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

VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

ft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

541–550 of 1001 posts

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#541

Post by tossandthrow »

gorgoiler wrote: post #63

The 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…

> One tweak to the rules and all of a sudden not only do porn sites have to verify the age of their UK visitors but also anyone connecting from something other than a residential ISP.

The UK does not have jurisdictional power over anything outside their country - they can not a foreign site to do age verification of foreign residents.

Now, the UK can say that they need to check for all UK residents, regardless of them using VPNs. But if there are no practical way to do this, I think the UK will have diplomatic issues enforcing anything to non UK companies breaking that laws - as they would need, eg. Germany, to help them enforcing the law on certain providers.

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#542

Post by jahewson »

areoform wrote: post #241
cs02rm0 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK is becoming increasingly authoritarian in ways that feel increasingly antagonistic to the majority of the population, regardless of political party. Taxes are rising (with tax take falling), crimes are going unchecked, just mentioning increased immigration gets a lot of people's backs up, but as GDP per capita continues to stall and even fall, the pressure it puts on services is a factor for many. And we're se…

> Taxes are rising (with tax take falling) > just mentioning increased immigration One of these seems like the solution to the other. > as long as those people leaving are straight, white males, or their families, they're being told "good riddance" regardless of the brain drain and loss of tax income Having UK work experience and having talked to thousands of british folks over a decade, I find this hard to believe.…

The difference between social media and traditional media is, roughly speaking, the absence of a centralised editor that has the ability to gatekeep the nation’s discourse. If that’s not authoritarian I’m not sure what is!

Social media is a forum for people to complain about the problems they face, if you don’t like that the solution is not to censor the messenger but to fix the problems.

As someone who grew up in the UK I can tell you that the elitist mindset of the UK is a huge part of their problem: only the elite are capable sophisticated right-think, all others are wrong-thinking simpletons and must be silenced for their own safety. The BBC is a huge part of the problem as it is inevitably pro-government but trades off a strong image of neutrality, to the extent that it regularly misleads the public and they lap it up.

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#543

Post by s1mplicissimus »

Retr0id wrote: post #290
tweetle_beetle wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sugar tax is a strange example to pick as an example of British decline. As of 2022, the WHO reported on SSB (sugar-sweetened beverages): > Currently, at least 85 countries implement some type of SBB taxation. It feels to me like this was a rare step in the opposite direction - recognising that industry is the driving cynical force and pushing back on its over reach where it has failed. Most manufacturers reformu…

In principle I support taxes that disincentivise production of negative externalities (in this case, adverse health effects). However the way this works out in practice is a reduction in consumer choice, one that I'm reminded of every time I walk into a shop. > Most manufacturers reformulated their drinks immediately This is the problem, really. Rather than adding new "low sugar" product lines, in most instances they…

> As someone who struggles to consume enough calories to stay healthy, this sucks! (Mostly unrelated to pricing, just as a matter of practicality)

Even without the price difference I have a hard time imagining how such an outcome would be necessary, maybe you can clarify?

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#544

Post by snickerbockers »

JFingleton wrote: post #456
Xelbair wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From tourist point of view UK felt to me like a police state, and I'm leaning more towards the former view. Cameras everywhere, non-stop reminders that you're being watched, being tracked everywhere(including which train car you're in now), constant reminders about possible dangerous bags being left alone etc. Tracking would feel helpful and useful, if not for constant oppressive reminders that "Bad Thing could happe…

I always thought a police state would demand identification at every street corner (perhaps I'm wrong?) and any minor breaking of the law being dealt with severe justice. The UK has always been against a "state ID" unlike a lot of European countries, so I'm not completely convinced the description of "police state" is accurate. In fact I think it's the opposite given people can freely break the law despite cameras be…

>The UK is basically an end-of-days advanced state: bureaucracy taken to the extreme, with a heavy dose of nanny-state "mind the gap" messaging.

Reminds me the latter three dune novels. Frank Herbert had this idea he was exploring about how the inevitable end-state of society is this sort of stalemate between opposing bureaucratic factions which have become optimized towards preventing their own destruction to the point that they aren't capable of doing anything other than prolonging their own existence.

