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VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

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Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#531

Post by polski-g »

ricardobeat wrote: post #264
kelsey98765431 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just a cat a mouse game. VPN services will start to offer residential endpoints when enough websites start blocking them enough to damage the value proposition. There is no way on the current internet to verify an ip address means anything at all other than it's an ip address.

There is no way to offer “residential endpoints” at scale with sufficient bandwidth for anything other than simple browsing of text websites. As shown by the very effective Netflix strategy of blocking VPN addresses, it’s been very hard to slip through for a good four or five years now.

Netflix was blocking by endpoint IP? That is just a cat and mouse game. They should have been blocking if the MTU was not 1500 bytes.

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#532

Post by octo888 »

xdfgh1112 wrote: post #57
sixothree wrote: post #9

I went on a weekend vacation with three guys. I was asked what I thought a good VPN was. They all have VPNs on their phones apparently. Here I am thinking they are technologically adept, maybe a little bit security conscious. Or maybe misled by advertisements. It wasn't until after I got home I realized it was because of adult content.

Until like a week ago there was no age checking system for porn and no reason to use a VPN really. Although your friends could have been into some very strange stuff.

There has been a good reason to use a VPN for 25 years now (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000)

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#533

Post by specproc »

mattmanser wrote: post #400
ben_w wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, the wheels fell off decades before I was born. The peak of the empire was around WW1, where the victory was immediately followed by Irish home rule, and Churchill(!) putting the UK military into austerity to save money, which is how it came to be that evacuating from Dunkirk involved a lot of civilian ships, amongst other things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Year_Rule WW2 was a Pyrrhic victory. Not that Wes…

That happened a long time ago, the realization was the 70s. Thatcher reversed the feeling by selling off the nation to rentiers and foreigners in the 80s, we rode that money in the 90s, and the wheels came off in 2008.

Not sure why this was downvoted, maybe the use of "foreigners" is a bit loaded, but this is basically it.

Every inch of our economy is now owned by some faceless fund. All serious capital generated in the country is extracted out into the pockets of fund managers and Californian pensioners.

We're screwed until we can stem the outflow. I always thought taxing money leaving the country might be interesting way to approach the problem.

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#534

Post by teamonkey »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #450
tim333 wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had talented people piling in and GDP going up and all that pre Brexit. It's the gift that keeps giving.

Is there enough support to reverse brexit (yet)?

With the general public, yes. With politicians, no.

It’s also not entirely up to the UK, the EU has to be convinced about the seriousness of such a decision and how it would benefit them.

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#535

Post by flumpcakes »

blendo wrote: post #483

I need to prove my age to buy a lottery ticket or purchase alcohol. The merchant typically doesn't save my id info. What if I could purchase a unique QR code, good for maybe a month, that I could use online to prove my age? There'd still be problems in the US with 1st amendment issues, but I'd at least remain anonymous.

This is the exact system I suggested to a friend. I don't mind having to 'prove' my age, but I do not really want a third party to have my identifiable information nor do I really want the Government knowing what fetishes I may or may not have.

For a digital only solution, I think the best system would be some form of public-private key attestation:

The government advertises their public keys for 18+ verification.

A website generates a unique token - this token is then taken by the user and submitted to the government receiving a signed attestation. This can then be given back to the website to prove the user is 18. It only has to be done once per profile and no information is shared between the Government and the website on who is who.

Unless of course the token is saved by both the website and government in some forever database and then a lookup is done.

Another solution could be a timed/signed token produced by the government that has no input from the website. But this still has the downside that this could just be saved by both parties and in future you could identified if both sides compare data.

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#536

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

ricardobeat wrote: post #264
kelsey98765431 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just a cat a mouse game. VPN services will start to offer residential endpoints when enough websites start blocking them enough to damage the value proposition. There is no way on the current internet to verify an ip address means anything at all other than it's an ip address.

There is no way to offer “residential endpoints” at scale with sufficient bandwidth for anything other than simple browsing of text websites. As shown by the very effective Netflix strategy of blocking VPN addresses, it’s been very hard to slip through for a good four or five years now.

Hola, eso suficiente.

I mean, it’s more of a bot network really, but there is a massive amount of bandwidth there.

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#537

Post by jahewson »

wnevets wrote: post #472
cs02rm0 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK is becoming increasingly authoritarian in ways that feel increasingly antagonistic to the majority of the population, regardless of political party. Taxes are rising (with tax take falling), crimes are going unchecked, just mentioning increased immigration gets a lot of people's backs up, but as GDP per capita continues to stall and even fall, the pressure it puts on services is a factor for many. And we're se…

> The UK is becoming increasingly authoritarian in ways that feel increasingly antagonistic to the majority of the population, regardless of political party. Taxes are rising (with tax take falling), crimes are going unchecked, just mentioning increased immigration gets a lot of people's backs up, but as GDP per capita continues to stall and even fall, the pressure it puts on services is a factor for many. And we're…

The EU is facing the same fundamental situation as the U.K. The latter recklessly accelerated their problems but an aging and shrinking population coupled with unsustainable social spending and precious little technological investment can only result in a downwards spiral. Just look at how far behind the US the EU is since 2008.

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#538

Post by moritonal »

chrismatheson wrote: post #113

There are a lot of comments and thinking along the demo and gloom lines. On the "silver lining" side, could be a eye-opener for the population of the UK, that things they take for granted cant get summarily yanked away if they don't actually do something. And with any luck it will pull up the technical competency of every person using these services (pretty much every adult). With any luck parents might even be force…

But we did, I've been protesting against laws like this for 17 years now! Genuinely, they've always been trying to implement these laws, and simply relied on us missing the ship one time.

Re: VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in

#540

Post by Aloisius »

blendo wrote: post #483

I need to prove my age to buy a lottery ticket or purchase alcohol. The merchant typically doesn't save my id info. What if I could purchase a unique QR code, good for maybe a month, that I could use online to prove my age? There'd still be problems in the US with 1st amendment issues, but I'd at least remain anonymous.

Why not just parental control software?

I don't really understand why every adult should need to jump through hoops because parents won't spend 5 minutes enabling it on their kid's devices.

Hell, modern parental control software with an image classifier is arguably better than these online age verification systems since it works with anything that appears onscreen.

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