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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

#141

Post by thfuran »

ozlikethewizard wrote: post #135
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.

This assumes US citizens using exclusively US based VPNs. You'd have to block all outside internet access as well, or you cannot stop someone in the US using a VPN based in another country (short of IP whackamole).

To an extent, but the US often compels foreign companies to either not deal with US customers or put up with US’s bullshit, so they could potentially get compliance from major overseas providers. More onerous domestic policy could also prevent it, like requiring that domestic network providers block unauthorized encrypted connections to foreign entities. And anyways, making something illegal doesn’t actually require making it physically impossible to do.

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

#142

Post by paulddraper »

2ndorderthought wrote: post #45
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…

Utah hosts I think the biggest nsa data center. Honestly, I would like my ISP to block all traffic to and from Utah if this law passes. I can't think of anything I want or need that involves that state.

Skiing

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

#143

Post by HDThoreaun »

bloppe wrote: post #123
nunez wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

China doesn’t actually want to ban VPNs. They want a list of all possible dissidents so they can actively monitor them. “Banning” VPNs just lets them narrow down the list of people who might engage in wrong think.

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

#144

Post by macintux »

mycall wrote: post #125
nunez wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How many users are going to have the technical acumen & desire to keep playing the game?

At some point the number of people who are going to be able to succeed is so small they might know who you are just by virtue of you continuing to compete.

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

#145

Post by kstrauser »

ijk wrote: post #132
tekawade wrote: post #100

I understand the need for age verification. And better way to do this is have all device way to communicate the age set by parents to websites. This is just one of the way. “The Anxious Generation”- Jonathan Haidt put it across. Rey well. It’s import at this day and age to check age online. Banning VPN is not the way. Even ChargePoint app does not work with vpn on I am baffled.

I don't understand the need for age verification. I mean, I understand what it effects it has, and why many parties want to perfect their expanding panopticon, and why screaming think of the children makes politicians' brains turn off. It won't fix children or social media. That's been apparent ever since Facebook defaulted to real names and people still posted everything they would have otherwise. It makes it easier…

When I was a kid, I acquired long distance calling cards[0] so that I could dial into faraway BBSes and access a different variety of pictures of nakedness than I had access to locally. This notion that you can bar kids from accessing porn is highly amusing.

[0]Fictional; this is not a confession; I know my rights

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

#146

Post by 2ndorderthought »

Bender wrote: post #88
2ndorderthought wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utah hosts I think the biggest nsa data center. Honestly, I would like my ISP to block all traffic to and from Utah if this law passes. I can't think of anything I want or need that involves that state.

Unfortunately it does not work that way unless perhaps I am misunderstanding your comment . The traffic monitored by the NSA will pass through their collection points in each state and will be silently mirrored to them regardless of the routing of your ISP. Even if your specific ISP does not mirror data the traffic will very likely pass through ISP's that do.

I think you misread me. I just meant, if companies are liable for VPN users in Utah, don't even let me connect to anything in Utah. I'm good.

I realize all my traffic gets siphoned there regardless more than likely anyways.

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

#147

Post by 2ndorderthought »

paulddraper wrote: post #142
2ndorderthought wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utah hosts I think the biggest nsa data center. Honestly, I would like my ISP to block all traffic to and from Utah if this law passes. I can't think of anything I want or need that involves that state.

Skiing

I'm good, plenty of other things to do with my time and money.

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

#148

Post by kstrauser »

cosmicgadget wrote: post #136
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?

I think you are okay: > Commercial entities that host "a substantial portion of material harmful to minors" are now prohibited from facilitating or encouraging the use of a VPN to bypass age checks. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/utahs-new-law-regulati...

I have an Amazon affiliate link on my website. Now it’s technically commercial.

I say things in support of my LGBTQ friends and neighbors. Now it’s technically harmful to minors.

This isn’t a slippery slope. It’s already an avalanche.

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

#149

Post by y-c-o-m-b »

nunez wrote: post #101

So they're asking ISPs to build the Great Mormon Firewall, basically. Cool, cool cool, cool, cool. I'm more scared that there is a push to do this federally, as that will, effectively, be tantamount to establishing explicitly state-controlled media.

I gather that's what all the sneaky bills introduced over the last decade banning encryption were attempting to do. They absolutely want this at the federal level.

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

#150

Post by quietsegfault »

lokar wrote: post #85
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...

The question is not how will they ban it, they just pass a law. The question is how and when will they enforce it. When they get access to your devices for some other reason, they will see it. It will give them another easy to prosecute law to use against you.

Right. The arbitrary nature of enforcement is a feature.
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