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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

#781

Post by pc86 »

immibis wrote: post #734
tossandthrow wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One tweak to the rules and all of a sudden not only do porn sites have to verify the age of their UK visitors but also anyone connecting from something other than a residential ISP. The UK does not have jurisdictional power over anything outside their country - they can not a foreign site to do age verification of foreign residents. Now, the UK can say that they need to check for all UK residents, regardless of the…

However, if I was running a foreign site not subject to UK law or other privacy law, with UK visitors, and I was a ruthless businessperson, I'd definitely implement this verification thing in order to collect and store a photo of every visitor.

If you wanted to do this for some reason you'd just do it across the board and say it was for age verification. The reason nobody does it is because people are (rightfully) not okay with this nonsense.

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

#782

Post by shakna »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #770

We require people to verify their age in person to access pornography, it doesn't seem like that far a stretch to require it online. You can't even by a ticket to an R-rated movie without age verification. That seems reasonable to me. I see I'm in the minority here. I understand the slippery slope argument but if we succumb to that then nothing could be done anywhere ever. I understand this could be abused, but it's…

I don't see a world where this won't be abused.

Maybe by the authorities, furthering policies already in place to deal with people who don't toe a certain line of thought.

Probably by people outside the law, who now have a fantastic system to relentlessly attack. A place to source identity information that can be used for almost any part of a criminal enterprise, from buying credit cards to selling new names to carry.

And when security of government systems fail, in a way where damage is irreversible like this case, it is... Rare... To see fair outcomes.

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

#783

Post by pc86 »

nly wrote: post #73
gorgoiler wrote: post #63

The VPN trick potentially won’t last long. We’ve seen it go stale already in the world of intellectual property rights. For at least the last ten years Netflix et al have been well aware of which AS numbers / IP netblocks correspond to people sat at home in front of the TV, and which correspond to servers in a rack somewhere (including those hosting VPN endpoints.) One tweak to the rules and all of a sudden not only…

This isn't about illegal sites? I don't think many people object to blacklisting known sources of child pornography etc. The fact is you now have to verify your identity (name and photo id) in the UK to access an adult subreddit.

Nobody has ever objected to blocking access to those sites. Most people think the justice system in any developed country is much too lax on people that operate those sites and create its content.

This is a red herring for authoritarian tyrants in the UK to get more control over their population, which is all they're ever looking for.

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

#784

Post by miohtama »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #770

We require people to verify their age in person to access pornography, it doesn't seem like that far a stretch to require it online. You can't even by a ticket to an R-rated movie without age verification. That seems reasonable to me. I see I'm in the minority here. I understand the slippery slope argument but if we succumb to that then nothing could be done anywhere ever. I understand this could be abused, but it's…

For age verification for a R rated movie, the movie theater does not copy your passport and match it with your IP address.

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

#785

Post by pc86 »

e4325f wrote: post #305
gorgoiler wrote: post #63

The VPN trick potentially won’t last long. We’ve seen it go stale already in the world of intellectual property rights. For at least the last ten years Netflix et al have been well aware of which AS numbers / IP netblocks correspond to people sat at home in front of the TV, and which correspond to servers in a rack somewhere (including those hosting VPN endpoints.) One tweak to the rules and all of a sudden not only…

Doesn't make any sense, it's in Netflix's interest to prevent this, but it's the opposite for porn sites.

Porn sites don't have any interest in keeping this law either. Nobody with a functioning brain thinks you should have to upload your government ID to a website to browse content, no matter what that content is.

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

#786

Post by palmfacehn »

Veliladon wrote: post #765

This is one of the times where law is outrunning technology. Apple and Google are both working on anonymous attestation but they're pulling the trigger before it's ready. But that's not what laws like these are about. In the US at least these laws are driven by Christian Nationalists are setting up a situation where PII of porn users is able to be leaked. That's what they're counting on. They also want to have politi…

I have to disagree with the "Christian Nationalist" characterization.

https://www.politics.co.uk/news/2025/07/29/nigel-farage-taki...

