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Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

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Re: Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

#151

Post by fguerraz »

throwaway4aday wrote: post #53

Can someone explain why this won't result in a renaissance for peer to peer and e2e encrypted chat/forums/social media etc.? When government or industry makes it nearly impossible for consumer needs to be met we inevitably see a grey and black market spring up to meet those needs. My prediction is that if legislation like this becomes widespread we'll see a freely distributed application rise to prominence among a ga…

Don't worry, blocking p2p is the next step and is extremely easy to do.

China has done it already and it's very effective:

* Force every service provider to register their IPs and domains (for CDN use)

* Force every ISP to do stateful firewalling and block every attempt to establish a new connection unless the destination IP is on a whilelist maintained by the government.

Problem solved.

Re: Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

#152

Post by causi »

darkhorse222 wrote: post #147
causi wrote: post #132

who also has skin in the game about being on the receiving end of the most horrific online abuse Do people just not get educated in online literacy anymore? An adult getting abused online is like getting third degree burns because you laid your hand on a hot burner and refused to take it off. If people saying mean things to you is disturbing your groove so much you're calling it "abuse" maybe you should stop reading…

You're talking like someone who doesn't live in a hyper-connected, hyper-online society. The same poor argument could made to verbal harassment. "Put in some headphones!"

I would make that argument if I could push a button and make that person disappear from my sight and hearing. Ironically verbal harassment is much more protected. I'm free to get a group of people together and go chant "You're a cunt!" outside the Palace of Westminster.

Re: Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

#153

Post by canadiantim »

Iv wrote: post #135
zarzavat wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which again, is the point - to turn the internet into the easily regulable cable TV that they already understand. Unless the UK significantly increases its military capacity and sets up world government, they will not be able to shut down the internet. The internet will still exist. The best they can hope for is a great firewall / North Korea type situation which would require a much more authoritarian (moreover fu…

Conservatives all over the world dream of setting up a chinese-style firewall in their countries. They are angry that it was first done by a clearly authoritarian regime which brings some resistance to the idea, but otherwise, in the name of fight against terrorism or child pornography, they would have set it up already.

From what I can tell it’s more the progressive wing of most countries who are pushing for authoritarian censorship of the internet. Just look at Canada

Re: Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

#154

Post by amoe_ »

The OSB has become a big bucket which UK politicians can point to and say "see, we're doing something". When faced with a question about the internet, the stock response of Tory MPs is to say "wait for the Online Safety Bill". In that way, it's quite similar to the situation before Brexit, where representatives would evade responsibility for policy by claiming that their hands were tied by Brussels.

Re: Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

#155

Post by Folcon »

ChrisKnott wrote: post #101
joering2 wrote: post #67

> If a British child could merely type your URL into a browser, the site is in scope. Seems incorrect, no? The visit is more important than just typing URL. Worst-case scenario I will check your IP and if its in UK/GB scope, you will see "Unable to browse this site due to your-stupid-anti-blah-blah-UK-policy"

The whole article is written like this - hyperbolically presenting the least generous reading she possibly can of the proposed law. > [A pretty reasonable set of questions that companies must consider regarding how children might be harmed on their service] > "you’re probably curled up in a ball crying" No actually, I wasn't. Filtering out the breathless commentary, the actual proposals don't seem that bad...? Certai…

Tone aside, she does point out one clear way this bill does hurt tech compared to other industries.

The cost of entry into this space is really low compared to most other industries. You can very cheaply provide a reasonably competitive product.

One of the aspects of this bill that I do find worrying is that there are clear costs being added on that we're obligated to pay likely before we've validated the business works.

I do feel a lot of side-projects that could have gone to become viable businesses will never be released with this bill in place. Who wants to expose themselves to costs to try out a fun idea?

A lot of what she's arguing for could have been covered similarly to GDPR if there were carve outs for smaller entities, which would have been easy to mention, the absence of them lends weight to her assertion that the goal of this bill as it stands is to generally increase political control of the tech sphere.

