NerdBrand Podcast
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NerdBrand Podcast
EP270: Call it what you want: age verification, identity checks, or digital ID.
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The internet has long relied on pseudonymity or anonymity for safety—domestic abuse survivors hiding from trackers, journalists protecting sources, activists in repressive regimes, LGBTQ+ people exploring identity, or simply people discussing sensitive topics.
Mandating ID-linked checks erodes this, potentially enabling government or corporate tracking, censorship, or chilling effects on free speech. Critics argue it builds infrastructure for broader surveillance under the guise of “child safety.”
That explanation is pretty clear.
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Welcome to this episode of the Nerdbrand Podcast, where we are doing an emergency episode. Yeah, I'm sure that's gonna translate well on video. Sorry, guys. Yeah. So uh yeah, no, today we want to talk about age verification, or let's be honest, we're gonna call it digital ID. So I'm not gonna do a music intro because there's a lot here and this is moving really fast. Um I'm just gonna get right into it. Yeah, do you know about digital ID? Have you read up on it?
SPEAKER_01I have read up on it, and it is just absolutely crazy to me. I know Kentucky released something a few weeks ago about how they're doing it. It's basically like, yeah, if you don't ever have your ID on you, you can just have a digital ID in your Apple wallet. And I'm just thinking in my head, how in the Sam hell is that safe? Like, think it hacked all the time. Passwords get leaked, you people access into your phones from malware. Like, how the heck is that safe?
SPEAKER_02Right, yeah. And so uh we're gonna have to you move the mic closer to your uh your mouse. That works, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um yeah, it is We're a little discombobulated because we weren't expecting to film today, so we're we're making it work, y'all.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, the age they call it age verification too, which I hate it when they do this crap because they tried to like slip stuff in and they just rename it. Um, which is sort of like, yeah, you know, branding and name, different brand, you get the same thing, different name, right?
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Um, so but call it what you want. This is a way for them to, yeah, to monitor your identity. And there's already been a hack. Uh oh, of course there has. Yeah, there's been a hack already on the identity and then the way they want to do it. So this is this is scarier because it's all over the place with folks on YouTube right now talking about it. And it's a lot of dev guys, it's a lot of guys that do programming that are on Discord, they work around Microsoft, Linux, and all these other places and things that people have never heard of. They're gonna hear about them now because so, real quick, if you go to the hospital and you are hurt like their operating system, the hospital, congratulations, that's Linux. You know, they may have Microsoft on the computers, but the servers are gonna be probably Linux, is what they're gonna run.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Plus, you know, I don't know if he's heard, I mean, if you're from Louisville or even New Albany, you probably have heard Norton got hacked.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Norton got it.
SPEAKER_01And they just did their their big settlement. Um, I think it was like 30 million or something like that. And I actually got a postcard in the mail that was like, hey, so you are part of this breach. So if you want part of the settlement, fill this form out. Oh, yeah. And I'm just like, oh great, yay, all my information is probably out there in the universe.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's been done to ATT, it happened to it happened to all the telecommunication companies, so we've not heard anything about that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm probably just like, this is probably the fifth time my data has been out into the universe, so nothing shocks me anymore.
SPEAKER_02But here's where I have an issue with it. It it this is um to me, it's an invasion of privacy.
SPEAKER_01Oh, a thousand percent.
SPEAKER_02Um, it is more about this is gonna happen at the operating system level of every device.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_02Because they're dealing with Linux, they're dealing with Microsoft, you're dealing with iOS age verification to verify that you are over the age of 18 to use your computer or your phone or whatever. There was a leak on the latest iOS update that's out as of now, actually, for California, because California's law starts January 1, where if you want to use your phone app or an app on your phone as well. So let's say you go to your phone, it they gotta identify your age to use the device. Then you identify your age, supposedly to use an app. Say, like you want to check the scores on ESPN of your favorite team or whatever, you got to do it there too.
SPEAKER_01So this to check the scores?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, this is how bad this is. So I asked Grok about the problems with it, and it says there's potential loss of anonymity and surveillance potential. Uh, the internet has long relied on Swedo Anonymity or anonymity for safety domestic abuse survivors hiding from trackers, journalists protecting sources, activists and repressive regimes, LGBTQ people exploring uh exploring identity, or simply people discussing sensitive topics. Mandating ID link checks erodes this, potentially enabling government or corporate tracking, censorship, or chilling effects on free speech. Critics argue that it builds infrastructure for broader surveillance under the guise of child safety. Save the children. I always love this from both sides. So because this is a bipartisan thing, more this ain't a Republican-Democrat thing. Um, because everybody in California on both sides of the House and Senate and both parties signed it and went through. So it's pretty clear to me. Um, but this is what gets overlooked. So um the the fact that you think that everybody is so honest online the naivety with that.
SPEAKER_01I mean, God, even in the early 2000s when the internet was still like still brand new and was just a baby, like everybody was faking and catfishing. Hell, you there's a whole freaking show about people faking their identity on the internet. Catfish. They literally just stopped filming it, I think like a year or two ago. Really?
