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Proton CEO warns global age verification push will mean "the death of anonymity online"
(www.techradar.com)
Lawmakers who are pushing age verification: "Win - win"
this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2026
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if they want to censor and monitor the internet, its time to start building on a new one that's private and encrypted by default: https://reticulum.network/
This is interesting, I think people should be aware of and check out i2p as well. I actually don't use it (because there's not that much of a community yet 😭) but I run a i2p router to support the network, that bitch does ~15TB a month in bandwidth. I think the main use of the network is torrenting currently.
But with governments and tech companies getting so oppressive hopefully i2p and other similar systems can flourish into the new free net.
I didn't read the whole doc. How would this prevent kill switch network if the government can just tell internet service providers to shutdown the network?
Well in theory it can communicate over other networks. Like radio
Because reticulum don't use providers internet you nice it is used well enough
Ah yes, Proton, the company infamous for providing anonymity online, and totally never rugpulling their customers everytime the swiss government rolls up with a search warrant.
We should not platform idiots just because they state the obvious, when they promote bullshit out of the other side of their mouth.
Edit: removed the link because news site is grabby. Look it up, nerds.
Edit2: maybe this link is better idk https://techstory.in/proton-mail-faces-backlash-over-claims-of-political-neutrality-amid-ceos-praise-for-republican-party/
I found some other articles that didn't ask for my email.
That's unfortunate. I was actually about to get Protonvpn next month. I did a quick search on Nordvpn and I can't find anything about supporting or praising Republicans.
I looked into the features and specs of a lot of VPNs and it came down to those two. I was going to use Proton so I could set up my own mail and other accounts. Guess I'm using Nord
Sorry, it didn't do that to me. Maybe my plugins. I went to look it up on archive.org and they ALL did it to me, lol.
It seems like you've completely lost the capability for any type of nuance.
I also lost the remaining value on my 2-year Proton subscription when I stopped using their services.
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The death of anonymity for most people, yes. Not me though. I'm going to make my own internet. With blackjack. And hookers. And protonmail too, probably.
How would one HYPOTHETICALLY get in on this at the ground floor?
I mean, the fediverse that you're already on already kind of is the ground floor. Most of these places are not going to be affected by age verification.
But if you want to climb a few floors up to where the blackjack and hookers are probably hanging out, there are things like I2P it's delightfully sketchy. the best kind of sketchy.
It actively divests itself from any centralized shit like SSL or DNS, it's a raw HTTP only darknet that operates through its own peer-to-peer proxy network, totally anonymized and encrypted and segregated from any hint of open network traffic.
That makes no sense, when the age verification is being pushed to the OS and ISP levels.
Sure, you can connect to Lemmy, and not have to prove your identity to Lemmy, but Windows users will have to prove to microsoft, and also you'll have to prove it to Verizon, or Comcast, or whomever your ISP is.
So before you even turn on your computer, you've already proved your identity twice.
I don't have to worry about my OS because it's open source. Yours should be too. They can't actually enforce age verification on an open source OS because my OS can lie, and I can use its source code to make it lie if I have to (which I won't, because many other people will do it for me). For that matter they'll find ways to make Windows lie too, but you still shouldn't be using it, it's shit.
I don't have to worry about my ISP either because I live in a still-civilized country, but yeah, if they really lock it down at that level that's going to be tough, you'll probably have to identify someone for that if that's the next place where they go to. There are countermeasures and workarounds though. VPN, mesh networking, borrowing somebody else's wifi or mobile data hotspot, finding open networks. Maybe we'll get to the point where we need point to point links, pirate satellites, datajacking ourselves into communication lines, who knows.
But we're not there yet. We'll continue to develop more countermeasures as these sorts of hostile police surveillance state measures encroach on our freedom as it becomes necessary. You don't have to let your identity be associated with anything beyond your ISP if you're only using your ISP to get to somewhere you do trust with a VPN. If they block VPNs, then we will find other ways around the blocks. Are you familiar with I2P? If you aren't, maybe you should get familiar with it. We already have plenty of ways of sneaking information into and out of even more totalitarian of states like China, Russia, at least until there's an absolute shutdown like in Iran. You should also consider not living in a totalitarian country, and doing what you can to stop yours from becoming more totalitarian, because it's only going to get harder the longer you let them do this. Give them your ID in exchange for internet access for now if you absolutely have to and can't find any other option, but you might not absolutely have to, yet. And if you do have to, do it with caution: start learning and planning what you're going to have to do after that and how you're going to get very active in your resistance to being monitored and observed.
