Show HN: Use Their ID – Use your local UK MP’s ID for the Online Safety Act

Hi HN - I made a site that takes a UK postcode, grabs the local MP's information and generates an AI mockup of what their ID might look like.

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.

use-their-id.com

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847 points

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timje1

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4 days ago

292 comments

dannyobrien ・ 4 days ago

As someone who was involved in the original guerilla digital activism that spawned the third-person URL format for independent UK government-watching websites (ie "Write to Them", "They Work for You"), I applaud your on-topic brand extension, Tim :)

  • pjc50 ・ 4 days ago

    Thanks for your activism Danny - by coincidence I'm wearing an ancient NTK tshirt today, from a simpler era of the internet.

    • dcminter ・ 4 days ago

      Alas the ntkmart domain is being squatted by someone and I presume the shop was inactive long before that. I loved the Elite-style shirt but mine left this mortal plane long ago.

  • timje1 ・ 4 days ago

    Thanks Danny - it was indeed following 'They Work For You' - I'm a big fan of that site.

    • smagdali ・ 4 days ago

      I'm proud to say that the "They Work For You" was actually one of mine (or my recollection is both vain, and broke) :)

      Let's not forget that Matthew Somerville did (and still does!) most of the actual work tho.

verytrivial ・ 4 days ago

Do please take a moment to consider which MPs carry the burden here. It's mainly a single flavour. Mention it on the doorstep next time.

https://votes.parliament.uk/votes/commons/division/1926

  • arrowsmith ・ 4 days ago

    I'm not sure what this recent vote is about. The original Online Safety Act was introduced and passed by the Tories in 2023 (although it's only coming into effect now, obviously.)

    So the Tories, who created this awful bill in the first place, are now voting against it? Clown country.

    • mlinhares ・ 4 days ago

      That happens all over the place, conservatives pass a time bomb bill, they lose control of congress/house, time bomb is about to become effective, they now fight to overturn it and place the blame on the current ruling folks.

      • arrowsmith ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 4 more

        Except this bill was first introduced in March 2022, when the Tories hadn't imploded and there was no strong reason to expect they'd lose the next election.

        It wasn't a "time bomb". They introduced this legislation because they wanted it.

        • ben_w ・ 4 days ago

          > March 2022, when the Tories hadn't imploded and there was no strong reason to expect they'd lose the next election.

          Under Boris Johnson?

          Well, I suppose we have the benefit of hindsight.

        • rsynnott ・ 3 days ago
          ・ 2 more

          Eh, I mean, the polls were looking fairly dire for them by that point.

          • arrowsmith ・ 2 days ago

            Not nearly as dire as they were a year later.

      • poszlem ・ 3 days ago

        If it’s really a time bomb, I’d expect the supposedly responsible party to defuse it. So why haven’t they?

      • scott_w ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 4 more

        This isn’t one of those cases. It was a well intentioned Bill that passed with Labour’s support but was very badly planned and written. Hell, it wouldn’t even have helped counter the misinformation being spread last summer and this summer to try and instigate more race riots!

        • arrowsmith ・ 4 days ago
          ・ 2 more

          “Well intentioned” hahahaha yeah right, good one.

          The purpose of a system is what it does.

          • scott_w ・ 4 days ago

            If that were true, why do laws get amended when politicians see impacts they don't like? A famous example that college students are taught at A-Level Law is the law on bigamy where it stated "a married person who gets married again." This isn't possible (in the UK, you can only get married to one person at a time), so the court had to rewrite the legislation on the fly to get the intended effect.

  • jjani ・ 4 days ago

    In the UK on this specific topic, "both sides" is as true as ever. This is very obvious when looking at the bigger picture instead of just a single vote. I wish it wasn't, if only it was indeed just one side.

  • ta1243 ・ 3 days ago

    Government parties are whipped

    What's really interesting is those that voted "Aye" who aren't Labour/ex Labour

    DUP and Reform. Well the one reform MP that bothered to turn up. How surprising.

  • crinkly ・ 4 days ago

    What a fucking mess.

    Labour voted in conservative policy. Conservatives voted against it. Reform, whilst all over the news for being against it, voted for it.

    • 0xbadcafebee ・ 4 days ago

      I think it's fun when the elected government doesn't do what the people who elected them want. Like a middle finger to democracy.

      • Arkhaine_kupo ・ 3 days ago

        In america there is 0 corelation between middle class voting preferences and what their elected officials voted for. There is a closer aligment with upper class voters and lobby groups. It is arguable america is not a democracy based on those facts despite nominally voting every few years

        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.

      • Nursie ・ 4 days ago

        > I think it's fun when the elected government doesn't do what the people who elected them want.

        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.

      • DarkmSparks ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 6 more

        UK is a monarchy. More so now than ever before. They all just chasing their peerages.

        • drcongo ・ 4 days ago

          I think the whole of the 1800s would disagree with you.

        • arrowsmith ・ 3 days ago
          ・ 4 more

          > they

          I'm not sure you understand what the word "monarchy" means.

          • DarkmSparks ・ 3 days ago
            ・ 3 more

            It means the Brits get to elect who will agree to do and say exactly what the King and his mafioso family tells them to do and say.

            • Lio ・ a day ago
              ・ 2 more

              That's clearly bullshit.

              When the House of Commons and the King disagree the Commons is supreme.

              When that was last tested, in 1688, the reigning monarch was removed from power and replaced.

              It was enshrined in the Bill of Rights 1689 and has not needed to be tested since.

              • DarkmSparks ・ a day ago

                when the prime minister and the monarch agree that the PM takes all the credit for murdering lots of kids, the prime minister gets a knighthood. (tony blair) - chasing the peerages.

                When they disagree, they get a big dose of massive character assassination (Gordon Brown, Jeremy Corbin)

                Or just dead (David Kelly).

                Discussed in detail during the non public weekly meetings between the PM and head of state.

      • arrowsmith ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 19 more

        "Alexa, summarise the last 15+ years of UK politics in two sentences."

        • scott_w ・ 4 days ago
          ・ 16 more

          I mean, the last 15 years were mostly Tories and the public kept voting them in. I’m glad I’m not a politician because I have no sympathy for Brexit voters who voted Tory in 2019, claim “I know what a voted for,” and now complain about how much poorer and full of immigrants the country now is. It was all there in the 2019 Conservative manifesto they voted for!

          • arrowsmith ・ 4 days ago
            ・ 15 more

            Wtf are you talking about? The Conservatives promised to reduce immigration in 2019. Instead they increased it to its highest ever levels by far, hence why they got thrown out of office.

            Have you ever met or spoken to a Conservative voter in your entire life?

            • scott_w ・ 4 days ago
              ・ 12 more

              They promised a policy (Brexit) in a form that would replace immigration from European countries with immigration from non-white countries.

              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

              Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2019-50524262

              • Nursie ・ 4 days ago
                ・ 9 more

                > They promised 2 things that are guaranteed to increase 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.

                • blitzar ・ 4 days ago
                  ・ 3 more

                  > Firstly, I don't think they actually introduced one of those, did they?

                  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-...

                  • Nursie ・ 3 days ago
                    ・ 2 more

                    Oh they did introduce a system, OK, wasn't aware.

                    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.

                    • blitzar ・ 3 days ago

                      The solution to all the problems was delivered. Promises made, promises delivered, will of the people.

                • scott_w ・ 4 days ago
                  ・ 5 more

                  > Firstly, I don't think they actually introduced one of those, did they?

                  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/...

