It's a small, silly protest at the stupidity of the Online Safety Act that just came into force.
edit - My open AI credits got hugged to death, please use a known postcode (like one from Kier Starmer's constituency, WC2B6NH) in the meantime.
It's a small, silly protest at the stupidity of the Online Safety Act that just came into force.
edit - My open AI credits got hugged to death, please use a known postcode (like one from Kier Starmer's constituency, WC2B6NH) in the meantime.
I'm not in the UK, so I don't have any idea about their laws, but I'd be shocked to find this was above board. Your FAQ claims it's a parody site and claims "The ID number isn't valid and you can't use the card for anything real." but you've just confirmed here it can indeed be used for real things (discord, reddit).
Your domain registration is UK-based, so, be careful!
I'm more talking about the developer of the site rather than the users. And the developer could potentially be found out if they posted it on a popular hacking website and used a known alias and registered the domain in the UK.
But, if they're comfortable, all the more power to them. As I said, I do really like the spirit of the site.
Most MPs' home addresses are actually quite easy to find. Mine's was printed below his name on the ballot paper last election – a nice reminder of how we used to have a high-trust society. I doubt this practice will be continued for much longer.
I’m not suggesting that everyone most do self-immolation, but if it were me, I would draw the line at being afraid of being “caught” for an obvious prank using no PII. Screw that, come arrest me if things have really gotten that bad.
We hold that LLMs are incapable of generating copyrighted images, so it's not just a tool - if it was just a tool then the author would be able to copyright the images. The courts recognise that an LLM is capable of generating things in its own right (which is why they're not copyrightable - copyrights only protect human works).
So it follows that an LLM must be able to create images itself, separate from the human prompter.
Whether that's enough to absolve the human of the crime, though - IANAL, and I suspect it would take the House of Lords to rule on it definitively.
Whether that's actually legal in this case I don't know, but I'm pretty sure courts won't conclude "welp, it was the AI, not the user" in a case like this.
There isn't one.
However, I doubt that's a strong legal argument.
It's certainly illegal to make fake IDs, but I don't know if that applies to just generating an image rather than fully forging a physical copy. And anyway these images look nothing like the real IDs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_licence_in_the_United_...
https://go.photoshelter.com/brands/blog/photographers/blog/t...
Many of the age verification services explicitly promise not to retain photos!
Could you give a short TL;DR of how ids are constructed so we can all laugh here in comments?
Most are on Wikipedia, no?
Had to make sure to implement this so that I didn't end up generating duplicates.
Let's not forget that Matthew Somerville did (and still does!) most of the actual work tho.
It's actually the postcode of a WeWork in Holborn (which happens to be in Starmer's constituency.)
Keir Starmer's postcode is SW1A 2AA.
MPs can be litigious. Especially if this is seen to be enabling things like ID fraud.
Also, there are only 650 constituencies. I would pre-populate the list so when entering a new postcode, it doesn't stall waiting for AI.
Hire an expert they said. From the pool of experts they had heard about through contacts in the civil service. None of whom have any industry or real world experience. At best, someone was on an industry eating and drinking with the right people panel. I was there for 3 months and crawled back to my previous job cap in hand, bruised and educated.
It was long enough ago that I can away with rounding errors of months on my CV thank goodness...
I've heard many government workers say that it's funny but they can't watch it, as it's so accurate it's depressing.
Political satire is kind of dead in an age of unironic stupidity.
Civil servants aren't there to say whether a policy is good, sensible, or a vote-winner. The CS policy profeasion is there, in part, to advise on risks. Ministers decide whether to accept those risks.
There were plenty of people (like me) who would have pointed out the various risks and problems. Some of which caused policy to change, and some were accepted.
I don't think I've ever seen in recent years the CS be blamed for something like this.
> I would pre-populate the list so when entering a new postcode, it doesn't stall waiting for AI.
It looks like it already works like this? It was slow the first time I searched for my postcode, subsequent times have been very fast.
Do you think porn sites are more interested in a) correctly preventing unauthorized people from accessing their site, or b) selling as many subscriptions as they can while nominally complying with the law?
I’m not from the UK, so I’m not familiar with what their IDs are supposed to look like.
