Live data from Hacker News

Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

blog.mozilla.org

361–370 of 386 posts

Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

#361
post #334
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is true. Irma/Yivi [1] in NL/BE proves that to be the case. But it always works with a trusted third party. The client, after confirming auth with the human, generates a unique key for the platform. The platform asks the trusted third party to verify this key, and then a scope is defined. For example: 'is this person 18+?' the response to the platform is then 'Yes' or 'No'. [1] https://yivi.app

So, the trusted third party gets to know which sites you visit?

No, they don't have to (this is a common myth and FUD). That data can remain encrypted and private. For example, the token could be signed with the private key from person and TTP. They do know when people visit a website (or other entity requiring auth) but anyone with network access does.

All the platform gets to know a person 18+ is visiting their platform. In their data analysis, they could add such information to the rest of their data analysis such as IP, but this wouldn't be within scope (illegal in EU). Just worth it to mention in case a platform gets compromised.

So:

Username Bob, age 18+ (verified), from IPv4 1.2.3.4, visited PronHub, at 2 AM, with browser XYZ.

vs

Username Bob, from IPv4 1.2.3.4, visited PronHub, at 2 AM, with browser XYZ.

If Bob isn't logged in, they have to auth every time they visit.

And this is going to happen due to nefarious actors. LLMs (AI), as well as state actors in countries behind the other fence of Iron Curtsin in the New Cold War.

Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good. If people can’t afford their own livelihood, then they probably shouldn’t have them. If they can and choose not to, arguments could be made about why someone would rather they make a different decision. But if “we need poor children in a welfare system or I can’t live my comfortable life” is what someone would think is the answer, there is something desperately wrong with the people who would think it.

> If people can’t afford their own livelihood, then they probably shouldn’t have them. "Poor people shoulnd't breed" - Follow me for more ivory tower advice

What a stupid take.

Being poor and not being able to afford your OWN responsibilities at your income are two different things. I grew up poor, so yea, you can f off with your own ivory tower inventions while you go read what I actually said about how we SHOULD provide safety nets.

It’s incredible how idiots think living beyond your means at any income and then adding children is a good thing. If you can’t care for yourself then you can’t care for others. Not being able to afford your own needs is not caring for yourself, so no, shocker, you shouldn’t add an additional person BY CHOICE to that situation. People who would advocate that they SHOULD are seriously messed up in the head.

Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

#364
post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "social media"? We all hate Facebook, but do we all hate Hacker News? Mastodon? A Discord or IRC community for an online game? I'm all for age restrictions for certain kinds of social media, but age verification is a system of surveillance and the death of online privacy.

So, the actual laws are targeting things more specifically than just "social media". Some are talking about intentionally addictive content algorithms, or personalized algorithms. Others are naming specific named companies. Don't confuse social media with social networks. Social media is media - they select what you watch, like a TV channel, but personalized for each user. You might get a narrow choice from several o…

In the UK they are not. In fact they are significantly broader. Anything which hosts "user-generated content" visible to other users.

Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

#365
post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're asking if verified user accounts on a porn site are more or less invasive than the government banning or restricting access to VPNs?

I don't think so, no. I'm asking if it is a good idea to ask the government to delegate the addressing of the problem to the platforms. For instance, the government could provide privacy-preserving age verification and mandate that those platforms use it to check the age, and at the same time not ban VPNs. Maybe (I am asking) it would make it harder for kids to access social media and porn in general, but it would no…

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tommy R was thrown feces upon him in a jail cell for 8 months (along with noise torture and losing 15% of his body weight out of food privation). Torture chambers fully exist for thought criminals in UK.

Never heard of this individual. After a bit of googling I could not find any sources that support these claims. Can you please point me to them? (Text, not video) I found no source for: * feces thrown on him (for 8 months) * “noise torture” * “torture chambers for thought criminals”

Feces etc. https://5pillarsuk.com/2018/08/03/tommy-robinson-i-had-excre...

Non thought crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Robinson#Criminal_offenc...

including "Robinson kicked the officer in the head as he lay on the ground" etc.

Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

#367
post #273

> Rather than age-gating technologies like VPNs, we believe that regulators should address the root causes of online harm by holding platforms to account Honest question: if you tell Pornhub "now you will be fined heavily if you let 10-year old kids access porn", won't Pornhub implement some kind of age verification? How else would the platform "address the root cause"?

The easiest, and the fairest way in my opinion, is to realize parents can and should be responsible for what their children read. Just like you wouldn't give your kid access to your BDSM porn magazines from the 80s, you shouldn't let him online without supervision. Other than that, there is no "online harm". No root cause of anything that would need to be addressed, no problems whatsoever. It's just information passi…

Well, it seems people don’t realize that many parents need to go to work and can’t watch their kids 24 hours a day. Also, accessing a magazine requires much more effort compared to accessing a website, which is very easy to bypass.

Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

#368
post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, some people are misguided and think age verification can be done in a way that isn't the death of privacy and anonymity online.

Don't we all hate social media? From that standpoint, anything that makes it hard to use or come with direct negative consequences is good.

We already learned long ago that real name policies don't make people less toxic - they just double down on their bullshit.

Seriously it is a sacrifice fallacy that we will actually gain anything by giving up anominity.

This black and white thinking that anything bad for things you dislike is frankly just incredibly spiteful and stupid.

Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

#369
post #171

USA entities tend to think that terms like "privacy", "security" have same meanings and assumptions across the globe, and that the USA laws are universal. Maybe they also think that entire world is just as dumb or dumber than USA. For a start, you should consider this fact: Privacy for a bad actor goes directly against the security for citizens and good actors. So when you talk about privacy you are making an assumpt…

There isn't qualification for a reason - it doesn't fucking matter when it is both or neither. You might as well further your Dunning-Krueger by complaining that the US failed to develop bullets that only hurt bad people!

Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

#370
post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're describing, combined with the sort of state provided access being described, seems like it would incentivize the child learning how to lie and hide things more effectively. It's absurd that the school would facilitate such broad and directionless access to the internet outside of the parent's supervision. It's directly undermining them.

And how's the parent punishing them not incentivizing the same behaviour of lying and hiding more effectively? If you want something done on all levels, you need regulation on all levels - any hole will be exploited, and kids don't have such a thing as "responsibility" developed yet.

You mean the parent enforcing the rules? What are you even trying to argue here?
Post reply on HN