>"Nigel Farage ‘on the side of predators’ with Online Safety Act criticism, says Labour"

Is the UK's Labour Party now Christian Nationalist?

The end goal here is digital ID and censorship. Compare this to the perennial efforts for encryption backdoors. If there is a characterization that accurately encompasses this, it is the illiberal, statist, authoritarian impulse. Sure, they used a sex-panic to advance their agenda. However, this is merely symptomatic of the larger illiberal trend towards authoritarianism and the expansion of the state.

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

#787

Post by pc86 »

qingcharles wrote: post #425
gorgoiler wrote: post #63

The VPN trick potentially won’t last long. We’ve seen it go stale already in the world of intellectual property rights. For at least the last ten years Netflix et al have been well aware of which AS numbers / IP netblocks correspond to people sat at home in front of the TV, and which correspond to servers in a rack somewhere (including those hosting VPN endpoints.) One tweak to the rules and all of a sudden not only…

I don't know. A lot of countries in the Middle East block all sorts of stuff and yet VPN usage is ubiquitous, but the governments appear to turn a blind eye. Like "we've done our bit and made the law." So it remains to be seen how far they'll go with this.

A lot of countries in the Middle East throw gay people off the roofs of buildings as punishment, let's assume for the sake of argument that anything we do that moves us closer to the Middle East is the wrong thing to do.

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

#788

Post by theossuary »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #770

We require people to verify their age in person to access pornography, it doesn't seem like that far a stretch to require it online. You can't even by a ticket to an R-rated movie without age verification. That seems reasonable to me. I see I'm in the minority here. I understand the slippery slope argument but if we succumb to that then nothing could be done anywhere ever. I understand this could be abused, but it's…

Why don't we just require kids to price they're an adult before accessing the Internet then? The issue with these laws isn't the goal, but the implementation is fatally flawed. Do you think websites like Worldstar are going to implement age verification? Of course not, no foreign site will. Then the next step for a law like this must be censuring all of those sites across the country.

Who defines what should be censored? The law certainly doesn't; it's purposefully vague to give the most latitude possible to the implementers. There's already been cases with the new UK law where peaceful arrests were censored by the law due to "violence."

VPNs exist, proxy websites are easy to setup, and frankly parents need to take some ownership.

Two alternative laws that'd have been much better: a) Require ISPs to provide a child friendly Internet gateway that would blacklist large weather if the Internet without a login. And b) legally require websites to accurately describe the content on their page and it's age appropriateness in headers sent back to the user, so the ISP or end device can decide whether to age gate a website.

These are much better solutions, the burden on websites isn't so onerous (many small sites have already had to shutdown due to the burden of the UK law). Implementation is distributed, preventing a single state actor from having full control of a censorship machine. Parents are empowered to decide what content is okay for their children. And you don't have to upload your fucking ID to use the Internet.

People who support this crap need to stop believing politicians every time they say "think of the children!"

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

#789

Post by benrutter »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #770

We require people to verify their age in person to access pornography, it doesn't seem like that far a stretch to require it online. You can't even by a ticket to an R-rated movie without age verification. That seems reasonable to me. I see I'm in the minority here. I understand the slippery slope argument but if we succumb to that then nothing could be done anywhere ever. I understand this could be abused, but it's…

I know all the other comments are massively disagreeing, but I'm relieved to find I'm not completely alone.

It's not even that I think this is a good idea, but it does seem a fairly standard extension of existing laws. Potentially I'm missing something? Everyone else seems to be enraged by this.

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

#790

Post by mtnGoat »

Fraaaank wrote: post #771

What's stopping lawmakers to require VPN providers to verify the age of their users?

Enforcement, one countries laws don’t apply in another. Which is kind of why the age verification thing won’t work… There will always be some jurisdiction that’ll ignore things for profit.
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