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

UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

alecmuffett.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 499 posts

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#191

Post by iamacyborg »

cortic wrote: post #127
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keep in mind the UK already arrests and imprisons vast numbers of people for speech offences. Vast? No, they really don't.

[flagged]

> 12,000 arrests per year

Arrested is not the same thing as being charged. The latter is what would lead to a trial.

> So they are currently trying to get rid of juries, which they will do

Huh

> a leader that has styled himself as a more extreme Nigel Farage

I’m sorry, what?

> The UK is actually a scary place right now

It is?

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#192

Post by autoexec »

tormeh wrote: post #163
ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Germany just make it illegal to insult politicians?

It's illegal to insult anyone in Germany, and has been for a long time. Libel, slander, and insults are all criminal (not civil) offences. I know what you're thinking: "That sounds crazy" - Yeah, it kinda is. In practice this is rarely enforced, as the offended party must file a formal complaint and most people have better things to do.

> "That sounds crazy" - Yeah, it kinda is. In practice this is rarely enforced

Generally, selective enforcement is itself a huge problem. That might not actually be an issue in this instance though if the only thing preventing enforcement is the lack of a formal complaint and assuming that the complaint process is easily accessible to everyone (not requiring money to file, and without other barriers that might prevent certain people from filing but not others). It's still a terrible idea to make it illegal to insult others, but "rarely enforced" may not be the red flag it usually is.

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#193

Post by stephen_g »

Barrin92 wrote: post #46
int32_64 wrote: post #26

It's so organic and grass roots and good for democracy™ that every single Western country suddenly decided that eliminating privacy online in lockstep was the top priority despite none of the ruling parties running on it as a platform or with any meaningful referendums from the voting public. But to what end?

>It's so organic and grass roots It is though. This is one of the few surveillance issues actually driven by grassroots organisations like ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_Shout ) in particular when it comes to adult content who have been at this globally for well over a decade. There's no shadowy cabal trying to age-restrict porn or social media, this is more like a modern day Carrie Nation. Puritanism alw…

Collective Shout are a tiny fringe group, they have had a massively outsized impact because of some extremely effective and clever lobbying but few people here in Australia where they are based know about them (they're definitely not a household name by any stretch of the imagination).

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#194

Post by pksebben »

piker wrote: post #177
Forgeties79 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I am reading these wrong, but it doesn’t appear to me these sources indicate that a significant number of people are being arrested for “speech offenses,” which I’m guessing you are using as shorthand for statements akin to those that would fall under “free speech” in the US. If I’m not seeing it or I am not correctly defining what you mean, feel free to correct me. I’m having to make some assumptions here

It can be hard to wrap your head around it from the US, but many of these are people that are in fact being arrested for writing posts on social media, e.g., https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-6... (arrested for post wearing a Manchester Arena bomber costume) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-60930670 (arrested for posting "the only good British soldier is a dead British sold…

[flagged]

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#195

Post by blibble »

mjmas wrote: post #132
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brit here. The HoL's role is to review and scrutinise legislation as part of the parliamentary process of turning bills into acts (laws). Most legislation originates in the (directly elected) House of Commons. But all parliamentary bills pass through the Lords, and they can propose ammendments, but those ammendments have to be approved by the Commons. Those that aren't are sent back to the Lords for reconsideration.…

Are there any limitations on what can be proposed in one of the houses? For example in Australia our upper house (senate) can't adjust or propose bills to do with money.

no

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#196

Post by blibble »

stebalien wrote: post #32
int32_64 wrote: post #26

It's so organic and grass roots and good for democracy™ that every single Western country suddenly decided that eliminating privacy online in lockstep was the top priority despite none of the ruling parties running on it as a platform or with any meaningful referendums from the voting public. But to what end?

> democracy house of lords

they're subordinate to the commons

it's really not a problem, they're essentially a reviewing chamber

it works quite well

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#197

Post by torified »

SpaceManNabs wrote: post #20
Beestie wrote: post #18

So lemme guess - in order to prove one's age, one needs to obtain a digital ID and use said ID to gain access to the internet thereby creating a perfect system to monitor one's internet activity. Gotta hand it to them - "protecting the children" is a pretty good pretext.

Interesting to see these kinds of comments more in this thread compared to the one from yesterday. The one from yesterday was discussing how australia is banning social media for anyone under 16. Most comments were supportive because they hate social media. A few comments were discussing how it is just a way to propagate more KYC.

As an Australian it's so irritating how enthusiastic people are to give up their privacy and freedom of speech, and also force everyone to hand over personal information to private companies, on the flimsiest of pretexts from our perpetually technologically incompetent government.

After the number of data breaches we've seen, they want to do this, and in the least privacy-preserving way possible.

Why not set up a government api where a site can get a yes/no answer about age using tokens, so the site itself gets no information but if the age is ok? Nope, we'll just pick a few sites and force everyone to give them their data, what could go wrong?

And if you actually look at the suicide statistics, there's no epidemic of suicides going on...

https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/populat...

It's just lazy parents who can't be bothered parenting looking for a quick fix. I want to hand my phone to little tommy and turn my brain off.

What's even more galling is that the quick fix with so many obvious negatives won't even fix anything. As a kid I had unlimited time to get around any blocks. It's so dumb.

4chan is perfectly fine, but reddit must be stopped! Just to be clear I don't think either should be blocked.

Make the entire internet 18+ only and put the parents who let kids on the net in jail, I don't care.

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#198

Post by torified »

parliament32 wrote: post #31

I'm relatively confident this was the entire end goal of the Online Safety Act. Get the (relatively) easy law passed, then "oh no platforms are only requiring this for UK-based IPs and there are too many VPNs/proxies, I guess we need to de-anonymize everyone".

What a brilliant plan! Nobody could have seen this coming!

God I'm sick of the constant attacks against online freedom.

God forbid anyone should ever have a private conversation.

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#199

Post by goobatrooba »

baazaa wrote: post #36

On a related note, they built their digital ID so that third parties could verify attributes (it's NOT just a single-service login across government + a linking ID across government services, which is how it was sold by the BBC). They're pretty close to completely de-anonymising the internet for UK citizens. Say they introduce an Australian-style social media ban for under 16s, then requires all social media to link…

[flagged]

Re: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16

#200

Post by agwp »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #121
azalemeth wrote: post #54

It's also worth stating that the worst part of that proposed amendment [1] isn't even necessarily the VPN ban, it's the next clause, on page 20: "The “CSAM requirement” is that any relevant device supplied for use in the UK must have installed tamper-proof system software which is highly effective at preventing the recording, transmitting (by any means, including livestreaming) and viewing of CSAM using that device."…

> any relevant device supplied for use in the UK must have installed tamper-proof system software It's happening. Computer freedom, everything the word "hacker" ever stood for, will be officially destroyed if this passes. We're about to be robbed of control over our computers by force of law . It's just the UK now but eventually it will be every country. This is a very dark day. I've been prophesizing its arrival for…

The absurd thing is that the amendment only covers smartphones and tablets - which means those who the bill aims to target can easily break the law by using a laptop, desktop, camera, smart TV etc.

In short, the Pandora's Box of automated surveillance and security risk on any smartphone or tablet is opened, while a gigantic loophole for serious offenders is left open.

Post reply on HN