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EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

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Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#61

Post by JoshTriplett »

rufasterisco wrote: post #29
SilverElfin wrote: post #4

Ugh. Here we go again. Europe’s politicians just cannot stop with wanting to control everyone and everything. It’s as if bureaucracy is the actual goal. Privacy and anonymity should be protected by law. Not violated by law.

EU enshrined privacy in its charter of fundamental rights. GDPR was and still is a major protection. US, from its biggest companies to the whole of Silicon Valley culture has done the exact opposite. Within the EU, multiple attempts at pushing changes in opposition to this have been proposed, debated, voted on (and rejected), as democracies do. Not perfect, but when you come down to laws, EU bureaucrats gave EU citiz…

> Within the EU, multiple attempts at pushing changes in opposition to this have been proposed, debated, voted on (and rejected), as democracies do.

If 51% of people want to do something wrong, they should do it to themselves and leave the other 49% alone. Democracy is not an excuse for doing the wrong thing and going "oh well, guess people want it".

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#63

Post by jackjeff »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #30

Here we go again with new restrictions on civil liberties. This is Chat Control all over again. The EU won't stop until it has access to all your data, all your messages, anything you read, save, send will be scrutinized by the the big great EU and it's little minions. Hey, at least we get the freedom of movement right?

Too easy to dunk on the EU. The UK, USA and Australia seem to have reached the same conclusions. In UK all young males now have a VPN rather than do whatever you’re supposed to do to see porn. VPNs went from “nerd talk” to “vpn=porn” in the space of weeks. Whatever is next will suffer a similar fate.

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#64

Post by applfanboysbgon »

microtonal wrote: post #56
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is folly. You cannot communicate this level of nuance at scale, especially when faced with opposition that actively lies to achieve their goals. Quoting an older post... > In a benevolent dictatorship, sure, go for a zero-knowledge proof verification as your solution. In the reality of democracy, where politicians are corporate puppets who cloak surveillance laws in "think of the children" to rally suppo…

In a benevolent dictatorship, sure, go for a zero-knowledge proof verification as your solution. In the reality of democracy, where politicians are corporate puppets who cloak surveillance laws in "think of the children" to rally support from the masses I do not (completely) agree with this. This seems like the very typical US-centric view of politics. A lot of members of the European Parliament are not corporate pup…

> We do not have to convince the population. We have to convince regulators and if it becomes necessary the EU/national-level courts that handle human rights violations.

Without the population on your side, it's some insignificant minority's words vs. corporation's power determining where the lines get drawn by regulators. The people can put a leash on politicians who cave too hard to corporations by voting them out of office, but if they don't even understand the issue and have been conditioned to accept age verification, that will never happen.

> One of the large issues though is that the reference implementation relies on Google Play Integrity for device attestation (+ the iOS counterpart)

I am confused as to why you suggest my view is US-centric, and then go on to acknowledge that the EU is currently in the midst of rolling out regulation that de facto enshrines the Google+Apple duopoly in law. The EU bureacracy seems to be just as captured by corporate interests as the US. At times, they put up a token protest against Apple/Google, but generally only insofar as to promote competing European corporate interests where applicable. The EU would certainly prefer to serve European corporations over American ones, but the European people don't seem to factor into the equation at any point.

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#65

Post by Jtarii »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #61
rufasterisco wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU enshrined privacy in its charter of fundamental rights. GDPR was and still is a major protection. US, from its biggest companies to the whole of Silicon Valley culture has done the exact opposite. Within the EU, multiple attempts at pushing changes in opposition to this have been proposed, debated, voted on (and rejected), as democracies do. Not perfect, but when you come down to laws, EU bureaucrats gave EU citiz…

> Within the EU, multiple attempts at pushing changes in opposition to this have been proposed, debated, voted on (and rejected), as democracies do. If 51% of people want to do something wrong, they should do it to themselves and leave the other 49% alone. Democracy is not an excuse for doing the wrong thing and going "oh well, guess people want it".

