Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 419 posts

Re: Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

#331

Post by InsideOutSanta »

JustExAWS wrote: post #310
ACCount37 wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And are you aware of what exactly has changed? One notable change is: reinforced cockpit doors that can't be forced open from the outside easily. Good luck hijacking with that. But another notable change is that plane crews and passengers all understand now that plane hijacking is a life or death situation, and would fight hijackers to the bitter end. Which is what happened on the very day of 9/11, on Flight 93.

With reinforced doors - pilots still come out to use the restroom. Flight attendants usually just block the aisle. People will fight back in the case of knives. But how much fighting back dk you think is going to happen if people have guns? How long do you think it’s going to be before a pilot opens the door if a hijacker starts shooting people? Airport security is by far not just in America with the only exception i…

If people think the plane is about to be flown into a skyscraper, I'm not sure a gun will stop them. There are hundreds of people on a plane and at most twenty rounds in a gun. The math isn't in the terrorist's favor.

There also isn't room to get away from angry passengers. They're probably going to overwhelm terrorists with guns relatively quickly.

Re: Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

#332

Post by InsideOutSanta »

pxc wrote: post #226
imiric wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless the government decides to ban all cryptography, or forcefully install their own certificates on every device, it should be possible to avoid any restriction attempts. If they're doing deep packet inspection to detect specific protocols, then those can be tunneled via encrypted protocols they do allow, such as TLS or SSH. This is certainly more inconvenient to use, but not impossible. If they're blocking all tr…

Take a look at the tools Chinese people use to evade the national firewall. They're extremely sophisticated, and need to advance all the time because the GFW constantly becomes more sophisticated. There are a lot of encryption technologies that the government also allows to work until they block them at a critical moment. All of the VPNs you've ever heard of in some advertisement on YouTube or whatever are easily and…

The last time I was in China a few months ago, I used an off-the-shelf, popular VPN, and it worked perfectly fine.

Re: Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

#333

Post by martin-t »

lucianbr wrote: post #213
martin-t wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voting doesn't work because people are not smart enough to think multiple steps ahead of people who are professionals at this. Voting doesn't work because everybody votes on everything, not just people who understand the subject matter. Voting doesn't work because it's impossible to express nuanced choice - you vote for a candidate or party as a whole, not on specific policies. The number of parties is much smaller t…

Those are arguments why voting does not produce a perfect outcome. That's different than "voting doesn't work". Using arguments like yours nothing can ever work. Society is complex and there will always be someone somewhere that can influence an outcome where he/she doesn't understand the subject matter. Hence, nothing works and can ever work. "Let's just give up" is the only conclusion I can see. Hardly useful. Can…

It does not work to produce a society where people are actually the ones holding power and where laws side with those in the right - i.e. the current legal system anywhere does not represent a consistent moral system and is not even close.

You're right it's too strong as a general statement but it was in response to a specific issue - those in power wanting to take yet another bit of power from the general population - (this time and in this particular country) by banning VPNs.

People always vote based on the most pressing issues to them - immigration, taxes, abortions, LGBT rights (random list which is different in every country). Minor issues fall between the cracks until they become so bad they become pressing to enough people.

> "Let's just give up" is the only conclusion I can see. Hardly useful.

Then you're reading it wrong. I listed specific issues - the solution is to find solutions to those issues.

Here's a couple suggestions I'd like to see gamed out and tested:

- The right to vote not as a function of age but a test of reasoning ability and general knowledge.

- Limiting the amount of time a person can perform politics (including professional lobbying) to 5-10 years.

- Splitting laws into areas of expertise and potentially requiring tests to prove understanding to gain the right to vote on those areas for both the general population and politicians.

- Replacing FPTP with more nuanced voting systems.

These are just a few random suggestions described briefly. When I do this, people start nitpicking and then I have to reply with obvious solutions to surface issues - I encourage everyone to instead think how to make this work (yes, in an adversarial environment) instead of just trying to shoot it down.

Re: Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

#334

Post by skeledrew »

TZubiri wrote: post #54
skeledrew wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way to block a VPN is to have the knowledge that certain IPs are used by VPN providers. It's pretty trivial for someone to run a script/app that spins up a server somewhere, installs VPN software on it, and uses that for the connection. Now there's no way to separate whether a user is connecting via a VPN or not.

Is this related to my comment at all? I do have another comment about the technical feasibility of this ban though.

It is.

> Quite a stretch if you ask me. And again, not relevant to adult sites blocking VPNs.

With the workaround I outlined, adult sites can no longer be aware of all VPNs in order to block them, if things do get that far. And you can be sure the ones the measure is supposed to "protect" will gain access to scripts/apps for said workaround.

Re: Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

#335

Post by thaumasiotes »

brookst wrote: post #253
thaumasiotes wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your examples are unlike each other. What stops people from speeding more than they already do is enforcement. The law isn't doing anything. But the TSA isn't a law. The TSA is, notionally, the enforcement. And it doesn't do anything either. So the TSA really is pointless. If you drive around at 30 mph over the limit, you're going to get a ticket, and this traffic cop presence stops people from speeding "too much". I…

The examples are similar in that they demonstrate that reducing probability is a reasonable goal, and it is a mistake to say anything imperfect is useless. Your take on TSA seems to be in the imperfect=useless camp. There are good ROI, efficiency, and philosophical reasons to want to abolish TSA, but it seems naive to say there is zero value and their mere existence has not deterred anyone.

> There are good ROI, efficiency, and philosophical reasons to want to abolish TSA, but it seems naive to say there is zero value and their mere existence has not deterred anyone.

Are you familiar with the TSA's measured efficiency? It's not naive at all to say that, below a certain detection threshold, the deterrence value is zero.