SPEAKER_03It went that long.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it went that long. So, point of the story is people have been lying about their age and their identity since day one. You really think people are gonna be honest online?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And that's the thing. So let's take Roblox. I don't know if you've heard of this, but so it's a kids online game, but also a lot more than that. It's repeatedly been accused of becoming a hunting ground for child predators.
SPEAKER_01It has been, and there have been a lot of cases opening up about it, and kids coming out and parents telling stories about how they discovered predators going after their kids, and it it's absolutely disgusting. And quite frankly, I mean, I I'm surprised that Roblox is still online. I'm surprised that their servers are still even active given the number of issues that they've had and lawsuits that have been threatened. I would have thought that in the midst of all of this, they would be actively trying to do something, and maybe they are behind the scenes. I don't know. But it certainly doesn't seem like there's a lot going on to try to fix the problem.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, you have a multi, multi-billion dollar company is probably not going to rush to put the age verification into that system.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, um But then also, too, how do you age verify a kid?
SPEAKER_02It's not like they have anything And that's the trick, that's the trick here. There is a Supreme Court case I'll bring up that uh has to do with this that made a mention on this because this is not the first time this has been attempted.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um so but goodness gracious, parents, do you know where your kids are? Yeah that used to be an ad campaign that was run in the 90s, yeah. Yeah, when I was a kid, and it would come on at 10 o'clock at night across television. Do you know where your children are?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, are your children home? Do you know where your children are? Yep.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The lights the street lights out. Do you know where your children are?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So where are your kids online, folks? What are games are they playing? What are they watching, and who are they talking to? And technology cannot replace active parenting. I don't care what they try.
SPEAKER_03Nope.
SPEAKER_02But the real issue is the loss of anonymity.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I don't I I'm I'm more like what I've been watching with Congress lately. Um, Epstein be damned, we got a bigger problem here that's forming. Um, so the future that's quietly approaching, in fact, it's already here because iOS has already deployed their update, of which I blocked it on all my devices. I don't want it. Um yesterday, so so let's say you open your device and you wake up and you gotta prove who you are before you uh access it. That just sounds fun. But is this a device you bought with your own money in it?
SPEAKER_01Exactly. I shouldn't have to prove who I am, I can use it however I want.
SPEAKER_02Wasn't the credit card enough?
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And you know, if I want my mom to open it, like if I'm not feeling great and I'm like, hey, can you pull this information on my phone? It's in the other room, she should be able to do that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Now you may want to it may ask you to do it like one time, but imagine for every app you own. Imagine for every website you visit. Nope. Yeah, I'm not doing that. I don't mean to be crass, but if you go to a porn site, this is already enacted.
SPEAKER_01So well, yeah, they enacted it last year on Pornhub.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and so this this is biometrics. This isn't like scans your face, like that's a bit too far for me. Right.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Like, I it's one of those things where like, I mean, I know Pornhub was one of the first, like, bigger places to start doing it. I'm sure other places have done it before them, but that was the big one that people were like, oh shoot, you know, I gotta put in my ID. Yep, I don't want that stuff being known out there. Yeah, and then they stop using it depending on the state that they're in. And now we've got Discord, which that's a huge way for people to stay in contact and to be able to have like a built-in community that's not super expensive.
SPEAKER_02Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, I mean, if you're if you're like a big content creator and you have your own like, you know, Discord server, yeah, maybe depending on how big you are and what features you want, you might pay for certain things. But overall, if you're just wanting to get a group of people together to play Jackbox virtually or something, then it's free.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, this is uh to me, this is this is scary. This is Ed Edward Dodon's Edward Snowden warned us on this one. In 2025, Representative Anna Paulina Luna said that she would fight digital ID requirements. Um, I really hope she meant it because here we are.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, ironically, the US Supreme Court all ruled in a case involving expanded age verification requirements, like we said, for pornography sites. And so that came in. But the court essentially said the broader proposal was, and a quote direct from them, expanding age verification broadly is unattainable.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's not. The lawmakers keep trying this. Yeah, it's not reasonable because I mean, plus, the only way for you, if you are under 16, to have some form of identification is if you have a passport. Not every kid is gonna go get a passport, not every parent is gonna go take their kid to get a passport.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01It's not necessary.
