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IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

prestonbyrne.com

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Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#281

Post by cortesoft »

nine_k wrote: post #216
Hizonner wrote: post #55

You shouldn't even be expected to geoblock. If I'm operating a Web site in country A, I should not have to care about country B's laws unless I am taking specific action intended to attract users in country B in particular . That's doesn't mean just to target the whole world, either. If you don't want your citizens to access something in another country, take it up with your citizens. It was obvious from the minute t…

If you operate a website outside UK and that's it, you may not care. But if you offer paid servies, collect money from UK citizens, you must have a business representation in the UK, which is bound by UK laws, can be fined, dragged to a court, etc. If you have this vulnerability, or you don't but your holding company has other web properties that do, the UK government has a way to make you listen and comply.

The example website in this case doesn’t take any payment, it appears.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#282

Post by hunterpayne »

Pet_Ant wrote: post #258
hunterpayne wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but I feel like the UK government hasn't thought this matter through. Think about what happens if the US decides it can enforce US law on UK soil against UK citizens. The main industry of the UK is questionable international finance using legal fictions on various islands. What happens when the US decides that that shouldn't be happening anymore? Its the same logic OfCom is using here. And unlike the UK governmen…

> What happens when the US decides that that shouldn't be happening anymore? Like the US did with Swiss banks? “…the standard of justice depends on the equality of power to compel and that in fact the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.” — Thucydides, 5.89 (trans. Rex Warner, Penguin Classics edition) (half-remembered quote found using AI) original source https://en.…

The US government in that case was requesting information on US citizens and not foreign nationals. I put in those last two words ("against foreigners") for a reason. If the UK government was trying to enforce UK law on UK citizens in the US, that's one thing. That's not what is happening with Ofcom, they want to enforce these laws against US citizens in US territory. That is a very blatant violation of US national sovereignty.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#283

Post by Hizonner »

gpm wrote: post #184
sunshine-o wrote: post #147

It is getting really hard to follow their logic. A some point, if you do not have any relationship with the UK, go as far as blocking its residents but they still want you to abide by their law, aren't they just declaring war on the entire world? This is something very deranged that have become very common with the world "becoming smaller": somes will go on a rampage for something happening on the other side of the p…

> A some point, if you do not have any relationship with the UK, go as far as blocking its residents but they still want you to abide by their law Ofcom appears to agree that geoblocking UK residents would satisfy the requirements of this law. They also however appear to believe the OPs clients are simply lying about actually geoblocking UK residents - and Ofcom appear's to be the quasi-judicial entity which decides…

> They also however appear to believe the OPs clients are simply lying about actually geoblocking UK residents

They don't seem to claim that. They claim the block is imperfect, and they demand perfection.

Since perfection is in fact impossible, that means there's no reasonable, actually available action you can take to keep them from fining you, or at least trying to.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#284

Post by Hizonner »

dgroshev wrote: post #159
jalapenos wrote: post #143

Why is it that every mention of the UK government I hear in the news, I think "wow, those guys are absolute scum !". They should just hand it back to the king, the democracy experiment has failed there.

That's how filter bubbles and propaganda work. Take this case: the law was enacted two years ago by a different government, the regulator follows the law as enacted, and yet no one cares about this little nuance. In reality, it's a decent technocratic government trying to reverse a decade of mismanagement and fighting about five hundred fires at the same time. It's OK to good.

The party currently in power enthusiastically supported the OSA when it was enacted, and has been enthusiastic about implementing it. They're not just mechanically enforcing something that they inherited.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#285

Post by soueuls »

Sure then I don’t comply, so what?

If the UK wants to go full totalitarian it’s alright, they can even consider me a criminal or ban me from entering the country.

I usually avoid traveling to countries doing non sense or that would arrest me for ideological reasons.

The UK would be no different.

But as far as I know, where I live, I am not under UK’s jurisdiction.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#286

Post by Spivak »

machomaster wrote: post #242
thayne wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in this case, they weren't on UK soil when they did something against UK law.

There is a grade to crimes. Lesser crimes are only punishable if they were done in a country. Bigger crimes are punishable even if you did them outside of the country. Imagine that your own country finds out that you were a prolific serial killer while on a holiday in another country. Do you think they will just ignore it?

This is because your home country has jurisdiction over you and is more than free to write laws punishing you for whatever they want.

This is country B considering something a citizen of country A did while in country A to be a crime. And not that it even matters but in country A that thing is legal. Like country B is a sovereign state and can arrest you for whatever it wants while you're there but the bigger question is whether country A should be mad about it and impress themselves on country B to get them to not do that.

That's really the issue here and exactly what the GRANITE Act he's proposing does.