Compare https://www.loweringthebar.net/2015/06/tsa-successfully-pass... .

You'll notice that what I actually said was "[the TSA doesn't] do anything", which is accurate in a context of accident prevention. I didn't call them imperfect. I called them useless directly. It isn't the case that they do some good work and some bad work. They don't do anything that is useful in any degree.

Re: Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

#336

Post by bccdee »

colechristensen wrote: post #174
forgotoldacc wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every country that has slid into North Korea style total control begins with a "it won't happen here. And it'd stop before it gets that bad."

>Every country that has slid into North Korea style total control begins with a "it won't happen here. And it'd stop before it gets that bad." This is a pretty bold claim and I'm not sure it matches up with reality. Karl Marx said that in the first stage of communism there would be a required period of dictatorial control in order to transition from and dismantle capitalist institutions. This is exactly what happened…

> Karl Marx said that in the first stage of communism there would be a required period of dictatorial control

Not that it particularly matters, but he didn't say that. Marx never set down specific ideas about how a communist or proto-communist society should organize itself. He thought history was a natural progression of inevitable forces and was more interested in establishing the inevitability of communism (ha) than in describing specifically what a post-capitalist society would look like. (Misleadingly, he did use the phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat," though not to describe any type of dictatorial government.)

The whole "vanguard party of elites ruling by fiat" thing was Lenin's idea. Lenin though the working class wasn't educated enough to lead itself, so a ruling Communist Party should act as a steward on their behalf. Naturally, this idea was popular with people like Lenin and Mao, since it justified their being elevated to the status of authoritarian dictators.

> more like premeditated dictatorship

Lenin's communist party was, in theory, meant to represent the public. The pitch was never, "time for our prescribed period of temporary authoritarian dictatorship." Like any other political party, the Communist party was supposed to be democratically selected and represent the public. Obviously it quickly became corrupt and snuffed out the democratic elements, but any government is vulnerable to that sort of thing.

No, I think the USSR's descent into authoritarianism was very much an "it won't happen here" phenomenon, save perhaps for the fact that the Tsar's monarchy had only just ended and authoritarianism would have been nothing new to Russia.

Re: Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

#337

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #329
netsharc wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TSA is security theater, but I think checks are still necessary. Otherwise people can bring C4 onto planes, blow themselves (and the plane) up in the air, and freak a lot of "Western civilization" out. The liquids ban really is bullshit though, it's to prevent a fictional movie plot using a bomb mixed up using binary liquids...

What is the purpose of blowing up a plane in the air when you can blow up something on the ground and achieve much more damage?

It’s not about “damage”. Terrorism never is. It’s about instilling fear and an over reaction that will have people sympathetic to your cause. It worked during 911 and it’s working right now in Israel.

Re: Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

#338

Post by AnthonyMouse »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #325
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guns are trash on a plane. The use of a firearm is to be able to incapacitate someone from far enough away that they can't counterattack. Planes are densely packed with people. You'd have people surrounding and disarming you long before you could get control of the plane. How many shots do you expect to get off when anyone you're not currently aiming at can put their hands on the gun while someone else grabs your oth…

Terrorism is never about how many people you kill. It’s about instilling fear and sending a message and the downstream economic harm. Look no further than 911. Two costly unnecessary wars (that even republicans don’t defend anymore) that caused an entirely new generation of people to hate America.

> Terrorism is never about how many people you kill. It’s about instilling fear and sending a message and the downstream economic harm.

But again, what does it have anything to do with it being a plane? If they were to blow up a train instead of a plane, are people going to be like "haha you idiots, that only works if it's a plane"?

> Look no further than 911. Two costly unnecessary wars (that even republicans don’t defend anymore) that caused an entirely new generation

It sounds like you're saying that inhibiting overreactions to terrorism would lessen its effect and act as a deterrent to it.

Re: Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

#339

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #331
JustExAWS wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With reinforced doors - pilots still come out to use the restroom. Flight attendants usually just block the aisle. People will fight back in the case of knives. But how much fighting back dk you think is going to happen if people have guns? How long do you think it’s going to be before a pilot opens the door if a hijacker starts shooting people? Airport security is by far not just in America with the only exception i…

If people think the plane is about to be flown into a skyscraper, I'm not sure a gun will stop them. There are hundreds of people on a plane and at most twenty rounds in a gun. The math isn't in the terrorist's favor. There also isn't room to get away from angry passengers. They're probably going to overwhelm terrorists with guns relatively quickly.

I don’t believe I’m making up this scenario. But here I go..

I would book a first class flight in the first seat in front of the plane. Make all of the first class passenger - fewer of them, probably wealthier business travelers who don’t think they are Rambo - move to the back of the cabin.

The aisle would be the perfect kill zone. I watched a documentary and they said SWAT training for taking over a plane from terrorist they know that whoever goes in first is likely to get shot.

Re: Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

#340

Post by skeledrew »

txrx0000 wrote: post #67
Crontab wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been considering doing that, because it seems a lot of VPN owned IP addresses are being flagged.

Consider SoftEther, which is VPN over Ethernet wrapped in HTTPS. It's open-source. It has a server discovery site called VPNGate. You can host a server to let somebody else use, then use a server soneone else is hosting. https://www.vpngate.net/en/ We're really only missing a few things before there's decentralized VPN over HTTPS that anyone in the world can host and use, and it would be resistant to all DPI firewall…

Technically such a mobile client already "exists". I've been working on a cross-platform "super app", which is essentially just a Python REPL, but a key design is that components/controls of the UI framework that hosts it can be returned as a result.
Post reply on HN