IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by gpm » Sun, Nov 09, 2025, 5:57 AM UTC

Hizonner wrote: post #283

gpm wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

No, I think they were pretty explicit

> In our email dated 13 October 2025, we explained that Ofcom would be taking steps to monitor the voluntary block of users with UK IP addresses implemented by sanctionedsuicide.site and sanctioned- suicide.net on 1 July 2025.

> Ofcom has become aware that the voluntary block in place on the above two websites restricting users with UK IP addresses from accessing these domains is no longer effective to restrict UK users from accessing the service or its content. In particular, we note that content from the service remains accessible to users with UK IP addresses at another domain, namely https://dignifiedexit.com.

This isn't a dispute about effectiveness, this a dispute about whether or not OP's client spun up another domain and didn't block UK users from it.

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

#292

Post by deaux » Sun, Nov 09, 2025, 5:59 AM UTC

hunterpayne wrote: post #287

Hizonner wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They didn't make anything on par, they gave an example of the US government enforcing US laws on foreign entities abroad.

Another example is that e.g. AWS Europe, even if every single one of its employees, board and what have it are all Germans, are still compelled to hand over their data if Amazon US is the parent company, under the likes of the CLOUD Act or FISA. That's a foreign entity comprised of foreign citizens and concerns the assets (data) of foreign citizens.

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

#293

Post by qball » Sun, Nov 09, 2025, 6:04 AM UTC

nozzlegear wrote: post #146

qball wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it? Plenty of US citizens would actively cheer the notion of having a foreign government arrest their political opponents as an end-run around the fact they're not allowed to do it at home. After all, 1A/"freeze peach" laws should only protect you from your government, right?

> Plenty of US citizens would actively cheer the notion of having a foreign government arrest their political opponents as an end-run around the fact they're not allowed to do it at home. I'm not convinced that plenty of US citizens would celebrate a foreign government arresting an American for what would be protected by the 1A in the US. There will always be trolls, of course. > After all, 1A/"freeze peach" laws sho…

Plenty of US citizens openly celebrated the murder of an American for what was protected by the 1A in the US.

So no, I don't think that the people who celebrated that would care, and said people would actively support an administration that actively encouraged the UK in this manner for the same reason.

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

#294

Post by hansvm » Sun, Nov 09, 2025, 6:06 AM UTC

hunterpayne wrote: post #287

Hizonner wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's only a tax evasion concern in the first place because the US started the trend of hoovering up wealth generated in other countries, which in-context still sounds like US overreach.

They weren't arguing for anyone's right to be corrupt in the first place though. If US citizens really have to pay extra taxes and have arduous reporting requirements then so be it, but why is the rest of the world dragged into that mess? This isn't a "dirty banks" issue; it's nearly impossible to get a bank account at any reputable institution as a US citizen abroad just because of the PITA of the reporting requirements. It's a mediocre law from questionable authority.

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

#295

Post by jimjimwii » Sun, Nov 09, 2025, 6:16 AM UTC

brookst wrote: post #266

beejiu wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and this already happens, every day.

So like a German going 160kph on an appropriate section of the autobahn should avoid travel to the US?

I think the classic example is copyright and hacking offences, of which there are many many examples. Legal in a person's home country, very illegal in the US (unless you are a big corporation, of course).

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

#296

Post by Razengan » Sun, Nov 09, 2025, 6:27 AM UTC

jmward01 wrote: post #279

Let's start with a bang. Passports and strictly enforced borders are dumb and this is a clear example of exactly why. Increasingly the digital world -is- the world and arbitrary geographical boundaries are causing nothing but problems. We are taking the ideas of physical borders and passports and, badly, applying that broken idea to a virtual space with typical results. It blows me away that the real problem with str…

> Let's start with a bang. Passports and strictly enforced borders are dumb

This.

It's weird how it's not considered a basic human right to be able travel to where you want, and even live where you want as long as you can support yourself and comply with the local laws and customs.

And that's how it was for like 99% of the time that humans have existed.

When did keeping people locked inside "borders" even become a thing? I'm guessing post World War 1? Looking up history on Wikipedia says documents for "citizenship" existed maybe as far back as Ancient Egypt but there doesn't seem to be anything that forced people to remain within the nation of their birth.

The West literally bombed Japan and China to open their borders for "tRaDe" then pushed for strict borders after the world's worst wars that they started.

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

#297

Post by chopete3 » Sun, Nov 09, 2025, 6:35 AM UTC

>>If any censorship demand gets through our border, we fail.

That means we defend every site, however small or controversial it may be, from foreign attempts to infringe on their constitutional rights. It means not giving up so much as an inch of ground without a major fight, if those are the instructions. It means we must not ever lose.

--

That is a powerful pro-bono defense message by the US person doing it.

Just like the Trump says climate crisis is a hoax and wins elections, can't somebody in the UK say Online Safety Act is nonsense and win election and repeal it?

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

#298

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sun, Nov 09, 2025, 6:39 AM UTC

hilbert42 wrote: post #274

Hizonner wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Basically all countries take that position legally. But there are norms and customs about how often you exercise it (as well as practical questions of power). Extraterritorial regulation of Web sites is unfortunately in the process of being established as normal, but it's…

"Extraterritorial regulation of Web sites is unfortunately in the process of being established as normal, but it's a bad norm." Perhaps "Extraterritorial regulation" is bad wording. A country can regulate whether an extraterritorial website is distributed and or viewed within its borders but it has no legal authority force another country to close down a website that's operating legally within its jurisdiction. The o…

> Perhaps "Extraterritorial regulation" is bad wording. A country can regulate whether an extraterritorial website is distributed and or viewed within its borders but it has no legal authority force another country to close down a website that's operating legally within its jurisdiction.

The issue is they're doing this through might makes right rather than jurisdictional authority.

You have a website in one country, 99% of the content is legal in another country but it also contains a post by a user which is legal in the first country and not the second.

The second country then demands that the website remove the post -- for everyone, they don't even want it accessible via VPN -- or they'll have their ISPs block not just the entire website but also the entire shared hosting provider the website uses. The site which is entirely in the other jurisdiction can't withstand that much pressure and removes the post.

You now have a country censoring a post world-wide because they leveraged every company within their jurisdiction to enforce a law against one that isn't. That's extraterritorial regulation.

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

#299

Post by swores » Sun, Nov 09, 2025, 6:43 AM UTC

jen20 wrote: post #233

nine_k wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> collect money from UK citizens This is quite obviously incorrect. I am a UK citizen, but live in the US. No company needs a UK presence to collect money from me.

And to be clear, that’s still true for selling services online to UK citizens who are also UK residents, it’s not a quirk of you having moved away from the UK - it’s just not true that you need a legal presence in the UK to serve customers from the UK.

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

#300

Post by verzali » Sun, Nov 09, 2025, 6:47 AM UTC

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…

The US is quite literally killing people outside its borders every day. It even ran a program of kidnapping and torturing people from foreign countries for years, and still maintains a network of prisions outside America. The US very much thinks it can enforce its laws however and in whatever twisted fashion it likes.