Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How many people got VPNs in response to laws like UK Online Safety Act?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 90 posts

Re: Ask HN: How many people got VPNs in response to laws like UK Online Safety Act?

#71

Post by thenthenthen »

Flere-Imsaho wrote: post #26
amiga386 wrote: post #19

I was already using Tor Browser for sites that UK ISPs are banned from letting me access. I continue to use Tor Browser for entirely innocuous sites that are collateral damage of the OSA. For example, the Interactive Fiction Archive. All its game files are voluntarily blocked in the UK by its well-meaning but stupid operators. Even games intended for children. They should stop complying and just serve up all their fi…

I use Orbot on Android - which provides a Tor connection. I'm not sure why people are paying for VPNs for the small number of sites that are blocked in the UK.

Sadly Orbot is not working from China.

Re: Ask HN: How many people got VPNs in response to laws like UK Online Safety Act?

#72

Post by constantcrying »

breppp wrote: post #64
constantcrying wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such an insane stance. The proposal of chat control is surveillance of most private communication. Blaming Russia is such a tiresome stance. Russian propaganda is so bad and so hilariously ineffective that it penetrates only small bubbles inside political parties, even after years of propaganda. Also the current German government includes the historically most notorious Russian shill party. The laws are absol…

It's not only Russia, it's also China and Iran. It's very easy today to control social media conversation by participating as both sides and creating hate. It's actually possible to remotely organize demonstrations, create entire movements from afar If steering far off (based on Iran's MO in Israel for example) with a little bit of bitcoin and time you can hire someone to do anything for you in a foreign country. Thi…

>It's not only Russia, it's also China

Those have even worse reputations than Russia and even fewer and more fringe supporters. Iran shills are solely Iranian nationals or their descendants. China shills are some niche communists.

Re: Ask HN: How many people got VPNs in response to laws like UK Online Safety Act?

#73

Post by breppp »

constantcrying wrote: post #72
breppp wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not only Russia, it's also China and Iran. It's very easy today to control social media conversation by participating as both sides and creating hate. It's actually possible to remotely organize demonstrations, create entire movements from afar If steering far off (based on Iran's MO in Israel for example) with a little bit of bitcoin and time you can hire someone to do anything for you in a foreign country. Thi…

>It's not only Russia, it's also China Those have even worse reputations than Russia and even fewer and more fringe supporters. Iran shills are solely Iranian nationals or their descendants. China shills are some niche communists.

These are not people shilling for these countries, these are people in the west that are not aware they are being played for these agendas.

Usually the play is something a country like Russia has zero interest in apart for weakening the west, e.g. pizzagate.

For a recent example, that time when scottish independence accounts disappeared when Israel bombed Iran https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/dozens-of-pro-indy-accounts-...

Re: Ask HN: How many people got VPNs in response to laws like UK Online Safety Act?

#74

Post by iamnothere »

latexr wrote: post #55
_dan wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean good luck banning ssh connections.

Good luck having the general public using SSH connections to route their traffic. You’re not a hermit (or you wouldn’t be on HN). You live in a society and what affects your peers and their behaviours also influences your life.

If a VPN ban happens, I (a US citizen) and others will happily provide your people with easy to understand plain English circumvention instructions and tools, designed for the “regular Joe”, regularly adapting to whatever the latest conditions are. Maybe SSH based, maybe a VPN over SSL, maybe Tor, most likely some combination designed to evade detection.

If your society is anti freedom of information, your society deserves a spanking.

Re: Ask HN: How many people got VPNs in response to laws like UK Online Safety Act?

#75

Post by constantcrying »

breppp wrote: post #73
constantcrying wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not only Russia, it's also China Those have even worse reputations than Russia and even fewer and more fringe supporters. Iran shills are solely Iranian nationals or their descendants. China shills are some niche communists.

These are not people shilling for these countries, these are people in the west that are not aware they are being played for these agendas. Usually the play is something a country like Russia has zero interest in apart for weakening the west, e.g. pizzagate. For a recent example, that time when scottish independence accounts disappeared when Israel bombed Iran https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/dozens-of-pro-indy-accoun…

And this mean I should allow the EU to surveil all my communications? That is a pretty bizarre argument.

Re: Ask HN: How many people got VPNs in response to laws like UK Online Safety Act?

#76

Post by breppp »

constantcrying wrote: post #75
breppp wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are not people shilling for these countries, these are people in the west that are not aware they are being played for these agendas. Usually the play is something a country like Russia has zero interest in apart for weakening the west, e.g. pizzagate. For a recent example, that time when scottish independence accounts disappeared when Israel bombed Iran https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/dozens-of-pro-indy-accoun…

And this mean I should allow the EU to surveil all my communications? That is a pretty bizarre argument.

No, if you will reread that was never my argument. What I was saying is that this is the real reason why speech is now curtailed and why this will get worse

Re: Ask HN: How many people got VPNs in response to laws like UK Online Safety Act?

#78

Post by malfist »

lonelyasacloud wrote: post #69

Yes. It wasn't an unintended consequence. The goal of the legislation was to "stop children from accessing age inappropriate content" on the internet. Ahead of the legislation it was known that there would be a significant proportion of individuals who would switch to using VPN's because without platform based verification it would be a pita for users (more logins, random age verification services, and some sites jus…

How much of that is conflated with plenty of sites still operating without age gates? I think its more likely to push people to shadier and shadier sites and not VPNs

Re: Ask HN: How many people got VPNs in response to laws like UK Online Safety Act?

#79

Post by stranded22 »

nomilk wrote: post #39

I got a VPN in preparation for Australia's (even more draconian) "age verification" laws (those take effect in 4 days). But what I'd really love (startup idea!?) is an app that let's you map websites to countries and it handles tunnelling that domain's traffic through the selected country's VPN. For example, I'd like to view Reddit, YouTube, X, Facebook, Instagram and social media apps from a US IP (to avoid Australi…

Controld can route the dns through different countries, so I expect you could combine with wind scribe vpn?

I route twitter and Reddit through Moldova to avoid ads

Re: Ask HN: How many people got VPNs in response to laws like UK Online Safety Act?

#80

Post by WithinReason »

grumblepeet wrote: post #2

I did despite being quite resistant to the idea at first. Eventually I didn't have a choice, as many things I wanted to read were suddenly hidden. I am paranoid however and worry that the VPN maker is tracking me, but there is only so much I can be paranoid about in the day.

Look up what kind of tracking UK ISPs are mandated to do by law and how easy it is to request that information. Your VPN can't possibly be worse than that.
Post reply on HN