                  • Nursie ・ 4 days ago
                    ・ 4 more

                    I think we're talking at cross-purposes here - I'm not really taking a position one way or another on whether the Tories would/could have reduced immigration, and they certainly didn't deliver on that.

                    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:

                    • scott_w ・ 4 days ago
                      ・ 3 more

                      I think it's important to understand the context, which is where my initial reply was aimed at:

                      > 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?

                      • scott_w ・ 3 days ago
                        ・ 2 more

                        > I didn't vote for them either way :shrug:

                        Just to clarify on this point, I didn't mean "you" as in literally "you," I intended this in the informal "you" that's used in British English to indirectly refer to a group of people.

                        • Nursie ・ 3 days ago

                          I know, just wanted to be sure I wasn’t coming across as a frustrated Tory voter!

              • amiga386 ・ 3 days ago
                ・ 2 more

                > In fact, the Tories did NOT promise to reduce immigration.

                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...

            • teamonkey ・ 3 days ago
              ・ 2 more

              There were also the matters of Johnson throwing a Covid party, Truss tanking the economy within a few weeks of taking office, and Sunak being useless and generally taking the hit for a flacid economy.

              • arrowsmith ・ 3 days ago

                All of those are true but I promise you that the median conservative voter can forgive all of those far sooner than they’ll forgive the Boriswave.

        • jlwozere ・ 3 days ago

          :%s/normal/retarded/g

    • kypro ・ 4 days ago

      > Reform, whilst all over the news for being against it, voted for it.

      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.

    • jeroenhd ・ 4 days ago

      There's an excellent (volunteer-run) [website](https://www.partijgedrag.nl/index.php) about Dutch politics that will ask your opinion on a bunch of historic chamber proposals (for/against/skip) and use that to show your alignment to different parties by comparing your answers with actual party votes. It has definitely swayed my vote a few times.

      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.

      • crinkly ・ 4 days ago

        Well aware of these tools. I've always said this but party politics is the stupidest idea ever. We should be voting on policies not people and parties. There isn't a single party which is ideologically aligned with me on enough of the significant issues. That leads to be having to pick the least bad one, and that's still bad.

      • addandsubtract ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 2 more

        There's Wahl-o-Mat in Germany, that does the same thing. There's one for each major election, from regional votes to EU representative votes.

        https://www.wahl-o-mat.de/

        • Semaphor ・ 3 days ago

          > comparing your answers with actual party votes

          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.

          [0]: https://real-o-mat.de/

    • pjc50 ・ 4 days ago

      It's Daily Mail policy, and they're the permanent government. With the help of the Home Office, who keep writing anti-encryption bills.

    • varispeed ・ 4 days ago

      This is misleading. Labour's only objection was that the policy was not going far enough!

    • graemep ・ 4 days ago

      Most Reform MPs did not vote at all!

      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.

      • piker ・ 4 days ago

        Any abstention is at best in the same column as the ayes here. Arguably worse.

      • oneeyedpigeon ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 2 more

        Just for the benefit of those unfamiliar with UK politics: "most" is a bit misleading here, even though it's technically true. Reform has 4 MPs (out of 650).

        • ta1243 ・ 3 days ago

          Wow, so they've lost 40% of the original lot which were elected last year. But for some reason the press seems to think they're the official opposition.

          They have the same number of MPs as the Green party, fewer than the DUP, half the SNP, and about 1/20th of the Lib Dems.

          I note 75% of them didn't bother turning up to work, I'm shocked one did.

    • jojobas ・ 4 days ago

      Clamping down on freedoms is not conservative policy.

      Crap like Communications Act 2003 and Ofcom has been Labour policy for decades.

      • i80and ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 4 more

        Clamping down on freedoms has been the raison d'être of "conservative" parties across the world my entire life

        • broken-kebab ・ 4 days ago

          Both "conservatism" and "freedoms" mean a lot of different things even within anglophone countries, not to mention the obvious fact that political actors of any color never strictly follow their foundational ideology. This makes me believe that speaking for the whole world is a bit too daring, and your statement is purely emotional.

        • permo-w ・ 4 days ago

          this is still absolutely true, but there have been some rumblings of change in recent years. "left wing" values have partially shifted from trying to provide equal freedoms for everyone, to trying to provide freedoms for perceived-as marginalised groups, often at the expense of freedoms for lesser marginalised groups. if you're part of a lesser marginalised group and you don't subscribe to that particular ideology, this is going to feel very much the same as having your freedoms clamped down upon, and conservatives have pounced upon that as a stick to beat their enemies with, and to be fair, have come some way themselves wrt to gay rights and perhaps drug prohibition and some other things. taking a step back though, conservatives, particularly in the UK, are by no means libertarians, and in the UK essentially sired the "left wing" values that they hate so much. when did the revolution start? 2010-15ish?

        • soraminazuki ・ 4 days ago

          Conservatives clamping down on freedoms is only half of the story. They proclaim to be the strongest defender of freedom while they're at it.

      • JdeBP ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 4 more

        Here's the Conservative policy for the Online Safety Act 2023, during the Sunak government:

        * 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...

        • blitzar ・ 4 days ago

          Lets not forget the "Snoopers Charter" the party was so proud of.

        • cryptonector ・ 4 days ago
          ・ 2 more

          To be fair, u/jojobas wrote "conservative" (little-c), not "Conservative".

          • scott_w ・ 4 days ago

            However they did also specifically reference the Labour government’s policy, so it’s reasonable to assume they were speaking in a UK context and simply forgot to capitalise it.

      • blitzar ・ 4 days ago

        > Clamping down on freedoms is not conservative policy.

        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?

      • scott_w ・ 4 days ago

        I would read the 2019 Conservative manifesto, then. Crushing democracy and judicial oversight was very much Tory policy.

      • asib ・ 4 days ago

        Laughable. Allow me to introduce you to the anti protest legislation brought into law by Suella Braverman.

      • Hammershaft ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 17 more

        Conservatism isn't libertarianism. Conservative parties across the world, including in the anglosphere, often advocate for laws that limit freedom but accomplish ulterior conservative goals.

        • permo-w ・ 4 days ago
          ・ 15 more

          freedom isn't just freedom. it's freedom for. conservatives tend to favour freedom for businesses. freedom for the establishment. freedom for the rich. you would hope that progressives favour freedom for everyone, but nowadays the louder voices on the left have sometimes been over-invested in freedom for culturally marginalised groups and under-invested in freedom for economically marginalised groups

          • wkat4242 ・ 4 days ago
            ・ 14 more

            > nowadays the louder voices on the left have sometimes been over-invested in freedom for culturally marginalised groups and under-invested in freedom for economically marginalised groups

            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.

            • permo-w ・ a day ago

              >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.

              this is misreading what I said. what I said is that the left isn't redistributing enough money

            • hellojesus ・ 3 days ago
              ・ 12 more

              > The only people the left doesn't want freedom for is those who are actively trying to take it away.

              My experience is that most progressive causes want to redistribute income from high earners to low earners. Policies such as government supported housing, daycare, support this.

              These policies actively restrict freedoms by removing the freedom of choice from consumers. They introduce deadweight loss and moral hazard.

              Imo this is the folly of the left.

              • permo-w ・ a day ago

                >These policies actively restrict freedoms by removing the freedom of choice from consumers. They introduce deadweight loss and moral hazard.

                relate every part of this sentence to the previous sentence

              • wkat4242 ・ 2 days ago
                ・ 3 more

                > My experience is that most progressive causes want to redistribute income from high earners to low earners. Policies such as government supported housing, daycare, support this.