Even if that control only extends to and harms UK businesses...

Re: Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

#156

Post by pbhjpbhj »

jfk13 wrote: post #97
antonymy wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My immediate thought as well. As this law will apply to ANY service available to UK users the only feasible solution for smaller websites and app developers will be exclusion to avoid liability. So UK users will simply start using VPNs to by pass region blocks.

Ah, the familiar HN bubble, where people instinctively think of "simply start using VPNs" as the solution. No; some tiny minority of UK users may do that, but the overwhelming majority will just use whatever services are "approved" (follow whatever rules they have to, to stay in the market) and remain available by default.

Are there any YouTube users who still haven't heard of a VPN? They seem about as niche as TikTok at this point.

Re: Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

#157

Post by darepublic »

fguerraz wrote: post #151
throwaway4aday wrote: post #53

Can someone explain why this won't result in a renaissance for peer to peer and e2e encrypted chat/forums/social media etc.? When government or industry makes it nearly impossible for consumer needs to be met we inevitably see a grey and black market spring up to meet those needs. My prediction is that if legislation like this becomes widespread we'll see a freely distributed application rise to prominence among a ga…

Don't worry, blocking p2p is the next step and is extremely easy to do. China has done it already and it's very effective: * Force every service provider to register their IPs and domains (for CDN use) * Force every ISP to do stateful firewalling and block every attempt to establish a new connection unless the destination IP is on a whilelist maintained by the government. Problem solved.

Autonomous pirate satellite internet

Re: Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

#158

Post by pasc1878 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #103
xdfgh1112 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this already happens to some extent with American and Asian sites blocking Europe and the UK because they don't want to deal with GPDR.

As an American visiting the UK and the EU, I got to see what the GDPR has done to the online experience over there for the first time. Wow, does that suck. I see about 20% of the "cookie track consent" popups Stateside that I saw browsing from the EU.

So you prefer being tracked without you knowing rather than being asked and easily opt out?

Re: Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

#159

Post by Digit-Al »

ejb999 wrote: post #113
_fat_santa wrote: post #29

If this applies to every site that hosts user generated content then that's nuts. When the internet first started, part of the appeal is that you could just make stuff without people looking over your shoulder, asking for forms, etc. Seems that the internet we created today is technically the same as the one from before, but now with governments throwing up red tape at every corner. Makes me wonder what a site like H…

I'll admit, I haven't read the entire article - but the obvious question to me - using your example of HN - what authority does the UK have over a website hosted in another country at all? They can pass all the rules they want, but how do they propose to enforce them on a company that does not operate in the UK? If that was possible, wouldn't CCP or Russia be ordering websites all over the world to shutdown to contro…

Our government can't enforce rules on foreign owned websites, but they can force ISP's to block them.

Re: Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

#160

Post by calibas »

causi wrote: post #132

who also has skin in the game about being on the receiving end of the most horrific online abuse Do people just not get educated in online literacy anymore? An adult getting abused online is like getting third degree burns because you laid your hand on a hot burner and refused to take it off. If people saying mean things to you is disturbing your groove so much you're calling it "abuse" maybe you should stop reading…

I don't think you've really experienced online abuse.

If you get in an argument with someone and they start saying nasty things, then it's simple to disengage. You just stop replying and you don't go back to the thread. In this scenario, your comment makes sense, but you should count yourself very lucky if this is the worst you've experienced.

Personally, I pissed off a cult leader and she sent her followers to harass me. They used email and social networks, among other methods, to send me regular messages accusing me of all sorts of horrible things. If I followed your suggestion of "stop reading them" it would mean I no longer check my email or social networks...

For those inexperienced with these matters, it may seem like I can just block the messages, but in many cases that's near impossible. A "professional" abuser knows all about VPNs and will just keep creating new email addresses.

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