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

UnblockOz: Helps Australians reclaim their unfiltered Internet access

unblockoz.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 121 posts

Re: UnblockOz: Helps Australians reclaim their unfiltered Internet access

#101

Post by redblacktree »

rqebmm wrote: post #100
lsh wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that Cloudfront appears to hate and block those using VPN services.

Full Disclosure: I work for a private VPN company This depends on the VPN provider. Private VPN services share IPs between customers, and the extra layer of privacy they provide comes with high potential for abuse. Some providers care more about preventing fraud than others. Cloudfront is likely just blocking IPs that have behaved poorly in the past, so I'd suggest you look for more reputable VPN providers that activ…

Could you provide some more advice (or links to advice) on this? I'd like to set up whole-house, always-on VPN, but I'm concerned about service quality issues, specifically blocking. (i.e. the wife will make me take it down if it adversely impacts her ability to watch Netflix or inconveniences her in any other way)

Re: UnblockOz: Helps Australians reclaim their unfiltered Internet access

#102

Post by redblacktree »

wil421 wrote: post #77
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, not yet then ... ah, you meant a legal slave using nation ...

Article is about Australia yet people still have to take jabs at the US. I'm not really sure what you mean anyway.

Probably talking about things like this: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/prison-...

Re: UnblockOz: Helps Australians reclaim their unfiltered Internet access

#103

Post by redblacktree »

sspiff wrote: post #45
Insanity wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a similar situation here in Belgium in terms of blocking the pirating websites. I can not just access tpb as I get a warning that the site is "illegal" and I should not use it. The thing is that they do not block every domain from which people can torrent and there are plenty of mirrors to choose from. I agree that it will get more people to use a VPN. But that is, more _tech savvy_ people. I know quite a few…

Doesn't using a VPN make you liable in two jurisdictions instead of just one? (The exit point of the tunnel, and the location where you are actually connecting to the VPN) I understand that it is technically more challenging to detect and prove the user is participating in privacy or whatever it is that they're using a VPN for, but really it's just a matter of applying pressure to the VPN provider to cough up any det…

> participating in privacy

Ironic typo.

Re: UnblockOz: Helps Australians reclaim their unfiltered Internet access

#104

Post by mmjaa »

cylinder wrote: post #89
mmjaa wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australians simply don't care about this shit. They've lived in an industrialised colony, with all its rewards, for too long - as long as they're still able to live the good life, who cares what the government gets up to .. Its a shame, because Australia has, in many ways, a culture that could produce great things. But its still ham-strung by its dependence on colonialist thinking in the halls of power.

Australia survived and prospered due to government. It's the only way a million people on a giant remote continent could. What is the opposite of "colonialist thinking" anyways? American sociopathy?

Why do things have to be opposite? Dialectic Materialism, another thing Australia "is good at"?

Re: UnblockOz: Helps Australians reclaim their unfiltered Internet access

#105

Post by mmjaa »

watbe wrote: post #75
vacri wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by 'colonialist thinking'?

Only a guess, but I think it means "the government knows what is best for its citizens".

Yes, I do believe in this. I strongly abhor the influence that the Australian government has on its citizens live; it cannot be denied that it enables a great body of people to live, and get along, but it must be understood that it was not without some truly human costs. Governments must be weighed by the integrity of their impact on the species; not just the sovereign, individual, citizens they have/have-not yet divided into appropriately allocated lots.

Re: UnblockOz: Helps Australians reclaim their unfiltered Internet access

#106

Post by mmjaa »

ue_ wrote: post #80
watbe wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only a guess, but I think it means "the government knows what is best for its citizens".

That is hardly unique to Australia. Britain, Canada, NZ all have no problem at all with censorship, so much that they will even censor fiction. These countries, one of whuch I am a citizen of, have not a single strand of libertarianism in government nor populace, and it's a shame.

Why must it be unique to Australia? It is a land in reflection of a great many other cultures, after all. You could find many ways to prototype social engineering in such a controlled environment.. so the argument of identity is moot, imhso.

