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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"

#131

Post by Roark66 »

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

Believe me, in some EU countries (like my country Poland) people are very sensitive for this kind of bullshit.

Last two times they tried to push other censorship/tracking laws (claiming as always "we have to, EU is making us") there were mass protests in every city and town.

In my own town of 5k people there were several hundred (500 people at least, probably more). And the previous govt backed down.

This topic seems to be coming back everytime certain countries (Denmark etc) hold the rotating EU presidency. Our current PM is certainly in the same EU clique that wants to push this so much, but it's an extremely unpopular position and he is already leading a weak minority coalition govt. It wouldn't take much to topple him, so he will not do anything like that (unless he is convicted people are distracted with some crisis, but that is where normal people come in. To keep watching what is being smuggled in).

I wonder why do voters in those countries that propose these laws tend to allow this to happen again and again.

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

#132

Post by pembrook »

Hikikomori wrote: post #117
pembrook wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if the government ID service has appropriate 2FA and security. You're kidding right?

These already exist in several eu countries. Imagine that there are governments that is not America and that actually work.

Just this year, France government ID system hacked: https://www.biometricupdate.com/202604/french-govt-confirms-...

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

#133

Post by danaris »

JV00 wrote: post #16

Perhaps these legislators are addicted to porn and don't want their children to do to themselves the same they have done. Would explain their obsession and relentlessness to get this done. It's just a pity they are destroying the internet while doing that. They should be attacking the companies making money from porn instead. And by the way porn can damage your mind even after 18 so age verification is not a real sol…

Porn addiction has been shown not to be a real thing.

People who believe they are addicted to porn view porn at approximately the same rate as other people: they just feel more guilty about it, due to being raised to believe that it is shameful.

One source on the topic: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-apes/202207/...

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

#134

Post by delusional »

nirui wrote: post #109

In case people no longer remember, when China started to require websites to register for a license before be allowed to operate, it was for "protecting the children" too. This simple policy then goes on to silence most individual publisher(/self-media) and consolidated the industry into the hands of the few, with no opportunity left for smaller entrepreneurs. This is arguably much worse than allowing children to wat…

> This is arguably much worse than allowing children to watch porn online, because this will for sure effect people's whole life in a negative way.

I would like you to make that argument.

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

#135

Post by pembrook »

drysine wrote: post #127
pembrook wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if the government ID service has appropriate 2FA and security. You're kidding right?

Why? In Russia we have gosuslugi.ru (state services), which nowadays requires 2FA and hasn't been compromised in any major way so far. Among other things they provide a way for a third party to use it as identification service and a user chooses which data about himself he wants to share. No anonymity, though, and I don't see how it can be implemented so that the verification provider doesn't know which service is re…

You seriously think Russia's state services are not compromised by intelligence?

Also, yea, no anonymity is the problem. Why would you want your government to be able to track every single website you've ever visited -- especially considering we're talking about an autocratic regime?

I'm astonished at the naivety on display on a community called "Hacker news."

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

#136

Post by codedokode »

rswail wrote: post #99

Governments already have everyone's ID, including DOB. They say that the problem is non-adults accessing adult sites and services. So therefore, the sites need to know that users are over 18 (or the selected government age). There should be a standardized government ID service/API that allows a person to let it disclose their age (or other user selected information) to a requesting site/service. That's all that is ne…

No. You seem to not understand how government works. It will never be anonymized so it's an awful idea, you basically suggest to link accounts to a passport.

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

#138

Post by jasonvorhe »

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

You don't really believe this is about porn?

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

#139

Post by dmantis »

palata wrote: post #92
cess11 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really about kids looking at porn, it's about tracking everyone else and making it easier for state surveillance and corporations to identify people. Kids don't have money and hardly ever manage to do crime without getting caught so they're profoundly uninteresting to surveil in this way, but adults are and here the interests of the state and corporations converge so they'll make a push for tyranny. But how…

If you think that there is a need for new technology to identify people, I suggest you wake up and start getting informed about surveillance capitalism. There is absolutely no need for new technology to track people, it's there already. Also I feel like a big reason for age verification is social media. Many countries are trying to prevent kids from accessing social media (because we know it's bad for them), and age…

People who are actually interesting, are often aware of that fact and avoid surveillance at the moment. You can use tor/i2p, proper VPN setups, VMs, alternative mobile ROMs and other tech and cut most of the fingerprints, trackers and identification. Pretty sure the trash from state agencies doesn't like that.

But the current push from all sides to provide id for everything and remote attestation through Google and apple will make the alternatives very hard to use as it basically cuts such people from the economy altogether.

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