this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2025
103 points (99.0% liked)

Technology

311 readers
371 users here now

Share interesting Technology news and links.

Rules:

  1. No paywalled sites at all.
  2. News articles has to be recent, not older than 2 weeks (14 days).
  3. No videos.
  4. Post only direct links.

To encourage more original sources and keep this space commercial free as much as I could, the following websites are Blacklisted:

More sites will be added to the blacklist as needed.

Encouraged:

founded 2 months ago
MODERATORS
Pro@programming.dev
103
Hackers prove age verification systems on pornography sites can be bypassed in seconds (news.sky.com)
submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by Pro@programming.dev to c/Technology@programming.dev
16 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Using widely available technology, well-known ethical hackers Chris Kubecka and Paula Popovici quickly accessed numerous pornography sites without ever verifying their ages.

all 17 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] stefenauris@pawb.social 39 points 6 days ago (3 children)

In response to our findings, Ofcom said these checks "will help stop young children from stumbling across porn".

Stumbling across porn is a right of passage for every teenager. You can try to make it illegal all you want, but it happens every time. Maybe instead of fighting the inevitable we make it safer for young adults by educating them about gasp the s word (sex) instead of pretending it doesn't exist.

Not to mention these silly laws also impact the rest of us adults from going about our business. This puritan mindset is backwards and ultimately self defeating. "Think of the children" is used far too often in justification for restrictions instead of doing things that actually benefit children.

[–] Blaster_M@lemmy.world 18 points 6 days ago (1 children)

As the saying goes, teach your kids about the birds and the bees before the internet does.

[–] stefenauris@pawb.social 4 points 6 days ago

hell yeah lol

[–] Lycist@lemmy.world 11 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

didn't even need porn when I came of age, started with scrambled tv channels and sears underwear magazine sections.

These laws are stupid, haha.

[–] stefenauris@pawb.social 6 points 5 days ago

exactly, people were learning about sexual things before the internet, before TV even. Sex is normal, (just as much as being asexual is also normal), and having sex present in our culture and society is a part of that.

[–] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 14 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Ofcom said these checks "will help stop young children from stumbling across porn".

"Oh no I appear to have accidentally typed pornhub.com into my browser and clicked 'I am over 18' and then clicked on a video. How clumsy of me to stumble across porn like this!"

These people are mind-blowingly naive. If you want an insight into just how naive read the comments from Naomi Miles and Roxy Brealey here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-bfe8d0c8-c977-483c-a074-c15fafb654e8

From personal experience - you can definitely tell when someone watches a lot of porn. I believe they’re more likely to sexualise women - and they do that very openly.

Lol no Roxy. You've met some creeps and you thought "they must be creeps because they watch a lot of porn". Most men watch porn and a lot of women too:

A third (33%) of 18-24 females and three-quarters (75%) of 18-24 males visited [pornhub] in September 2020.

Pure idiocy.

[–] andioop@programming.dev 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

"Accidentally stumbling across porn" is not directly searching for it. It's being 12 and browsing DeviantArt for some nice art of video game characters and finding Sonic inflation diaper porn that was obviously drawn by someone your age or younger, judging by the art quality.

Still didn't come out traumatized or oversexed, though I did get the asexuality cheat code for that.

My friends who watch porn have always treated me respectfully. I do wonder if there is any study backing up my idea that porn is not harmful, it's refusing to talk about what is healthy and what is not in a relationship and modeling bad interactions that is harmful. (Funnily enough, the internet taught me this one too. Thank you 2010s Tumblr, and fanfic author's notes and stuff or analysis of relationships between characters mentioning how a dynamic is unhealthy. And reading parental watchdog sites explaining all the unhealthy media models your kids shouldn't watch, ignoring them and going ahead consuming it anyways, but remembering the actual "and that's unhealthy for a relationship" statements.) Or if I'm wrong and it's a mix of things and some kids can be damaged by seeing porn—don't want to discount experiences that do not reflect my own personal bubble and social circle.

[–] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 3 points 4 days ago

I guess this might be hard to understand if you're asexual but my point is that young boys (and maybe girls) aren't "stumbling over porn". They're seeking it out.

If this was only meant to prevent stumbling over porn then the existing "are you over 18? [Yes] [no]" checks would be perfectly fine.

I do wonder if there is any study backing up my idea that porn is not harmful, it’s refusing to talk about what is healthy and what is not in a relationship and modeling bad interactions that is harmful.

Yeah maybe... Porn doesn't even try to depict normal relationships so I don't think it could really be distorting them, unlike films or creepy influencers like Andrew Tate.

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

launched on August 7, 2000, by Mathew Stephens, Scott Jarkoff and 

So

  1. I found porn before DA existed

  2. SCOTT JERKOFF OMG HAHAHA

But yeah, playboys at grandpa's and unlabeled VHS.

But as to "porn not harmful it's how we talk about shit" (paraphrasing), I agree.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

"Does anyone else find it weird that since porn sites stsrted requiring photo ID, the only one looking at porn is Norman Reedus?"

(Referencing the Discord ID thing being bypassed by using selfies of Sam Bridges in Death Standing)

[–] refalo@programming.dev 9 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Their devices were running standard software, and the tricks they used were simple.

Although Sky News has verified the methods used by Ms Kubecka and Ms Popovici, we won't give details or name any software used.

It really can only be like one of three things... vpn, proxy or tor-like networks... this is not rocket science (to technical people). And all of those things are legal... so when they say:

"Platforms have clear legal obligations and must actively prevent children from circumventing safety measures, including blocking content that promotes ... workarounds targeting young users."

I'm not sure how they think that's possible... is that not at odds with freedom of speech at the very least? Do they really expect every tech company is going to voluntarily ban e.g. all VPN usage because it can be used to circumvent porn blocks? The entire economy and large parts of society would grind to a halt if that were to happen... for example healthcare would suddenly become massively unavailable because they regularly use VPNs to send/receive patient data.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Do they really expect every tech company is going to voluntarily ban e.g. all VPN usage because it can be used to circumvent porn blocks?

Yes. This shit is absolutely an attack on VPNs and every other form of privacy/anonymity on the Internet, for every purpose whether porn or otherwise.

[–] refalo@programming.dev 2 points 5 days ago

Which is why I'm confident it will fail spectacularly.

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 days ago

Hackers

Brother fake IDs are cheap, get you in to bars, too.

[–] Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.works 6 points 6 days ago

It’s by design probably. No one really wants this except the government.

[–] Bot@sub.community 2 points 5 days ago

Lying is just invented yesterday?