Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax • Hacker News Board

Re: Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

#31

Post by arghwhat » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:43 PM UTC

rb808 wrote: post #10

I'm not sure why this tax should be labelled as absurd. Lots of countries tax TV, phone already. Taxing social media sounds weird only because no one else has done it yet.

Taxing TV and phone is like taxing internet connectivity. While a bit odd, this is perfectly fine. The reason for this is that it does not discriminate content, but only care about the utility itself.

Taxing social media is like taxing you for saying or hearing a specific word or sentence on the phone, or every time a certain show is broadcast on the TV.

This is absurd, and a violation of free speech, as it discriminates content. It is an attempt to control information exchange by discouraging it. The ulterior motive is usually manipulation of the citizens to keep them in line in absurd regimes, and/or to avoid the outside becoming aware of their internal issues.

Separately, these idiocies implemented by people that do not understand how the internet works undermines fundamental security aspects by being incompatible with proper cryptographic security measures. You cannot, for example, serve a portal instead of a properly configured HTTPS site without your browser noticing, so HTTPS needs to be blocked first.

Re: Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

#32

Post by ryan-c » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:44 PM UTC

drenvuk wrote: post #27

ryan-c wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China's gotten pretty good at it. OpenVPN running over port 443 is generally going to be using a CA that is not a public CA, and issues certificates directly rather than through an intermediate. Even if you tunnel something over normal TLS, the type of traffic can potentially be determined by analyzing how much data flows in which direction and when. If circumvention is seen as too widely spread, Uganda may simply de…

How about a thought experiment, assuming you had multiple domains, obfsproxy and Let's Encrypt going how are they going to be able to tell if everything is over 443?

> analyzing how much data flows in which direction and when

Encapsulated TCP SYN packets, for example, smaller than any HTTP request inside TLS would be.

Want to beat that by padding? Everything always being the same size is an anomaly too.

Re: Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

#33

Post by JumpCrisscross » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:44 PM UTC

exabrial wrote: post #26

rb808 wrote: post #10

I'm not sure why this tax should be labelled as absurd. Lots of countries tax TV, phone already. Taxing social media sounds weird only because no one else has done it yet.

Because tax, in general is absurd. You're literally taking people's money under the threat of force. Just because it is done quite universally does not justify the practice. More specifically, taxes are abused near universally. From the sugar taxes in Seattle (unless you are Starbucks), or forced Union dues that fund political campaigns, the practice is abused. Meanwhile necessary services like police, firefighters,…

> You're literally taking people's money under the threat of force

Money that would have no meaning, earned for work which would largely be impossible, without said threat of force.

Re: Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

#34

Post by tanilama » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:45 PM UTC

Or they use this social media tax as disguise to enforce internet censorship

Re: Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

#35

Post by dictum » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:46 PM UTC

jk_danson wrote: post #7

Someone needs to make a small sketch of the Uganda government with 7 year olds making up the laws. Child 1 - "Let's tax people for being on social media to stop them from saying bad things about us" Child 2 - "Yeah that's a great idea. Plus we'll have more money for candy." Govenments notice - "Social media is hereby taxed. Your local ISP will be collecting the tax automatically." People - "Whatever, we'll just use V…

Sometimes, parody can't outdo reality.

(That won't stop the Ugandan government from working hard to outdo their past feats: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_Anti-Homosexuality_Ac...)

Re: Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

#36

Post by drenvuk » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

ryan-c wrote: post #32

drenvuk wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a thought experiment, assuming you had multiple domains, obfsproxy and Let's Encrypt going how are they going to be able to tell if everything is over 443?

> analyzing how much data flows in which direction and when Encapsulated TCP SYN packets, for example, smaller than any HTTP request inside TLS would be. Want to beat that by padding? Everything always being the same size is an anomaly too.

So then we randomize the padding, what's next?

How else do they figure it out? My mind jumps directly to funny traffic patterns like a single person using the domain or maybe a non-normal looking website that doesn't serve static assets to non-vpn users or other normal things, etc. Can they probe the server somehow and and figure out it's a vpn?

Does the user need to visit other sites unrelated to the vpn in order to mask their own usage and appear normal?

Re: Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

#37

Post by jpambrun » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

rb808 wrote: post #10

I'm not sure why this tax should be labelled as absurd. Lots of countries tax TV, phone already. Taxing social media sounds weird only because no one else has done it yet.

Many gouvernements tax what the it/the population deems hurtful: cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, etc.. Social media fits that list better than TV and phone IMO.

Re: Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

#38

Post by craftyguy » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:58 PM UTC

rb808 wrote: post #10

I'm not sure why this tax should be labelled as absurd. Lots of countries tax TV, phone already. Taxing social media sounds weird only because no one else has done it yet.

It's being used to limit government criticism.

> President Yoweri Museveni pushed for the changes to combat what he calls "gossip,"

Re: Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

#39

Post by drenvuk » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 5:00 PM UTC

iancarroll wrote: post #22

SomeRandomDev wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like China is good about public/shared VPN's. If you set up your own and keep the details to yourself I was under the impression that it'd work just fine. That being said I love to travel and can work wherever but haven't been to CN yet for this reason in particular.

If you are just visiting, the Great Firewall is not really a problem, as foreign SIM cards route directly to the internet. Just make sure you have a reasonable international plan with your carrier before you go.

This is true. My phone connected to 4g when I turned it on but then upon my first search using google now it disconnected and then reconnected to an H+ network and completed the search. It was pretty cool how they made a completely separate network for it.

Re: Uganda Bans VPNs to Prevent Users from Dodging Its New Social Media Tax

#40

Post by nyrosis » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

Pathetic.

If I put a sign in front of my home demanding money every time someone passes by that is considered illegal. Even if it's my road that I built. If a government does it it is considered a toll. Even if they didn't build the road.

Should we pay for every hop on the internet? That is where this is going.

Keep it up... This will only further private network development. We will be quite selective on who we give access this time.