Live data from Hacker News

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

birminghammail.co.uk

311–320 of 400 posts

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

#311
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.

I don't know how this works in the UK, but where I am at that would look like politicians just fishing for bribes while they stall committing to any action which also helps in PR.

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

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ban VPNs, an industry of SOCKS5 proxies will boom. Ban those, put the SOCKS5 proxy behind an SSH port-forward, and so on and so forth. Suddenly calling a Kubernetes API puts you in a secret service list somewhere.

We’ll just invent internet over WebRTC hops… wait..

Isn't that liblyrebird/Snowflake that Orbot/Whonix/TBB use as an anticensorship gateway?

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

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> E.g., you say "Privacy is a human right", so why is it that half the websites I visit ask for permission to share details of how I use those sites with more corporate "trusted partners" than there were students and staff combined in my secondary school? Because capitalism itself is the enemy. And information assymmetry is a potent tool, as is constant and persistent surveillance. All of these enable extracting more…

Yeah, you don't have these issues in communist countries. . .

More than one set of policies and ideals can be shitty at the same time. Just because authoritarian central planned economies failed doesn't mean we should never try anything else ever again that isn't pure capitalism or refuse to criticize its faults.

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

#314

If you ban IPsec ESP people will start using WireGuard on random ports. If you ban WireGuard using DPI people will start using SSL VPNs. If you ban SSL you ban the entire internet.

They don't want perfection. They want to move things forward, for their definition of forward. If they ban bog standard VPNs and find out they're still being used, they'll punish the VPN companies. If the VPN companies create workarounds and avoid the punishment, they'll punish the payment processors. If the VPN companies start using esoteric workarounds and taking cryptocurrency for payment, then they've mostly won…

>most people aren't going to deal with that shit

Then we cipherpunks dunk on and make fun of them as we jet by in our cool top-down VPN convertibles! They can be ID cucks while we enjoy all the finer things on the internet!

Liberty and privacy aren't free; it takes sweat off the brow or the blood of sacrifice to preserve or claw back to.

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

#315
post #80
post #9

Every corporate I know of, uses VPNs. Especially when workers connect from home. Is the UK government really interested in going up against the majority of their business partners...?

It's not about a technical capability to encapsulate packets, it's about whether people use it to bypass censorship or not.

If the capability is used... How do you tell how people are using it?

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

#316
post #9

Every corporate I know of, uses VPNs. Especially when workers connect from home. Is the UK government really interested in going up against the majority of their business partners...?

Laws don't apply to corporations. It'll only be used to punish individuals.

How do you tell the difference between someone working from home, and someone just at home?

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

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Labour have their own friends of Epstein too, see the Mandelson scandal, and some think Labour's much more rightwing now than it needs to be.

left and right appear to have lost all meaning

Left vs right is how the Epstein Class divide and conquer the electorate.

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

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You think there wernt cars when I was a kid? I lived in the subs. Kid utopia! I believe you. I'm likely older than you, so there were even fewer cars when I was a kid. I'm confident my utopia was even better than yours. Between then and now we have a gradient of loss. My kids grew up under 24/7 adulting and had nowhere to go.

"My kids grew up under 24/7 adulting and had nowhere to go." Yes but this has nothing to do with cars. What are you even protecting kids from anyway?

>> "My kids grew up under 24/7 adulting and had nowhere to go."

> Yes but this has nothing to do with cars. What are you even protecting kids from anyway?

It has everything to do with cars. Once my kids cross the yard, in all directions are the risk from cars, the risk of trespassing charges and that's about it.

In a few generations, kids went from countless square miles of free roam area to the few sq ft of their own property.

ref: https://old.reddit.com/r/CasualUK/comments/v8cyi7/map_compar...

> What are you even protecting kids from anyway?

Their reality is their reality. I didn't create it.

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

#319
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.

Where would you go to then? European countries, Australia and American states already have implemented or are keen to implement ID requirements/tracking for websites.

If it was just ID, or just X or just Y, that would have been manageable. It's the barrage of action against people who are actually trying to be productive in society. Success is now penalised here.

Where to go - well... There are options. Not many but they exist; south east asia (e.g. Thailand), The Channel islands, The Emirates if that's your thing. I'm sure there are more - I'm doing my due diligence on the options now. But I REALLY wish I didn't feel like I have to. I want my country to love me back like I love it, but right now it feels a bit one-sided.

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

#320
post #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?

Leaving IS the hard decision for me. I love the UK, and I am full of gratitude to live in England. I know anywhere else will be a downgrade. See my reply above for my current list of options.
Post reply on HN