                Oh absolutely. This is the way to make a more fair and balanced society.

                If the US doesn't want that, fine but it is of course also the reason for the no-go areas/ghettos, the amount of violent crime etc. Because people who are in the lowest class and have no upward mobility will tend to spiral away in crime, because that does pay.

                > These policies actively restrict freedoms by removing the freedom of choice from consumers. They introduce deadweight loss and moral hazard.

                We don't believe in unrestricted free-market capitalism anyway.

                • hellojesus ・ 2 days ago
                  ・ 2 more

                  > Oh absolutely. This is the way to make a more fair and balanced society.

                  I understand its purpose, but it does restrict freedom. Personally I am much more a fan of charity because its voluntary nature preserves freedom, but I accept the duality of freedom is the potential for lousy initial conditions in life.

                  > We don't believe in unrestricted free-market capitalism anyway.

                  I think we should strive to push society to freer markets. Neither leading party seems to have interest, however.

                  • wkat4242 ・ 2 days ago

                    As a socialist I don't think all markets should be free. Only the ones that aren't necessary for living. Energy, healthcare, public transport, even telecoms should be in government hands (as they all were in Holland in the 80s)

              • ryandv ・ 3 days ago
                ・ 7 more

                > My experience is that most progressive causes want to redistribute income from high earners to low earners.

                > These policies actively restrict freedoms by removing the freedom of choice from consumers.

                Moreover despite all the constant pearl clutching about "systemic imbalances in resources between whites and People of Color" from the progressive left, you will find that most of these policies actually transfer wealth from the middle and upper-middle class ethnic minority demographics to rich white nepotists in the government.

                If progressives were actually serious about correcting racial wealth disparities, we would implement a taxation scheme that taxes whites more heavily, and ethnic minorities less so, based on some metric of the overall injustices visited upon them.

                Instead, the instant an ethnic minority gets a leg up on the system all the crabs in the progressive bucket demand that he get pulled back down. The words and slogans about "equity" are just hymnal responses that the white progressive uses to absolve themselves of all responsibility and accountability, since after accepting the Code of Conduct and the DEI statement they've already been "born again" out of the original sins of implicit bias and racism.

                • wkat4242 ・ 2 days ago
                  ・ 6 more

                  Ehh at the left we don't really think in terms of 'original sin'. Most of us are not religious, these things are simply meaningless to us.

                  And DEI is something that is not about quotas at all. It's about having race and ethniticy not influencing the hiring process at all. Being "colorblind", which is ironically enough what Trump says how he wants things to be (but in reality he is very racist).

                  • ryandv ・ 2 days ago
                    ・ 5 more

                    > Ehh at the left we don't really think in terms of 'original sin'. Most of us are not religious, these things are simply meaningless to us.

                    You are under the core progressive delusion that choosing not to identify or label yourself as a thing, means you are in fact not that thing. In truth, the labeling of a thing is completely orthogonal to its ontological status.

                    Concrete example: most of the left believes in a "gender identity," which is an immaterial, non-objective, unobservable, unscientific, metaphysical phenomenon that is somehow "more you" than the material reality of the physical body. If you strip away the gender theory jargon, you end up with a concept equivalent to "the soul", which is in contemporary discourse usually regarded as a religious, not a scientific, concept.

                    You may have called it something else - a gender identity - but despite the difference in nomenclature you are still describing and referring to the same thing the religious devotees referred to when they talked about "the soul."

                    > It's about having race and ethniticy not influencing the hiring process at all. Being "colorblind"

                    Again more progressive fanfiction and creative wordsmithing with no relationship to reality. The Supreme Court struck down DEI policies (rebranded affirmative action) on the basis that they were, quoting Justice Clarence Thomas, "rudderless, race-based preferences" [0] [1]. This is literally the opposite of being "colorblind."

                    I stand very firm in my position that everything progressives say is a direct negation of reality.

                    [0] https://www.npr.org/2023/06/29/1181138066/affirmative-action...

                    [1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/supreme-courts-conserv...

                    • wkat4242 ・ 2 days ago
                      ・ 4 more

                      > Concrete example: most of the left believes in a "gender identity," which is an immaterial, non-objective, unobservable, unscientific, metaphysical phenomenon that is somehow "more you" than the material reality of the physical body.

                      It's about feeling. Someone with a different gender feels uncomfortable in their body (and that's putting it mildly). If you declare that unscientific you can throw out the entire psychological/psychiatric sciences.

                      > You may have called it something else - a gender identity - but despite the difference in nomenclature you are still describing and referring to the same thing the religious devotees referred to when they talked about "the soul."

                      Of course, religion was invented to help people make sense of the world (and of course as a means of control). Gender identity has always existed. It makes sense that religion invented some terms to explain it away. Because as a means of control and no IVF options etc this was contrary to religions' survival. After all, religion gets passed on through upbringing. If you approach a person as an adult with this kind of stuff most of them will reject it, but as kids they are impressionable and can be indoctrinated. If people have no kids, there's no new religious minions being produced and thus the religion's survival probability is a bit affected. This is why conservative people are so obsessed about birthrates.

                      > Again more progressive fanfiction and creative wordsmithing with no relationship to reality. The Supreme Court struck down DEI policies (rebranded affirmative action) on the basis that they were, quoting Justice Clarence Thomas, "rudderless, race-based preferences" [0] [1]. This is literally the opposite of being "colorblind."

                      But DEI is not affirmative action. I work in this field myself for a big multinational. We don't do that. There are no quotas. We do measure our effectiveness with it (If you're in a country with 90% latino people and hire 80% caucasians obviously something is wrong) but we don't have hiring quotas. Instead what we do is management/HR training to recognise and avoid bias. And materials to improve understanding of minority needs, like LGBTIQ+ (which is the area I do some work in).

                      A lot of managers wouldn't even have known what nonbinary is for example, they would just see someone appear for an interview and dismiss them as 'weird'. They also wouldn't understand the specific issues they could encounter in the workplace. This is what we're working against.

                      Affirmative action is something that companies do that don't actually care about DEI but just want their "numbers" to look good. Quotas is the easiest way to solve "the numbers" but not actually do the hard work of removing bias. Meaning minority people will get hired but for the wrong reasons, and they will still have issues in the workplace resulting from lack of understanding. This is not the way to approach it, only when you're a lazy company.

                      • ryandv ・ 2 days ago
                        ・ 3 more

                        > It's about feeling.

                        This is equally unscientific.

                        > If you declare that unscientific you can throw out the entire psychological/psychiatric sciences.

                        May as well, given the catastrophe that is the replication crisis [2]. Besides, psychology has grown divorced from its roots, which are found in religion as a proto-psychology of mind (which is the modern term for what would have classically been known as "the soul"). You can further investigate the correspondences between religion, mysticism, and psychology in Jung's "Psychology and Alchemy."

                        > Gender identity has always existed.

                        Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and so far there is no evidentiary basis for the "gender identity" in the body; some would even say that there cannot be a biological basis of gender, for this "holds the societal acceptance of transgenderism hostage to a biological account of sex-gender." [0]

                        Absent any biological or physical evidence I can only surmise that "gender identities" either do not exist, or are metaphysical; and to the scientifically-minded, these two statements are functionally equivalent.

                        In fact, I could even just as easily say "souls have always existed."

