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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'

#91
The article below sharply summarizes why all this is a dystopian surveillance setup:

> how, precisely, do you stop a fourteen-year-old from opening Instagram without first checking the age of the forty-year-old?

> You don’t. You can’t. So everyone gets carded. Britain is lifting the system wholesale from Australia, where a computer first scans your face and guesses your age from your cheekbones, then, failing that, surveils you to death, studies your browsing habits and the hours you keep, and then, when the algorithm throws up its hands, simply demands your passport.

https://reclaimthenet.org/starmers-social-media-ban-surveill...

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

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 uncontroversi…

I don’t think that would have worked. Parents buy phones for their kids since the kids can’t buy them. What would the choices be? Give them a phone or not give them a phone. I don’t think society is ready for that kind of choice anymore.

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

#93
post #37

Doesn't the UK already have geo-targeted age verification infrastructure in place? A website or app could require the user to submit a live video of themselves quaffing a local beer.

No. It has laws that websites must follow to serve content in the UK. It’s up to the websites to do the age verification themselves, and the majority use third party ID verification services. Reddit used an American company to do it,

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

#94
post #44

While I do support restricting social media to younger minds, the way they go about it, and the collateral damage that will result is unacceptable. For about 500ms I thought I might have found the "one thing" I agree with this government, but nope... I'm considering whether it's time to leave the UK. There is an air of hostility here towards... well everything.

Leaving is not the hard decision. The hard decision is where to go. Do you have any suggestions?

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

#95

> 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…

>both sides

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

#96
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 uncontroversi…

I don’t think that would have worked. Parents buy phones for their kids since the kids can’t buy them. What would the choices be? Give them a phone or not give them a phone. I don’t think society is ready for that kind of choice anymore.

But its already the case now! As in if you buy an sim now, it comes with filtered internet by default. its been like that for years

You have to phone them up/log in and request the block to be removed.

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

#97

> 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…

These people created a law that is catastrophic for privacy, so I don't believe they will be stopped from banning VPN's just because someone claims VPN's are good for privacy.

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

#98
isn't the simple answer an age-limit for VPN? /s

all this because they refuse to make the law just

"legal parent/guardian is responsible for the child"

if a parent faced fine or jail for a child having access to the internet you can be sure 90% of the children wouldn't have internet access

I'm no defender of the big social/media sites but I don't see why it's their fault/problem if a minor has internet access when they aren't supposed to

This all feels like the opposite goal of knowing everyone who is online everywhere

Because it's not how you'd make the law, you'd wouldn't go to service by service and make it their problem, you'd make it the adult responsible for the child's problem

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

#99
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.

But that's the point, circumvent democracy, to set the stage for techno-fascism. The citizen has no rights which the state is bound to respect.

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

#100

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.

This isn't something that can be defeated like this. You are right, there will be ways around this. But we also have to be honest: being able to buy "off the shelf", two click VPN solution for 5$ already puts you into "geek" category. Relatively speaking.

If they ban the commercial providers, payment processors will be the first to enforce it. And Google and Apple will throw the 1-Click solutions out of their app store for users from those countries immediately. And with that the topic is effectively dead even for most "geeks". At this point the goal is already pretty much achieved, most people are cutoff and under heavier surveillance. Next comes the group that know what a server is, how to rent one, what OpenVPN or Wireguard are. But many of the most used websites already make your life difficult if your IP is from such a range.

It goes on. At each step you can argue "there is still a way, as long as you got networking with other countries". Absolutely correct, but at each step the group who knows how and is willing to invest the energy shrinks. And the intended goal will likely already be achieved at the mentioned phase 1 above. The fact that some people still find ways isn't really a gotcha in this matter.

And at some point they will criminalize it. Does it matter that they are unlikely to catch you? Is it worth the risk? And if so, what if you catch strays for it from an unrelated matter. Ultimately they will simply target the devs that help build easy solution for the less tech-savy.

One big reason why you want to keep a bunch of nerds tunneling out around anyway is that you keep useful, defusing attitudes like that floating around. Aka "It's not that bad, there are still ways around it, haha, those idiots".

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