I was suspicious, though—the hands holding the ID cards looked kind of “crispy.” But at the same time, I thought, “woah, where did the website owner even get these photos?” It wasn’t until I read the Hacker News post that I realized they were all AI-generated (and now cached).
And here’s the thing: I’m an engineer at Apple with decades of experience in the tech industry—I’m not exactly new to this stuff. If I got fooled even for a couple of seconds, imagine how easy it would be to trick someone who isn’t technical.
There's also some obvious tells if you know what UK driving licenses look like: the layout is wrong, the background is too plain, and all the anti-forgery features are missing. Real licenses have much more detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_licence_in_the_United_...
Create a scandal. Bad PR is the only way out now.
From the FAQ:
> How did you do this?
> This site uses React for the frontend and Node.js for the backend. The MP data is fetched from the UK government public API, and the AI-generated images use the latest model from open AI. The images are stored on a Cloudflare R2 bucket. The code is open source, so you can check it out on GitHub. It was done in a hurry.
The git repo linked from that FAQ shows a 404: https://github.com/timje/use-my-mps-id
That defeats the point of the legislation since it creates a gaping wide backdoor to exploit official people, who are now the most valuable targets because of that exemption.
Never mind the matter of providing a rule for the people and making the people who made the rule immune to it.
On the otherhand Ashfield (NG178DA) fails spectacularly.
ID verification is enforced on all Chinese websites. People figured out they can just use Xi's ID number.
Is that really true? So search engines? News sites? Pseudo-anonymous discussion forums?
No, you don't need ID verification to use search engine or read news in China.
However, sites that depend on user-generated content (like forums) would ask for at least your phone number.
Are sim cards easily swapped?
Anyone from behind the great wall care to comment? Is HN event reachable from behind the great wall with out Tor?
Very easily. Apple even specifically introduced dual-sim iPhone for China.
> How easily can a burner be used?
You need to bring your ID to a telecom to get a phone number legally. But I don't know if there is a black market for burner sims.
(Last time I've been there was a few years ago so take it with a grain of salt.)
Because they don't support eSIMs there.
Source: https://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2016-11/07/content_5129723.htm
> Cybersecurity Law of the People's Republic of China, Article 24: When network operators provide users with network access, domain name registration services, fixed-line and mobile phone network access procedures, or provide users with information publishing, instant messaging and other services, they shall require users to provide real identity information when signing an agreement with the user or confirming the provision of services. If the user does not provide real identity information, the network operator shall not provide the relevant services to the user.
The big asterisk: there's no anonymous internet service in China, you have to ID yourself to get access to the internet (article 24), and the service provider are required to keep record of you (IP and everything) (article 21), and they are also required to cooperate with the authority (no surprise here) (article 28). And using VPN or Tor is likely illegal (article 27).
EDIT: actually, depending on your age and what you watched on TV, maybe you were visiting from Boston?
It's obvious that they care (to some extent) that they're getting valid emails, so why not use a basic regex on the FE and an OTP which gets sent to the provided address?
I can't prove I control an email in order to use your wifi, if I can't use your wifi.
Although I suspect such ... "innovations" ... would soon get to the western world including UK.
Labour voted in conservative policy. Conservatives voted against it. Reform, whilst all over the news for being against it, voted for it.
Neither did a lot of conservatives and labour, interestingly.
Greens and Lib Dems voted no, which raises my opinion of them.
Agreed its a mess.
Crap like Communications Act 2003 and Ofcom has been Labour policy for decades.
That's just marketing from the right to discourage people with average income to vote left ("they want to give all your money to the immigrants!"). The only people the left doesn't want freedom for is those who are actively trying to take it away.
The bigger issue is that the left hasn't really existed in most countries for a long time, like the UK. "new labour" betrayed their heritage and adopted conservative points of view. Leaders who are trying to bring it back like Corbyn are ridiculed and marginalised.
Conservatism is the ideology that some people are protected by the law but not bound by it, while others are bound by the law but not protected by it.
Obviously if you are in the first group that sounds like the best kind of freedom, meanwhile everyone else is unprotected and punished, which makes sense why they would not want that kind of goverment structure.
* https://legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/notes/division/3/in...
Here's the Conservative white paper on Online Harms from 2019, during the May government:
* https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/online-harms-whi...