                        The paper [0] even continues on to state, essentially, that gender is an "intersubjectival" reality, which, ironically, is defined in an Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion:

                            Rejecting the notion that knowledge is purely
    empirical and cumulative, Gergen has argued
    that “truth” is always value laden and, therefore
    (drawing from critical theory), “reality” is not
    immutable, but always is understood via interpre-
    tation [3].
                        A rejection of empiricism is tantamount to a rejection of science, which is based on the former; so perhaps it's not surprising after all that the philosophical basis for gender is actually a psychological/religious concept.

                        > as kids they are impressionable and can be indoctrinated. If people have no kids, there's no new religious minions being produced and thus the religion's survival probability is a bit affected.

                        Much of the LGBTQ+, almost by definition, cannot reproduce biologically and thus cannot have kids. Would you also claim that LGBTQ+'s survival probability, as a neo-religion complete with rebranded souls, is also affected? How does such an ideology reproduce, if not through indoctrination of children?

                        > But DEI is not affirmative action

                        At a layman's first glance this would appear to be the case from the SCOTUS syllabus:

                            More broadly, it is becoming increasingly clear that
    discrimination on the basis of race—often packaged as “af-
    firmative action” or “equity” programs—are based on the
    benighted notion “that it is possible to tell when discrimi-
    nation helps, rather than hurts, racial minorities.” Fisher
    I, 570 U. S., at 328 (THOMAS, J., concurring). [1]
                        [0] https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/hypa.12327

                        [1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf

                        [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

                        [3] https://sci-hub.se/https://link.springer.com/referenceworken...

                        • wkat4242 ・ 2 days ago
                          ・ 2 more

                          Feelings are important because they affect us. They can hurt just as much as the physical. It's a condition of the mind, not the 'soul'. That doesn't make it any less real for the person experiencing those feelings. The concept of a soul was invented, as some entity that survives after death. So that even people with nothing to lose in life could be forced to conform using the many threats religion makes to their 'afterlife'.

                          And LGBTIQ+ is not an ideology. People don't choose who they are attracted to. That's a conservative myth invented to make it seem like people are 'converted' to being gay or trans and that thus this could be prevented or reverted. There is no ideology nor agenda and it just is. We don't convert people. That's again a projection of something that religions do. They have agendas and conversion.

                          And I don't care about what the SCOTUS says. They are completely irrelevant where I live (and they should be in the US too as they are heavily politicised by the appointment process by the president).

                          • ryandv ・ 2 days ago

                            > It's a condition of the mind, not the 'soul'.

                            As stated in my previous post these are classically synonyms that refer to the exact same entity. This use of language goes back to at least Descartes (translation by E. Haldane):

                                to speak accurately I am not more than a thing which thinks,
    that is to say a mind or a soul, or an understanding, or a
    reason, which are terms whose significance was formerly
    unknown to me [0].
                            This use of the term "soul" even goes back to Plato and Socrates, who used the Greek term psyche to refer to this concept [1] [4]. I leave the remainder of the inference to you.

                            > LGBTIQ+ is not an ideology.

                            Why not?

                            > We don't convert people.

                            No, the LGBTQ+ just bifurcate the world into "allies" and "enemies". They mandate the use of neopronouns and neodemonyms, using letters not even in the alphabets of other languages, and try to correct perceived "gendered language" in languages that have no concept of gender in their grammar to begin with. People who refuse to prostrate themselves before your linguistic imperialism get cancelled and/or fired because they are obviously deplorable bigots.

                            Just look at how the LGBTQ+ was pushing "Filipinx" on people they have nothing to do with, an entire fucking ocean away, despite Tagalog already being ungendered and not having a letter X in its alphabet. [3]

                            There were a bunch of whites who came to the Philippines and then installed not one, but two (Spanish, English) languages in the populace, to the point where time is still told in Spanish to this day, and native Filipinos cannot even speak pure Tagalog any more, resorting now to a hybrid of Tagalog and English. [2]

                            Call them by any other name but those all look like instances of cultural imperialism and proselytization to me. Will whites ever learn? Or are they so blinded by their self-professed virtue and ~crosses~ pride flags that they think, certainly, that they are in the right, and all the homophobes and transphobes from all those other Conservative countries need to be enlightened to 21st century morals (those godless heathens)?

                            > And I don't care about what the SCOTUS says.

                            I'm running past my point of caring too, since all you do is write falsehood without citation.

                            [0] https://yale.learningu.org/download/041e9642-df02-4eed-a895-...

                            [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psyche_(psychology)

                            [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYLFoUTJuGU

                            [3] https://opinion.inquirer.net/133571/filipino-or-filipinx

                            [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_theory_of_soul

        • Arkhaine_kupo ・ 3 days ago

          > Conservatism isn't libertarianism.

          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.

      • arrowsmith ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 2 more

        The Conservatives aren't a conservative party.

        • varispeed ・ 4 days ago

          Both Conservatives and Labour serve the same corporate interests. Divide et impera.

    • quintes ・ 4 days ago

      Wow this shows labour has too many MPs and the impacts of voting for labour

      • subscribed ・ 4 days ago

        The alternative (4 more years of Tories) was still worse.

        Yes, I know. still much worse

thorum ・ 4 days ago

Unintended side effect, UK MPs can now watch as much porn as they want with plausible deniability.

  • ljm ・ 4 days ago

    I don’t know about this law specifically, but every other law attacking the internet or encryption has attempted to exempt people in government.

    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.

    • varispeed ・ 4 days ago

      Have they researched how many of these "age check" companies are actually run by Russian intelligence services?

      • spacebanana7 ・ 4 days ago

        Even having a single employee linked to the Russian intelligence services would be sufficient.

jakkos ・ 3 days ago

It's a matter of time before the online safety act leads to horrendous data breaches. Once it's normalized to have to show your id to visit sites, any website will be able to pretend it's using a third party verification service but just save your id and sell the data on what you were doing.

The blackmail trade will be incredibly lucrative.

qualeed ・ 4 days ago

I like the spirit but wouldn't this run afoul of one or two laws? Identity fraud or some such?

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!

  • nemomarx ・ 4 days ago

    If you can fool discords implementation with a video game character they can't actually be checking very well?

    • qualeed ・ 4 days ago

      I certainly agree!

      However, I doubt that's a strong legal argument.

      • arrowsmith ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 10 more

        What law is being broken here exactly?

        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_...

        • Aeolun ・ 4 days ago
          ・ 9 more

          Hmm, yeah. It’s almost as if they deliberately made them look less like the real ID’s, because I have little doubt that openai would be perfectly capable of generating that image.

          • jrockway ・ 4 days ago
            ・ 8 more

            Another thing to think about is that this is just passthrough from an AI model. If it's illegal to make a website that spits out fake IDs, then OpenAI is illegal until they filter them.

      • AlecSchueler ・ 3 days ago
        ・ 2 more

        True but the wording of the act actually places the onus on the service provider to verify the identities, not on the user to give them. It would be Discord in this case having to make the legal defence.

        • qualeed ・ 3 days ago

          >It would be Discord in this case having to make the legal defence.

          There's no rule that only 1 entity can get in trouble.

          If I use a fake ID to by smokes while underage, I will definitely get in trouble for that and the store that sold me the smokes may also get in trouble (depending on how realistic the ID is, etc.). If the provider of my fake ID is found, they also get in trouble.

          I haven't yet heard a compelling argument why this website (who, in the analogous scenario above, would be the fake ID provider) would not be subject to the same logic.

          I hope that the defense of "this is a satirical website" is strong enough (or preferably, it never even has to be put to the test), however given what I've gathered about the general attitude UK legislators have regarding the internet, I think it is more likely that they would do anything in their power to try and punish someone operating a site like this.