SPEAKER_02So who's at fault for this? Representative John James has been pushing measures that critics argue repres misrepresent the real purpose of these laws. I would agree. Yeah. If you watch there's a video that uh we will include that you can watch that explains it. Um, and then you and I can watch it maybe later here after recording because it's very it's very fascinating, and I think they they do a good job explaining it. Um there is a lot of geekiness in a lot of tech talk in regards to this topic, so I think a lot of people will have to, you know, set that aside and you can Google those later for your own glossary of terms because you're gonna hear a lot of things that just don't get talked about. Um it's sort of like trying to explain where sugar comes from when you're wanting to just bake a cake. Yeah, you know. I mean we're kind of in the era where we just want to pour the mixture in, add some water, put it in the oven, and that's it. There's so much more that goes on behind the scenes to get to that point, though. So that's really where we're at. So the operating system level that they want to put this on and demand it go on, Linux community has already said no.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh so California's gonna have a big problem. Now, there is a paid version of Linux called Red Hat that people use because obviously it's more secure. But at the end of the day, this this flies in the face of open source. Open source is a real thing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02If you use anything open source, if you're a word if you have a WordPress website, you're using open source. If you use Linux, you're using open source. Um, there's many open source. Open AI was open source, chat GPT, okay? So this is this is flying in the face of a lot of that. That I I just don't see this working. But several states are adopting it at a rapid pace right now. We have four now that are adopting it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And plus, I mean, making a digital ID, like it's already, you know, people are already trying to battle, like, oh, having real IDs and making sure that people don't have fake identification and things like that. You know, government's trying to really push that and authenticate that, make sure that people who are from this country have identification. Now you're gonna introduce digital identification. Tell me that that's not gonna become super easy to emulate and to fake.
SPEAKER_02Like, well, yeah, and the whole thing with the voter ID now, everybody got upset about that, but I'm like, voter ID to me is not a big deal in comparison to this. Well, yeah, but I mean, like, you're you're restricting my usage of a device I have paid for, this very laptop.
SPEAKER_01Oh no, for sure. I'm just talking about like the digital ID aspect of it and then having to use that to verify for the device. It's like all this stuff is gonna be so easy to fake. And then you're gonna have people who are using these fake IDs to get into these apps, and you know, some some people might do it with the other. That's a good point.
SPEAKER_02It it it explain it it it opens up a door.
SPEAKER_01And that's where I was going with that exploitation. Yeah, and that's where I was going with that. You know, because you're gonna have kids who are gonna want to play the certain game or do this certain thing that might be rated M. And if they're like 15, 16, yeah, mentally they may or may not be able to handle it. You know, that's a different podcast for a different day. But like they're gonna find a way to hack into it, and then they're gonna be exploited to people, and it's just gonna turn into this huge thing, and it's gonna become a problem of okay, is it the person's fault for pursuing, or is it the is it the kids' fault for faking identity?
SPEAKER_02Well, it's almost like they're and it's like a you know, double-edged sword. Everybody's no one ever heard of a VPN.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01VPNs do. I mean, like, there are just so many factors involved and things that are just gonna go wrong with it that the more they try to make things digital, the more vulnerable they're gonna be.
SPEAKER_02It's gonna create an underground, and and that's the dangerous part. They're actually creating a very dangerous environment that wasn't there before. And if it and of course I think we all know it was, but now they're going to make it worse. Yeah. But anyhow, um, so this is actually becoming um, as I mentioned, Linux, they were like, no, we're not doing it. So that's gonna be interesting. Because it puts uh these laws just put a burden on app developers. So if you're an app developer and you want to put it in the app store for Google or for Google's already actually shut down and lockdown as of yesterday or so, their their app store, like this is unbelievable how fast this is moving. So if people think like, oh, you're being overreactionary to this, no, just in another two weeks, you're gonna see this and it's gonna get freaking wild.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. And for for context, too, just so people are aware, we're gonna be posting this next week. It is currently March 7th, Jason 7th, that we are filming this. This is gonna get posted next week. We usually try to film podcasts, you know, a couple weeks out, just so that way we can focus on other work and other things that we have going for our clients. You know, the podcast is mainly just for fun. So that says something that Jason and I decided within two days in advance, which is pretty quick for both of us. Hey, exactly, we're going to we need to film something, we need to get something rolling. This is a huge topic. This is something we need to address yesterday.
SPEAKER_02My stance on it, I very rarely put my opinions or my stance on things that are like this out there, especially when they get really close to being political. I stay away from it. Same. But this is something that I'm sorry, this is just I I look at the Fourth Amendment and I look at this and I'm like, okay, we're getting a little too close. Because let's let's let's think about, like, for example, as an advertiser, what we can do. We can figure out what shirt you like to buy from what store and how often you like to buy it, but also the color of it. We know you're we can buy behavioral data to get your um not buy it, but rent it to get your behavior to get a a list to target you both in um emails in your inbox or with ads or even with direct uh you know, like like mail, and to to figure out how to sell you products. I mean, this it happens all the time. We we just did a podcast where you sat there and screamed out a few names, and then all of a sudden ads started showing up on your stuff, and you're like, Well, there you go.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Yeah, like well, would you look at that? You know, I got a Raisin Brand ad on this, and the other social media. Well, I don't have a Raisin Brand ad, but I have a Kalogs ad, and that's the same company that makes it. Like, we literally did the test live.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. So your devices are listening.
