[sf-lug] BALUG mtg topic; Age verification bullshtick

[aaronco36 at sdf.org]

Am likely to miss the remainder of the virtual BALUG meeting, so will
throw in own feedback.

IMNSHO (and w/ some admitted aluminum-foil hattishness ;->), seems to me
that this age-verification deal is the latest of ongoing attempts to
Leverage Information For Ulterior Motives.
Will use the self-defined acronym LI4UM unless others have vastly more
accurate terminology for the same thing.

The LI to "radically empower governments and tech companies to censor
content they don’t like while harvesting more personal and biometric
identity information" could very well turn out to be the UMs of
surveillance, profit, and exploitation, as the Daily Kos and Michael P
have in effect already stated.

Sure, there's the purported  purpose of the Kids Online Safety Act / KOSA
to "protect teens from online bullying and bad information".
But what further, ever-more-intrusive steps will those authorities of
ever-weakening Privacy rules insist upon?
E.g., beyond the ones listed at https://www.stoponlineidchecks.org/ ?
- Providing SS numbers _online_ (to some self-proclaimed" secure" site!)
for age verification?
- Uploading a recent photo of yourself (to some self-proclaimed "secure"
site!) for identity verification?
- Uploading a clear of your driver's license (to some self-proclaimed
"secure" site!) to access this page?
- Uploading a photo of your health insurance card (to some self-proclaimed
"secure" site!) to proceed?

Case 1:
Have already received at one mailing-list that am subscribed to for
various attempts to glean and LI4UM with seemingly innocuous offers for
housekeeping, for cleaning gutters, for tending to lawns/gardens , ...etc.
What useful and leverageable/exploitable information 4UM might such
phishing attempts really be after?
Well, such senders -- even if they really _are_ located in the US -- might
at the very least wish to obtain from their targets if they haven't done
so already:
1) specific socioeconomic and disposable income data of their targets
depending upon targets' zipcodes and other amalgamated data points from
online activity
2) whether targets are renting, own their own house, are interested in
buying or selling
a house, ...etc.

Case 2:
A certain US-based company has continuously put out "techie bro"-sounding
ads offering their paid services to digitize your family's photos, videos,
audio tape-recordings for you.
You pay them a supposedly "heavily discounted" fee, you send them your
family photos videos, audio tape-recordings. ...etcetera, that company
then digitizes and stores your family's data, and then they are "supposed"
to send you digitized copies of your data.
Well, some persons going with this company's services soon part with their
money with little effective, enforceable guarantee they will ever obtain
intact copies of their digitized data :-(
And who really knows who those third-party companies are that this
particular company has partnered with for data-storage, customer
data-mining, customer-profiling ...etcetera ???
Foil hat alert: And furthermore, Who even really knows where the UM'ated
companies are ultimately located -- pick your hostile and
clandestinely-manipulative state-actor du jour
- companies and individuals somehow connected with the PRC (People's
Republic of China) ?
- "         "   "           "       "         with the DPRK (Democratic
People's Republic of Korea) ?
- "         "   "           "       "         with Russia ?

LI4UM -- My own perhaps unique 2 cents on this.

-Aaron C