    • dotancohen ・ 4 days ago

      Which actually does not refute GPs query. Breaking a Masterlock or Abus is the same in the eye of the law.

  • belorn ・ 3 days ago

    Law often focus on intent. I am not sure if identity fraud can be applied if the person are not gaining anything (assuming they are of the right age). Service providers might be of fault if their verification practices are not compliant with regulations, but I don't know if the law puts any requirements on users to verify their identity.

    To me this seems more similar to a people participating in a masquerade or comedian who dress themselves in the likeness of a politician. They are using the identity of the politician, but not in the way that identity fraud is intended to prevent.

    Domain registration is an interesting example. To my knowledge, falsifying domain registration data is not a crime. Domain registrars have regulations to verify the identity of customers, including the recourse to suspend a domain if the data is incorrect. I could see a case if a person impersonate a politician in order to falsely attribute content of a website, under a registered domain name, as belonging/sanctioned by that politician, but that would likely fall under defamation laws. The crime could also be identity fraud, but the intent would be defamation.

    • qualeed ・ 3 days ago

      >Service providers might be of fault if their verification practices are not compliant with regulations, but I don't know if the law puts any requirements on users to verify their identity.

      As I mentioned in another comment, I've heard no compelling argument that differentiates between this scenario (e.g. kid uses this site to access a nsfw subreddit) and an underage kid buying smokes with a fake ID.

      In that scenario, the police don't just pick 1 entity to punish. The kid gets in trouble, the store (most likely) gets in trouble, and (if found) the fake ID supplier gets in trouble.

      In the end, I hope that the owner of the website never has to find out exactly where and how the laws shake out, and that "it's a satirical website" is a strong enough defense. But from my armchair, I would suspect that the UK police/legislators would not look favorably on the "it's satire" defense. Especially because of this post which advertises that the fake ID works for some services, and there are under-18s on HN.

      >Law often focus on intent.

      I would expect that advertising that the IDs work on real services undermines any defense of "my intent was satire".

      • belorn ・ 3 days ago
        ・ 3 more

        In the case of the underage kid, they are actually gaining something by using a fake ID to buy smokes for which they otherwise would not be able to buy. The situation that the website is promoting would be if the kid used an ID of an other underage kid, for which they would be equally denied to buy smokes with. The outcome (and intent) need to be one where the user do not gain anything practical.

        I work at a domain registrar and I have yet to here anyone talking about criminal punishment for false registration data. I have also never heard about any one being charged for filling in the wrong phone or email address when signing up for a service or membership.

        Looking at my local laws here in Sweden, the law text for identity fraud explicitly requires that the use of something else identity must result in some for of direct harm to the person. UK law could be different, but I have yet to hear something to indicate this.

        • qualeed ・ 3 days ago

          >In the case of the underage kid, they are actually gaining something by using a fake ID to buy smokes for which they otherwise would not be able to buy.

          The scenario I was comparing is an underage kid visiting this website, generating an ID, and accessing content that would otherwise be illegal for them to access by using the fake ID. In this scenario, everyone (potentially) would be in trouble, not just the website verifying the ID, just like an underage kid buying smokes with a fake ID.

          The reason I mentioned domain registration was not because it is illegal to register a domain or anything of that sort. I mentioned it because it suggests the website owner is based in the UK, which is easy pickings for the UK government to pursue (if they choose to). If the website owner was based in Malaysia, it would be significantly harder for the UK to pursue any legal recourse against them (if they choose to).

  • pjc50 ・ 4 days ago

    What does the online safety act actually say about this? It's only supposed to be age verification, and if you are actually old enough does it matter how you proved it?

    Many of the age verification services explicitly promise not to retain photos!

    • AlecSchueler ・ 3 days ago

      https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/part/4/chapter/...

      It talks explicitly about verifying your identity, not your age, so no loopholes today I'm afraid

      • pjc50 ・ 3 days ago
        ・ 2 more

        .. for Category 1 services. I've already noted that several age verification services explicitly promise _not_ to retain your identity.

        I'm having trouble working out what's category 1. Schedule 1 defines exemptions https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/schedule/1/part... ; otherwise this refers OFCOM to "critera" which I can't find.

        As I understand it, Wikipedia are seeking judicial review of OFCOM's placing them in category 1, which requires the most stringent checks including identity.

        • AlecSchueler ・ 3 days ago

          I made no mention of identity retention.

  • ralferoo ・ 2 days ago

    > I like the spirit but wouldn't this run afoul of one or two laws? Identity fraud or some such?

    I would say not, but then again I'm no lawyer.

    There's plausible deniability in that there's a big "this is satire" watermark on top of the licence. The DOB in part 3 is wrong, and the driver number in part 5 is modified to include the 5 letters of the surname, but is otherwise incorrect. The DOB encoded in the licence number doesn't even match the wrong DOB in part 3 either.

    If anything accepts this as valid ID, then it just shows how farcical the system is.

  • Mindwipe ・ 4 days ago

    The only way you'd ever get found out is if the affected MP was lying to the public and the identity documents do indeed get retained...

    • arrowsmith ・ 4 days ago

      The generated addresses aren't real. It gave a London address for my MP; I know where he lives and it isn't London.

      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.

      • timje1 ・ 4 days ago

        Yeah the address on all the IDs is for parliament. I assume one could find em there

    • qualeed ・ 4 days ago

      >The only way you'd ever get found out is if the affected MP was lying to the public and the identity documents do indeed get retained...

      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.

      • shubb ・ 4 days ago

        If I was that developer, I'd blacklist embedding of all British MPs and councilors to avoid fraud. This would also block the entire UK political class from accessing adult materials (I got blocked by a wine forum), which would be a very effective protest...

  • chippiewill ・ 4 days ago

    I agree, the UK Police wouldn't typically let you get away with "it's just a joke". This would constitute a mixture of identity theft, fake ID and misuse of computers.

    • timje1 ・ 4 days ago

      It's literally just sticking the MPs name into an AI and asking for it to generate a mock ID for them. None of their real data is being used (e.g. their face, their DoB, the address) and the mock IDs wouldn't fool anyone for a second. I'd love if someone who understands the law would weigh in though

      • NicuCalcea ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 4 more

        I don't think "It was actually ChatGPT that committed the crime, not me" would fly in a British court.

        • marcus_holmes ・ 4 days ago
          ・ 3 more

          That's an interesting question, though.

          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.

          • antonvs ・ 4 days ago
            ・ 2 more

            You're overthinking it. You're building on your own definition of what a tool is, but courts are likely to find that a person who used an AI with a specific type of prompt were using it as a tool and are responsible for the clearly stated intent behind their use.

            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.

            • marcus_holmes ・ 3 days ago

              Yeah, probably you're right. Though it is an interesting thing to overthink - we have decided that LLMs are not tools for copyright but are tools for accountability. At some point they'll get smart enough to be accountable, and what happens then?

      • zmmmmm ・ 4 days ago

        the law is pretty fickle that way. It's illegal to rob a bank no matter how badly you bungle it. Saying afterwards "but my gun was clearly made of plastic" probably won't get you completely off the hook if you actually threatened someone with it and asked for money (this site is literally titled Use Your Local MP's ID - it's expressing an intent).

