Lou Katz @lou@entropyservice.com

***** Lauren's Blog: [What say you, Spock?] My Proposed Terminology to Describe Bypassing Social Media Face ID Age Verification Systems *****

https://lauren.vortex.com/2024/12/24/terminology-bypassing-face-age-verification

All the talk now is about using AI-based mechanisms to authenticate social media users as being not underaged for access, through analysis of their faces on video feeds. The multitude of ways in which this could fail in both directions (declaring faces either older than they really are, or younger than they really are, not to mention how you determine from a face if someone is 15.5 or 16 years old when the minimum age required for access is 16) are far too many to even list here.

But given all of the attention, I feel that we need terminology to quickly describe the entire area of bypass techniques targeting these age verification/gating systems.

I propose the term:

BALOK

As in, "The 11-year-old easily baloked the system and gained quick access."

or:

The free software was capable of baloking the ID portal within seconds to bypass the age restrictions.

BALOK is an acronym for:

Bypassing Age Locked Online Keys

Of course, fans of the original "Star Trek" already know what's really going on.

Balok was an alien in the first season of "Star Trek" from an episode called "The Corbomite Maneuver". In appearance he was a very young, vulnerable child. But in his audio and video communications with the Enterprise ship, he employed an artificial booming voice and what turned out to be a menacing appearing puppet to fool the Enterprise crew into fearing him.

The parallels with the current face ID age verification systems are obvious.

Children will be baloking the social media age gating systems in a myriad number of ways, while adults who were supposed to have access will be blocked due to both face analysis errors and technology access problems. Not everyone uses smartphones with cameras to access social media, and many people rightly fear sending video images of their faces to these or other firms due to justifiable concerns about potential abuses.

I anticipate both freeware baloking software and baloking as a (largely free) service. Kids will band together in groups to develop new baloking techniques. They are extremely resourceful when it comes to these areas, more so than the vast majority of adults.

Balok knew that it was easy to fool his potential adversaries with a faked persona. The ingenuity of kids today pretty much guarantees that their own efforts to balok the social media firms, and in essence the politicians who pushed age blocks in the first place, will be even more successful in the real world.

--Lauren--

Greed is immoral — but health care greed is worse https://www.alternet.org/heath-care-greed/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

A consensus is emerging: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Where is the action? | Nesrine Malik https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/23/israel-gaza-war-genocide-where-is-the-action?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

@pluralistic I knew someone who worked for McKinsey. I’ve also known several Scientologists. What I’ve learned from both of these associations is that no matter how deep you dive to write an exposé into either of these cults, the truth is much, much, much, much, … much worse.

Reminder: If you want your holy infant to be both tender and mild, start preheating your oven now.

The Government Accountability Office's new report concludes that Customs & Border Protection hasn't written key privacy-protecting policies for some of its main surveillance systems. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/12/customs-border-protection-fails-baseline-privacy-requirements-surveillance

"the three wise guys" is what we call them in NYC. They bring bagels, Nathan's hotdogs and cronuts the most precious things for the baby Jesus. One is from Queens, one from The Bronx and one from Brooklyn.

There are no wise guys in SI. That one got lost.

I’ll be honest, hearing SEO people complain about the state of Google now is like hearing an arsonist complain that they just can’t get the quality of kerosene they used to.

who decided on the name Secret Santa when Nondisclosure Claus was right there for the taking

You know how modern Google produces AI slop summaries of searches and links to "google amp" cached pages instead of the real site? Spotify went "hold my beer":

https://www.honest-broker.com/p/the-ugly-truth-about-spotify-is-finally

Spotify now has its own content farms they prioritize to the point grammy winning songs get fewer plays than individual instances of their in-house muzak. And the article says their CEO makes more than Taylor Swift.

Via https://toot.cafe/@baldur/113692083557449454

Finland implies the existent of synland synackland and ackland

"A lesser-known factor has exacerbated the energy crisis this year: In February Israel blew up two gas pipelines in Iran as part of its covert war with the country."

*Well, how Ukrainian of them #fossilfuelwar

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/world/middleeast/iran-economy-energy-crisis.html?unlocked_article_code=1.jE4.9nM6.3DmAy0CxDG_J&smid=tw-share

@RickiTarr "Please be patient with me. I'm from the 1900s." 😭

When you think about it, aren't microplastics just fairy dust from the petroleum fairy?

Man, corporations really want to put a stop to libraries:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-library-e-books-queues-1.7414060?cmp=rss

"Depending on the title, public libraries may pay two or three times more for an e-book than they pay for its print edition. In some cases, the e-book may be up to six times the price, librarians told CBC."

"Those publishers ... will often license copies of e-books for just 12 or 24 months. Once that licence expires, libraries must repurchase access to the same book." #canada #cdnpoli #books

Every SCOTUS case in which C (for "Corruption") Thomas cast a deciding vote should be considered tainted and invalid, serving neither as persuasive nor as precident.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/us/politics/clarence-thomas-trips-disclosure-investigation.html