SPEAKER_01Check out that podcast. Yeah, I think it was the Super Bowl one because we were talking about Raisin Brand. Yeah, so make sure you listen to the Super Bowl one and just kind of see our reactions to that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so this this is something that, you know, the scary stuff of what we can do and track it's already here. Now, this is just gonna accelerate it, but it's also going to open doors for people to take advantage of it.
SPEAKER_01And in that Super Bowl commercial, too, we did mention, like with the Amazon ad, the um the ring doorbell ad about how people were concerned about surveillance and things.
SPEAKER_02You're worried, they're worried about that. Boy, this is way worse.
SPEAKER_01But now we are now it's reaching scary because you know, yes, people are very much aware that like, you know, social security gets hacked, so you can get all your data, all this, that, and the other. You know, it some people have just grown to accept that. Um, I'm partially that way. I mean, I definitely don't just type my numbers in willy-nilly. Right. But you know, like heck, when I shop, I use PayPal, so that way there's an extra layer of protection.
SPEAKER_02And that's what it's for.
SPEAKER_01Right. So that way I have an extra layer of protection when I pay stuff for stuff. That way I'm not just putting in my card information. Like the only time I will ever put card information in is if it's like a medical bill, because at that point there's no choice if you're paying online. Right, yeah, you know, or if I'm like supporting a a small business that I'm like, okay, I I know this place, I'm gonna pay in advance, I'm good, I'll put in my card information. Yeah, see, but like that's it.
SPEAKER_02That's gonna be very difficult though, bec for businesses, even and how it's gonna affect them. If you have users that go to your website, you're gonna be required possibly to do this. So exactly every time an app is used to verify without verifying an age, every time an unverified user accesses whatever that is, and every time an app is downloaded without proper checks, yeah, you're gonna get fines. And these fines range from 2,500 to 7,000, depending on what per infraction, whatever they are. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I'm gonna go that'll bankrupt you. Yeah, and I'm gonna go one step further too, depending on content that people post. So, like I know one of my uh freelance clients that I've done work with for years, um, they do a lot of like um like body sculpting, um, you know, waxing services and things like that. Obviously, they don't show anything that's inappropriate, like by means. Anything that is shown is not misconstrued. But, you know, if they're showing a picture of like a flatter stomach, a before and after, or if they're showing like, you know, an armpit before and after from a wax, you know, sometimes the algorithm will look at that and flag it and go, Oh yeah, it does that for ads.
SPEAKER_02It does it for ads. Yeah, it does it for ads.
SPEAKER_01And so like they'll get flags, you know. Now let's take that a step further. Now that there's the age identification thing, this is gonna affect advertiser advertisers because then next thing you know, their content is gonna get age restricted, which I understand that that's already happening, but now you gotta put in your ID to access that content, even if it's just you scrolling on TikTok and you wanting to see, like, oh, I want to see what the salon's up to. I want to see, you know, what they've posted recently. And now you have to be 18 or older just to view a business's platform.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, imagine a um like not even anything inappropriate. Well, I mean, even some that that are not being inappropriate, like um plastic surgery, yep, breast augmentations, you know, before and afters. I mean, uh those are usually they're usually posted online. Um if you're a 12-year-old, you're gonna go there and we all know what happens. But at the end of the day, these are necessary to show that this doctor is not gonna butcher your body.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, and I know that they're not gonna be able to do it.
SPEAKER_02And it's different every state's different.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and there is an exemption for medical purposes or for like health purposes. There are. But even so, like, I've know people who work in the medical realm or who work for med spas and stuff who even say, like, we're posting for medical, we're appealing these, and we're showing the documentation and proof that hey, this is for medical purposes or medical education.
SPEAKER_02And they'll try to obscure certain things to get past what you're talking about, but in the but still it gets flagged.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it'll still be flagged. The appeals are just like, sorry, yeah, your appeal didn't go through, or we we didn't approve your appeal. And it's like, well, now what do they do?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we had that happen to a client who's in medical, nothing was in the ad that was inappropriate. Right. It was a picture of her, and I was like, Are you joking? Yeah, that's what it was, and it didn't go through. Yep, so we just rolled it to a different one because I was like, all right, we'll just change the ad. Robots are reviewing the robots that are reviewing the ads now. There's no more person, in my opinion. No, so that's an entirely different problem that's coming up. So imagine if you have problems identifying yourself. So that's a good point to bring up because this has happened where the scan, it does. So this is so one one state, so you upload an ID, you scan your face, or a verification through a third party, like you talked about passports.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, but how many times have you met people? Like if I look at you, I won't say your age, but if I don't care. Yeah, you're 29.
SPEAKER_0130.
SPEAKER_02You're 30. See? So I'm close, but because I've known you for a while. Right. But there are, especially with women, they may look a lot younger than what they are.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And there's guys that look a lot older than what they are.
SPEAKER_01Oh, for sure.
SPEAKER_02So how does this thing know?