      • gus_massa ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 3 more

        Does the AI has access to newspapers? If John Doe is a MP, then he is probably the most famous Joe Doe in the last 5 years and the AI may grab his photo from a newspaper. I don't know about the national ID in UK, but here in Argentina the national ID number is public. A lot of public documents include "John Doe (DNI 23.456.789)", and the are sites where you can search it (the DB has problems with almost coalitions, so you may get a number 23.456.789 from one "John X. Doe" that is a 50yo in Buenos Aires and another "John Y. Doe" with number 59.876.653 that is a 3yo in Ushuaia, so in many cases it's easy to guess)

        • OJFord ・ 4 days ago

          > I don't know about the national ID in UK

          There isn't one.

      • aembleton ・ 4 days ago

        It does use their face

      • John7878781 ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 7 more

        It's better to be safe than sorry. For your own best interest, I would shut down the site and delete this post.

        • jrockway ・ 4 days ago

          Comply in advance. It's the #1 way to make illegal laws work!

        • brookst ・ 4 days ago
          ・ 5 more

          “Don’t upset the autocrats!”

          • subscribed ・ 4 days ago
            ・ 3 more

            You jest, but a barrister was threatened with arrest while holding a blank piece of paper on the protest: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/barrister-threatened-...

            • brookst ・ 4 days ago
              ・ 2 more

              I wasn’t jesting. I was (too) obliquely saying that when we all hasten to accede to the autocrats before they even ask, we become complicit in huge social evils.

              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.

              • subscribed ・ 2 days ago

                Thank you, I didn't get it previously. I completely agree.

          • arrowsmith ・ 4 days ago

            You kid, but that's very good advice in most human societies at most points in history.

    • hacker_homie ・ 4 days ago

      It's not just a joke, it's parody and political commentary right?

    • timje1 ・ 2 days ago

      I've scribbled 'this is satire' across each and every generated ID, so they can't realistically be used for anything.

    • Aeolun ・ 4 days ago

      You could go with misuse of computers, but unless the ID’s are actually used by yourself it’s not identity theft right?

yegle ・ 4 days ago

Chinese Netizens are very familiar with Xi Jinping's national ID number precisely for this reason :-)

ID verification is enforced on all Chinese websites. People figured out they can just use Xi's ID number.

  • Gathering6678 ・ 4 days ago

    This is not true. A) personal ID numbers are not publicly available (you could certainly get your hands on some, but I doubt a lot would know Xi's ID), and B) more importantly, nowadays ID verification in China uses more sophisticated methods, e.g. in order to not be restricted when playing games, users need to prove they are over 18. The user would permit the game to verify through a payment provider such as Alipay (I don't think one would even need to give their ID to the game, as it is handled by Alipay which has done KYC already).

    Although I suspect such ... "innovations" ... would soon get to the western world including UK.

  • djrj477dhsnv ・ 4 days ago

    > ID verification is enforced on all Chinese websites.

    Is that really true? So search engines? News sites? Pseudo-anonymous discussion forums?

    • raincole ・ 4 days ago

      Don't listen to the sibling commenter who doesn't know what they're talking about.

      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.

      • djoldman ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 9 more

        How easily can a burner be used?

        Are sim cards easily swapped?

        • raincole ・ 4 days ago
          ・ 3 more

          > Are sim cards easily swapped?

          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.)

          • Gathering6678 ・ 4 days ago

            Burner sims have been a thing of the past in China for quite some time. The official rationale I believe is to curb telecom fraud, which in turn left China and started doing their business in southeast Asia.

          • computerfriend ・ 4 days ago

            > Very easily. Apple even specifically introduced dual-sim iPhone for China.

            Because they don't support eSIMs there.

        • jesterson ・ 4 days ago
          ・ 4 more

          There is no such thing as "burner". Phone number is very hard to get and requires ID verification and sorts

          • dmurray ・ 4 days ago
            ・ 3 more

            It's very easy to get. As a visitor, I got one in the airport for $20. "ID verification" is stretching it, but like so many things in China it requires the vendor to take a photo of your ID, and unusually also to take a photo of you and submit it to the telecom website.

            • jesterson ・ 4 days ago
              ・ 2 more

              Have you tried to use it to register for any website? It likely won't work.

              • fivestones ・ 4 hours ago

                This kind of SIM card worked fine for me to register for several online services in China earlier this year, including a Chinese ride sharing service and online shopping.

        • keysdev ・ 4 days ago

          Not sure about now. It was before the covid. Keep in mind everything is done via weechat anyway now days.

          Anyone from behind the great wall care to comment? Is HN event reachable from behind the great wall with out Tor?

    • budududuroiu ・ 4 days ago

      No, but some features are locked until you do. For example, you can join voice chat rooms on Xiaohongshu, but can’t turn on your camera until you verify ID. You can join others’ broadcasts but you can’t create your own, etc

    • yegle ・ 4 days ago

      You can have "read" access anonymously (with a big asterisk, see the end), but as soon as you need "write" access, the service provider (the website etc) is legally required to verify your ID. It's why there's no pseudo-anonymous discussion forum in China, at least legally.

      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).

    • bobsmooth ・ 4 days ago

      Yes. You need an ID to use the internet.

      • qingcharles ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 3 more

        What about visitors?

        • atlintots ・ 4 days ago

          You don't need an ID just to use the internet in China...

        • SXX ・ 4 days ago

          Roaming is VPN. And if you want fast one outside firewall you can grab HK esim like soSIM. And this one only needs any passport photo w/o face verification.

  • MiddleEndian ・ 4 days ago

    lol on a much lighter note, for many years I used to use 111-111-1111 as a general phone number for CVS card discounts. It stopped working several years ago though.

    • Waterluvian ・ 4 days ago

      As a Canadian I was lost and confused when visiting the States (in the before time) and a gas pump asked for my zip code. So I put in the one and only zip code I know. I bet you can guess.

      • enlightens ・ 4 days ago

        Glad you could come visit from Beverly Hills ;)

        EDIT: actually, depending on your age and what you watched on TV, maybe you were visiting from Boston?

      • s3graham ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 3 more

        I used to use that one too, but you're supposed to put the 3 numerical digits of your postal code followed by 00. (I have no idea how you're supposed to know that though.)

        • OJFord ・ 4 days ago
          ・ 2 more

          Really? Or does that just work because it's numbers? I can't imagine how that's useful because without the letters the same 12300 could be in Vancouver or Montreal couldn't it?

          • s3graham ・ 2 days ago

            I don't know much about credit card validation, but I have the impression that the zipcode is just one more correlation that tells them you're more likely to be the real owner of the card.

            If the 3 numbers I type match the 3 digits of the owner's postal code, it's probably a reasonable signal that I'm the owner (even without the letters).

      • ethagnawl ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 4 more

        Did it work?

        • farrisbris ・ 3 days ago
          ・ 2 more

          It probably did. I was in the us this summer and was similarly confused that the pump wanted a us zip code for a foreign card. I input the zip for the address i was staying at and it worked...

          • ethagnawl ・ 3 days ago

            Huh. I'd always assumed the zip code was validated against the card's billing address but maybe it's actually for some kind of market research. I'll have to try myself.

        • Waterluvian ・ 3 days ago

          Yeah. Random numbers wouldn’t but it did. I assumed it had to be a valid zip code.

    • ethagnawl ・ 4 days ago

      This reminds me: I've noticed that Starbucks now requires a few pieces of information to use their WiFi network. One is email and they are doing some sort of validation which will reject emails like whoopsileanedonxxxxxxxx@aol.com but will accept other, legit AOL emails. How are they deciding what is/not a valid email? Are they using a compiled list of emails that have been seen in the wild? What if it's a brand new address, though? Presumably AOL isn't exposing a service for them to use in realtime. I haven't tested this extensively or with other providers.