Perhaps you can explain why the conservative party keep writing bills that clamp down on freedoms, introducing them, whipping their party to vote for them and signing them into law?
Yes, I know. still much worse
Have you ever met or spoken to a Conservative voter in your entire life?
In fact, the Tories did NOT promise to reduce immigration. They promised 2 things that are guaranteed to increase immigration:
- 50,000 extra nurses (including foreign recruitment)
- A points-based system, you can find articles talking about how this increases immigration
> A points-based system, you can find articles talking about how this increases immigration
Firstly, I don't think they actually introduced one of those, did they? And secondly, how is that guaranteed to increase immigration?
The UK media and some of politicians at the time were all talking about an Australian-style points system. As someone pretty intimately acquainted with the Australian system, people (including ex-PM Teresa May) didn't seem to understand that under the Australian system -
- The government sets a minimum number of points under which you won't even be considered.
- The government set a maximum number of visas they will grant under the scheme each year
- The people with the best points are invited to apply for those visas
So with this setup the 'paper' minimum might be 65 points, but the effective threshhold is often 95 points to actually be invited to apply.
Yet in the UK the picture was painted as if you set a points threshhold and that's it, anyone with more than that gets a visa and you can't possibly control the numbers. It seemed like a total misunderstanding of the scheme.
They also said things like "And Australia has proportionally even higher migration than the UK under that scheme!", which is true, but again that's because the government has decided to set the amounts of visas at that level and sets them higher or lower, or adjusts which skills get more points, according to perceived need for skilled people. Aus has higher migration under their points scheme as a choice. The UK could have chosen to limit skilled visas under a similar program to a much lower level.
As far as I could tell, all of the articles and talking points at the time entirely ignored this.
The fact they didn't introduce it doesn't change the fact that adding 50,000 nurses required an increase in immigration. I went back and re-read the article, they also promised more childcare places. Guess what? That also requires more immigration.
In fact, I just read the manifesto itself and they also added a "fast-track NHS visa," so we have a clear "let's increase immigration" policy right in your face! Page 22, hilariously right next to where they promise "numbers will come down."
> They also said things like "And Australia has proportionally even higher migration than the UK under that scheme!", which is true, but again that's because the government has decided to set the amounts of visas at that level and sets them higher or lower
You're correct, the government can choose to give out less visas, and they hinted that they would in the manifest (page 22). But if you read the rest of the manifesto, you realise quickly that the two goals can't be achieved at the same time. It's like promising to cure cancer by shooting the patient.
Look, we can argue about this until the cows come home but, if you voted Tory because you thought they would bring immigration numbers down, then you should have read their manifesto. The fact that they were never able to do this was right there!
Going back to "I voted for Brexit," then complaining about Brexit. Well, that's also something that there's no excuse for. In December 2019, the deal that was to be agreed was known. If you didn't like what it said about fishing or whatever, well, tough shit. You agreed to it when you put your tick in the box for Conservative.
---
Manifesto: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5da42e2cae7ebd3f8bde353c/...
I was just pretty flabbergasted at the time by the blanket misunderstandings of the system that was being talked about, seemingly from all sides.
I didn't vote for them either way :shrug:
> Wtf are you talking about? The Conservatives promised to reduce immigration in 2019.
Taken with that context, it's important to understand the manifesto to realise they didn't really "promise" to reduce immigration.
> I was just pretty flabbergasted at the time by the blanket misunderstandings of the system
A lot of blame belongs with our media. Frankly, it's piss-poor, barely goes beyond surface level reading of things and attempts to get soundbites out of politicians. I get more out of random YouTubers and podcasters, which has its own problems because how do you know which ones know what they're talking about?
Boris introduced 2 million (legal) immigrants in the first (unaffected) year we "took back control" of the borders under the new system rolled out in 2020
The UK's new points-based immigration system - https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-...
Perhaps in all the talk of making the system like the Australian one, they missed the crucial part of it - that you also apply limits to the visas you issue.
In fact it looks like that's exactly what happened, they introduced a Skilled Worker visa with no quota.
In fact they did. They promised to reduce immigration. They did the opposite of what you just said.
Their 2019 manifesto said "There will be fewer lower-skilled migrants and overall numbers will come down."