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Like my college, um, and this is just to prove that point, um, I was helping my uh my sorority that I was a part of in college with some of their recruitment stuff. And whenever I was talking to the girls, you know, I was just like, oh yeah, back in my day, whenever I was going through Rush or whenever we were going through recruitment. And they were like, Well, yeah, I mean, that wasn't that long ago though. And I was like, You guys realize at the time, you guys realize I'm 29, right? Like, I'm not that much older than you guys, but I am older than you guys. And they were like, Oh my god, we literally thought you were maybe like a year older than us, two years older than us. Yeah, and I'm like, Okay, you guys are lying. I love you all, you all are super sweet, but no, you all are lying. They're like, no, legit, like you look young. And I've always been told that growing up and stuff, which hey, that's great. I'll take it. That's why the age thing doesn't bug me because it's like as long as I look young, we're good.
SPEAKER_02So you can so you can go to DanielleSkincare line. No, I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_00I will totally post all the secrets. All the secrets of how to age gracefully.
SPEAKER_02And it's just like simple stuff. Floss at night, and you're like, well, hey, now wait a minute, I already do that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01I got lucky, I got good genetics. But case in point, like you said, like I've had people tell me, like, oh, you look really young, and you don't you don't look 30, you look like early twenties, maybe mid twenties.
SPEAKER_02I never got carded for twenty one and up when I was younger in one places because of I still get carded. I've always had gray and I've always looked older. So it's just yeah. So I don't see this working out and going very well. But imagine doing this.
SPEAKER_01Like I still get carded every so often. And it's not because of a oh, I legally have to see your ID, but I I can tell by how you look. But sometimes people will kind of look at me like, Do you have an ID? Like if I'm not wearing makeup, do you have an ID? Yeah. I'm like, yeah. And they're like, oh shit, you're 29, you're 30. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Birth date. Yeah. Uh imagine though this same system applied to the entire internet. Now, going back to what the Supreme Court said, where they basically said it was unattainable to do this, basically, over the entire internet.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Imagine that at the operating system level. So your device could block access until it verifies your identity. It meets the requirements set by your state. Yep. Because these are state by state.
SPEAKER_01So essentially you're going to have to create some form of state ID for everyone involved, which essentially is just like assigning your social security. Like your social security is assigned to you, and that is how you identify you as a person, your age, your birthday, all that stuff is set aside. It's almost like either the and the internet is going to need to start incorporating your social security for identification purposes, which is sketchy as hell.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Or they're going to have you're going to have to create some kind of identification, you know, maybe in like say preschool or something, and in order to access in order to access certain apps or even like educational apps and things, like, you know, and I say preschool just because let's be realistic. If you're doing educational iPad things and you it the government would need to track it, it would probably be for school purposes. But like now you're gonna have to create that. And then how does that loop in with your social security? How does that loop in with your driver's license or your passport? There's gonna be way too many IDs and way too many identifications that are gonna connect and be synced up that are just all gonna be even more vulnerable to hack.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and we already know the government's not good about syncing up crap because the way things went with Doge. So the whole thing is that you have a choice, you have liberty or you have security here. And it's like 9-11. Everybody was freaking out during 9-11. I remember going through that era, and you have to ask yourself, well, I don't know if the people down the street are actually terrorists, a terror cell, which we're kind of getting to now. Well, you know, people are reminded that never went away. But at the end of the day, that's where that comes in. And it's sort of like in the 50s where everybody was a communist. You know, we had the MacArthur era. Look, you either trade your liberties or you trade for security. You gotta have you can't have both, you know, but there is a balance. There is a happy media, and this is a digital version of the losing of that balance. You know, there's people that say, well, like we want to protect children from predators. Well, we already have several mechanisms to do that. Well, we want to identify people and make sure they are who they say they are and where they're from. Well, we already have a mechanism to do that. What the heck is going on? We already have these things. What's happening, in my opinion, is no one is using them and no one's enforcing them.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And I get that like there are certain things that you have to have some form of verification. Now I'm gonna play devil's advocate for a minute. Like, you know, if you're wanting to shop at an alcohol store's website and you're wanting to like do a pickup order or something, well, in order to do that, you have to be 21.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And whether that is you are inputting your birthday and then the site's just gonna trust your word for it. Or if it's, you know, hey, upload your ID now or show us your ID when you go to pick it up, like I get that. Um, you know, even Pornhub, like I I don't like the idea of having to upload your ID online, but I understand it because they don't want people who shouldn't be accessing it, accessing it. It's one of those.
SPEAKER_02But also too, there's a lot of sites that don't do that.
SPEAKER_01Well, who should.
SPEAKER_02And you're like, wait, why are we not this is this is the issue the Supreme Court raised.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_02It's just unattainable to do it everywhere.
