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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"

#241

Post by bigstrat2003 »

danaris wrote: post #133
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/...

That's absolutely ridiculous. Porn addiction is 100% a real thing. You can't hand wave it away by saying "porn is actually ok, the problem is just that they believe it is bad so they feel shame".

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

#242

Post by messe »

Aerroon wrote: post #217
messe wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely what inconvenience does it actually cause those businesses?

Your personal info becomes public because it's attached to the business information. This can include phone numbers, emails, full names, home addresses etc. All accessible online by anyone, including spammers, scammers, swatters etc.

Yes... if you want to do business with people, then those people want to know who they do business with.

What a fucking tragedy.

I'm sorry you have to live in such a socialist hellscape.

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

#243

Post by rsynnott »

Terrible headline. The EPRS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliamentary_Researc...) said a thing, not the EU.

Also, the EPRS did not argue that they are a loophole that needs closing.

From the actual paper:

> 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 children in the first place.

The "some argue" is a link; it turns out that 'some' here is the Children's Commissioner for England, a post with, AIUI, only an advisory role in the UK, and obviously not even that in the EU.

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

#244

Post by rsynnott »

padjo wrote: post #169

So a research arm of the European parliament is "the EU" now?

They also didn't say it was a loophole that needs closing; they just pointed out that the Children's Commissioner for England said that...

Reporting on the EU tends to be quite bad, because people often don't really understand what it is or how it works (in particular there's a tendency to conflate what the commission wants to do with EU policy), but this is unusually careless reporting.

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

#245

Post by rsynnott »

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…

Which legislators? No legislators are involved anywhere here. This is an advisory body quoting a foreign advisory body.

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

#246

Post by esseph »

sensanaty wrote: post #214
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What does national security even mean anymore? People are using this term for basically everything these days, as if saying "national security" is somehow a justification on its own. What "national security" implications are there with VPNs?

> What "national security" implications are there with VPNs?

Clearly, Big Government can't see what you or your company are doing and that's a problem for them.

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

#247

Post by 0-_-0 »

darqis wrote: post #232
u8080 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a recap how it happened in Russia: 1. First, year ~2015 legal framework was created under disguise of banning pirated media(specifically torrents.ru)(legislative push). State-wide DNS ban introduced. Very easy to circumvent via quering 8.8.8.8 2. Then, having legal basis, govt included extra stuff in banned list(casinos, terrorist orgs, etc)(executive push). IP bans introduced, applied very carefully. 3. Legal e…

and yet my friend in Moscow is able to use VPN to get around all this

How about next year?

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

#248

Post by sandmn »

darqis wrote: post #232
u8080 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a recap how it happened in Russia: 1. First, year ~2015 legal framework was created under disguise of banning pirated media(specifically torrents.ru)(legislative push). State-wide DNS ban introduced. Very easy to circumvent via quering 8.8.8.8 2. Then, having legal basis, govt included extra stuff in banned list(casinos, terrorist orgs, etc)(executive push). IP bans introduced, applied very carefully. 3. Legal e…

and yet my friend in Moscow is able to use VPN to get around all this

It's cat and mouse game, VPN providers have to constantly update their protocol after being blocked by DPI.

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

#249

Post by u8080 »

darqis wrote: post #232
u8080 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a recap how it happened in Russia: 1. First, year ~2015 legal framework was created under disguise of banning pirated media(specifically torrents.ru)(legislative push). State-wide DNS ban introduced. Very easy to circumvent via quering 8.8.8.8 2. Then, having legal basis, govt included extra stuff in banned list(casinos, terrorist orgs, etc)(executive push). IP bans introduced, applied very carefully. 3. Legal e…

and yet my friend in Moscow is able to use VPN to get around all this

Yes, indeed, it is still possible. Right now RKN introducing new DPI capabilities at TSPU(govt filtering hw/sw stack mandated at ISP) - proactive host probing/scanning and mandate for russian services to check and report VPN users hosts. I.e. you use e-shop app and it will report you Nehterlands VPS IP if detected, including split-tunneling tricks)

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

#250

Post by ckjellqv »

JCattheATM wrote: post #228
ckjellqv wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is arguably much worse Surely someone claiming it's arguable should be willing to make that argument. For me it's not that it's reproduction. Film that shows sex is not an issue as I see it and I don't know anyone that has developed serious addictions to sex in Hollywood film. However I know several people, family members included, that have absolutely obliterated their childhoods and early adult years by beco…

Sounds like the people you describe were outliers with some preexisting conditions, and probably shouldn't be used as any sort of baseline or point of comparison.

I wouldn't think that since people who don't suffer from these issues outnumber those who do suffer, that makes this not a real issue. Consider the victims of opiate addiction, alcoholism, or sex trafficking. Are those situations so fundamentally different? How many people does one have to know with tragic childhoods for it to be a problem that people take seriously?
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