It seems like the US is actually being too nice here. It's a perfectly reasonable position to reject the notion that a country has global jurisdiction and to consider such an arrest to be a hostile act against the US. I would be pissed the moment a country thought it could punish one of my citizens for something they did while under my jurisdiction—even something that I consider to be illegal.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#287

Post by hunterpayne »

Hizonner wrote: post #278
hunterpayne wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That law only covers US citizens (that are living abroad). So no, that's not a counter example.

Um, no, it attempts to compel foreign banks, which may not even have a presence in the US, to disclose information about US citizens, using various threats. It doesn't threaten to throw foreigners in jail , but it does threaten to use US government "clout" against them... and the actors it's trying to put obligations on are absolutely not US citizens.

Funny how you make tax evasion and money laundering on par with political speech. Fighting for your rights to be corrupt is a pretty weird take. If we can talk someone into doing what we want, that's perfectly legal as long as we or they aren't violating any laws. And nobody complains because getting dirty banks to spill is in everyone's best interests. Remember how happy everyone was at all the FIFA corruption data we uncovered.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#288

Post by AnthonyMouse »

llbbdd wrote: post #235
EGreg wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't people just build decentralized smart contracts these days? Why worry about all these liabilities?

Because crypto is a liability itself and nobody normal likes interacting with it.

Is there no way to improve the user experience for this?

Company A sells cryptocurrency in country A. Company B is a payment processor in country B. You in country A go to the country B merchant's website and enter your card info to buy something. Your card gets charged by company A to buy cryptocurrency, the merchant gets the money through company B and the transfer of cryptocurrency from company A to company B happens in software on a server somewhere and the user doesn't have to do anything.

Why is this either not happening or not sufficient?

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#289

Post by hilbert42 »

kelnos wrote: post #268
hilbert42 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You shouldn't even be expected to geoblock." I read the article and I remain confused. I've just come to this story after seeing it on HN so I might have misunderstandings from being unaware of the background. Also, I neither reside in the US nor UK so I'd have not seen local media reports. In short, I gather UK's Ofcom is threatening a US web site for online content that is lawful within the US's jurisdiction and u…

The UK -- and many other countries -- assert that their laws do bind people outside their borders, regardless of the absurdity (in most cases) of attempting to enforce that law elsewhere. I think it's important to fight these sort of things even in cases where they can't actually enforce it. For one thing, say one of the site operators in question have a need or desire to visit the UK at some point in the future, but…

"The UK -- and many other countries -- assert that their laws do bind people outside their borders…"

I'm aware of that, it's become an increasing trend over the past 40 or so years as diplomatic norms have broken down, changed or become more disrespected. If it continues we'll see even more tit for tat reprisals as respect for international law and authority continues to break down (we're now 80 years on from WWII and the world has almost forgotten lessons learned and the international order that arose from that conflict).

"…have a need or desire to visit the UK at some point in the future, but can't, because there's some sort of legal judgment against them because of this."

I remember a time when my passport was stamped in big purple letters "Not Valid for XYZ" country for reasons like that (I could not legally leave the county if that was my destination).

Matters would likely come to a head if say US passports were stamped "Not Valid for the UK". Moreover, it's incumbent on a country to protect its citizens who have done nothing wrong by their laws—hence a country should so warn its citizens beforehand, and stamping passports with large signs is very effective.

This is all part of a much bigger issue too big to address here. It's why I believe it's going to get much worse before it gets better. As I said elsewhere, I believe that with the increase in political and cultural differences brought about by rising nationalism we will see an increase in geoblocking everywhere. I find the trends shocking but there's stuff-all I can do about them.

Edit: I must emphasize that whilst I'm defending the right of law abiding US citizens against action by other governments, I'm not defending the US Government per se (some of it's actions of late I consider alarming). Again, these are separate issues.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#290

Post by Nursie »

hunterpayne wrote: post #197
vessenes wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Preston talks about this in an earlier blog post. It's a matter of UK law and, I'd bet, many countries, that they have the sovereign right to legislate about matters in and outside their borders. "If Parliament says smoking in Paris is illegal, it is illegal." What's different today than when that doctrine was conceived of is: data goes everywhere, communications are decentralized, international cooperation around es…

Ok, but I feel like the UK government hasn't thought this matter through. Think about what happens if the US decides it can enforce US law on UK soil against UK citizens. The main industry of the UK is questionable international finance using legal fictions on various islands. What happens when the US decides that that shouldn't be happening anymore? Its the same logic OfCom is using here. And unlike the UK governmen…

> Think about what happens if the US decides it can enforce US law on UK soil against UK citizens.

Yeah about that …

Try looking up Gary McKinnon or Larry Love. The US has a history of this stuff, those are just a couple of examples. Hell, Kim Dotcom (NZ but same deal).

And that’s before we get into whatever the f*ck was happening at Guantanamo Bay.

> I know of no government that thinks it can enforce their law outside of their borders against foreigners.

Then you haven’t been paying attention.

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