SPEAKER_01Oh no, exactly. And it's like one of those things where it's like, in theory and in concept, I get why they're doing it, but it's the application and how it's how it's being done that it's like, okay, no, this is not at all. Like you said, you either have to trade your liberty or you have to have security. And at that point, that would be something where I'm just like, I understand the concept, but I wouldn't do it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, give me liberty or give me death has always been sort of the foundation of the country. So yeah, I think we would go with that. But you know, parents, be parents, just know where your kids are.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, innovation and control, this is what will suffer. So small developers, they don't have the resources to fight this stuff. So if they get fines and all these regulations, if they fail to comply, their apps get removed. So that's a loss of revenue. So you're talking Apple Store and you're talking the Google Play Store.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And then you're also gonna have small businesses who are gonna have to battle that as well, like you know, your salons or your med spas or your medical professionals who, you know, whether it's access to their website, so you can look at them and see they are legit and they're not gonna screw up your body or botch your, you know, bot your job. Or if um I mean it's the truth.
SPEAKER_02It's just the way you phrase that where you it's like, I was like, okay, I get it. Yeah, that's probably a good way to do that if this goes on YouTube.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that is exactly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, it'll mute.
SPEAKER_00We gotta, you know, we're not looking at it.
SPEAKER_02If the audio goes out, that's not that's that's YouTube.
SPEAKER_01Look, Jason and I are both very cautious of what we have to say online. We're not gonna hold things back. We're gonna go to YouTube. Yeah, we're gonna tell you how it is, but we understand that there is some level of censoring we have to do. But that's beside the point. That's that's a separate TED talk for another day.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But um, you know, you've got to have those images, and so it's gonna turn into, like you said, like you know, developers aren't gonna be able to upload things and app stores and in streams of income. You know, now you're gonna have businesses that suffer because then they won't be able to advertise. Yeah. Or they won't be able to display their content because then everyone, if they're gonna have that whole, hey, you need to verify your age in order to view this content. Well, then no one's gonna want to do it, so then no one's gonna view their content. Yeah, it's not gonna be viewed.
SPEAKER_02I'm just gonna call it what it is. The inn innovation will slow dramatically, but only large companies with big legal teams are gonna have compliance departments that are able to survive this. Yeah. In other words, the internet becomes increasingly controlled by the same handful of small corporations and people, and ownership versus access, you're gonna have a lot of this that's now gonna come up. And so that is where we are. Um, I have seen that years ago when the internet came out, and I'm old enough for this, that there was this thought of two different internets. Like right now, they talk about dead internet theory, which is a different podcast, but at the end of the day, you had two different internets, one for thee and one for me, is what it was. So the elites had theirs and they we had ever the garbage. And so at the end of the day, controlling of information, yeah, you would I I guarantee you that these corporations in the government would like to control what we look at and what we read. They have lost the narrative.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02If you open up Twitter right now, you will find accounts that are legit, people that are obviously being shown as I'll say as agents and working for someone else. It's already out that influencers are taking money to either be pro-Trump or pro-Democrat.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh and it's very obvious, and people that you wouldn't even think that are turning out to be that way if you really start paying attention to what they're saying, because then you can just turn them off, and then all of a sudden something else jumps in, and that's intentional. But then you see a lot of other fake accounts coming in. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like I think Twitter is telling you, like, this is going on, and then I think what's gonna happen is it's just one day we're gonna hit it and it's gonna turn it off.
SPEAKER_01Oh, big influencers have this issue all the time where they're like, hey, there's an account that has a very similar username to me and is posting videos basically within 30 minutes of me posting something. So it's gonna seem like it's me posting it, but it's not my account. Yeah, it's spoofing me. It's faking, it's a fake account, it's not me. Yeah, don't accept it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I've got some of them are more than that's a podcast in of itself of the spooping, the spoofing that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, that's that's totally gonna be something I think we should do in our next uh recording session. Um, I'll make a note of that later. But um, but yeah, so I mean like and some of them are more obvious than others. Like some of them the person doesn't even try to fix the username, they just change the profile picture and the name that's listed. Right. And then it's like, okay, like you're not even trying. Yeah. But then there are some where it's like there's like instead of it being a hyphen, it's like a um an underscore. Or like they do a a a a capital zero or capital O instead of a zero. Like things like that where it's like, okay, if you were just kind of doom scrolling and you weren't really paying attention, you might actually fall for it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you know, so just imagine with all this age verification stuff and all the digital IDs and things, how like, especially with you know, my belief is that you know, IDs are easy to fake and things are easy to fake, making it digital is just gonna make it all the more easier. Yeah. So just imagine how an influencer, somebody will create a fake influencer's ID and then make a spoof account or something, and then you know, I can't even imagine the crime that's gonna go in with it. If you've got scammers or you've got people who are like, hey, we spoofed your ID, and we're gonna go out and do this shit and basically tie it to your ID into your identity so you're the one that gets in trouble. Extortion.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. I mean, this this isn't hard to see where all the nefarious places where this could go.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, just imagine though, you like again, I can't emphasize enough. Imagine turning your device on either for the first time or just on the no more day, yeah, and you've got to do these steps to verify your identity. Imagine updating a rollout or suddenly requires verification on devices people already own. Um, the concept of device ownership starts to really blur. Instead of owning a device, you're essentially renting permission to use it.