It reminds me of the Republicans and the democrats in America which have become utterly unresponsive towards their own voterbases because they have already rigged the political system to prevent any viable competitors from displacing them but in general it seems like the whole of western civilization has reached this point over the last 50 years or so, because just about any country which is referred to as 'western' has a set of very obvious problems on the horizon with very obvious solutions being stalled by a ruling class which is concerned with maintaining its own existence at all costs even if it has to bring down the entire nation with it.

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#545

Post by systemstops »

areoform wrote: post #241
cs02rm0 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK is becoming increasingly authoritarian in ways that feel increasingly antagonistic to the majority of the population, regardless of political party. Taxes are rising (with tax take falling), crimes are going unchecked, just mentioning increased immigration gets a lot of people's backs up, but as GDP per capita continues to stall and even fall, the pressure it puts on services is a factor for many. And we're se…

> Taxes are rising (with tax take falling) > just mentioning increased immigration One of these seems like the solution to the other. > as long as those people leaving are straight, white males, or their families, they're being told "good riddance" regardless of the brain drain and loss of tax income Having UK work experience and having talked to thousands of british folks over a decade, I find this hard to believe.…

> I started working with folks from the UK right at the start when social media really took off, and I personally think that what ails the UK is the same as what ails the world. Too much social media.

There have been a number of public scandals regarding immigrant crimes, along with subsequent anti-immigrant riots started via social media and people being sent to jail for internet posts. Social media seems to be more of accelerant for social unrest than than the cause. For me (an outsider) observing the situation, it seems to be mainly caused by immigration.

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#546

Post by ivanjermakov »

gorgoiler wrote: post #63

The 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…

> but also anyone connecting from something other than a residential ISP

It's up to service provider to implement such involved checks. Not sure about e.g. Netflix allocating resources to implementing this, clearly resulting in customer loss.

I expect service providers to cut corners to both comply with local laws and not frighten customers away.

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#547

Post by zahllos »

iainmerrick wrote: post #364
TheDong wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the year of our lord 2025, don't use OpenVPN. Use wireguard.

Please give a bit more detail and justification when you give opinions like this. Otherwise it sounds like you’re saying everybody already knows which one is good and which one is bad -- but if everybody knew, you wouldn’t need to say anything, right?

I am not the original poster, but there are a few reasons to pick Wireguard.

Performance is better due to the in-kernel drivers, UDP design and crypto choices. If you're simply looking for the fastest option wireguard is it.

Openvpn's protocol is somewhat more janky than wireguard. It looks tls-like but then does its own transport thing. It has a lot of flexible options and ciphersuite choices meaning you could very well pick something less than ideal. The complexity of the code makes an undiscovered bug slightly more likely.

The downside of wireguard, mitigated by some VPN providers, is that it is UDP-only. You may find environments where you cannot tunnel out this way, even if you try to impersonate QUIC by running the remote port on 443. Mullvad has a udp-to-tcp proxy as part of their client and server to work around this.

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#548

Post by ivanjermakov »

baby_souffle wrote: post #518
e4325f wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't make any sense, it's in Netflix's interest to prevent this, but it's the opposite for porn sites.

Only a little bit of legislation would be needed to change incentives around though

How so?

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#549

Post by arrowsmith »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #458
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does immigration boost productivity? It's labor-saving automation and machinery investments that boost productivity. I would expect these to be driven mainly by labour scarcity. Growing the labour pool seems like it would drive exactly the opposite. As two examples, Japan has low immigration and an aging population and despite that its productivity has never been higher. By contrast Canada has had extremely high…

Increasing the input labor results in more production.

You're aware of the concept of "diminishing returns", right?

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#550

Post by wintermutestwin »

ionwake wrote: post #253

Just a reminder “Brexit” happened just a few years ago. Suddenly no British man can be more than 3 months in another European country before being “banned”. You can’t even move to Switzerland and setup a company. Yes technically it’s possible but I was told my a Swiss accountant “just don’t bother trying unless you can get a European passport - if you can” This is from personal experience. As odd as it sounds Brexit…

I am surprised that the housing markets in Spain and Portugal haven’t declined due to Brexit.
Post reply on HN