      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?

      • codedokode ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 3 more

        They can connect to a mail server and pretend that they are going to send a message and the server would reject the invalid recipient email.

        • ethagnawl ・ 3 days ago
          ・ 2 more

          I had no idea this was possible. This sounds almost like an HTTP OPTION request. I'd love to find an example of client code which does this.

          • brk ・ 3 days ago

            You're looking for the SMTP VRFY and EXPN commands. However implementation is very hit-or-miss. In the good ole' days of the internet, VRFY was widely implemented. Then spammers realized they could connect to a mailserver and do a form of a VRFY dictionary attack to find valid addresses, so it stopped being supported.

      • toast0 ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 3 more

        > 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.

        • swores ・ 3 days ago

          Some wifi networks give you a limited number of minutes online during which you need to click a verification link they've emailed you in order to not get cut off.

        • ethagnawl ・ 3 days ago

          That's a great point. I guess I'm so conditioned to various 2FA methods that I take some amount of access (i.e. mobile) for granted.

      • aembleton ・ 4 days ago

        Use *@example.com, it usually works.

    • marssaxman ・ 4 days ago

      XXX-867-5309 still works everywhere I try it, where "XXX" is the local area code.

      • davidcollantes ・ 3 days ago

        I have also used XXX-555-1212, and it has worked everywhere.

    • kstrauser ・ 4 days ago

      I used 888-888-8888 at Target yesterday. Shhh.

    • elcritch ・ 4 days ago

      Lookup the stores phone number of maps. That usually works.

protocolture ・ 4 days ago

If you really want to piss off the UK government, add a comment section.

1a527dd5 ・ 4 days ago

I think this is a fun project, but I'm not sure I'd leave this up for much longer.

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.

  • crinkly ・ 4 days ago

    MPs will be immediately trying to hang the civil service for telling them this was a good idea. Don't expect legal action. Do expect buck passing.

    • travisgriggs ・ 4 days ago

      I wish there was a modern day version of "Yes, [Prime] Minister" for this kind of stuff. It's like the episodes could write themselves by the week.

      • averageRoyalty ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 2 more

        In Australia we have a show called "Utopia" that does fill this gap reasonably well. Australian politics are close enough to the UK that it'd probably translate well enough to be enjoyable.

        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.

        • k1t ・ 4 days ago

          Just seconding a vote for Utopia (2014), and also its (better!) predecessor The Hollowmen (2008).

      • crinkly ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 2 more

        Well having worked for the government in an ancillary security role about 20 years ago on contract, I don't think they could produce a parody notably worse than reality to use as a contrast. Today, I suspect it is worse.

        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...

        • btilly ・ 4 days ago

          It is worthy of note that most of the incidents in Yes, Minister were based on things that really happened. At some level it was more curation than invention.

      • pjc50 ・ 3 days ago

        "The Thick Of It", but even that's quite old now.

        Political satire is kind of dead in an age of unironic stupidity.

    • edent ・ 4 days ago

      Not really. I was a civil servant and gave advice on this.

      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.

  • arrowsmith ・ 4 days ago

    The generated images are very obviously AI fakes. I don't think anyone is going to be seriously fooled by 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.

    • FabHK ・ 4 days ago

      > I don't think anyone is going to be seriously fooled by this.

      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?

      • DonHopkins ・ 4 days ago

        The AI should generate nude photos festooned in kink accessories, brown noses, pearl necklaces, and dripping facials.

    • guessmyname ・ 4 days ago

      I wouldn't say they’re “obviously” AI fakes.

      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.

      • arrowsmith ・ 4 days ago

        The text is slightly misaligned and weird-looking; it screams "AI". The hand holding the ID looks like CGI. And the photos don't look anything like the actual MP, at least for the ones that I tried.

        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_...

      • KomoD ・ 3 days ago

        > I wouldn't say they’re “obviously” AI fakes.

        I'd say they're obviously AI fakes, just trying a few: B249AL (it made her bald), SA487AB (different shape, hair color and hair), TN248DF (it grew his hair back), HA26ND (bald, again) and NG166QE (I don't even need to explain)...

  • Spivak ・ 4 days ago

    You want a different photo each time to avoid easy filter lists.

    • Titan2189 ・ 4 days ago

      Sure, if you offer to pay the bill for the Image generation, I'm sure they would love to implement this feature

      • tyingq ・ 4 days ago

        A little random crop, tilt/pan, defocus, noise, etc, would be free-ish.

gardnr ・ 4 days ago

It looks like the code was/is going to be published?

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

crinkly ・ 4 days ago

This is great. Weaponising the stupidity of the idea, compromising it entirely until it's so obviously ineffectual it's unenforceable, then going after the politicians who pushed it for the waste of money and effort.

Create a scandal. Bad PR is the only way out now.

Arubis ・ 4 days ago

This is the sort of thing that brought me into tech in the first place, before it became the villain it had started off fighting: humorous, effective pushback against stodgy power structures. More please!

ta1243 ・ 3 days ago

Your MP

    Name: Mike Wood
    Party: Conservative
    Constituency: Stafford
Err, Stafford has been Labour since the last election, and before that it was a Conservative, but it was Theodora Clarke. Mike Wood is MP for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire.

Surely the way you build something like this is a postcode -> constituency table (I assume available free), a constituency -> mp table, and mp -> image generation (with caching or generate multiple versions)

Even if the lookup data mis-selected the constituency (I think some postcodes can straddle constituencies), surely the Constituency/Name/Party would be consistent.

I'm guessing you're using chat-gpt for the entire program?

wonderwonder ・ 4 days ago

How does this new policy not end with promising upstart political careers being torpedoed when the party in power “accidentally” leaks their porn history? There is no way the intelligence community doesn’t have a back door to this. Vote how we want on this bill or your embarrassing history just gets found

evil-olive ・ 4 days ago

it's a bit buried in the FAQ - if you're a non-UK user like I am and just want to see what the output looks like, Keir Starmer's postcode is WC2B6NH so inputting that will give you an already-generated example of the output.

  • arrowsmith ・ 4 days ago

    > Keir Starmer's postcode is WC2B6NH

    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.

jrockway ・ 4 days ago

This is so good. Not only does it get you past the verification screen, it infects the next generation of AI models with AI slop, and it adds MPs to a list of suspicious names that are likely fraud. That means that it ruins the Internet for MPs, which is just wonderful. Like, I legitimately think that Starmer might have extra trouble signing up for things now.

All in all, one of those ideas that sounds good on the surface, but the more you think about it the better it gets.

vonneumannstan ・ 3 days ago

This sounds funny but it probably gets you sentenced to 10 years of hard labor in the King's coal mine or something similarly draconian.

  • profstasiak ・ 3 days ago

    The government has a monopoly on violence and I believe they will use their violence here.

    I am not a layer but identity theft is a first thing that comes to mind

DalasNoin ・ 4 days ago

Always tells me that the MP wasn't found for my selected area.

  • bargainbin ・ 4 days ago

    Just like any other interaction with your local MP…

    • crinkly ・ 4 days ago

      Hey now, mine's pretty responsive. Just the response is about as useful as letting a chimp at a typewriter.

  • elthran ・ 4 days ago

    Ah, you must be a Clacton resident then

  • timje1 ・ 4 days ago

    what's the postcode?

bashtoni ・ 4 days ago

When I tried it with the Walthamstow constituency the ID used a , as a date separator instead of a .

Seems odd, but probably wouldn't be noticed by an automated validator anyway.