SPEAKER_01Nintendo had a big scam about this. Whenever the Switch 2 came out, sorry to Interject. But like that was a big thing, was that you know, some of the things that were coming out with the Nintendo 2, so the Switch 2, um, the whole like some cards, some of the games, the physical cartridge, you don't necessarily own the game. It's basically a key to access the digital download.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And that was a huge thing because it's like, okay, well then if I'm buying the physical copy, I want to own the game.
SPEAKER_02I wonder if that's why Xbox kind of blew up and did what it did because they knew that Microsoft knew this was coming.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, they did. Yeah. Whenever the whole announcement about the Switch 2 came out, that was something that was announced and it was a huge ordeal. Now, I I want to say, and I could very much be wrong. So do not hold this as gospel. But I'm pretty sure they made it now to where, okay, some games you can store things on the on the card and you can own it, but Nintendo still has control on like how you use it and modding it and stuff. But like there's a level of ownership of your data associated with the game.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I think some of the games they're like, we don't care, we're gonna keep it as is. But I think some of the games they're like, okay, yeah, we do have to do something. And I think where it leads is like But now it's gonna turn into like that's just with console games.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's games. That's just that's which gaming is a multi-billion dollar industry that has tentacles into other industries like defense.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. So like now you've got all this going on with gaming and the controversial with gaming, and just like you mentioned, imagine having to do that for your devices and you don't even own the device. You're having to basically identify yourself to use a device and you don't own it anymore. That's essentially what's yeah, what it's already happening.
SPEAKER_02Well, there was a guy, there was a person that ended up getting a North Korean phone and found out that on the backside of the log, it was taking screenshots every few seconds to see what they were looking at and recording that and then sending that to the cloud. So yeah, I don't I don't like any of this. Um I don't either uh there is a specific phone and I won't talk about it, I'll let you know offline what it is, but I may end up getting it. But and that's dramatic for me. And I know I sound dramatic and I sound paranoid, I don't really care. I'm fine with all of that. I've been around, I've been around since the internet's okay. So I remember when they renounced, like, there's this new thing called email, and it was in 1994, I believe, or 95, and I was 17. And so I yeah, I I've many people my age were like, yeah, we all knew this was coming.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um but this trend is real, it's got real consequences for privacy, anonymity, and the future of open internet, and that's the big one right there. Uh no developer is gonna want to fight this battle, and most will simply comply. So what's next? What happens next, Danielle?
SPEAKER_01I have no idea, but it's not gonna be good. And I one thing too, I will mention like there's so many people my age and younger who, you know, all these developments and things are coming up with online and with privacy and all this, all this stuff that they're like, you know, screw this. I'm just gonna get a flip phone. Well, and they're reverting back to the phone. People are, yeah, they are more and more people, and it's not just like, oh, the older demographic where they're like, okay, I don't want to fumble with a smartphone anymore. I want to go back to something easy. It's people my age and younger who are like, I don't want an iPhone, I don't want this comp these complexities, I want a flip phone. And so that's just gonna only hurt the digital side of things too, because then you're gonna turn so many people off to smart devices because you can't own them. People are gonna revert back to what's simple. Now, of course, I have accepted that, you know, given my industry, that I am gonna have to own an Apple phone and I'm gonna have to own an Apple, you know, computer or a MacBook because of what I do and because of some of the fine art and digital art stuff that I do, as well as other additional tools I use for design, I'm gonna have to have an iPad because all of those communicate, all the programs I use are Apple compatible, and like that I've just accepted that I'm going to be forever stuck in the Apple cult.
SPEAKER_02Um It's not a bad cult. It's not a bad cult, or it wasn't, you know, at least up until now. Now I got problems with it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, same. But like, but I have accepted that it's like, okay, when I chose this industry, I locked into the devices I'm gonna own for the rest of my life when it comes to like primary uses. I still have a gaming laptop and a gaming PC and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I had a PC for many years. I just I my final moment was I think it was in 2009, I was working on a PC and I was trying to edit something and it locked up and I couldn't use it and it crashed and it kept crashing and crashing. And I had just had it for a few weeks, and I was like, this is stupid. The moment I went to a Mac, that went away. And I was like, well, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_01Well, it's because all the things that we use are only Apple compatible, and if they do make a compatible compatible version for other computers, it doesn't work as well.
SPEAKER_02But it rarely crashed and it rarely did any of that stuff because the way it isolates programs on the PC or on the machine.
