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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"

#451

Post by Squarex »

kennykartman wrote: post #436
Squarex wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure that the problem of current EU is not lack of excesive taxation.

I don't think that from my comment anyone can infer that I'm opposed to reducing general taxation. I'm, in fact, in favor in increasing taxes for who owns too much, not against reducing taxes to population with lower income.

Still, more tax burden for companies won’t make eu more competitive against the rest of the world. We need to dramatically cut down all the regulations, have a true one market, open capital market. I am still very much pro EU, but it needs to be reformed.

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

#452

Post by rufasterisco »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #316
rufasterisco wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for clearly stating that democracy is not a value for you, instead of dancing around the concept with semantics. I completely disagree with you, but at least we clearly know why.

Democracy is a useful tool for giving people a voice in their government; there are certainly much worse alternatives. But it can't be the only tool, or you end up with two wolves and a lamb voting about what's for dinner. Some things are too important to violate just because 60% of people are afraid.

> Some things are too important to violate just because 60% of people are afraid.

We need to avoid this becoming "60% of people should be stopped because 40% disagrees with them". Alas, constitutions have the purpose of defending core values. Separation of powers lets judges strike down gov bills and laws.

We have check and balances. Diverging from them as an emergency measure for the "right" reason only makes it exploitable after the next election, if parties swap.

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

#453

Post by kennykartman »

tistoon wrote: post #447
kennykartman wrote: post #271

If any EU government people are reading this, I'd like to send you a short message: Please stop thinking about the kids on the internet. But here's a brief list of things you must work on with higher urgency: - taxing more large corporations, - taxing more ultra-rich people, - funding EU-made (open source) tech and infrastructure, - let parents spend more time with their kids so they can actually protect their offspr…

This! More taxes and - yes - more state-controlled tech! Wait. Why stop there? Let’s just bring back the SED and the Stasi too. Also, prevent people (the rich? yeah!) leaving Europe too with big walls [1]! I love your ideas comrade! LOL. Seriously, you should read more history books (and read it to your kiddos while you're at it, please). Peace. [1] German men must ask the army for permission to leave country - https…

Ah, sorry if "parents spending more time with their kids" is a too extreme and communist view.

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

#454

Post by palata »

cess11 wrote: post #442
palata wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My argument is: it is possible to do privacy-preserving age verification, and that technology is already deployed (look at Privacy Pass). We should acknowledge that and stop claiming that the age verification issue is the same as the E2EE one, because it is NOT. And then we could maybe have a constructive debate about whether or not we as a society want that technology. That would be more interesting than "if I keep…

You're still just stating your opinions. What do you mean by "it is possible"? Are you sure there are states that are privacy respecting enough to actually be able to, or have all the relevant states broken down walls between government agencies that would shield citizens from secret surveillance and registers?

> You're still just stating your opinions.

No, I'm talking about cryptography. That is, maths.

When I say that it is possible to encrypt a message in a way that only the receiver can read it, and the server relaying it cannot, it is not an opinion. I am stating a fact. Zero knowledge proofs are maths, too.

> What do you mean by "it is possible"?

I mean that there are maths that do exist that enable it. There is code that is already written that does it every day. It does exist.

But nobody can be arsed to spend a few minutes getting informed before complaining. It's not just cryptography: people who are very vocal against 5G usually believe that "it boils your blood" or some variant of it, people who are very vocal against vaccination usually have absolutely no idea how it works, that's just how it is. It is frustrating, I guess I just have to accept it.

Saying "it's not possible to do age verification in a privacy-preserving manner" is like saying "it's not possible to deploy 5G in a way that doesn't burn people": it is at best uninformed, possibly just manipulative. Sure, it's possible to burn someone with a strong enough radio signal. But the fact remains that it is possible to deploy 5G in a way that does not burn people, and 5G is nothing special in that regard (it's just "electromagnetic waves", which is a well-known physics concept).

There would be a sane debate to have around 5G (e.g. ultra-consumerism or whatever), but I have never, EVER heard it. The 5G debate is "uninformed people claiming it boils your blood" versus people who find it useful and rightly don't believe the bullshit claims of the first group.

The age verification debate is "uninformed people claiming that it is impossible" versus people who find it useful, and can rightly dismiss the claims of the first group, because really, it is possible.

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

#455

Post by kennykartman »

Squarex wrote: post #451
kennykartman wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that from my comment anyone can infer that I'm opposed to reducing general taxation. I'm, in fact, in favor in increasing taxes for who owns too much, not against reducing taxes to population with lower income.

Still, more tax burden for companies won’t make eu more competitive against the rest of the world. We need to dramatically cut down all the regulations, have a true one market, open capital market. I am still very much pro EU, but it needs to be reformed.

Honestly, I don't think the EU problem is taxation. Really, there's a long list of things that have higher precedence over that, for example, not being so immigration-adverse.

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

#456

Post by Squarex »

kennykartman wrote: post #455
Squarex wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, more tax burden for companies won’t make eu more competitive against the rest of the world. We need to dramatically cut down all the regulations, have a true one market, open capital market. I am still very much pro EU, but it needs to be reformed.

Honestly, I don't think the EU problem is taxation. Really, there's a long list of things that have higher precedence over that, for example, not being so immigration-adverse.

I don’t know where you live, but generally EU’s governments are much more in support of migration than their citizens. The big corporations want that cheap labour and they won’t pay the secondary cost.

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

#458

Post by Insimwytim »

comonoid wrote: post #358
darqis wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"If you are not in prison yet, it is not your merit, but our failure." -- attributed to Felix Dzerzhinsky. Upd: are they able to use VPN when the Internet is in so-called "white-list mode" where only certain websites are available?

> attributed to Felix Dzerzhinsky

You can attribute it to George Washington or Louis XIV with the same level of verifiability/veracity.

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

#459

Post by joe_mamba »

rayiner wrote: post #437
joe_mamba wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After how many levels detached from the general population, does the vote stop being democratic?

It doesn’t stop being democratic. It’s just a scale from more to less democratic. America’s founding fathers were skeptical of democracy, so they provided for the president to be elected by the Electoral College, which was originally appointed by state legislatures. It’s still “democratic”—just less so than a direct election.

American people went to the polls to vote(or not) for Trump, Europeans didn't go to the polls to vote for Cenzura. Kind of a big difference on the democracy scale.

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

#460

Post by cess11 »

palata wrote: post #454
cess11 wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're still just stating your opinions. What do you mean by "it is possible"? Are you sure there are states that are privacy respecting enough to actually be able to, or have all the relevant states broken down walls between government agencies that would shield citizens from secret surveillance and registers?

> You're still just stating your opinions. No, I'm talking about cryptography. That is, maths. When I say that it is possible to encrypt a message in a way that only the receiver can read it, and the server relaying it cannot, it is not an opinion. I am stating a fact. Zero knowledge proofs are maths, too. > What do you mean by "it is possible"? I mean that there are maths that do exist that enable it. There is code…

I don't see how any of these grudges of yours are relevant to the question I asked to try and put you on track to make an argument I'd expect to move us in a fruitful direction.
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