  • timje1 ・ 4 days ago

    They're definitely not perfect. I wouldn't want them to be perfect, then they might be used for something nefarious. The mock IDs use fake details and fake faces, and don't even attempt to get the watermarks and machine readable parts right.

jonplackett ・ 4 days ago

Are you just using ChatGPT api to make the images? I’m surprised it would let you make driving licenses.

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.

dom96 ・ 4 days ago

Are the generated images supposed to look like the MP? they look nothing like it as far as I can see.

  • tempay ・ 4 days ago

    I think so, Keir Starmer and several others show plausible faces.

    On the otherhand Ashfield (NG178DA) fails spectacularly.

    • ta1243 ・ 3 days ago

      > On the otherhand Ashfield (NG178DA) fails spectacularly.

      Like its MP

spuz ・ 4 days ago

I'd be interested to know which if any of the ID verification services were fooled by this.

mensetmanusman ・ 4 days ago

The UK has been a police state for decades, why are people surprised by this?

Mindwipe ・ 4 days ago

Always tells me an MP can't be found despite multiple attempts.

  • timje1 ・ 4 days ago

    Seems like open AI is rate limiting me for a minute, I didn't expect to get top of HN this quickly. Use Starmer's for now - WC2B6NH

    • dom96 ・ 4 days ago

      Why didn't you just create the images for all 650 MPs ahead of time?

      • timje1 ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 6 more

        Because that's expensive as hell and I didn't know if anyone would visit the site..

        • epanchin ・ 4 days ago
          ・ 2 more

          Ideally you would save them as they were generated, and deliver the saved version the second time?

          • timje1 ・ 4 days ago

            Yup, that's what happens. If you request a postcode that leads to an MP that's not been seen before, it starts generating that MP and saves the ongoing promise, and gives that promise to everyone else to asks for that MP.

            Had to make sure to implement this so that I didn't end up generating duplicates.

        • dom96 ・ 4 days ago
          ・ 3 more

          Really? Does it really cost that much to generate a single image like this?

          • timje1 ・ 4 days ago
            ・ 2 more

            yeah to generate a photo of reasonable quality it costs like $.18, so multiply that by 650ish MPs and you have a pretty expensive lil parody site...

            • aspenmayer ・ 4 days ago

              Make hay while the sun shines. ~$120 upfront would make this an order of magnitude more expensive than a vanity domain name already, but if you had precomputed and cached them you’d be capitalizing on the viral momentum.

  • philipwhiuk ・ 4 days ago

    Are you putting in a valid UK postcode?

SilverElfin ・ 4 days ago

Won’t the government force these websites to do some kind of stronger identity verification in the future? I worry that it’ll even come with broader support when the EU or whoever implements ID verification for protecting children or banning misinformation or whatever.

  • GaggiX ・ 4 days ago

    >Won’t the government force these websites to do some kind of stronger identity verification in the future?

    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.

    • rdm_blackhole ・ 3 days ago

      No, they ll require you to put a camera in your home to watch you while you verify your identity online.

      This way they will know for sure that it was you who upload your id. Then they will need someone else to watch the camera in case it gets tampered with.

camtarn ・ 4 days ago

This is hilarious. Very well done.

Muromec ・ 4 days ago

>It's a small, silly protest at the stupidity of the Online Safety Act that just came into force. The IDs actually work (for Reddit, Discord etc.) which highlights how terrible this implementation is.

Could you give a short TL;DR of how ids are constructed so we can all laugh here in comments?

  • timje1 ・ 4 days ago

    it's literally just the MPs name. It's a fake DoB (because their DoB's aren't public knowledge anymore) all the numbers and such are nonsense, the images wouldn't fool a human for one second. The AI tools don't let you generate an ID for any real human being (because that sounds like all sorts of fraud) so you can't upload a picture of the MP or anything like that - so I just let the model fill in whatever face it thinks is appropriate for the given name.

    • arrowsmith ・ 4 days ago

      > because their DoB's aren't public knowledge anymore

      Most are on Wikipedia, no?

      • tialaramex ・ 4 days ago
        ・ 3 more

        Even if they weren't, most MPs will be old enough that their top level Birth Records are available, so if they don't have a common name or you know enough biographical details you can find them anyway. If they've got a weird name like Elon Musk you just go name -> DOB in one step, if they're a Sarah Black maybe you need to know approximate age, birth name, rough part of the country where they were born. For super common names like John Smith you will need to know the mother's name, year and specific location of birth at which point yeah you're closer to just knowing their DoB anyway.

    • Muromec ・ 4 days ago

      I'm a bit out of the loop and not familiar with the whole thing. Do you just submit a plausibly real name and any DOB that is older than 18 and a picture? Does the thing crosscheck the name + dob with a demographic database (does UK has any)?

      • pjc50 ・ 3 days ago

        The Online Safety Act is completely stupid - it just requires "age verification". Various sites have outsourced this to various providers, most of which are American. The age verifiers in turn just look at the image, generally algorithmically without human intervention, and go "seems legit". There is no single national UK ID database that could be used for this purpose - everything is either partial, doesn't include photos (e.g. electoral roll), or isn't public (passport DB).

      • Throwkin ・ 4 days ago

        It's all just random third party shit with zero government oversight. There's no national ID in the UK because even the mildest mention of a voluntary national ID scheme leads to gnashing of teeth and wailing about how it's fascist and a violation of our civil liberties and everyone is happy pissing about with driving licenses or passports or utility bills to prove who you are.

natewww ・ 4 days ago

love this, nice work

physicsguy ・ 4 days ago

'MP not found for that postcode.'

unwind ・ 4 days ago

Meta: typo in title, says "Dd" instead of "Id".

  • tomhow ・ 4 days ago

    My bad, fixed now.

billy99k ・ 4 days ago

[flagged]

  • patmcc ・ 4 days ago

    Wow, people who walked near the capital were thrown in prison. Really? Just walked near the capital. Didn't break in, attack cops, destroy property. Really. Just walked near the capital.

    Wow that's crazy.

    • billy99k ・ 3 days ago

      "Just walked near the capital. Didn't break in, attack cops, destroy property. "

      I don't think you followed the story or cared because it involved people you didn't like. Yes, there were people that destroyed property. Others didn't even know what was going on at the time and were let into the capital building by police officers and were arrested anyway.

      The Democrats in the UK were arresting people for just voicing their opinions over the last year. No outrage. Now that the UK is trying to prevent children from getting hurt online: total outrage.

      It always seems to involve children..

      • patmcc ・ 3 days ago

        >>>Others didn't even know what was going on at the time and were let into the capital building by police officers and were arrested anyway.

        If you're part of a mob and the police get out of your way that's not them "letting you in", that's them falling back as opposed to causing more violence. I think J6 folks were treated extremely gently, all things considered. If the guy in front of you breaks down a door and then you walk in behind him, you're also doing something wrong.

        https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/capitol-police-waving-vide... for a specific fact check to the "police waved them in" claim.

        >>>The Democrats in the UK

        Those aren't the Democrats. I do think the UK is going too far with their speech controls and their "online safety" laws.

spullara ・ 4 days ago

uk ain't playin' these days, i would take it down if you are under their jurisdiction

throw2805 ・ 4 days ago

In UK you get arrested for a mere tweet if it hurts anyone's feelings and it's called democracy. Unbelievable.

Btw UK surpassed Russia in these kinda arrests

  • spacebanana7 ・ 4 days ago

    OP's comment is only slightly misleading. Per the myth detector [1]:

    ".... 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/