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Ask HN: Online activities to be made impossible by the UK Online Safety Bill

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Re: Ask HN: Online activities to be made impossible by the UK Online Safety Bill

#71

Post by Denatonium »

timthorn wrote: post #34
LeoPanthera wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone designed a modem to work over VOIP? It would have to cope with audio compression, jitter, dropouts, and so on. On the other hand, it could assume much less noise than an analogue phone line.

Yes, making fax machines work over VoIP was important in the early days. The G.711 codec was designed to support endpoints that needed a full 64kbps datapath.

I've had much better success having fax calls work over VoIP then I have getting data modem calls to work. My best guess as to why is that fax calls have much less back and forth, and as a result, they are less latency-sensitive. Fax calls also usually negotiate at 14.4kbps, whereas data modem calls often try to train at faster rates.

Re: Ask HN: Online activities to be made impossible by the UK Online Safety Bill

#72

Post by patmcc »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #26
b800h wrote: post #5

Interestingly, if you run a BBS through the telephone system, you'll be immune, as the bill specifies "the Internet", but: 1. I think the lines have jitter now they're over IP anyhow. 2. Bit niche...

Has anyone designed a modem to work over VOIP? It would have to cope with audio compression, jitter, dropouts, and so on. On the other hand, it could assume much less noise than an analogue phone line.

This is a hilarious idea, I love it. Internet Protocol over Voice over Internet Protocol.

Call it IPOVOIP.

Re: Ask HN: Online activities to be made impossible by the UK Online Safety Bill

#74

Post by ChrisKnott »

Silhouette wrote: post #49
ChrisKnott wrote: post #9

My understanding is that the OSB creates a responsibility for Ofcom to create a regulatory system for discouraging online harms. Has Ofcom actually said what these regulations will be? Is there any reason to expect them to be as dystopian as you predict? The interim codes of practice that the government published don't even apply at all to individuals. They also acknowledge that smaller companies should not be expect…

Is there any reason to expect them to be as dystopian as you predict? Previous laws relating to policing and investigatory powers have been widely criticised by civil rights groups for their overreach and lack of effective oversight and safeguards. We now know that some of those laws have in fact been abused in ways the critics predicted. Secondary legislation has been widely criticised when used as a vehicle for gov…

> "Previous laws relating to policing and investigatory powers have been widely criticised by civil rights groups for their overreach and lack of effective oversight and safeguards. We now know that some of those laws have in fact been abused in ways the critics predicted."

What are you referring to here?

Re: Ask HN: Online activities to be made impossible by the UK Online Safety Bill

#76

Post by janoc »

bityard wrote: post #31
LeoPanthera wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone designed a modem to work over VOIP? It would have to cope with audio compression, jitter, dropouts, and so on. On the other hand, it could assume much less noise than an analogue phone line.

Sure, it could be made to work, and it might even be able to keep up with your reading speed. VoIP codecs are heavily optimized for human voice and have just a few kilobits of bandwidth. The analog phone network, before it went entirely digital, had a much higher bandwidth which is why modems were able to reach 56kbps. Phone calls in the 1980s were often crystal clear, almost on par with a broadcast radio station. Ce…

>had a much higher bandwidth which is why modems were able to reach 56kbps

That is actually completely false. The way that speed was achieved was by using multiple bits per symbol encoding (bitrate != baudrate), not by having some mysterious unused bandwidth available. This was the case for speeds above 4800bps up to 33kbps (V.34).

56kbps (V.90) was only possible with PCM (digital) modulation, while the actual symbol rate on the line was still only about 8000Bd - i.e. about 8kHz, which is about the maximum for a typical landline.

This is all due to how a typical phone line works and that there is a very strong attenuation of higher frequencies due to parasitic capacitance and inductance of the wiring.

I am not sure where do you live and what kind landline phones you had but modern digital cell phone codecs are light years ahead of the sound quality we had on land lines in 80s, esp. when calling long distance.

Re: Ask HN: Online activities to be made impossible by the UK Online Safety Bill

#77

Post by b800h »

intunderflow wrote: post #75

Does it matter? The UK can't enforce anything outside its borders. Just putting another nail in the coffin of UK tech startups that aren't in Financial Services.

It matters if you're in the UK and you're a tech hobbyist.

Re: Ask HN: Online activities to be made impossible by the UK Online Safety Bill

#78

Post by intunderflow »

b800h wrote: post #77
intunderflow wrote: post #75

Does it matter? The UK can't enforce anything outside its borders. Just putting another nail in the coffin of UK tech startups that aren't in Financial Services.

It matters if you're in the UK and you're a tech hobbyist.

In my opinion the UK has always been against that group and others who stick out, and that's not going to change in the future.

Unfortunately if you're a tech hobbyist in the UK your best option is to leave, especially if you're any good with technology. There are plenty of other countries that will treat you far better than the UK ever would.

Re: Ask HN: Online activities to be made impossible by the UK Online Safety Bill

#79

Post by SXX »

ChrisKnott wrote: post #9

My understanding is that the OSB creates a responsibility for Ofcom to create a regulatory system for discouraging online harms. Has Ofcom actually said what these regulations will be? Is there any reason to expect them to be as dystopian as you predict? The interim codes of practice that the government published don't even apply at all to individuals. They also acknowledge that smaller companies should not be expect…

   > Is there any reason to expect them to be as dystopian as you predict?
Bill description on UK Parlament website:

https://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2022/april/have-your...

>The Bill has five policy objectives:

> to increase user safety online.

> to preserve and enhance freedom of speech online.

> to improve law enforcement’s ability to tackle illegal content online.

> to improve users’ ability to keep themselves safe online.

> to improve society’s understanding of the harm landscape.

I guess UK government has solved all the issues include salaries inflation and ever rising price of living so they can finally go "preserve and enhance" freedom of speech.

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