Source: PDF linked on https://conservativehome.com/2019/12/06/read-the-conservativ...
I can't think of a country that does have people largely in agreement with the governments actions, lately.
Or perhaps, for any given country, one can find a collection of loud voices detailing how 'the people' disagree with what's happening. But whether they meaningfully do is hard to establish.
I imagine a lot of Brits agree with the incoming rules, whether they are effective or not. You find that here in Aus too - a lot of Australians vehemently agree with the protectionist laws, because the intent of them is to protect children. And to many of them it doesn't matter what the real outcome is, because you want to protect children don't you? And this law is to protect children, QED.
https://journalistsresource.org/politics-and-government/the-...
Basically if 0% of americans want a law it has 30% chance of passing, and if 100% of american want a law it has 32% chance of passing. For lobby groups it goes from 0% = 0% to 100% = 65% chance. Much closer to preference based lawmaking.
Just as a slight correction – the only "Reform MP" that voted for it is James McMurdock, but he's no longer a Reform MP and I'm not sure why he is still listed as one here.
I suppose such a tool might not work in a first-past-the-post voting system, but in my case it certainly has certainly helped to see what politicians actually vote like rather than just trusting the promises. If you live in a country with easily accessible digital records of votes/bills/proposals, I imagine you could throw something similar together and help quite a few people.
Wahl-o-Mat is *not* the same, it’s stated politics. One of the criticisms of it is that actual voting might (lol) differ. There was an alternative one, [0] Real-o-Mat that checked actual voting behavior. Though that has its own set of issues.
So the Tories, who created this awful bill in the first place, are now voting against it? Clown country.
It wasn't a "time bomb". They introduced this legislation because they wanted it.
Under Boris Johnson?
Well, I suppose we have the benefit of hindsight.
The purpose of a system is what it does.
If so it’d be kinda crazy to go after you if anyone can just make an image like this in ChatGPT anyway.
It get all sorts of complaints from it and then it eventually says it’ll make one but only someone similar and only similar to a uk licensed and then makes something pretty close to reality - but not as recognisable as yours.
These heckin' kids needs more protection. I suggest banning all VPNs too, only this way kids are truly protected like they are in China and Iran.
Seems odd, but probably wouldn't be noticed by an automated validator anyway.
All in all, one of those ideas that sounds good on the surface, but the more you think about it the better it gets.
Btw UK surpassed Russia in these kinda arrests
".... similar comparisons, stating that 3,300 people were arrested in the UK while only 400 in Russia, have circulated on social media for years. The original source of this claim is Konstantin Kisin, a Russia-born, half-British comedian, writer, and podcast co-host. His interview, where he makes this comparison [at 26:26], was recorded in 2019, based on data from 2016-2017.
For years, social media users have relied on Kisin’s statements to compare Russia and the UK. Many refer to data from the human rights group Agora, which reported that 411 people faced prosecution in Russia in 2017 for social media activity. In the majority of cases, media users were accused of [....] what authorities consider provocative content. On the other hand, UK comparisons are often based on a 2017 article in The Times, which cited 2016 data showing that over 3,300 people were arrested or questioned under Section 127 of the Communications Act. However, the same article notes that in half of these cases, investigations were dropped before prosecution. Additionally, Section 127 is not limited to social media, and it also applies to emails and other forms of electronic communication. Moreover, the Russian figure represents prosecutions, while the UK figure represents arrests, making the comparison inappropriate for many reasons. For example, the content of the clauses differs: in the UK, they are applied to a broader range of cases, while the data from Russia reflects arrests for the activity on social media. Additionally, the analysis of cases shows the difference between the two countries in the application of the laws. In Russia, many citizens and journalists have been arrested for expressing critical opinions or posting government-opposed views on social media. It is also worth noting that in the UK, cases brought under Section 127 that result in citizens being subjected to community service or fines are often debated."
The article I've cited mainly discusses a comparison by Guri Sultanishvili which is harder to justify, but Konstantin Kisin's comments have been more widely referenced in the public debate.
[1] https://mythdetector.com/en/free-expression-on-the-internet/
The blackmail trade will be incredibly lucrative.
spullara•12h ago
HeartStrings•6h ago