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Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

tomshardware.com

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Re: Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

#291

Post by jeroenhd »

kstrauser wrote: post #279
jeroenhd wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these features can be employed on the website side perfectly fine. Tools like https://obfusgated.com/tools/vpn-detection-test will use very basic timing tricks to detect VPNs, for instance. Not very reliable, but if you add data points about things like MTU size and WebRTC, and cross-reference that with GeoIP location, you could detect most VPNs. Not without rejecting a small amount of edge cases (Firefox use…

BTW, I connected to that test using Apple’s Private Relay and it rated my VPN-ness as 0%. I stand by my point.

The test I linked is just an example of the technology (it's designed for proxies rather than VPNs, as it just uses websockets vs TCP timing).

Tests like http://witch.valdikss.org.ru/ are a bit better, although that particular one has been around for a while and is probably outdated (it flags the WireGuard VPN to my home IP as being OpenVPN, for instance).

I don't have Apple Premium so I can't test private relays, but the technology for detecting VPNs is quite sound. It's just not used very often, because there's no real incentive to detect use cases like "people VPN'ing into their home IP". The only exception I've found is maximum-security Cloudflare-protected websites, they seem to run an extra layer of CAPTCHAs when my VPN is on, but those websites are exceedingly rare and probably have some non-determinism in their CAPTCHA ruleset.

Re: Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

#292

Post by FrustratedMonky »

cosmicgadget wrote: post #288
kstrauser wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which part of what I said couldn’t be argued in court by an ambitious prosecutor?

So that's the 'avalanche' threshold?

If you are the one being found guilty for having a link on your website, it can seem like an 'avalanche'.

Re: Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

#293

Post by OutOfHere »

abustamam wrote: post #283
OutOfHere wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That borrowing funds only the federal government, not the state government. The states don't get to borrow in the same way. Also, that borrowing will increasingly come with a high interest rate and high inflation.

Sure but these problems exist at the federal level too. And yes the consequences are real but it still happens and is why we can't just hit the federal govt in the wallet. For the time being, elections are still free, so voting is still the most effective way, but raising awareness of stuff like this makes people more aware of who NOT to vote for next office.

It's happening at the state level at this time. In any event, we don't need to hit the federal government in their wallet as they're too busy doing it to themselves with their immense exponentially-growing loan that will crush them soon enough.

Re: Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

#294

Post by notpushkin »

Modified3019 wrote: post #205
wartywhoa23 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I a hostile one for you, being a Russian who has to bypass both domestic blocks of the outbound traffic and (much more rare) "hostile nation" geoip blocks on the other side via VPNs just to read that damn article , mind you, not to hack anyone?

It’s for sure not fair for you personally. However it’s also not fair the rest of us have do deal with Russia’s hacking and propaganda organizations that are either directly state run or willfully tolerated. IP blocks don’t fix everything, but they do (or did at least) counter a good portion of the bots for no effort. You live in a country that is awful to itself and everyone around it, but that’s not something we ca…

It’s unfortunately not something Russians can fix either.

And I understand the desire to just blackhole all RU traffic, but if everybody starts doing this, it would result in two things:

1. Ordinary Russians who want to just read your website will have to jump through hoops (or probably find another source; I don’t live in Russia anymore but find myself clinging to the latter option for websites that decide to block all non-US traffic)

2. Hackers will... use botnets to proxy their traffic? It’s not like they don’t have options, they just pick lowest hanging fruits for now.

---

The proper solution to the hackers problem is:

• Use static sites for static content

• Practice good security for webapps, and maybe use a WAF

Re: Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

#295

Post by nephihaha »

wat10000 wrote: post #282
nephihaha wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it is monkey see, monkey do the same/similar policies on smoking control, LEZ, digital ID, children's education, red meat and fish consumption, alcohol consumption, women's rights and a whole host of other things. Some of these are good causes, some not so much. Some of them rely on an excluded middle.

Are you suggesting there's some shadowy cabal responsible for getting women the right to vote?

Erm, no I'm not. I'm pointing out the homogenisation of policies across multiple countries.

You should be well aware by this point in life that plenty of good causes are used to justify not so good things. Or to put it another way, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".

On the most basic level, I could give the example of various children's charities being used to line the pockets of someone rather than doing what they are supposed to. That has happened a number of times.

In much the same way, we can see child safety and bullying (both of which are real issues) being used to excuse clamping down on freedom of expression online. A generation ago, the excuse of terrorism was used to remove civil liberties as well.

With women's rights, we see a genuine issue being abused. We see women from upper class or aristocratic backgrounds like Ursula von der Leyen getting jobs, while the bulk of women continue to work in grinding poverty, and can barely support themselves let alone a family. That is just the same old oligarchy and nepotism with a female face.

Re: Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

#296

Post by gib444 »

nephihaha wrote: post #222
gib444 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utah is actually trailblazing ahead of the UK here. It was only ministers possibly suggesting VPNs would be next in the firing line and AFAIK nothing has progressed beyond that yet Yet articles about UK age verification stuff got HUGE amount of attention and backlash here...

There is a clear parallel to the Criminal Justice Bills brought in by Tony Blair supposedly to stop "terrorism" (even though terrorism had been a serious issue in the UK from the late 1960s to the late 1990s, especially in Northern Ireland.) Now we have Keir Starmer promoting internet ID to stop minors accessing porn on the internet side, and supposedly against illegal migration on the non-internet side.

Bills become Acts btw. Not entirely sure which ones you're referring to

I'm no Blair fan but criticising someone for doing something to stop decades of 'serious terrorism' isn't the criticism you think it is.

I'm not familiar with all Parliament's acts from that period so maybe you can help us with what those parallels are?

Re: Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

#298

Post by [deleted] »

kstrauser wrote: post #148
cosmicgadget wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are okay: > Commercial entities that host "a substantial portion of material harmful to minors" are now prohibited from facilitating or encouraging the use of a VPN to bypass age checks. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/utahs-new-law-regulati...

I have an Amazon affiliate link on my website. Now it’s technically commercial. I say things in support of my LGBTQ friends and neighbors. Now it’s technically harmful to minors. This isn’t a slippery slope. It’s already an avalanche.

[deleted]

Re: Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

#299

Post by wat10000 »

nephihaha wrote: post #295
wat10000 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting there's some shadowy cabal responsible for getting women the right to vote?

Erm, no I'm not. I'm pointing out the homogenisation of policies across multiple countries. You should be well aware by this point in life that plenty of good causes are used to justify not so good things. Or to put it another way, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". On the most basic level, I could give the example of various children's charities being used to line the pockets of someone rather than do…

Sorry, I'm afraid I don't have a clue what point you're making, then, beyond "some things are bad."

Re: Utah to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs

#300

Post by martin-t »

wartywhoa23 wrote: post #268
martin-t wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extraordinary claims, extraordinary evidence, please...

The best evidence is crawling from underneath the rock and checking the world news. But that requires the ability to detect the movement of the Overton window over time, though.

Look, I hate injustice more than most people and I have no issue saying that there are people who spend their entire lives getting richer and more connected at everyone else's expense and that they should be punished in full for what they gained unjustly.

But you're not gonna convince anyone by being snarky while at the same time making 0 verifiable claims.

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