{“lastseen”:”2025-08-11T16:26:21″,”description”:”_This week on the Lock and Code podcast \u2026_\\n\\nThe internet is cracking apart. It\u2019s exactly what some politicians want.\\n\\nIn June, a Texas law that requires age verification on certain websites withstood a legal challenge brought all the way to the US Supreme Court. It could be a blueprint for how the internet will change very soon.\\n\\nThe law, titled HB 1181 and passed in 2023, places new requirements on websites that portray or depict \u201csexual material harmful to minors.\u201d With the law, the owners or operators of websites that contain images or videos or illustrations or descriptions that \u201cmore than one-third of which is sexual material harmful to minors\u201d must now verify the age of their website\u2019s visitors, at least in Texas. Similarly, this means that Texas residents visiting adult websites (or websites meeting the \u201cone-third\u201d definition) must now go through some form of online age verification to watch adult content.\\n\\nThe law has obvious appeal from some groups, which believe that, similar to how things like alcohol and tobacco are age-restricted in the US, so, too, should there be age restrictions on pornography online.\\n\\nBut many digital rights advocates believe that online age verification is different because the current methods used for online age verification could threaten privacy, security, and anonymity online.\\n\\nAs Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF, wrote in June:\\n\\n\u201cA person who submits identifying information online can never be sure if websites will keep that information or how that information might be used or disclosed. This leaves users highly vulnerable to data breaches and other security harms.\u201d\\n\\nDespite EFF\u2019s warnings, this age-restricted reality has already arrived in the UK, where residents are being age-locked out of increasingly more online services because of the country\u2019s passage of the Online Safety Act.\\n\\nToday, on the Lock and Code podcast with host David Ruiz, we speak with Jason Kelly, activism director at EFF and co-host of the organization\u2019s podcast \u201cHow to fix the internet,\u201d about the security and privacy risks of online age verification, why comparisons to age restrictions that are cleared with a physical ID are not accurate, and the creation of what Kelley calls \u201cthe grey web,\u201d where more and more websites\u2014even those that are not harmful to minors\u2014get placed behind online age verification models that could collect data, attach it to your real-life identity, and mishandle it in the future.\\n\\n\\u003e \u201cThis is probably the worst thing in my view that has ever happened to our rights online.\u201d\\n\\nTune in today to listen to the full conversation.\\n\\n_Show notes and credits:_ \\n \\nIntro Music: \u201cSpellbound\u201d by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) \\nLicensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License \\nhttp:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/ \\nOutro Music: \u201cGood God\u201d by Wowa (unminus.com)\\n\\n* * *\\n\\n**Listen up\u2014Malwarebytes doesn\u2019t just talk cybersecurity, we provide it.**\\n\\nProtect yourself from online attacks that threaten your identity, your files, your system, and your financial well-being with our exclusive offer for Malwarebytes Premium for Lock and Code listeners.”,”published”:”2025-08-11T15:11:19″,”modified”:”2025-08-11T15:11:19″,”type”:”malwarebytes”,”title”:”\u201cThe worst thing\u201d for online rights: An age-restricted grey web (Lock and Code S06E16)”,”source”:””,”references”:””,”id”:”MALWAREBYTES:58D84781BC44E90E9C40FF7141A48A9F”,”bulletinFamily”:”blog”,”cwe”:null,”cvelist”:[],”sourceData”:””,”sourceHref”:””,”cvss”:{“score”:0,”severity”:”NONE”,”vector”:”NONE”,”version”:”NONE”},”cvss2″:{},”cvss3″:{“version”:””,”vectorString”:””,”baseScore”:0,”baseSeverity”:””,”attackVector”:””,”attackComplexity”:””,”privilegesRequired”:””,”userInteraction”:””,”scope”:””,”confidentialityImpact”:””,”integrityImpact”:””,”availabilityImpact”:””,”cvssV3″:{“version”:””,”vectorString”:””,”baseScore”:0,”baseSeverity”:””,”attackVector”:””,”attackComplexity”:””,”privilegesRequired”:””,”userInteraction”:””,”scope”:””,”confidentialityImpact”:””,”integrityImpact”:””,”availabilityImpact”:””}},”href”:”https:\/\/www.malwarebytes.com\/blog\/podcast\/2025\/08\/the-worst-thing-for-online-rights-an-age-restricted-grey-web-lock-and-code-s06e16″,”category_name”:”News”,”post_link”:””,”product”:””,”version”:””,”vendor”:””,”ai_description”:””,”ai_severity”:””,”ai_vendor”:””,”ai_product”:””,”ai_version”:””,”ai_score”:0}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{“lastseen”:”2025-08-11T16:26:21″,”description”:”_This week on the Lock and Code podcast \u2026_\\n\\nThe internet is cracking apart. It\u2019s exactly what some politicians want.\\n\\nIn June, a Texas law that requires…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6,8,12,115,13,33,7,11,5],"class_list":["post-10365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-category_news","tag-cve","tag-cvss","tag-exploit","tag-malwarebytes","tag-news","tag-none","tag-security","tag-tapic","tag-vulnerability"],"yoast_head":"\n