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

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

#51

Post by giggles_giggles »

exabrial wrote: post #41
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That doesn't sound any better. So if I have an asset that I'm not using, it's morally just to take it from me because I'm not using it?

The devil's in the details. Depending on the asset and the situation, it may be morally correct to take it, yes.

To give an absurd, extreme example: if you lived in a nation going through a famine and your hobby was watching bread mold, it might be morally just to take away your warehouse of stockpiled bread to let the starving people eat, even if it meant you couldn't continue your thrilling bread-mold-watching hobby.

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

#52

Post by forinti »

feikname wrote: post #24
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 social media is simply one of the vast amount of websites on the internet, it's unfair to tax it alone. Either you tax the whole internet comsumption (e.g. every 5GB or something like that) or you don't. Imagine taxes specific to laundering machines that only apply when washing underwear, but not for any other clothes, it makes no sense. Also, the govt. snooping on what people access / banning use of VPNs rai…

You could argue that social media has a negative effect and that it should be taxed in the same way that alcohol (and soft drinks in some places) is taxed. I'm not arguing that social media has a net negative effect, but I can see how some internet sites could singled out and taxed.

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

#53

Post by shamsalmon »

exabrial wrote: post #41
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That doesn't sound any better. So if I have an asset that I'm not using, it's morally just to take it from me because I'm not using it?

[flagged]

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

#54

Post by scotty79 »

nodesocket wrote: post #29
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.

If you take the stance that social media is ultimately a bad thing for society, then a tax actually seems like a good solution. After all, San Francisco decided that soda is a bad thing and implemented a soda tax. What's the difference?

You can't threaten government by drinking soda.

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

#55

Post by bdcravens »

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.

I don't think ESPN is taxed differently than CNN.

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

#56

Post by pathseeker »

shamsalmon wrote: post #53
exabrial wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't sound any better. So if I have an asset that I'm not using, it's morally just to take it from me because I'm not using it?

[flagged]

>You libertarians are insufferable.

Stick to content. Not attacks.

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

#57

Post by moduspwnens14 »

ryan-c wrote: post #8
parliament32 wrote: post #3

I'm interested to see how they go about filtering VPN traffic. AFAIK, running openvpn over port 443 is pretty much indistinguishable from normal TLS traffic.

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…

OpenVPN traffic over TCP 443 will still be distinguishable as OpenVPN traffic, it's just a little harder.

Normal TLS handshakes over TCP typically look very similar, so if OpenVPN did those, it would be tough. But OpenVPN's TCP mode is basically just a TCP encapsulation of the UDP mode messages, and even with the new tls-crypt option enabled, the packets still contain unencrypted parts that could easily identify them as OpenVPN traffic.

As far as I can tell, if you're looking for your TCP port 443 traffic to look just like normal web traffic, you'll need to use a different protocol.

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

#58

Post by pathseeker »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #33
exabrial wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>earned for work which would largely be impossible, without said threat of force.

You're confusing threat of force to enforce property rights and personal freedoms with the threat of force to collect taxes.

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

#59

Post by kevingadd »

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.

With the caveat that in some countries the way data roaming works is all the data is routed back to your home before actually being routed to its destination - for example, if I visit Canada with a US T-Mobile SIM, all my traffic first has to travel to the US, even if I'm pinging a Canadian server.

If you end up with this sort of data configuration in China, you'll be having a bad time using it for anything performance-sensitive. Good enough for email though, I bet.

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

#60

Post by jeromegv »

nodesocket wrote: post #29
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.

If you take the stance that social media is ultimately a bad thing for society, then a tax actually seems like a good solution. After all, San Francisco decided that soda is a bad thing and implemented a soda tax. What's the difference?

Nothing like siding with a President that has been in power for 31 years and is known to jail and kill gay people, but hey, social media is the problem!
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