It is only a matter of time before they attempt to regulate VPN usage. Here is an article written by a British MP hinting at that: https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/onli...
> Sarah Champion is Labour MP for Rotherham. Seriously? You can't make this up: she represents the town that did nothing about a massive (and completely offline) child grooming and molestation network for years and she has the gall to say, "think of the children on the Internet"?
VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in
131–140 of 1001 posts
Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in
#132Basically every new law, piece of news or media I see coming from the UK paints a picture of a beat-down, cynical & scared society that's complacent to or in support of increasing surveillance and control by the government. Like maybe Adolescence or basically any mention of the NHS. The crimes they cite like child grooming or terrorism/hate being incited sound pretty terrible too, but I wonder why the UK specifically…
In a word, division. The UK is so divided that people are too busy pointing the finger at each other to realise the root cause of the deterioration of our quality of life is entirely generations of mismanagement of the public purse. Instead of questioning how MPs are entitled to a pay rise while your average person gets made redundant, people are questioning why people fleeing persecution should ‘be paid for with my…
Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are approaching this from a uniquely U.S. perspective. The U.K. is pretty middle of the road as far as “surveillance” and while this may offend the freedom-at-all-costs sensibilities, it’s a fairly milquetoast change. Visiting the Heineken website in the U.S. requires that you assert you are over the age of 21. Texas has instituted I.D. verification for pornography. Regardless of how you feel about this law, it i…
It his law combined with all the other iffy laws in the UK which make this nefarious. This is the issue about discussing anything about how draconian the UK is. If you compare any single law in isolation, it isn't that different. However if you take how the British authorities and how they operate it, and all the other laws you start to see a more draconian picture. That is what many people, especially those that do…
From a U.S. internet libertarian freedom-at-all-costs perspective, sure, it’s a draconian nightmare, but for normal people from the U.K. or any other country, it’s barely a blip on their radar.
The U.K. is a flawed place going to hell in a hand basket that many U.K. citizens have strong opinions on but outside of us, the freedom loving nerds on the internet, this identity verification law is not a part of the conversation. “Draconian” and “authoritarian” aren’t in the vocabulary of most U.K. citizens. They’re far more concerned about immigration and the economy.
The long-standing “the U.K. has the most cctv cameras per person” meme is further evidence of this. A well-loved fact carted out by freedom-loving anti-surveillance types… that the mainstream of the U.K. could not care less about.
Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Bourgeois love to divide the working class, typical divide and conquer. Indigenous worker vs imported worker, men vs women, queer vs straight, old vs young, car user vs bicycle rider. This is important because it weakens existing solidarities and prevent the emergence of class consciousness. It's part of their modus operandi and has been for centuries, only now they master it thanks to algorithms and machine lear…
This view (“the Bourgeois’, etc.) seems to imply there’s a group of very clever manipulators somewhere, overtly planning and executing this (presumably in a dark room with armchairs and cigars). But I just can’t imagine this, in the UK’s example. What I see instead is the other side of Hanlon’s razor —incompetence— coupled with a political class riven with pockets of self-interest, and very few seemingly with an inte…
If you read any history about any daring military action during WW2, a lot of it was done by men thinking up of stuff in dark rooms while smoking cigars. Why is this so unbelievable now?
BTW, The UK ran the world's largest empire and until recently this was in living memory.
> What I see instead is the other side of Hanlon’s razor —incompetence— coupled with a political class riven with pockets of self-interest, and very few seemingly with an intellectual hypothesis to explain the UK’s current predicament, or to chart a path out of it.
Hanlon's razor IMO is nonsense. It is honestly believe it was invented so people could explain away their malice.
Anyone who is relatively intelligent will work at out some point, that if they don't want to do something they can passively aggressively work against the authority while working withing the rules. My father (who builds luxury yachts and is near retirement) was telling me how he maliciously complies with various companies rules to make his superior's life more difficult, this is a way to get back at them for their poor planning.
Even if you accept that Hanlon's razor is mostly true. It cannot be applied when you are dealing with political actors. Political actors, the media and anything related are literally trying to manipulate you. In fact it is a good rule that whatever they tell you that it is, assume the opposite and that is typically true.
Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
It his law combined with all the other iffy laws in the UK which make this nefarious. This is the issue about discussing anything about how draconian the UK is. If you compare any single law in isolation, it isn't that different. However if you take how the British authorities and how they operate it, and all the other laws you start to see a more draconian picture. That is what many people, especially those that do…
I lived in the U.K. for decades and I have lived in many other countries. I’ll criticise the U.K. government and society endlessly but to describe these changes as notable or remarkable relative to most other countries is nonsense. From a U.S. internet libertarian freedom-at-all-costs perspective, sure, it’s a draconian nightmare, but for normal people from the U.K. or any other country, it’s barely a blip on their r…
I am English. I was born in England, my parents are English, my Grandparents were English, My Great Grandparents were English etc. etc.
I have lived my majority of my life here. So I am English.
You obviously didn't read what I said. I understand that it is nothing special in isolation. However I am not talking about it in isolation. I was talking about the entirety of how the current laws are constructed as well as how the UK state operates.
Also just because other countries have rubbish laws, doesn't mean we should have adopted similar ones.
> From a U.S. internet libertarian freedom-at-all-costs perspective, sure, it’s a draconian nightmare, but for normal people from the U.K. or any other country, it’s barely a blip on their radar.
Many people do not like this and are actively seeking work-arounds. These aren't uber nerds like myself BTW.
> The U.K. is a flawed place going to hell in a hand basket that many U.K. citizens have strong opinions on but outside of us, the freedom loving nerds on the internet, this identity verification law is not a part of the conversation.
So you admit there is a problem. But you then pretend that this can't possibly be part of the entire picture because you say so.
Sorry it very much well is part of the problem. You stating it isn't doesn't make it so.
Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in
#136The VPN trick potentially won’t last long. We’ve seen it go stale already in the world of intellectual property rights. For at least the last ten years Netflix et al have been well aware of which AS numbers / IP netblocks correspond to people sat at home in front of the TV, and which correspond to servers in a rack somewhere (including those hosting VPN endpoints.) One tweak to the rules and all of a sudden not only…
is TOR an answer to this ?
Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in
#137Destroy cultural integrity, national identity, create a low-trust society, become more authoritarian to manage low-trust society, import more immigrants at an exponential rate while house costs rise along with unemployment. The list keeps going. This is why far-right is surging on the polls. The country has completely lost all sense.
Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the media always paints other countries in certain lights, as it helps them build a narrative for their own governments? > complacent to or in support of increasing surveillance and control by the government I disagree with this sentiment, however it does show how bad "democracy" can be when voting for a complete government change results in absolutely no change whatsoever.
Authoritarian CCTV cameras in Shenzhen Vs democratic CCTV cameras in London
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-06-prevalence-cctv-cameras-...
Oh wait, Paris, NYC, SF, Tokyo have more cameras per sq. Km. Narrative.
Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
MPs pay is a drop in a bucket there are many better things to question than that.
It’s an example, it’s not a mutually exclusive situation. The point is that people are busy pointing the finger at each other instead of the people whom are paid to actually improve their lives.
Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
I left around the time of Brexit so I have no useful opinion on the recent financial/admin state of the UK, though it seems from afar that austerity has done the place no favours. But... - this kind of authoritarian nonsense is just what Home Secretaries do. David Blunkett brought in RIP (then, to his very slight credit, changed his mind). Jack 'boot' Straw was famous for his I-AM-THE-LAWing. I don't think the Tories…
- No, criticizing the NHS is not against the religion there. The newspapers are forever getting in digs about long waits, unpopular (but perfectly rational) decision from NICE about what drugs to pay for, and junior doctors and their apparent insistence on being paid properly. This is exactly what I'm saying. The NHS are seen as perfect by some. All criticism is digs that are wrong. I'm pro-NHS. But this perspective…
Often, when people criticize the NHS they have an ulterior motive, like privatisation. Consider all the political difficulties the NHS has had in the past few years. As such, negative remarks can be read or misread as dogwhistles for other views, so they're something that have to be phrased carefully and within context.
I was unclear: did you publish a book, or did your sister?
In general, for something both as key and as endangered as the NHS is, criticism isn't always useful -- support is. Problems can be recognised and addressed through support.