German High Court decides: Age verification by ID-card number not safe enough

Even though I ceased being a practicing Catholic when I reached the Age of reason, I still hold the Jesuits in very high regard, including one very dear friend who took the vows and joined their order.

I agree children should be protected by reasonable and effective means. I don't necessarily think the LL scheme is as much unreasonable as it is ineffective. I don't think it will do anything to prevent minors fro seeing the cartoon nastiness of Second Life, or keep them safe from a predator. There is no panacea to totally protecting them, save for keeping them locked up , in a room with no access too outside influences.

You are right... the certainly is no cure-all for the problem... and I also agree that the currently proposed verification system is crap. My stance is simply that a viable, less rediculous, age verification system be used. It isn't going to stop the problem, but it may slow it a bit, and every little bit helps.

We are talking about protecting children, afterall.

However in Real Life we don't do anywhere near everything we could to protect children from sexual abuse.

I think resources could be better spent than in an area like internet usage where parents should be showing a greater level of responsibility.

Unfortunately, it requires the mindset of a tort lawyer: Who has the deepest pockets? That one we sue.

I want younger kids off the grid too, but the reality is you cannot guarantee you will get all of them off. So, you do the best you can about them within reason. And LL certainly has a right, even a duty, to protect itself legally. Beyond that, agree, the liability needs to fall on the parents. If something happens, it may or may not be their fault, but it is their responsibility.

No argument. That's the point. Many feel that this isn't a viable, less ridiculous system, and will have no effect on the perceived problem.

In the realm of Linden Labs and access to Second Life, I do believe there should be some sort of age verification process to keep kids off the grid... for two reasons. 1- Kids don't see that they should not and 2- I don't think anyone who engages in sexual olympics in SL wants to find out the person they just poseballed was 12.

As for the rest of society... that's a topic for another thread on another forum... but you are right. Enough is not done to protect children. But the excuse used is generally "Parents should be more responsible". While parents absolutely should be responsible for theid kids... they aren't always the cause of the harm done as such a statement like "parents should be more responsble" implies.

And far worse even: Kurt Vonnegut, Robert A. Wilson, and probably most pernicious of all, Ayn Rand.

Around the age of 13, I stumbled upon the unabridged "My Secret Life"* in my parent's library. If you've not heard of the work, it is an allegedly (but highly unlikely) account of the endless sexual escapades of a Victorian "gentleman". To my recollection, if there was a way in which a human could derive satisfaction, it was enumerated in this enormous tome. Given my age, hormones, and the subject matter, I'd read pretty much all of it within a year.

Guess what effect it had upon me (aside from hairy palms)? None. Whatsoever. And, my parents weren't all that great at their job. For the most part, people of all ages want to be good, and have an inherent morality which takes little guidance to keep it pointed in the right general direction.

Those who are disposed, for whatever reason, to perform socially pernicious acts will find a way. Some maladjusted kids torture animals from pre-pubescence on and nobody ever showed them how. Real pedophiles are frequently found in possession of the newsstand "Child" or "Parenting" magazines even if they have no "prohibited" materials available to them.

My daughter saw briefly, over my shoulder, with my tacit assent, a certain unnamed neko engaged in unsavory relations with a penguin in an undisclosed sim. She laughed, I laughed, because it was funny. Her single question to me: "why was that woman wearing cat ears and a tail?"

I think people generally have an overblown concept of what turns children "bad". Me, I blame television commercials and in-school, first-grade anti-drug propaganda and nobody is helping me protect her from those.

*http://www.amazon.com/My-Secret-Life/dp/0451530721

I agree with you.

Well, I just don't want to abuse Resident Answers too much. To clarify "liberties": I was referring to privacy; but it's certainly not *anonymity* that I'm advocating. And the "taking" in this case is, thankfully, not at the hands of the government, and voluntary--so more a "giving" I suppose. (Even if it were mandatory for SL, it would still be voluntary.) So, yeah, "liberties" may have been a bit of unintended hyperbole on my part; I think I got spooked by "every possible precaution."

I guess I'd have no theoretical objection to a system that performed some magical "age biometrics" on everybody within viewing range of any screen displaying SL. (Practically, though, I'm not real sure that this kind of protection wouldn't damage children worse than anything they could find in SL, but that's a different matter.)

In the long run, if age-verification has the effect of making it more palatable to merge the teen and adult grids, the result will be a lot *less* protection for kids, I think. They'll get carded at the gates to the Red Light District, but the real predators will be camped out in front of the Library. But maybe they already are, posing as juveniles on the Teen Grid.

My biggest concerns over kids in second life are not the ones you mentioned. In fact those 2 you mentioned are not the 2 worst situations not by a long shot.

The two worst situations are.

1- Someone convincing a minor to disclose their RL information to them.

2- Someone engaging in a online "romantic" relationship with a minor.

Neither of which will be the least bit affected by the IDV system that LL is going to put in place.

The two situations you provided here I thought I covered with people intetionally or unintentionally interacting with minors (pointed out in a different reply, I believe)... sorry if I was unclear. I agree with you about the IDV system.

I can't read german but from the sound of it, it is offering a way of having a official person verifying one's age and identity. For SL all that is really necessary is an Age Verification that actually would work.

I'd figure you more for a "Portnoy's Complaint" kind of guy, Mal.

Good thoughts though. As someone who has no children of her own, but sees other people's kids more than their parents do in some cases, I really think we give kids to little credit for knowing what's right. Sure there are new dangers every day, byt every generation faces that, and most survive it. There is such a well intentioned, but dangerous trend to want to protect kids form all hardship and adversity, never letting them fail or be criticized, and it is a disservice if you ask me.

What I find totally ironic about this whole thing is that 12 year old kids already know about sex. My first book wasn't "My Secret Life;" it was a shockingly descriptive bodice-ripper romance novel at the age of 11, back when they were all X-Rated. And a middle school in Maine (for Europeans, middle school is for roughly 11-13 year old kids) is providing free birth control pills because their students are all getting knocked up. If we criminalize sex, we only make it more titillating for the young'uns.

Lets say that we institute a Science Fiction retina scan ID verification over the internet.

And make it mandatory for everyone in Second Life.

Every single person is who they say they are , everyone is over 18.

Would you really "save" any children?

No - because as long as the rest of the internet is out there - they still can get to everything we want to protect them from in Second Life.

Age Verification exists to limit LL liability, its not about saving kids.

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So really what mandatory age verification in SL will at best create an adults only area.

Since LL isn't going to make it mandatory, you aren't even going to get that.

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They have shown time and again that policing the grid is far too big a job for them ..

So the what exactly are we going to stop an under-ager who lied to get into SL from doing?

Nothing.

It also means that while you in Germany have to wait upwards to a month for your verification - your competitors have done it in 15 seconds in another country and have beaten your business down, during the time inbetween. It also means that your business can end up in a sort of German ghetto - unable to accept the ID verification (and lack of it) in other countries. Therefore unable to sell to them.

ID verification is a hard problem, unlikely to be solved due to the global nature of internet business, and Germany is determined to be an island. It's why so many adult businesses on the net that used to be in Germany, have relocated to other European countries.

So anyway, PostIdent works, but at a high price of lack of competitiveness with other countries which do not require such verification, and are unlikely ever to.