70% is a more likely figure

https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/britons-back-online-safety-acts-...

>Almost seven in ten (69%) support age verification checks on platforms that may host content related to suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, and pornography.

Sometimes the majority is going to make a decision that you do not like, oh well, that is the cost of living in a democracy. People in "terminally online" spaces like HN vastly underestimate the popularity of these laws.

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#66

Post by Joel_Mckay »

Sounds more like they should have sand-boxed white-listed school networks for known publishers in each age group.

Then leave the rest of the world out of domestic failed parenting nonsense. However, policy would still likely fail given the cruelty youthful ignorance often brings, and persistent 1:100 child psychopath occurrence rates. =3

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#67

Post by eowln »

oytis wrote: post #55
qnpnpmqppnp wrote: post #19

This title seems misleading. The EP paper appears to be highlighting the existence of a debate regarding VPN. Relevant quote: "Some argue that this is a loophole in the legislation that needs closing and call for age verification to be required for VPNs as well. In response, some VPN providers argue that they do not share information with third parties and state that their services are not intended for use by childre…

These dimwits (and I don't just mean those in EU) seriously want to stop adolescents from watching porn, and are ready to mess with internet infrastructure for that. That's a depressing manifestation of aging society

Practically all the ills we suffer currently are depressing manifestations of an aging society.

That, and the lack of real issues to solve.

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#68

Post by hnlmorg »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #53
reddalo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, age verification on the web should 100% banned. Parents should learn how to be parents; the government shouldn't force companies to do parenting instead.

So you're implying alcohol and cigarettes should be sold to children? (Not to mention all the other consent age laws.) That said, VPN is a national security issue, children are only a pretext.

Children have always found ways to access age restricted consumables. Whether that was porno mags, alcohol or cigarettes.

They’d just get an older sibling, or stranger to buy it. Or they’d have a fake ID. Or they’d just steal it from a family member.

But you know which kids did this the least? It was the ones where their parents / guardians took their responsibilities as a guardian properly.

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#69

Post by rufasterisco »

thunderbong wrote: post #40

I have a question that's been going through my mind - Why is age verification connected with identity verification? I understand why the former is not possible with the latter, but my question is - Whichever entity is responsible for the verification can just pass on the age verification confirmation without passing through any of the other details, right? Am I mistaken here? Because if this was possible, I could sti…

From a tech perspective it has been a solved problem since about a decade ago, via DID (decentralised identities) and their Verifiable Proofs.

The EU digital wallet framework is built around those, and your suggested scenario is a first class citizen.

It is now moving from the academic/research world, to the political field, and feedback/pressure from both commercial groups and political agendas is muddling the field.

Here are some links to canonical docs, you can easily find high quality videos that explain this is shorter/simpler terms to get a grasp of it.

https://www.w3.org/TR/did-1.0/

https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model-2.0/

A note: it’s one of the healthy byproducts of the blockchain age, don’t get sidetracked by some hyped videos from crypto bros.

Re: EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing"

#70

Post by applfanboysbgon »

Jtarii wrote: post #59
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is folly. You cannot communicate this level of nuance at scale, especially when faced with opposition that actively lies to achieve their goals. Quoting an older post... > In a benevolent dictatorship, sure, go for a zero-knowledge proof verification as your solution. In the reality of democracy, where politicians are corporate puppets who cloak surveillance laws in "think of the children" to rally suppo…

>In the reality of democracy, where politicians are corporate puppets who cloak surveillance laws in "think of the children" to rally support from the masses Conspiratorial gibberish

Are you seriously blind? Do you genuinely believe politicians don't legislate in ways that benefit corporations over individuals? Or do you genuinely believe the sudden worldwide push across dozens of countries to surveil all internet access, prevent VPN usage, and lock down devices at the OS level is the result of an organic, grassroots desire to protect children no matter the cost?
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