Re: UnblockOz: Helps Australians reclaim their unfiltered Internet access

#107

Post by mmjaa »

ggame wrote: post #96
wycx wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Others would disagree that libertarianism is absent, and that its absence is a shame, e.g. [1]. Indeed, they say that the influence of libertarianism is responsible for some of Australia's governmental problems, most conspicuously on display this past week. [1] https://www.crikey.com.au/2016/06/01/rundle-the-liberal-part...

Liberals are not very libertarian; especially under Malcolm Turnbull. There is a small strand of libertarianism and that's the Liberal Democratic Party. Australia has an unsustainable property bubble that has made a large chunk of the middle class very wealthy. This has shifted the culture from self reliance to 'don't rock the boat.' This alone is an anti-innovation tragedy. The bubble will pop eventually and the tax…

You nailed the entitled thing. I'm a born and bred sand groper .. So .. After quite some time abroad, getting to know the species, my sojourns back home to Australia led me to truly cringe at just how entitled folks are, down under. It was a bit humbling to have been driven off the edge of the continent by the culture, even though the land itself pulled me with much gravity, wave by dune by storm ..

Re: UnblockOz: Helps Australians reclaim their unfiltered Internet access

#108

Post by LeifCarrotson »

mmjaa wrote: post #63
gravelc wrote: post #47

Much, much more frightening than website blocking in Australia is this: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-05/telco-industry-pushes-... Our esteemed government told us universal metadata collection was for fighting terrorism. Then, over the Christmas period when the public is disconnected from politics, a sham enquiry was held to open up metadata to civil courts (i.e. for copyright, divorce cases etc). Needs a bit mo…

Australians simply don't care about this shit. They've lived in an industrialised colony, with all its rewards, for too long - as long as they're still able to live the good life, who cares what the government gets up to .. Its a shame, because Australia has, in many ways, a culture that could produce great things. But its still ham-strung by its dependence on colonialist thinking in the halls of power.

How does being a colony affect this? Or in what way does the meaning change versus a switch of "colony" for "country" and "colonialist" for "politicians"?

Re: UnblockOz: Helps Australians reclaim their unfiltered Internet access

#109

Post by LeifCarrotson »

lsh wrote: post #94
Untit1ed wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that some sites will block you if using a VPN :(.

And that Cloudfront appears to hate and block those using VPN services.

Cloudfront doesn't hate VPNs.

Cloudfront customers hate the users who use automated tools to perform click fraud, post fake comments and reviews, send spam, attempt vulnerability scanning, and try to brute-force logins. These malicious users overwhelmingly use VPNs, Tor, and botnets to perform these actions; few use their own connections. Legitimate users overwhelmingly do not use VPNs or Tor. Do you see what's about to happen?

Cloudflare customers want their CDN to block these malicious actors, and Cloudflare can easily identify Tor and VPN providers. Cloudflare adds a captcha, which is intensely annoying to legitimate users, but debilitating to automated users. The vast majority of users are unaffected, and customers are happy, but the few legitimate people using Tor and VPNs conclude that Cloudflare hates them.

Re: UnblockOz: Helps Australians reclaim their unfiltered Internet access

#110

Post by rqebmm »

redblacktree wrote: post #101
rqebmm wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full Disclosure: I work for a private VPN company This depends on the VPN provider. Private VPN services share IPs between customers, and the extra layer of privacy they provide comes with high potential for abuse. Some providers care more about preventing fraud than others. Cloudfront is likely just blocking IPs that have behaved poorly in the past, so I'd suggest you look for more reputable VPN providers that activ…

Could you provide some more advice (or links to advice) on this? I'd like to set up whole-house, always-on VPN, but I'm concerned about service quality issues, specifically blocking. (i.e. the wife will make me take it down if it adversely impacts her ability to watch Netflix or inconveniences her in any other way)

Sure! Our company has been working on a "whole-house, always-on" product for a while, but it hasn't taken off because of the difficulties involved with having users flash Tomato onto their routers. I'm guessing HN readers are a bit more comfortable with that :).

https://www.goldenfrog.com/vyprvpn/vpn-router

Post reply on HN