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Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

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Re: Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

#21

Post by ryan-c »

SomeRandomDev wrote: post #16
ryan-c wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China's gotten pretty good at it. OpenVPN running over port 443 is generally going to be using a CA that is not a public CA, and issues certificates directly rather than through an intermediate. Even if you tunnel something over normal TLS, the type of traffic can potentially be determined by analyzing how much data flows in which direction and when. If circumvention is seen as too widely spread, Uganda may simply de…

I feel like China is good about public/shared VPN's. If you set up your own and keep the details to yourself I was under the impression that it'd work just fine. That being said I love to travel and can work wherever but haven't been to CN yet for this reason in particular.

From what I've heard second-hand (my SO has a friend who frequently travels to China), they do actually block people's private one-off VPN servers quite effectively.

Have a look at https://www.cs.tufts.edu/comp/116/archive/fall2016/ctang.pdf - it talks about GFW using machine learning with flow analysis to do this.

Re: Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

#22

Post by iancarroll »

SomeRandomDev wrote: post #16
ryan-c wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China's gotten pretty good at it. OpenVPN running over port 443 is generally going to be using a CA that is not a public CA, and issues certificates directly rather than through an intermediate. Even if you tunnel something over normal TLS, the type of traffic can potentially be determined by analyzing how much data flows in which direction and when. If circumvention is seen as too widely spread, Uganda may simply de…

I feel like China is good about public/shared VPN's. If you set up your own and keep the details to yourself I was under the impression that it'd work just fine. That being said I love to travel and can work wherever but haven't been to CN yet for this reason in particular.

If you are just visiting, the Great Firewall is not really a problem, as foreign SIM cards route directly to the internet. Just make sure you have a reasonable international plan with your carrier before you go.

Re: Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

#23

Post by Nullabillity »

rb808 wrote: post #10

I'm not sure why this tax should be labelled as absurd. Lots of countries tax TV, phone already. Taxing social media sounds weird only because no one else has done it yet.

Would it be reasonable to tax meeting up in person? If not, how is this different?

Re: Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

#24

Post by feikname »

rb808 wrote: post #10

I'm not sure why this tax should be labelled as absurd. Lots of countries tax TV, phone already. Taxing social media sounds weird only because no one else has done it yet.

Because social media is simply one of the vast amount of websites on the internet, it's unfair to tax it alone. Either you tax the whole internet comsumption (e.g. every 5GB or something like that) or you don't.

Imagine taxes specific to laundering machines that only apply when washing underwear, but not for any other clothes, it makes no sense.

Also, the govt. snooping on what people access / banning use of VPNs raises privacy concerns (and even censorship ones).

Re: Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

#25

Post by curiousgal »

jk_danson wrote: post #7

Someone needs to make a small sketch of the Uganda government with 7 year olds making up the laws. Child 1 - "Let's tax people for being on social media to stop them from saying bad things about us" Child 2 - "Yeah that's a great idea. Plus we'll have more money for candy." Govenments notice - "Social media is hereby taxed. Your local ISP will be collecting the tax automatically." People - "Whatever, we'll just use V…

Reminds me of pre-revolution Tunisia. Maybe that's the actual solution.

Re: Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

#26

Post by exabrial »

rb808 wrote: post #10

I'm not sure why this tax should be labelled as absurd. Lots of countries tax TV, phone already. Taxing social media sounds weird only because no one else has done it yet.

Because tax, in general is absurd. You're literally taking people's money under the threat of force. Just because it is done quite universally does not justify the practice.

More specifically, taxes are abused near universally. From the sugar taxes in Seattle (unless you are Starbucks), or forced Union dues that fund political campaigns, the practice is abused. Meanwhile necessary services like police, firefighters, and rescue workers are always under underfunded, even though that's why we think we're paying them.

Re: Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

#27

Post by drenvuk »

ryan-c wrote: post #8
parliament32 wrote: post #3

I'm interested to see how they go about filtering VPN traffic. AFAIK, running openvpn over port 443 is pretty much indistinguishable from normal TLS traffic.

China's gotten pretty good at it. OpenVPN running over port 443 is generally going to be using a CA that is not a public CA, and issues certificates directly rather than through an intermediate. Even if you tunnel something over normal TLS, the type of traffic can potentially be determined by analyzing how much data flows in which direction and when. If circumvention is seen as too widely spread, Uganda may simply de…

How about a thought experiment, assuming you had multiple domains, obfsproxy and Let's Encrypt going how are they going to be able to tell if everything is over 443?

Re: Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

#28

Post by [deleted] »

jk_danson wrote: post #7

Someone needs to make a small sketch of the Uganda government with 7 year olds making up the laws. Child 1 - "Let's tax people for being on social media to stop them from saying bad things about us" Child 2 - "Yeah that's a great idea. Plus we'll have more money for candy." Govenments notice - "Social media is hereby taxed. Your local ISP will be collecting the tax automatically." People - "Whatever, we'll just use V…

[deleted]

Re: Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

#29

Post by nodesocket »

rb808 wrote: post #10

I'm not sure why this tax should be labelled as absurd. Lots of countries tax TV, phone already. Taxing social media sounds weird only because no one else has done it yet.

If you take the stance that social media is ultimately a bad thing for society, then a tax actually seems like a good solution.

After all, San Francisco decided that soda is a bad thing and implemented a soda tax. What's the difference?

Re: Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

#30

Post by JumpCrisscross »

rb808 wrote: post #10

I'm not sure why this tax should be labelled as absurd. Lots of countries tax TV, phone already. Taxing social media sounds weird only because no one else has done it yet.

> I'm not sure why this tax should be labelled as absurd

It's not the tax per se so much as how it's being levied and enforced. Social media should be subject to a sales tax, levied on the provider. This is being structured as a use tax, levied on users. Use taxes are notoriously difficult to enforce, and digital goods make that harder.

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