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VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'

birminghammail.co.uk

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Re: VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'

#52

> the main thing that we've done is we've commissioned additional research on this because I've not been happy with the evidence. Ah, yes, the existing research doesn't agree with our biases, so let's fund new "research" that does.

Full context: > Ms Kendall told Nick Ferrari: “I told MPs yesterday I'm going to come back to the House with a statement on the issue of VPNs in July. There are very strong views on both sides of this. For some people, it is about privacy, and it is the ability to use that is really held strongly by people. And for others, they say they should be banned because kids are using them to get around. And so I— the main th…

What is there to research? Yes, VPNs can be used to circumvent geofences (and by extension, regional age restrictions). Yes, attempting to age-restrict VPNs is at odds with strong privacy guarantees. Privacy is a human right, and one which is essential for effective democracy.

Re: VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'

#54
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full context: > Ms Kendall told Nick Ferrari: “I told MPs yesterday I'm going to come back to the House with a statement on the issue of VPNs in July. There are very strong views on both sides of this. For some people, it is about privacy, and it is the ability to use that is really held strongly by people. And for others, they say they should be banned because kids are using them to get around. And so I— the main th…

What is there to research? Yes, VPNs can be used to circumvent geofences (and by extension, regional age restrictions). Yes, attempting to age-restrict VPNs is at odds with strong privacy guarantees. Privacy is a human right, and one which is essential for effective democracy.

Good thing then that Democracy isn’t gonna defend itself.

Re: VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'

#55
post #20
post #8

what if instead of this age gate or whatever government is doing, what if we simply said these big companies need to self police and if a child can reach their service they have to pay the child like lets say GBP 10k per instance? remove all "reasonable step" shield to hide behind. for example, a shopkeeper can't say they took "reasonable steps" if they sell alcohol to a child so why should a website be any different…

> big companies need to self police and if a child can reach their service they have to pay the child like lets say GBP 10k per instance? HIPAA has been super effective this way. As we all know, American companies don’t give two shits about user privacy or even security. But wave the HIPAA flag and everyone starts caring real hard and taking extremely cumbersome steps to comply with patient privacy. Very simple: Each…

I agree the threat is there but I've never seen anyone actually punished for HIPAA violations and my data have been involved in several hospital and insurance breaches.

Re: VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'

#56
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full context: > Ms Kendall told Nick Ferrari: “I told MPs yesterday I'm going to come back to the House with a statement on the issue of VPNs in July. There are very strong views on both sides of this. For some people, it is about privacy, and it is the ability to use that is really held strongly by people. And for others, they say they should be banned because kids are using them to get around. And so I— the main th…

What is there to research? Yes, VPNs can be used to circumvent geofences (and by extension, regional age restrictions). Yes, attempting to age-restrict VPNs is at odds with strong privacy guarantees. Privacy is a human right, and one which is essential for effective democracy.

> What is there to research?

Probably how they can best attach a license to VPN use like they're doing with TV.

Re: VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'

#57

There are few things more exciting, in relationship to attempting to restrict access to (data) communications, than a government which thinks geeks won't find ways around such. Now sit back, relax, and let's wait for the next generation of encrypted channels solution development.

Oh, they're in motion already. There are other countries that tried to ban VPNs for decades now, that sparked multiple great avenues of development. It's exciting to think I'll become a dissident like my parents, just because I don't want a slimy, rightwing, greasy friends of Epstein and other known abusers to ID and surveil me.

Perhaps then you could at least vaguely understand the desire of people to avoid having slimy, rightwing, greasy friends of Epstein and other known abusers to ID and surveil their children.

I definitely see both sides of this argument but to pretend the answers here are obvious just means people aren’t being serious. Serious harm is being caused to children and just because that’s a known cliche doesn’t make it not a real concern people have.

Re: VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'

#58
post #8

what if instead of this age gate or whatever government is doing, what if we simply said these big companies need to self police and if a child can reach their service they have to pay the child like lets say GBP 10k per instance? remove all "reasonable step" shield to hide behind. for example, a shopkeeper can't say they took "reasonable steps" if they sell alcohol to a child so why should a website be any different…

Or perhaps we should expect parents to take some responsibility for their kids' screen use?

How do you create new procurement pipeline and surveillance infrastructure from that?

Re: VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'

#59

At least we get to raise the next generation of IT geeks because they'll have to understand a bunch of networking basics to watch porn, and might get hooked on it. (on IT)

Or they will ask their AI to do that for them, learn very little about the networking stack in the process

Re: VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'

#60
post #8

what if instead of this age gate or whatever government is doing, what if we simply said these big companies need to self police and if a child can reach their service they have to pay the child like lets say GBP 10k per instance? remove all "reasonable step" shield to hide behind. for example, a shopkeeper can't say they took "reasonable steps" if they sell alcohol to a child so why should a website be any different…

The end result will be the same. If you face a 10k liability for serving the wrong customer, you end up needing to ID your customers. If the government isn't going to provide that service you end up with private companies verifying identity and the data security issues that entails. If you want to shift the responsibility of protecting children away from parents, then you end up in a situation where third parties nee…

> you end up needing to ID your customers.

You've needed to do that for at least ten years. Mobile internet either requires a contract, or an ID check before you get a sim (pay and go)

Anyone providing internets is liable for what the users are doing. The way you got out of that is responding to legal requests. (originally mostly copyright)

This is the frustrating thing, we have effective and relatively uncontroversial age gated network (mobile data) already. and it worked.

but now they've done and fucked it up with OSA.

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