Age verification, Failure or Success?

No it's not a lock it's a sign saying "this door is locked" a lock implies some resitance to aunauthorised access, a "tick if you want to get in" box is 0% effective.

And if you use a combination lock someone might film you unlocking it and use the combination to get in so it fails, therefore you are better leaving the door unlocked with a sign that says "door is locked"

The 100% lock is good parenting, which means the tick box works to cover LL legally.

That is all that they care about, is the legal protection offered. It means anyone that bypasses it and provides false data has committed fraud, possibly up to felony level.

And that is all that matters to LL, because the reality is: That is the only thing they can do!

They can only verify data given to them, which means they can not verify who is there.

The only way to keep kids out of an adult SL is to really shut it down, or have parents watch the kids when they are online instead of trying to find a mythical barrier that works to keep them off.

The click here buttons are there on adult sites for the simple reason: You can't lock a digital door like you can a physical one. Because all you can operate on is data given, it can not verify who is using the data.

There are no doors in the online world, so there are no real locks. All there are is data verification systems.

Stop thinking like it's a brick and mortar clubhouse that you can lock the door with a bouncer outside.

IF they get in? What wishful thinking...they are GOING to get in, so what does it matter, how much time it takes? 1 second to check box. A few minutes to get mommy or daddy's info (or look up some random info on the net). Both get in. Same end result...they are in. Ergo, age verification does NOTHING useful and is a waste of LL's and our time. It does not 'protect the children', it does not protect the adult players...it does NOTHING it is purported to do...just provides CYA for Linden Lab from our twisted legal system.

I guess if you are into purely symbolic measures (aka, waste of time to make yourself feel like you are doing 'something' about the 'problem') in the name of the 'children' or a false sense of security, wonderful. But give up trying to convince us its even trivially useful. It is just as effective as having no verification...both are 0% useful for keeping kids out.

What would be more useful is if, rather than prosecutors thumping the bible/morals for re-election going after LL / adult users on SL, they went after Mommy and Daddy Sixpack for using the PC as a babysitter and not watching their own damed spawn...child neglect, perhaps? They had them, they should be liable for what they do, not the rest of us, and stupid little CYA's like verification are show, pure and simple.

Exactly. It is of NO use to me as an SL player.It may afford LL some coverage and that is fine. but they should stop insulting us by telling us it is for our safety. It's useless, as far as I am concerned.

The age verification fails completely and utterly. I verified my self successfully without a single piece of true data. I posted it in the Jira and no Linden replied to it so I can only presume they have no intention of fixing the loophole I found and tried to point out to them.

The account is verified as

Jo Bloggs

with a random hash up of numbers and letters for an address (that I cant remember) and the SSN of 1234.

I can enter restricted area's and stuffs sooooo >.>

The Age Verification system face plants.

I tried to age verify with all true date including my driver's license number and it came back a fail.

You live in dreamland if you think good parenting will keep 100% of them out, why isn't it working now and please tell us how LL are going to implement 100% effective good parenting?

Not everyone leaves their credit card and social security details lying around for kids to use all the time you know. If any kid can get hold of it why are we so paranoid about letting LL have it?
If good parenting can't keep your kids from using your Social security numbers, Drivers licence and credit card how is it going to stop them ticking a "I am over 18" box?

Nice post.!

I think bottom line SL are doing this for good PR in the media...its been published already a couple of times that "LL are cleaning up SL from smut!
LL CEO must get a premature ejaculation each time he reads such media!

LL is not the parents.

LL is being forced by laws to try and parent the children of the bad parents

LL can not parent or keep the bad kids out through any means short of shutting down the servers and closing up shop. They can only keep out the kids that were taught right or wrong by the parents.

So you want to keep kids out of sl, get them shut down.

you are using bad parenting as an example of good parenting.

-10 points, please try playing the game of reality again.

So would they then be 'in before the lock'?

Well the parents seem incapable of "Good Parenting" so someone has to do it if your system is to work.
Shut down SL. Why not just shutdown the internet or make it a crime punishible by death for people under 18 to use it, problem solved, 100% effective?

Hey I'm not the one who thinks the current system of "tick a box if you are over 18" is 100% effective and it's the best we can do so why bother trying anything else?

Poll is inheirently flawed as it does not take into account the fact that the age verification system is still in development and not in it's final form. Probably the least informative, pointless poll this year.

the only one that can raise and parent is the parents.

The government and corporations can not raise them.

You want a magical lock that can never exist because you can't realize how the internet actually works.

I'm guessing you missed the very recent post in which I (tried to) explain(ed) that this is not what people have been telling you?

That we have been saying pretty much the opposite?

At this point all I can do is laugh. (Which I am, so thanks for that, everyone should laugh as often as they can.)

Can I buy you a lock for your next birthday? Puhleez?

