That VPNs are undoubtedly essential privacy and security tools is precisely the problem the UK government has with them.
Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools
211–220 of 386 posts
Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools
#212[flagged]
This is the way! It is frightening how eagerly parents want to give up freedom for everyone, in return for not having to care about their offspring and the illusion of 100% safety. I think the authoritarian trend accelerated during corona. Our western political nobility got a real taste for power, and they have not been able to free themselves from that afrodisiac ever since. Therefore chat control, 1, 2, 3, and when…
Did you ever heard a parent asking for this in the real world? Parents who care either don't give smartphones, or dumbed-down ones that they can control.
Asking for less tech at school is not an authoritarian move, but rather a point of view about how schools should work.
If you asked me, I think that parents should throw away their TVs and minimize screen time at home, both for them and the kids. However I won't ask this to be enforced by the State - if anything, it will make my kids more competitive against the cartoons-infused ones of the other parents.
Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do not think parents are the one pushing these controls. They are busy raising the kids.
There’s an alternate view that parents are very much in support of centralized policy. When policy is left up to individual families — little Johnny X has an iPhone but little Timmy Y doesn’t — the creep towards everyone having a phone begins. When, instead, the school board bans phones it’s much easier for the conservative majority of parents to hold the line.
Banning phones at school has nothing to do with freedom to use phones. You are not restrained in your freedom because using you smartphone while driving is forbidden.
Kids go to school to learn, not to watch modern cable shopping network (aka Tiktok/Instagram).
Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools
#214USA entities tend to think that terms like "privacy", "security" have same meanings and assumptions across the globe, and that the USA laws are universal. Maybe they also think that entire world is just as dumb or dumber than USA. For a start, you should consider this fact: Privacy for a bad actor goes directly against the security for citizens and good actors. So when you talk about privacy you are making an assumpt…
I think that's a silly argument, but even if we accept it at face value 1) VPN usage is difficult to detect and 2) bad actors are still going to use VPNs. This line of thinking removes privacy from good actors while doing nothing to address security concerns from bad actors.
Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is frightening how eagerly parents want to give up freedom for everyone, It's not like parents have much of a choice. When you gotta work 2 jobs to barely make rent and groceries, you need some sort of "safe space" to pawn your children off to.
Just my opinion but… I’m all for helping people in the situations that aren’t of their own creation, so using the excuse “what are they supposed to do” doesn’t really fit for me? The first option is to use a condom if they are in a bad financial situation. It’s been amazing how every time I’ve used one, I haven’t had a child. When did we stop making people responsible for their choices? I’m not against assistance, I’…
"Being able to parent" is something you don't know about before you have your first child, and each child increases exponentially the difficulty. You can manage ok the first one and be overwhelmed when the second one is born.
Also not everyone is a trust fund kid that works at a FAANG: people get sick, lose jobs, divorce, change homes, and so on.
I'm really happy that you found the perfect antifragile optimum in your life, but this kind of "vae victis" thinking will only make parents more miserable and decrease birth rates.
Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know the parent's policy position, but it seems like they didn't express one, and you've just assumed they support deanonymization?
Ye this modern view that more and more assumes polarisation of stands on matters is kinda annoying. I don't support deanonymization.
It’s become bog standard to just throw up extremely binary strawmen these days or otherwise bait people into arguments demanding sources that you can then point at and whine about. Zero attempt to understand or ask questions that clarify. Anything that avoids having to listen or express your own opinion in a substantive way.
Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because online is global, and you can't have effective local laws against a global system. Parents don't need magic; they just need to watch what their kids use devices for, and keep the devices in public areas of the house. The main thing the state can do is stop requiring kids to have portable internet-connected devices for state schooling.
You are obviously not a parent. I lock down devices, lock down my network, then the public school gives my kid a laptop with access to nearly everything I’ve tried to filter. Even if I can successfully monitor it at home, the device is in their possession and out of my control as a parent for 6-8 hours a day. The government is literally bypassing our family rules and my ability to protect my children in the way I see…
are the school laptops locked down at all? work laptops are locked down at most corporations and that’s for adults!
Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools
#218It is perhaps worth highlighting that Mozilla has done this in response to a specific UK government consultation [1] all about "growing up in the online world", which has, buried about 30 pages deep, a specific question about age-gating VPNs and similar technologies.
As far as I can tell, there is no requirement to be a UK citizen to answer this – if you are, were, or could be resident in the UK I urge you to fill it out and help provide a voice of reason...
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/growing-up-in-th...
Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools
#219[flagged]
"Do you know who's responsible to make sure children are safe online? Their parents."
Parents have the responsibility to do what is necessary to protect their kids
In the case of parents v. so-called "tech" companies, who should win
What happens when the companies are protected from parents by Section 230
Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The first option is to use a condom if they are in a bad financial situation. It’s been amazing how every time I’ve used one, I haven’t had a child. That's what they've been doing in unprecedented numbers. Which via demographic collapse is going to cause an even worse crisis, economic, social, political, and more, further down the line.
It's also why some political factions are trying to ban condoms. Often the same factions that are trying to ban VPNs.
Yeah, I'm sure Kier Starmer is pro-natalist...