The mechanisms that attack one attack the other as well. The apparatuses which exist to de-anonymize communication also remove the ability to definitively keep the content of the communication private, and no government (UK or EU or US, etc) that has proposed a ChatControl-like scheme has ever used a method that did not allow them to do both.
If a porn site checks my ID against a gov database, the gov now knows I went to that porn site. That is a loss of both anonymity and privacy.
I'm completely against all infringements of privacy, but,
>If a porn site checks my ID against a gov database, the gov now knows I went to that porn site. That is a loss of both anonymity and privacy.
This is not necessarily true. It is possible to design systems much more like CRL than OCSP, including identity or even just age verification systems. Consider the FedGov sharing a list of public keys tied to identities of people over the age of 18, updated daily, while issuing corresponding private keys to citizens. The citizens could use their private key to sign a challenge issued by the adult media website, who would simply verify that the public key tied to the signed challenge response exists on the list of all public keys tied to identities of people over 18 issued by the fedgov.
With this system, adult websites would not need to send any identifying information to FedGov, nor would private citizens be disclosing any identifying information to the adult website - not their name, not their address, not even their date of birth, just cryptographic proof that they're in possession of a private key that corresponds to the identity of an adult.
Sure, kids could still conceivably obtain cryptographic private keys, just as they can obtain photographs of state-issued government ID that are currently used for age verification.
The real problem with schemes like these isn't the technical feasibility, but rather the capacity of the citizenry to understand and perform their own cryptographic key management.
The mechanisms that attack one attack the other as well. The apparatuses which exist to de-anonymize communication also remove the ability to definitively keep the content of the communication private, and no government (UK or EU or US, etc) that has proposed a ChatControl-like scheme has ever used a method that did not allow them to do both.
If a porn site checks my ID against a gov database, the gov now knows I went to that porn site. That is a loss of both anonymity and privacy.
I'm completely against all infringements of privacy, but,
>If a porn site checks my ID against a gov database, the gov now knows I went to that porn site. That is a loss of both anonymity and privacy.
This is not necessarily true. It is possible to design systems much more like CRL than OCSP, including identity or even just age verification systems. Consider the FedGov sharing a list of public keys tied to identities of people over the age of 18, updated daily, while issuing corresponding private keys to citizens. The citizens could use their private key to sign a challenge issued by the adult media website, who would simply verify that the public key tied to the signed challenge response exists on the list of all public keys tied to identities of people over 18 issued by the fedgov.
With this system, adult websites would not need to send any identifying information to FedGov, nor would private citizens be disclosing any identifying information to the adult website - not their name, not their address, not even their date of birth, just cryptographic proof that they're in possession of a private key that corresponds to the identity of an adult.
Sure, kids could still conceivably obtain cryptographic private keys, just as they can obtain photographs of state-issued government ID that are currently used for age verification.
The real problem with schemes like these isn't the technical feasibility, but rather the capacity of the citizenry to understand and perform their own cryptographic key management.
Anonymity is eroding our democracies far faster than our privacy.
VPN is not only for anonymity
I'm not sure what point you are making, but isn't the one I was responding to.