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Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

tomshardware.com

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Re: Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

#121

Post by davideg »

EFF has a similar article: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/utahs-new-law-regulati...

The bottom line:

> if a website cannot reliably detect a VPN user's true location and the law requires it to do so for all users in a particular state, then the legal risk could push the site to either ban all known VPN IPs, or to mandate age verification for every visitor globally.

Clearly anyone slightly sophisticated can bypass restrictions like this. A quick search reveals https://github.com/shadowsocks. This only harms regular users who might benefit from privacy. The dystopia levels continue to rise...

Re: Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

#122

Post by tedd4u »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #92

Doesn't this seem impossible? So if I have jo-blow web site. And a user uses a VPN, how am I supposed to do anything about it. And why should i?

Don't host your website in Utah and avoid having a business / tax nexus there.

Re: Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

#123

Post by bloppe »

nunez wrote: post #107
mrbluecoat wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will they ban self-hosted VPNs? https://mrbluecoat.blogspot.com/2025/08/self-hosted-vpn-opti...

Easily. Host them on the cloud providers? You get banned. Host them in your homelab and the ISP finds out? You get your Internet cut. How will either of them find out? IP addresses and/or DPI. All it'll take is an executive order or an act of Congress.

Truly enforcing this kind of ban would require a level of control over the internet much greater than China's. They actually do ban VPN use, yet plenty of Chinese people still use them, and not due to lack of trying on the part of the enforcers. You can basically never plug all the holes without essentially shutting off the whole internet.

China spends roughly $6.6B censoring their internet every year [1]. Much of that probably goes to "guiding" public opinion as opposed to simply removing undesirable content, but factoring in purchasing power parity of labor and parts, let's assume the US would spend roughly the same amount just to enforce a VPN ban mostly effectively. That doesn't sound like a position that will win elections.

[1]: https://jamestown.org/buying-silence-the-price-of-internet-c...

Re: Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

#124

Post by redman25 »

deknos wrote: post #36
mvdwoord wrote: post #16

I am completely baffled by this wave of new laws and proposals... they feel dystopic and can seemingly only lead to brutal restrictions on the internet. What will we end up with? Only attested modems / endpoints in the home? With DPI? And a government issued smartcard to use it? It comes across as if this is what some legislators are actually after... they must have some technical advisors who can explain to them tha…

> What will we end up with? Only attested modems / endpoints in the home? you might laugh/cry, but there was a time in germany, when the telephone at home was owned by the state (the "Post") and you were NOT allowed to tinker with it. personally, i guess, things like sneakernet, lorawan and hamradio will become a lot more popular over time.

Doesn’t ham radio not allow transmissions to be encrypted by law? That rules out most of the internet.

Re: Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

#125

Post by mycall »

nunez wrote: post #107
mrbluecoat wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will they ban self-hosted VPNs? https://mrbluecoat.blogspot.com/2025/08/self-hosted-vpn-opti...

Easily. Host them on the cloud providers? You get banned. Host them in your homelab and the ISP finds out? You get your Internet cut. How will either of them find out? IP addresses and/or DPI. All it'll take is an executive order or an act of Congress.

There are plenty of other ways to virtual data without a VPN, e.g. sockpuppets, ipfs, etc. Since data tends to drift towards being free, it is a game of wack-a-mole.

Re: Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

#126

Post by ijk »

bethekidyouwant wrote: post #108
thfuran wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ban them, demand GitHub et al take down the illegal repos, hit up Microsoft for records of everyone who ever downloaded them, hosting providers for customer records, and ISPs for lists of customers with VPN-shaped traffic between themselves and their hosting provider. Or if they’re lazy, just demand that the hosting providers sort it out.

What are you talking about what? What illegal repo? SSH? Socks? That doesn’t make any sense dude

Secure encryption has been classified as controlled munitions in the past. Making SSH illegal is well within the range of possible futures.

It'd be a stupid future, but it's a stupid present so I'm not going to rule it out on those grounds.

Re: Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

#127

Post by [deleted] »

redman25 wrote: post #124
deknos wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What will we end up with? Only attested modems / endpoints in the home? you might laugh/cry, but there was a time in germany, when the telephone at home was owned by the state (the "Post") and you were NOT allowed to tinker with it. personally, i guess, things like sneakernet, lorawan and hamradio will become a lot more popular over time.

Doesn’t ham radio not allow transmissions to be encrypted by law? That rules out most of the internet.

[deleted]

Re: Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

#128

Post by thfuran »

bethekidyouwant wrote: post #108
thfuran wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ban them, demand GitHub et al take down the illegal repos, hit up Microsoft for records of everyone who ever downloaded them, hosting providers for customer records, and ISPs for lists of customers with VPN-shaped traffic between themselves and their hosting provider. Or if they’re lazy, just demand that the hosting providers sort it out.

What are you talking about what? What illegal repo? SSH? Socks? That doesn’t make any sense dude

It doesn’t really make any sense to ban vpns, but that was the premise and not altogether implausible despite being nonsensical.

Re: Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

#130

Post by ozlikethewizard »

gnerd00 wrote: post #103
morkalork wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We will end up with what China, Russia and Iran have. The American right has come to grips with the fact that their ideas and beliefs will not will not win on merit alone so they're moving to restrict and eliminate alternatives.

LOL - its just "the right" eh?

I mean if you're discussing strictly America, you lot haven't had any form of government that's been anything but right wing for at least a few decades (was not born before this lol).
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