Proton CEO warns global age verification push will mean "the death of anonymity online"

Linux says fuck your age verification.

by any chance you wont be stranded on the Moon and need a lift?

Should be the parents' responsibility to protect their kids, not the tech companies. Also, age verification has nothing to do with "protecting the children" lol.

For now? Hope the government doesn't ban VPNs, and ISPs don't lock down "unverified" connections.

Contact your congresspeople and let them know how you feel about ID verification, and why it's dangerous to democracy.

Maybe get a mesh radio and learn about nodes, so that you have at least some form of communication if they lock down the web. Maybe a ham radio too, but be aware than many jurisdictions require a license to transmit anything (passive receiving is usually fine).

Download a local copy of everything you think you would want post-internet. Wikipedia, project gutenberg, ifixit, etc.

If you like your neighbors, consider discussing a network of wifi repeaters or ethernet cables to build your own LAN/intranet in the hypothetical post-internet scenario.

If you still use streaming services, transition to self-hosting local copies of all the media you care about.

If you have millions billions of dollars, consider starting your own ISP or VPN server, building out your own fiber-optic infrastructure, maybe launching your own satellites into space, with a commitment to open-source, decentralized platforms and anonymity?

Or contribute to a tech co-op that might eventually be able to implement something similar.

Other than that, all you can do is raise awareness about how easy it would be for an oppressive government to shut down the internet, or even just lock it down to any "unverified"/unidentifiable users...

IoT can run on LAN, and anyone who uses it should be self-hosting.

That being said, most people just trade privacy for convenience by signing up for corporate services. And that gives the tech companies more leverage over those people because "upload your ID or else your alexa won't work."

Tech companies have no qualms with making your things non-functional unless you give in to their stipulations...

I dunno I thought the whole point was to spy on people?

My devices are restricted from accessing the Internet, of course.

What is bullshit?

You don't believe there are LLMs posing as citizens online? Or, you don't believe that governments are trying to use that to push narratives, propaganda to destabilize citizens trust? Or, you don't believe anyone would be gullible enough to fall for LLM targeted propaganda?

Rather than a trust by default model, we switch to a distrust by default model.

Correct, when anyone with a few thousand to spend can create botnets to mimic and mislead a nations citizens, that's a problem. When Billionaires can create private datacenters to publish and promote their own propaganda anonymously, that's a problem. The world is too connected and too illiterate to handle a free, open, anonymous internet safely IMO. It's being taken advantage of by too many big players with little to no pushback.

Anonymous internet isn't dead, but no country can saddle it, so for the safety of any Nation, the default needs to be gated in some way shape or form. Otherwise, every Nations citizens is at the mercy at how well any enemy Nation can utilize targeted propaganda in a heavily unregulated medium.

As a Nations Citizen, you either:

1). Handle your own shit - in which case there's not much Nations can do to keep someone off anonymous, open internet.

2). Rely on your Government to provide and protect you from other Governments trying to destabilize forementioned Government.

The default needs to be #2 for the large majority.

I agree, but I'm not sure about one thing: it seems to me that capitalism and oligarchy will never disappear, and the only thing that can be done is to somehow contain this fascism for as long as possible, and it is unlikely that it will ever be able to put an end to it.

I think variety of choice and evolution is great. I love the idea of Reticulum, though I haven't seen much outside of it. My thesis is that these efforts would be best concerted somehow, rather than in isolation, so that their usage can benefit each other multiplicatively.

Well for one thing they have suspended whole tranches of accounts based solely on the word of the government that asked them to without any sort of due process. For another if an account is on a black list they just shut down the account with no way to appeal or make a case. As if the dozens of companies that keep blackmail lists are the word of fucking god. Which they're not. I know because I am on one of them.