61–70 of 419 posts
"Here's what happens if VPNs get blocked: everyone has to verify their age by submitting government IDs, biometric data, or credit card information directly to websites—without any encryption or privacy protection." Can someone explain how this is true? Even if there is not a VPN, there should be https encryption and privacy protection.
And cue the rise of self-hosted VPNs. 1 click to get a VPS instance, install VPN software, and make a connection. Automatically destroy the instance with another click or after a certain amount of time.
If this keeps going, they will ban self-hosting next: only government-approved hosts allowed. We can't just rely on technological solutions because you can't out-tech the law at scale. People need to actually understand that the government is very close to having the tools needed for a stable technocratic authoritarian regime here in the US and all around the world. It might not happen immediately even if they have t…
Lawmakers in general have less than one percent knowledge on what they make laws on. I look forward to them all logging in remotely after the ban. The key change is needed with things such as meshtastic and lora. Taking things out of the hands of regulators is key
They actually act perfectly rationally. Media post articles about how easy it is to bypass the law using VPN, mock the government, and what the law author should feel reading this? "Ok let them break the law"? Of course, the reasonable response is to close the loopholes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
IPs aren't necessarily even geolocatable. Sometimes they are, sometimes AT&T Mobile routes you six states over and exits through a CGNAT IP
IPs are geolocatable yes, not with a perfect accuracy, but with a jurisdictional accuracy. First of all, IP addresses are issued in blocks and the IPs are distributed within regional proximity. This is how connections are routed, a router in say, Texas, knows that it can route block, say 48.88.0.0/16 to the south to mexico, 48.95.0.0/16 to the west to Arizona, and so on. whois/RDAP data will tell you the precise juri…
I've been thinking a lot about VPNs lately, mainly for 2 reasons: 1) In my home state I can no longer access Pornhub 2) Last month I visited Mississippi and could not access BlueSky, even though I can from my home state. [I personally blame this on the "holier then thou", "don't tread of me" conservatives who cannot resist the urge to try to rule over the activities of others.] I haven't selected a VPN provider becau…
We already know how this story ends. Companies get hacked. Data gets breached. And suddenly your real name is attached to the websites you visited, stored in some poorly-secured database waiting for the inevitable leak. This has already happened, and is not a matter of if but when. And when it does, the repercussions will be huge."
Then
"Let's say Wisconsin somehow manages to pass this law. Here's what will actually happen:
People who want to bypass it will use non-commercial VPNs, open proxies, or cheap virtual private servers that the law doesn't cover. They'll find workarounds within hours. The internet always routes around censorship."
Even in a fantasy world where every website successfully blocked all commercial VPNs, people would just make their own. You can route traffic through cloud services like AWS or DigitalOcean, tunnel through someone else's home internet connection, use open proxies, or spin up a cheap server for less than a dollar."
EFF presents two versions of "here's what will happen"
If we accept both as true then it appears a law targeting commercial VPNs would create evolutionary pressure to DIY rather than delegate VPN facility to commercial third parties. Non-commercial first party VPNs only service the person who sets them up. If that person is engaged in criminal activity, they can be targeted by legislation and enforcement specifically. Prosecution of criminals should not affect other first party VPNs set up by law-abiding internet users
Delegation of running VPNs to commercial third parties carries risks. Aside from obvious "trust" issues, reliability concerns, mandatory data collection, potential data breach, and so on, when the commercial provider services criminals, that's a risk to everyone else using the service
This is what's going on with so-called "Chat Control". Commercial third parties are knowingly servicing criminals. The service is used to facilitate the crime. The third parties will not or cannot identify the criminals. As a result, governments seek to compel the third party to do so through legislation. Every other user of the service may be affected as a result
Compare this with a first party VPN set up and used by a single person. If that person engages in criminal activity, other first party VPNs are unaffected
EFF does not speculate that third parties such AWS, DigitalOcean, or "cheap server[s] for less than a dollar" will be targeted with legislation in their second "here's what will happen" scenario
Evolutionary pressure toward DIY might be bad news for commercial third party intermediaries^1
But not necessarily for DIY internet users
1. Those third parties that profit from non-DIY users may invoke the plight of those non-DIY users^2 when arguing against VPN legislation or "Chat Control" but it's the third parties that stand to lose the most. DIY users are not subject to legislation that targets third party VPNs or third party chat services
2. Like OpenAI invoking the plight of ChapGPT users when faced with discovery demands in copyright litigation
And cue the rise of self-hosted VPNs. 1 click to get a VPS instance, install VPN software, and make a connection. Automatically destroy the instance with another click or after a certain amount of time.
I've been considering doing that, because it seems a lot of VPN owned IP addresses are being flagged.
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 firewalls. First, a user-friendly mobile client. Second, a way to broadcast and discover server lists in a sparse and decentralized manner, similar to BitTorrent (or we may be able to make use of the BT protocol as is), and we'd have to build such auto-discovery and broadcasting into the client. Third, make each client automatically host a temporary server and broadcast its IP to the public server lists when in use.
It's funny how democratic countries copy whatever laws authoritarian regimes passed, but with a 5-year lag.
Why ban VPNs when you can freely force social networks like HN to tie nickname registration to an state issued digital ID certificate to guarantee freedom of speech and legal accountability? https://old.reddit.com/r/XGramatikInsights/comments/1ovd88s/...
I've been thinking a lot about VPNs lately, mainly for 2 reasons: 1) In my home state I can no longer access Pornhub 2) Last month I visited Mississippi and could not access BlueSky, even though I can from my home state. [I personally blame this on the "holier then thou", "don't tread of me" conservatives who cannot resist the urge to try to rule over the activities of others.] I haven't selected a VPN provider becau…
Accessing imgur from the UK has been a bit tricky. Sometimes they limit certain IP addresses like the US one usually doesn't work but the Singapore one does (slowly) for some reason.