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VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'

birminghammail.co.uk

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Re: VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'

#291

Post by DrBazza »

embedding-shape wrote: post #22
kouteiheika wrote: post #5

> the main thing that we've done is we've commissioned additional research on this because I've not been happy with the evidence. Ah, yes, the existing research doesn't agree with our biases, so let's fund new "research" that does.

Full context: > Ms Kendall told Nick Ferrari: “I told MPs yesterday I'm going to come back to the House with a statement on the issue of VPNs in July. There are very strong views on both sides of this. For some people, it is about privacy, and it is the ability to use that is really held strongly by people. And for others, they say they should be banned because kids are using them to get around. And so I— the main th…

More context:

> Elizabeth Louise Kendall (born 11 June 1971)[1] is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology > [sic] graduating with first class honours in history in 1993 > [sic] after graduating from Cambridge, worked at the Institute for Public Policy Research (charity)

tl;dr never worked in the private sector, and utterly unqualified to make judgements on technology.

So of course she's the science minister.

This is what UK parliament is full of, ill qualified, political lifers.

What a depressing time to live in the UK.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Kendall

Re: VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'

#292

Post by subscribed »

joe463369 wrote: post #220
subscribed wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because it's not about age gating, it's about identifying the internet users.

Is there any evidence of this? I hear it time and again with very little justification.

So if anyone who is a part of the establishment that protects known abusers and openly tolerated companies known, by their own admission, for hurting children, start saying "think of the children!" and "we're protecting the children", look at their hands because they're trying to swindle you.

Start from these two:

- https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/10-not-so-hidden-dange...

- https://mullvad.net/en/and-then/uk

And remember that once these systems are introduced it will be very hard to get rid of them, and very easy to get them expanded to gate (identify users of) the more "radical" content, like environmental protests, opposing the genocide, perhaps opposing the monarchy...

If the establishment allows the companies, unpunished, to knowingly push teens into ED or suicide and at the same time says they "do something", you really shouldn't take it at the face value.

If you still honestly believe the reason for this is "protecting the children" (remember the next steps, mandatory, uninstallable surveillance on phones and IDing of all VPN users are in motion already), you can't be saved :(

Re: VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'

#293

Post by DrBazza »

Retr0id wrote: post #52
embedding-shape wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full context: > Ms Kendall told Nick Ferrari: “I told MPs yesterday I'm going to come back to the House with a statement on the issue of VPNs in July. There are very strong views on both sides of this. For some people, it is about privacy, and it is the ability to use that is really held strongly by people. And for others, they say they should be banned because kids are using them to get around. And so I— the main th…

What is there to research? Yes, VPNs can be used to circumvent geofences (and by extension, regional age restrictions). Yes, attempting to age-restrict VPNs is at odds with strong privacy guarantees. Privacy is a human right, and one which is essential for effective democracy.

It's the UK gov. Rather than do something, it's endless inquiries and 'research'.

Example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Thames_Crossing - the planning application is 360,000 pages and not a single shovel is in the ground. Or HS2. The list goes on. This is a really, really minor example of the same sickness that infests British politics for the last few decades.

Re: VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'

#294

Post by rustcleaner »

nekusar wrote: post #145
ben_w wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is there to research? The trade-offs and how many people care and about what specifically. E.g., you say "Privacy is a human right", so why is it that half the websites I visit ask for permission to share details of how I use those sites with more corporate "trusted partners" than there were students and staff combined in my secondary school? I'm all on board with just banning this kind of analytics, but there…

> E.g., you say "Privacy is a human right", so why is it that half the websites I visit ask for permission to share details of how I use those sites with more corporate "trusted partners" than there were students and staff combined in my secondary school? Because capitalism itself is the enemy. And information assymmetry is a potent tool, as is constant and persistent surveillance. All of these enable extracting more…

>Because capitalism itself is the enemy.

