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Yes, governments really did want to force us to use HTTPS with only broken/weak crypto.
Same propaganda, different buzzwords.
Can’t count how often I‘ve heard otherwise technologically literate people saying how they use a VPN (NordVPN e.a.) because „something something security“.
Oh look, someone's conflating business VPNs and consumer VPNs again. This time to legitimize consumer VPNs.
The cited laws propose to ban pornography for minors, and ban VPNs that hide geolocation and their use in accessing pornography. Nothing to do with businesses using private VPNs to encrypt employee traffic.
>Vulnerable people rely on VPNs for safety. Domestic abuse survivors use VPNs to hide their location from their abusers.
Woah, maybe VPNs have some uses I haven't considered, let's take a look at the linked article.
>Use a virtual private network (VPN) to remain anonymous while browsing the internet, signing a new lease or applying for a new home loan. This will also keep your location anonymous from anyone who has gained access to or infiltrated your device.
I think the loan thing is rubbish I don't get it, and it's unaffected by the law. But the idea of installing a VPN in case the device is compromised might make sense, if the device is compromised it might still be trackable, especially while downloading the VPN, but maybe if it connects at startup, and the RAT isn't configured to bypass the VPN bridge, it might work.
Quite a stretch if you ask me. And again, not relevant to adult sites blocking VPNs.
The rest of the example are the usual "people use it to evade the government and regulations but it can be THE BAD GOVERNMENt AND REGULAtiONS"
Why ban VPNs when you can freely force social networks like HN to tie nickname registration to an state issued digital ID certificate to guarantee freedom of speech and legal accountability? https://old.reddit.com/r/XGramatikInsights/comments/1ovd88s/...
Considering that most crimes require people to be physically present at the crime scene, it also doesn't seem to be a functioning deterrent at all in the real world.
Most of the bad behaviour is concentrated in "seedy" places, where you usually have to go out of your way to interact with that place. A real name policy doesn't change the nature of the place at all.
If anything, the places that would be most affected are the ones where people are roleplaying or pretending to be something other than "themselves". E.g. gay or transgender people, furries, MMO/MUD/MUSH players, streamers, etc which overall seem to be exceedingly harmless.
There is also the blatantly obvious problem that this only works on people who are risk averse to begin with. So it will basically have no effect on actual perpetrators, who see some risk vs reward tradeoff for their bad behaviour.
>So when Wisconsin demands that websites "block VPN users from Wisconsin," they're asking for something that's technically impossible. Websites have no way to tell if a VPN connection is coming from Milwaukee, Michigan, or Mumbai. The technology just doesn't work that way. https://youtu.be/Pr4v725LPOE?si=ih3gfTSpiHumtrFs&t=79 "That's not how apps work" "Then make it work you think we are stupid but we are not, we kno…
The website (which is the party these obligations are being placed on) could geolocate the VPN IP, but that wouldn't tell them where the user is actually from.
These laws aren’t meant to be followed. Their text is deliberately vague, and their demands are impossible by design. They aren't foolish, or at least their ignorance isn't needed to explain the system's broader function. They are meant to serve as a Chekhov's gun that may or may not fire over your head, depending solely on whether the people holding it decide like you.
In peaceful times, they fade into the background, surfacing only when it’s convenient to blackmail some company for cash or favors. In times of crisis, they declare a never-ending war on extremism, sin, and treason, fought against an inexhaustible supply of targets to take down in front of their higher‑ups, farming promotions, contracts for DPI software, and jobs updating its filters.
Historically, such controls were limited by the motivation and competence of the arms dealers, usually taking the form of DNS or IP blocks easily bypassed with proxies. With modern DPI, it's entire protocols going dark. Even so, those able to learn easily find a way around them. The people who suffer most are seniors, unable even to call family across the border without a neighbor's help, and their relatives forced into using least trustworthy messengers (such as Botim, from the creators of ToTok, a known UAE intel operation [0]) thinking they're the only way to stay in touch, not knowing how or wanting to use mainstream IM over a VPNs that may or may not live another month.
If wherever you are your votes still matter, please fight this nonsense. Make no mistake, your enemies are still more ridiculous than Voltaire could hope they'd be, but organizing against or simply living through a regime constantly chewing on the internet's wires is going to be a significantly greater inconvenience than taking _real_ action now.
Lawmakers in general have less than one percent knowledge on what they make laws on. I look forward to them all logging in remotely after the ban. The key change is needed with things such as meshtastic and lora. Taking things out of the hands of regulators is key
The bill reads like you would think from someone who's been talking with the ceo of an age verification company. The bill gives the website two options: use a _commercial_ age verification product tied to gov't id checking, or "digitize" the web user's gov't id.
I'm reminded of efforts in the 1990s to ban strong encryption in email and websites because governments tried to tell us it was used by drug dealers and pedos to do their nefarious activities. Yes, governments really did want to force us to use HTTPS with only broken/weak crypto. Same propaganda, different buzzwords.
It's funny how democratic countries copy whatever laws authoritarian regimes passed, but with a 5-year lag.