do some voodoo on it for ten bucks, people absolutely will do that.
See the story of console modchips in eastern Europe for an example. Legal games were so expensive at that time that most kids / families weren't able to afford them. Console modchips existed, but they were difficult to install, and most people just didn't have the expertise. What ended up happening was that everybody "knew a guy", and that guy would do their modchip for a fee. They didn't need to know anything about rooting, ROMs, flashing or soldering, they gave a legal console to somebody and got a console that could play pirated games back.
This is interesting in light of the discussion on hacker news yesterday, where folk were talking about how they had to learn how to make games work on early PCs, given limitations that aren't present to the young today.
Motivated kids can find a way! Perhaps evading age gates will produce the next generation of hackers.
The reason this is a non-problem for the purpose being discussed (age verification on social media) is that you can simply allow anyone with a de-Googled phone or using Linux on a laptop (or even Mac or Windows) to bypass the age check. You don't need a 100.0% accuracy solution, anything above 90% is fine.
Essentially all teenagers are using social media on Android or iOS with apps from the official app store. If you make social media unavailable only on those devices, they are not going to be switching en masse to SailfishOS or start to carry around backpacks with laptops.
Maybe a few will. But then they're going to be very lonely on their social media and subsequently stop caring.
Social media is something people want. A large part of why people buy smartphones in the first place (especially at that age) is to be on social media. If you need to buy some weird kind of smartphone to do it, or ask your tech-savvy friend to do some voodoo on it for ten bucks, people absolutely will do that.
See the story of console modchips in eastern Europe for an example. Legal games were so expensive at that time that most kids / families weren't able to afford them. Console modchips existed, but they were difficult to install, and most people just didn't have the expertise. What ended up happening was that everybody "knew a guy", and that guy would do their modchip for a fee. They didn't need to know anything about rooting, ROMs, flashing or soldering, they gave a legal console to somebody and got a console that could play pirated games back.
Motivated kids can find a way! Perhaps evading age gates will produce the next generation of hackers.