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

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

birminghammail.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 400 posts

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

#381

Post by HDBaseT »

braiamp wrote: post #377
oliwarner wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe proving I'm an adult to Meta will deprived me of any further privacy than I've already surrendered. What security do you feel I'll lose? These "platform design problems" are features for some adults. If they want to pour their life into being radicalised by a neverending, bias-confirming, slop-filled doom scroll, that's their choice, isn't it? Outright prohibition is far more fraught both politically…

You've already surrendered your privacy to Meta, sure, this has nothing to do with Meta. This is your VPN, the one thing you use because you don't trust your ISP or the wifi you're on, now wanting your real ID before it works. A kid doesn't even need a VPN to doomscroll on school wifi anyway. And "let adults radicalize themselves, their choice" is rich when those adults vote and raise kids and show up swinging at sch…

Sure, deep analysis of my usage, connection, browser user agent, browser fingerprinting, etc could reveal who I am and that information can all be correlated if requested by Government agencies although my privacy isn't completely surrendered on an alt/fake name account.

I have a Facebook account primarily for Market Place under a completely fake name. I very rarely comment on things on Facebook, but it feels good knowing that my real name is not being posted. From a glance, Meta cannot confirm this account is owed by Joe Blogs.

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

#382

Post by HDBaseT »

dryarzeg wrote: post #134
big85 wrote: post #123

Most VPN companies won't implement age verification, because their purpose is privacy. This is really an attempt to ban VPNs. This won't be popular when 70% of the population uses VPNs.

> when 70% of the population uses VPNs. To be honest, unfortunately, I'm not really sure about this one.

Me neither.

I would suspect maybe <1% of the population uses VPNs. At least outside of work environments and connecting to intranets.

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

#383

Post by KaiserPro »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #286
KaiserPro wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you end up needing to ID your customers. You've needed to do that for at least ten years. Mobile internet either requires a contract, or an ID check before you get a sim (pay and go) Anyone providing internets is liable for what the users are doing. The way you got out of that is responding to legal requests. (originally mostly copyright) This is the frustrating thing, we have effective and relatively uncontroversi…

I went to the uk with a foreign SIM. Didn’t have to show my id. I logged onto public WiFi networks without showing my id. Plenty of ways to get it done.

sigh

Yes, there are indeed loopholes. My point is this, we have this already, it works already, and if the government had actually researched rather than read the telegraph, we would have had a system that would be much less shouting at the tides to stop them coming in.

of course your foreign sim didn't need ID, but given how easy it is to find out who you are from a sim, its not really needed.

Moreover, most deliberate public wifi asks you to accept the ToS, so that they can legally cover themselves from what ever you are doing. They are still liable if they dont take "reasonable steps" to stop illegal activity occurring on their service.

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

#384

Post by Hetzner_OL »

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…

To the best of my knowledge, customers must be 18 or older to enter contracts with us / become customers. --Katie (Hetzner)

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

#385

Post by yurish »

dryarzeg wrote: post #376
yurish wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I changed ISPs when moved from one city to another, no difference. Yes, there were several episodes when connecting required about half an hour of playing changing setting but eventually I could connect. Nowadays it seems that the government abandoned their efforts to block Tor traffic and mainly focused on blocking VPN and Telegram.

Now that (abandoning the efforts to block Tor so now it mostly works) sounds like some good news to me! Can you please share your settings or what exactly you use that works for you? Perhaps they will help my friends, too, because previously, they relied on Tor to circumvent the "network blockade", but it just stopped working for them at some point. And yes, they tried to play with settings as well but it didn't real…

I use bridging. Not going to disclose the address, sorry. I had to try several bridges obtained via Tor itself and via telegram before one worked.

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

#386

Post by reactordev »

rustcleaner wrote: post #312
reactordev wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ll just invent internet over WebRTC hops… wait..

Isn't that liblyrebird/Snowflake that Orbot/Whonix/TBB use as an anticensorship gateway?

First rule of fight club...

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

#387

Post by liveoneggs »

subscribed wrote: post #334
liveoneggs wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how would EU nationals have "full voting rights"? Anyway 4/10 explicitly mention going against the Tory party, which is also a classic mistake of weakness.

I don't understand your first question? Anyway, on EU nationals he went full rabid xenophobe so that's a moot point anyway.

I mean - EU nationals are not a part of the UK so why would they be able to vote on things in the UK? French people don't vote in UK elections, as far as I understand it.

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

#388

Post by RevEng »

inigyou wrote: post #90
RevEng wrote: post #49

Funny how quickly "won't someone think of the children" turns into mandatory government ID for private services, banning necessary and secure (and encrypted) communications systems, and locking children out of access to the de facto communication systems of the modern era. This is a privacy nightmare on all fronts and a horrible limit on freedom of speech. These kids will be learning how to drive a car, yet unable to…

That's because the tech industry never made any attempt. It's like you blocked all the good options, now you get the worst one because it's one you can't block.

What are some better options? I honestly can't think of any way of proving someone's age other than electronic ID provided by a well trusted institution like a government. The only alternative would be removing anything possibly inappropriate for younger ages, which is historically what people fought for, but that didn't work well either, partly because plenty of adults wanted those things and partly because there's no practical way to enforce it.

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

#389

Post by subscribed »

liveoneggs wrote: post #387
subscribed wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your first question? Anyway, on EU nationals he went full rabid xenophobe so that's a moot point anyway.

I mean - EU nationals are not a part of the UK so why would they be able to vote on things in the UK? French people don't vote in UK elections, as far as I understand it.

They pay taxes, serve in local bodies, work in the government organise events, own properties and companies, send their children to schools, etc, etc.

Are you suggesting they do not belong or that they do not have the best interest of the communities in mind? Living here sometimes for decades, committing to their chosen home.

Thankfully they can vote in local elections, and I don't think there's suggestion in the UK it's somewhow inappropriate, so why would someone from the outside had a say in what's right and what's wrong?

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

#390

Post by inigyou »

kyboren wrote: post #378
inigyou wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't I have a right to unrestricted tobacco stores and gambling? Pornography is a form of speech btw.

> Why don't I have a right to unrestricted tobacco stores and gambling? Because--unlike free speech--those are not essential to freedom and democracy. Care to answer my questions?

I don't really see how being able to read Mein Kampf is essential to freedom and democracy.
Post reply on HN