All I want is the same stuff everyone else wants to restrict children from accessing adult sites, you don't seem to understand how the internet works and that you can restrict access. A password on any secure computer sytem does not work 100% either so you would say we should not have passwords because they are not effective, "Good Parenting/Morals" will keep the yours, the companies and nations data and secrets safe.............................

You can restrict access based on data.

The data that LL collects during account creation is the same data that is used to verify.

You can not physically verify the person using the data is the same person as in the data.

There is no such thing as user verification.

There is only checking the data given by a user to see if the person in the data is allowed to be given access to create an account.

Thus LL is covered from legal issues of little johnny getting on the adult grid "Well the data given to us was fraudulent, and we had no way of knowing the teen in question was using Mr Wilson's data illegally to gain access to the grid and verify as an adult"

A password is a key to a lock. It's data given to the system to pass verification ... just like the data given on the forms is passed to the systems to verify.

At no point can anyone verify who is really at the computer using the data or password.

You want a door with a lock, then you will have to pay about a grand to set up your account to cover the costs of LL shipping you a dedicated (and heavily locked down) proprietary system to run it on. It will have to include multiple biometric systems and be linked to one account.

ALL caps so maybe you will get the key point:

YOU CAN NOT VERIFY WHO IS AT THE COMPUTER USING THE DATA, SO THERE IS NO VERIFICATION OF A USER BEING OF AGE. THERE IS ONLY VERIFYING THE PERSON WHOSE DATA IS GIVEN IS OF AGE.

THE ONLY THING IT DOES IS KEEP OUT THE HONEST KIDS 100% OF THE TIME, AS WELL AS THOSE WHO HAVE GOOD PARENTS THAT PAY ATTENTION TO THEIR CHILDREN

A BAD KID WILL STILL GET PAST ALL CHECKS AND VERIFICATIONS WITH SIMPLE EASE

There is no magic technology that will keep out the bad kids, the system in place works to keep out the good and monitored kids 100% of the time. As well as provide the legal blanket to keep LL from being sued by some moron guardian of a child that steals a key to open the door. (Because to get in they commit fraud and possibly identity theft... but none prosecute the little kid that committed the crimes to get into a system or service that they shouldn't have....)


ID Verification, Credit Card Verification: All are about as useful as SL's account creation questions. Because mommy's and daddy's information is easily available.

Umm nop. The data I gave during account creation was "Mrs. Mona Lisa". I didn't seriously intend to use SL - it was just another chat system out there so I gave bogus information. When I age verified I used my RL name and my drivers license (successfully). Only months after that I got my record straightened out to make it match the other data (manually edited by a Linden).

BTW If you sign up through a community gateway the only thing you need to give is an email address. They don't even ask for your name. The data you gave at the beginning doesn't matter at all for age verification. (It probably doesn't matter for anything.)

They changed the gateway access last I heard. You pick the gateway after going through the standard creation due to that.

You still have to give date of birth, real name, etc.

The only thing I need to add for age verification is license or ssn

So pretty much all the data gets entered now.

But it's still data on an online form. There is no user verification.

ALL CAPS BECAUSE YOU THINK SHOUTING IS FINE FOR NORMAL DEBATE, APPARENTLY IT HELPS YOU WIN INTERNETZ.
A BAD KID WILL GET THROUGH ANY SYSTEM BUT NOT ALL KIDS ARE BLACK AND WHITE BAD OR GOOD. A LOT OF KIDS WILL ONLT FALL FOR TEMPTATION IF IT'S EASILY DONE. MANY WOULD JUST GET BORED AND TRY ANOTHER SITE.
THE CURRENT SYSTEM ONLY KEEPS OUT ANGELIC KIDS, THE INBETWEENS CAN CHEAT IT WITH A SINGLE CLICK. IT IS A FAILURE, 90% OF KIDS WOULD BARELY EVEN PAUSE.
YOU MAY BELIEVE THE US LEGAL SYSTEM WILL PROTECT YOU FROM PROSECUTION AND THE MEDIA AND THAT A MAJORITY OF KIDS ARE MONITORED BY GOOD PARENTING, BUT SORRY, THE REST OF THE WORLD DON'T ALL BELIEVE THAT.
YOU CAN'T VERIFY THAT AN ADULT IS AT THE KEYBOARD BUT YOU CAN INCREASE THE LIKELYHOOD THAT AN ADULT IS LINKED TO THE ACCOUNT CREATION PROCESS. NO MATTER WHAT SIZE YOU TYPE, YOU FAIL TO CONVINCE ME THAT THE "TICK A BOX IF YOU ARE OVER 18" IS THE MOST ADEQUATE SYSTEM AVAILABLE.

That should be more than adequate.

(Oh. Those were quotation marks. Never mind.)

Teeg:

Challenge for you: Show me a system that allows you to enter data online and verify who is at the keyboard.

You will never find one, you will only find ones that verify the data as belonging to an adult.

It does not matter how much data you request, it does nothing to verify the user.