Let's be real here. It's investor-monopoly capitalism that is the problem. Individuals worth less than $100,000,000 owning private property or their businesses isn't the problem, it's the Financial-Industrial-Complex with its Dodge vs Ford ruling (established duty to maximize shareholder returns) that is the problem. People owning their homes, cars, agriculture fields, tractors, semi-trucks, and small/medium business are not the cause of our ills. The cause is the financialization of everything, turning everyone into rent-paying debtors always on the precarious edge. Free enterprise is good, but monopoly enterprise is not. Quit making people race to the bottom in competition for basic survival, and start making the moneyed monopolists do it instead!

Re: VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'

#295

Post by arbol »

dryarzeg wrote: post #138
kitd wrote: post #129

Uk kids about to discover the power of Hetzner Linux vps + vnc.

And then UK residents are going to discover the "power" of government which will require age verification for renting a VPS or VDS or any other kind of cloud infrastructure, tied directly to your passport/ID, because "many families are desperate for this to happen and I listen particularly to bereaved families that say the longer we delay this, the more children are put at risk". /j or /s P.S. by the way, is it possi…

What about the services that rent vps/compute for crypto?

Re: VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'

#296

Post by dryarzeg »

arbol wrote: post #295
dryarzeg wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then UK residents are going to discover the "power" of government which will require age verification for renting a VPS or VDS or any other kind of cloud infrastructure, tied directly to your passport/ID, because "many families are desperate for this to happen and I listen particularly to bereaved families that say the longer we delay this, the more children are put at risk". /j or /s P.S. by the way, is it possi…

What about the services that rent vps/compute for crypto?

I'm not so sure, but aren't some attempts to regulate the cryptocurrencies (therefore completely obliterating their initial goal to be government-independent) already have been made? Maybe I'm wrong though, because I don't really remember... Probably I have to look it up.

Anyway, how would they obtain the (let's say) Bitcoin to pay for VPS?

Re: VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'

#297

Post by bryan_w »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #232
CamperBob2 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Run to the Kremlin, with torches in your hands.

Yeah right, that worked out for Iranians quite well all these times.

Isn't putin begging y'all to get in tanks for Ukraine? Just find a like minded group of recruits and turn the tanks around

Re: VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'

#298

Post by rustcleaner »

IanCal wrote: post #254
Retr0id wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is there to research? Yes, VPNs can be used to circumvent geofences (and by extension, regional age restrictions). Yes, attempting to age-restrict VPNs is at odds with strong privacy guarantees. Privacy is a human right, and one which is essential for effective democracy.

Are there ways of doing age gating while preserving privacy? For whom? How many people need that kind of privacy, would it impact lots of (say) teens seeking help or is this about whistleblowers? Are many under 18s using VPNs for porn? Or have they just shifted to other platforms anyway? If we implemented it “perfectly” would it even do the thing we wanted? What are the actual numbers here? If there’s lots of fuss ab…

>We age gate alcohol to reasonable success,

We shouldn't.

>sometimes that involves showing id.

Then the yokel checkout attendant proceeds to punch the 8 digit birthday into the keyboard, which serializes you as one of less than 30,000 customers in the area. Birthdays are leaky identifiers.

Re: VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'

#299

Post by arbol »

rasengan wrote: post #147

The UK can’t block Dissent [1] since it looks like normal HTTPS traffic. [1] https://godissent.com

> The site’s content happens to include an HTTP/2 endpoint that, when presented with an anonymous authorization token, behaves as a VPN server’s outer layer

Is this not the fingerprintable aspect? Wouldn't you need to randomise the HTTP endpoint to avoid eventually being banned based on URI?

Cool idea btw.

Re: VPN ban update for UK households as government looks at 'age-gate'

#300

Post by dryarzeg »

oceanplexian wrote: post #278
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You see, the problem is that all exit points of our VPNs are in Europe. These too can be banned quite easily. Where to will we run next, given that this cancer tends to spread?

One solution is that United States radically supports free speech and provides Starlink access to Europeans as a humanitarian act. It would be similar to Radio Free Europe which was broadcast to the former Soviet States.

> United States radically supports free speech

Sounds like some kind of utopia to me, given the current circumstances /s

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