You sound like you've got a little bit of learned helplessness, but people in shitty, scary countries have been dealing with this for a long, long time. Yes, it sucks, but it's not the end of freedom. You have to learn how to fight it.
Ugh. That's disgusting on a thousand levels. Even proposing such a bill should be considered a jailable violation of the constitution, as an example to the rest of the authoritarian bastards.
I mean, I agree with you, but this isn't just a United States thing. China has had this since forever. They have something called a "social credit score".
So if you litter, and cameras catch you littering, your social credit goes down. And you best believe they track and monitor every single online interaction.
The UK the past year has been really slamming hard on online verification.
This is a global thing that is seeping into the united states, but it's by no means the only point of contention.
From what I understand, social credit score is mostly an invented bogeyman to demonize China in the west, and while many frightening "consequences" of low social credit score were imagined, none ever materialized and it was rarely even actually tracked. Yes, they could, in theory, but we imagine a massive level of administrative competence and effectiveness that I think serves both western interests and Chinese ones without necessarily being reality. As far as I can tell (granted, not very far as I'm not in China and haven't been for a very long time) it actually had very little real impact in China itself and has already been mostly forgotten. China's got lots of problems, but social credit score isn't really part of any of them. They don't need to have social credit score to genocide Uighurs. They didn't need social credit score to massacre Tienanmen square. They don't need social credit score to prepare the South China Sea for war and try to subvert Taiwan. They've got bigger fish to fry, and they're frying them, and social credit score is a silly distraction that nobody there is taking seriously and neither should we.
Oh yeah, 1000%.
It really sucks seeing supposed democratic nations having this forced on them. I really hate how little people understand the implications in practice.
China's "cameras up everyone's nose" approach should be a sign of failure and a caution to the world, not permission for other governments to "catch up". :(
Well, are you a blackjack dealer or a hooker?
For the right money, either!
I'm probably a better hooker. I feel like I'd just let you down as a blackjack dealer.
So, as far as sex goes, you WOULD give it up, and as a blackjack dealer you WOULD let me down....
Guys, I don't think this is Rick Astley.
How about a regular dealer?
Mesh net?
Over LoRa it's useful for basic off-grid messaging, but the bandwidth is extremely limited.
A meshnet over the internet would have more bandwidth. Various things have been tried. I2P is a kind of logical meshnet over the internet.
Thanks, wondered about that vs. Tor!
yea. I already have my own internet with blackjack ans hooker and don't really much on anything else. I'll be fine. But the vast majority of people will willingly rush into 1984 instead of throwing their shit devices away.
Oh that sweet scrolling rush....
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This way, identity theft can be catastrophic, more so than it already is
This is the obvious end goal. Never had anything to do with children.
The poor police forces and intelligence agencies can't firebomb your house when you're talking bad about the pedo class online without your ID attached.
Billionaires and politicians are people too, you know :'(
Children have no rights so they're the first to be targets.
The age verification is really just an alternate means for these companies to try to find out which of us are real people or not with the intent to scrape AI training materials more "cleanly". But it's all moot in the long run, as it turns out that it will be easy for anyone who wants to break the law to pretend to be someone they aren't.
In a world where identity theft is more rampant than ever, you'd have to be some kind of numbskull to think that this will be effective at doing any of the intended affects. It's literally a complete waste of time & money.
Unfortunately it seems like 90% of the population has to learn lessons by experience, constantly and repeatedly, rather than listen to the other 10%
The lost art of learning from other people's mistakes (and/or history). Sigh.
I mean I'm absolutely going to be feeding it as much dogshit as possible, personally.
Yeah but that's like my default interaction with the internet in the first place pre llm.
I'm in favor of identity theft being so rampant that identity documents become worthless
I looked at the technology used by the EU age verification.
You prove your age to the app by scanning the NFC in your passport. No government servers exist.
When a site requests your age, you return only a "yes I'm older than 18", proven by your passport. Not your age, just that you're older.
I think it preserves privacy pretty well.
I don't think that it will protect children, but I do think that it preserves privacy.
There is no longer any right to privacy. This is just the latest step.
All they are going to do is drive a dark internet
Heard the Great Firewall is effective these days
Isn’t that a second amendment issue?
Isn’t anonymity an arm to bear ?
Isn’t that why they want to stop it?
That's it! I'm doing an 8 ball on some hooker's ass while listening nine inch nails
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