SPEAKER_01Um I have like a gaming PC that I just use for gaming and things like that. Like I have other devices for you know personal use, but I've accepted that it's like, well, I'm gonna always own these devices because of what I do for work.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's kind of what it brings up. It's like secondary devices, private focus networks, decentralized apps, which remember when everybody talked about Web3? Well, that's it. Okay? Decentralized web. That's Web3. Um, I know a few of those apps, and I'm looking at them again right now. In the beginning, I thought, oh, I'll never do this. Yeah. But you hear but the you hear the term end-to-end encryption. But why is it that these end-to-end encryption apps seem to get leaked into the media that so and so and such and such said this or that? Doesn't seem very secure to me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, see, if if it wasn't for what I do for a living, I would probably be one of those people that's like, you know what, I don't need all these social media platforms. I don't I can do a flip phone. I just want to keep life simple, but because of what I do, I have no choice. But like, I get it. I get why people are just like, forget this. I don't want to mess with it, and just going offline because there's so much stuff happening.
SPEAKER_02Right, and there is.
SPEAKER_01And it's scary. It's like everything is just gonna get more and more exposed, and there's just gonna be more and more ways for people to be exploited.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's accessing anything. I mean, you got your smart TV, your streaming box, your phone, your laptop, every device connected to the internet could eventually be pulled into the same identity system.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02So that Apple TV you bought and paid for, yeah, uh, it might one day require an identity verification just to access the apps you already pay for. Um, and if that happens, I guess I I have a Blu-ray player now. Um, and I will go back to which is a trend that's that's coming back of owning them, like you said, owning the media again. People are buying DVDs and Blu-ray players again. I mean, it it is coming back because of the lack of uh security. So, what are your final thoughts? Uh, age verification, digital ID, whatever it sounds, is it scary? Is it what what do you think?
SPEAKER_01I think it's terrifying. I mean, I know that every, you know, in this world, there are so many ways for us to be spied on and have surveillance on us. And there are certain ones that it's just like, okay, this is the world we're in, we just have to accept it. But this is one of those facets that it is not it's it's far beyond any form of okay, you can opt out of this, or of course. There ain't no opt-in out. This is going to become the norm. Like it's not a, oh, well, if you don't like how this is happening, just don't buy the product, or just don't opt into this service or whatever. This is gonna happen with our every our everyday stuff. And we're not gonna be able to avoid it. It's gonna force us to exploit our IDs, our social securities, all these other informations and things that are gonna be easier to exploit, easier to steal. And I am I am quite frankly terrified of it. Yeah, when they announced it. I am not a fan.
SPEAKER_02When they announced it and they said it's gonna be the operating system level.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that immediately was like no.
SPEAKER_02I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. What so good for Linux for standing up and saying no. Um I don't know how that's gonna turn out. Umbutu's done the same thing. People forget it. They don't know who that is. I know I'm saying a bunch of names, nobody knows, but that's fine. But they have come out, I think they don't want any part of it. So there will be a rift between um these major developers that I call the gods of the internet.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's Amy basically.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's coming. So um they're going to get to know these names very quickly. Everyone will, even the media, because they're gonna stand up and basically say, like, oh, you can't get your network up. Well, you know why? Because we aren't sending out updates anymore because of this policy in your state. Yep, that's gonna create the big riff. Because everybody just knows Microsoft and Apple, but they don't know what runs in the background, they don't know what is actually sitting back there that was the code base for all of it. So that's that's what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So final thoughts for me. I don't like it. It is gonna be terrifying, it's gonna be implemented into mainstream, and it's gonna be massive invasion of privacy, of ownership, and all those other things. Final thoughts on your end.
SPEAKER_02Um, it the reality is really it's just the same. It creates infrastructure capable of tracking identity across the internet. And once that infrastructure exists, it rarely shrinks.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's it's not in the years that I've seen the internet in 20 plus years. It's not shrunk. It's it's become encrypt in more and more. So um, anyways, thanks for listening this far to the podcast and our rants. Um, you know, that was one big giant rant because what's going on? This is a moving, this is something that's moving very quickly and it's completely wild, but it's actually a real thing. So uh go look it up. Age verification. Uh digital ID did try to pass in England, they shot it down, but I I feel like that this is just it in another form in the United States, and it's just a more uh friendly form because it's guised by you know protecting the kids. And yeah, honestly, that's not, I don't believe that that's what this is for at all. So and obviously if be careful of anybody hiding behind children and saying they're defending children.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I mean, and there are some cases where you can tell it's genuine, protect the kids, and then there are some cases where if there's any doubt, it's probably not genuine. Right. But I digress. If there's any updates with this that are massive, like like what we just talked about, we'll definitely be doing an episode on it. We're definitely gonna kind of keep an eye on this because this is something that is going to just affect everybody's life gets touched by this. Yeah, every single industry, every single person, regardless of how you know deep online you are or how disconnected you are online, this is going to affect everyone in some form or capacity. So, needless to say, we're all keeping an eye on this.
SPEAKER_02All right. And with that, appreciate you listening this far. And you know where to go to find us online to subscribe, like, and keep up with latest episodes. Go to NerdbrandAgency.com slash podcast, and we will see you later and keep your nerd brand strong.
