this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2025
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Government sets up page to verify age. You head to it, no referrer. Age check happens by trusted entity (your government, not some sketchy big tech ass), they create a signed cert with a short lifespan to prevent your kid using the one you created yesterday and without the knowledge which service it is for. It does not contain a reference to your identity. You share that cert with the service you want to use, they verify the signature, your age, save the passing and everyone is happy. Your government doesn't know that you're into ladies with big booties, the big booty service doesn't know your identity and you wank along in private.
But oh no, that wouldn't work because think of the... I have no clue.
Sorry, not sufficient.
Not secure.
" I certify that somebody is >18, but I don't say who - just somebody "
This is an open invitation to fraud. You are going to create at least a black market for these certificates, since they are anonymous but valid.
And I'm sure some real fraudsters have even stronger ideas than I have.
Making the certs short-lived (a few minutes) and single use and having a rate limit for users could make it difficult enough with serious risks (if you make it a crime) for little profit (I doubt many kids will pay serious amounts of money to watch porn; definetly not drug-scale amounts of money).
You cannot make a certificate "single use" (except if it exists only inside a closed system).
The website generates a random value, your government signs a cert for that value. That's what makes it single use and zero trust.
I was using the wording of OP who seems to be talking about tokens. The service asks the trusted entity if the token is valid, the trusted entity deletes the token after the first time.