Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

UK House of Lords Votes to Extend Age Verification to VPNs

reclaimthenet.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 213 posts

Re: UK House of Lords Votes to Extend Age Verification to VPNs

#141

Post by wraptile »

nindalf wrote: post #44
valleyer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It drives me nuts that local governments in the US continue to use Twitter/X to disseminate communications, despite having perfectly good web sites of their own.

Those websites aren't easy to update. I have a website of my own too, and even though I've set it up to be as painless as possible, it's always going to be easier for me to open a social media app and post. Now imagine that the local government has a website that can only be changed by contacting a web developer, who takes 1-2 business days to reply. It might not be as bad as that, but I wouldn't be surprised if that…

If our governments can't update an HTML page same way they update a twitter status then we are all doomed and should just nuke ourselves to get it over with.

Re: UK House of Lords Votes to Extend Age Verification to VPNs

#142

Post by direwolf20 »

simion314 wrote: post #133
lemoncookiechip wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can block the entire internet and whitelist specific domains. There's multiple ways of doing this, from router parental controls, specific OS tools in iOS/Android, Windows, as well as apps specific to it, and all it takes is for a parent to care enough to make a simple Google or Youtube search and learn if they don't know, and don't even know to know that they should care in the first place. The failure here is t…

Does router setting spply when the child is at school and using data? I do not think so. So you need to have the averager parent setup DNS records and probably pay some subscription to soem people doing the filtering? It is not easy, if there was just a simple toggle and iOS/Android would ask the parent what kind of religious extremist or prude they are and then do the filtering then sure, but you want a parent to kn…

The Uk could force the OS to have that toggle instead of censoring the internet

Re: UK House of Lords Votes to Extend Age Verification to VPNs

#143

Post by iamnothere »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #136
FrostViper8 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You would need the non-governmental agency to share the urls with the government agency for the activity to be tied directly which would undermine the entire purpose of that architecture. Which would absolutely would happen. The authorities will ask the non-gov agency for the details and they will be provided.

that's like stating that there's no value in creating a financial regulator to set interest rates because the government will just tell them to set them to whatever they demand. There's still value in it.

Yes, the “value” being centralizing identity and access so OFCOM and GHCQ can finger dissenters more easily.

Re: UK House of Lords Votes to Extend Age Verification to VPNs

#144

Post by chrisjj »

iamnothere wrote: post #138
chrisjj wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IP blacklisting will follow.

Just use Tor. And if they try to block that, use Snowflake bridges or v2ray like people in other censorious hellholes. Make them shut it all down like Iran and show who they really are.

> Make them shut it all down like Iran

They are certainly providing an opportunity for those who would like to inflict that.

Re: UK House of Lords Votes to Extend Age Verification to VPNs

#145

Post by chrisjj »

iamnothere wrote: post #137
chrisjj wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The answer is to leave this shit to parents. See Australia. Many parents helped their children evade the ban. https://www.crikey.com.au/2025/12/04/social-media-ban-parent...

That should be the parent’s choice, no?

That's what got us in to the current public health emergency. It is a luxury we cannot afford if we are to stand a chance to get out. https://www.bmj.com/content/392/bmj.s125

Re: UK House of Lords Votes to Extend Age Verification to VPNs

#146

Post by iamnothere »

chrisjj wrote: post #145
iamnothere wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That should be the parent’s choice, no?

That's what got us in to the current public health emergency. It is a luxury we cannot afford if we are to stand a chance to get out. https://www.bmj.com/content/392/bmj.s125

If the parents don’t see it as an issue then the state should not be forcing its way in, especially considering the harm to privacy and free speech. This is an area where reasonable people can disagree as to what the correct parenting approach is, so the state should not enforce a particular approach. If anything they should focus on making it easier for parents to set their own limits at the device level.

Re: UK House of Lords Votes to Extend Age Verification to VPNs

#147

Post by FrostViper8 »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #136
FrostViper8 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You would need the non-governmental agency to share the urls with the government agency for the activity to be tied directly which would undermine the entire purpose of that architecture. Which would absolutely would happen. The authorities will ask the non-gov agency for the details and they will be provided.

that's like stating that there's no value in creating a financial regulator to set interest rates because the government will just tell them to set them to whatever they demand. There's still value in it.

Firstly, I didn't even mention what the value might be. I simply pointed out that the "independent organisation" would not really be independent. Which means it won't protect anyone's privacy. Which undermines the entire point of having it. Therefore it has no value.

Secondly, it is the central bank that sets the interest rate. In the UK that is the Bank of England. Secondly the government sets their mandate. They have a mandate of keeping the inflation at 2%. One of the mechanisms they to control inflation is the interest rate.

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation

Moreover the "Chair of the Court of Directors" (the Chairman) of the Bank of England is appointed by the Crown (the King) at the advice of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The government both sets the mandate and effectively selects the Chairman. So while they don't directly set the interest rate, they do set the mandate and who runs the Central Bank.

BTW the Bank of England is failing to keep the inflation rate at 2% (and for some time) as it is currently 3.4%. So we can see how well that is going.

Re: UK House of Lords Votes to Extend Age Verification to VPNs

#148

Post by simion314 »

direwolf20 wrote: post #142
simion314 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does router setting spply when the child is at school and using data? I do not think so. So you need to have the averager parent setup DNS records and probably pay some subscription to soem people doing the filtering? It is not easy, if there was just a simple toggle and iOS/Android would ask the parent what kind of religious extremist or prude they are and then do the filtering then sure, but you want a parent to kn…

The Uk could force the OS to have that toggle instead of censoring the internet

>The Uk could force the OS to have that toggle instead of censoring the internet

I know, and my point is if Big Tech would have added that toggle (or add it now before even more countries or USA states make more laws with different requierments ), made it easy to setup when you turn on a device for the first time to give it to your child then you could tell the politicians that the solution exists already. Now using the think of the children some governments will implement more invasive laws.

Re: UK House of Lords Votes to Extend Age Verification to VPNs

#149

Post by FrostViper8 »

chrisjj wrote: post #93
FrostViper8 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Presumably many customers pay with a debit/credit card already so there's some PII on file? Yes. But I think most of the zero logs providers will remove the identifiable payments details after a certain about of time. e.g. Mullvad have a specific policy relating to what is stored and retention time (I am not affiliated with Mullvad, I just use their service). https://mullvad.net/en/help/no-logging-data-policy#payme…

> But I think most of the zero logs providers will remove the identifiable payments details after a certain about of time. No problem there. Once a user is old enough, he stays old enough.

The entire point of using a VPN is so that you don't have to provide photo card ID to a third party. So obviously there is a problem.

Most of these VPNs provide alternative payment options other than Credit/Debit card e.g. Monero/Cash etc. So it would undermine the entire point.

Re: UK House of Lords Votes to Extend Age Verification to VPNs

#150

Post by chrisjj »

iamnothere wrote: post #146
chrisjj wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what got us in to the current public health emergency. It is a luxury we cannot afford if we are to stand a chance to get out. https://www.bmj.com/content/392/bmj.s125

If the parents don’t see it as an issue then the state should not be forcing its way in, especially considering the harm to privacy and free speech. This is an area where reasonable people can disagree as to what the correct parenting approach is, so the state should not enforce a particular approach. If anything they should focus on making it easier for parents to set their own limits at the device level.

...except when the harm spreads far beyond the family.

"We have reached an inflection point. We are facing nothing short of a societal catastrophe caused by the fact that so many of our children are addicted to social media." says the Lord proposing the UK ban.

Post reply on HN