Another Age Verification thread...with a small twist, or maybe a rant.

I think we may be conflating two issues here; the issue of pornography containing minors, which has provably been found in SL, and the issue of age verification.

Now, let's not forget that the Avs found trading child porn were WELL over the age of consent; age verification would not have stopped them. Bottom line: some adults like to look at images of child porn, and don't care how they access it. SL, Yahoo, AOL, wherever; drive them out of one, and they'll go somewhere else for it; peer-to-peer, if they have to. Personally, I'm happy to see any paedophile get drummed out of SL IMMEDIATELY and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and won't shed a single tear over it (and does this mean SL will be blocking their IPs as well? Or do they just get mildly inconvenienced until they can set up a new alt?)

BUT: the related but seperate issue of Age Verification is different; since, as it stands it's not Age Verification, but Identity Verification. For myself, I like that membrane between my RL and SL; tangible, occasionally permeable, but real. I'm willing to stand behind any of my actions in SL, but I'm fully aware that other people may not wish to. Prokofy Neva and Anshe Chung may be happy to have their Avs associated with their RL identity, but for my own security, I am not; and neither, I'm sure, are the thousands of people using SL to explore aspects of themselves that their community may find offensive, or open them up to ridicule or disapprobation (would you be happy to tell your friends, colleagues or minister every details of your personal, private life?). If what LL wants is to make our RL selves accountable for illegal activity in SL, then well done, and include fraud and grift too... but SAY SO; don't call it something else and drape it with 'won't somebody think of the children...'

Are we even going to begin on the subject of the prevalence of identity theft? To those who use the spurious argument of 'but you go to a restaurant...give your card to the waitress...' Yes, we know how dangerous that is; that's why we CHOOSE NOT TO DO IT; because we have that option. For those in SL who choose to express their sexuality, we will have no choice in the matter: no ID verification, no access.

I'm an adult; I have no children, by my own choice...and frankly I resent having to be responsible for the result of other people's laissez-faire, indifferent or inadequate parenting; don't want your kids to access porn online? Well, guess what; they will, and they probably are. Try giving yourself and them the easily-available tools to block the worst and most objectionable content, and try giving a flying one about what they're up to. Yes; we do need to keep minors out of where they don't belong...but that place is the entire Main Grid; not some spurious 'Adult Grid' or 'Mature Grid' within it.

I know how people in SL love to drama; copybot, searchbot, gambling, this; it seems we can't go a week without some flap or other...BUT this one does seem to me to be approaching some fundamental change in the way we interact with SL...and I'm worried.

On the issue of child porn, I think the first step in SL should be to stop anyone from changing their alt to what depicts a child and rethink what the limitations should be on Alt appearance.
That would of prevented at least the recent issue on the Blog re Child porn from a German TV station.

No, getting age verified won't allow you to see child porn, age verified allows you see ordinary porn R rated I guess with some grey area stuff, I imagine teen porn might be borderline but infant & child porn has no chance I suspect.

Another Age Verification thread...

I think people at either end of the spectrum could do with taking a step back. Every one of these threads has been marred by people either exaggerating the issue or belittling other people's genuine concerns.

I for one support age verification providing it is gridwide since, after all, the grid is over 18 only anyway. Now, not being from the US, I can't say whether I'd be comfortable with giving out the last 4 digits of my SSN, some of you seem to be, some of you aren't. However, outside of the US, peeps aren't being asked for an incomplete ID number, we appear to be asked to give over full details. What the specific details are to be are, as yet, unconfirmed so this all still largely remains speculation but it seems a little shakey that people outside the US need to give full disclosure to another jurisdiction when those actually within it don't have to be so open.

The argument about my details being out there already doesn't wash for me, the only agencies to have my passport number/national insurance number are either authorised to do so by the government or are part of the government themselves. The comparison to credit cards doesn't work for me either since all they can do is use my credit which is insured against such abuse by the credit card company itself. Even if people do make these details available in other situations, are the illegal activities of others justification for being any less careful with them?

I don't understand how our SSN helps verify our identity to LL. I mean, that information would only be useful for verifying our identity if the verifying company already knows our SSN, and is doing a comparison to make sure the number we input matches the number they have on file. Bear in mind that when the bank asks for your SSN to verify your identity, this is after you have already opened an account and they want to make sure you are the same person who opened the account; the SSN doesn't help them verify your identity when you first open the account, hence the whole reason identity theft is a problem. Unless the government is now furnishing lists of SSNs to private companies that want it (jeepers,) I fail to see how the verifying company could have that on file.

Thus, the point of our putting in our SSN would be to track us. In this case the entity tracking us would need to keep this information on file. Besides the ominous aspect of such tracking, there is enormous irony here: this identity "verification" system is actually a major venue for identity theft, from someone else inputting my SSN. They wouldn't even need to be targetting me specifically: some pedophile puts in a random number which happens to be my SSN, years later authorities attempt to track them down for illegal pornography, and now I'm on the hook because my SSN is associated with that account.

Could someone explain to me how giving them my SSN verifies my identity? Without that crucial tidbit, I can only assume that my tracking scenario is the way things will go down.