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Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

#91
post #90

[flagged]

How about this: nobody shall be unsafe online or offline, and the state shall guarantee it. That's a foundation you can build law on, instead of hoping every child got lucky with their parents.

you're describing a cage

Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

#92

I think this is a genuinely difficult problem that happens to look exactly like what you’d need for extended surveillance. When I think about it seriously, I end up coming up with the idea of a whitelist enforced on device for local accounts used by children. This would probably block most of the internet, and allow access only to sites that are validated as being safe. This would put a lot of pressure on sites and s…

There are already whitelisting solutions that can be installed on devices controlled by parents.

... that don't need the identity of the parents to work.

Nor do these devices require the identity of non-parents who will never enable the childproofing mode

Nor does legislation invert the burden of proof and require the device's manufacturer obtain and store identity documents just to use the devices, otherwise it must restrict all access to a small handful of "kid safe" actions.

These aren't "child safety" laws, they're "adult anonymity eradication" laws

Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

#93

[flagged]

I'm against any kind of age verification legislation, but this is a really bad argument.

It doesn't answer the question of "what do we do about parents that don't do their job properly."

In theory, one could implement age verification by negligent parent imprisonment, in practice, I don't think that would work, and definitely not in all cases.

If we accept the premise that children having unfettered access to the internet is a bad thing (which, again, I don't think we should), there have to be multiple layers to it. Punishment is one, increasing friction and "making honest people honest" is another.

Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s funny, I wonder if they might remove it since it is a common way for people to circumvent the ID requirement laws for certain sites.

They probably should at least update it -- I don't think a government should recommend free VPN services. Too many of them are a form of botnet, malware, ddos, etc.

And most people don't even need them any more. The days of free WiFi hotspots being able to easily steal your credentials are long gone.

Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

#95
post #31

The UK government does whatever Meta tells them to do. We tax cigarettes because they’re bad for you. Let’s tax algorithmic news feeds.

And who tells Meta what to do?

They do what makes money, or what they think will make money.

Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

#96
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1984 is extremely naive. It assumes that people will fight for their freedom and insane measures will be needed to keep them in check. So foolishly optimistic… people can’t wait to give freedom away if only they get a stable job and housing in exchange. Or if it hits these other guys they don’t like at the moment. It’s all much, much less dramatic than Orwell. It is an ordinary, everyday erosion of your rights until…

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a further rumination on how Joseph Stalin held power. It was meant to inform Orwell's fellow English socialists, who still dreamed of their own revolution, what the practical upshot of that would be. Stalin did not rule by people ceding their freedoms in exchange for comfort; they suffered intense hardship! Their land was taken from them, dwellings and vehicles allotted based on party loyalty…

I don’t know what to think about China. I think I was brainwashed already. I spend too much time on Reddit where it seems they like China a lot and want to become China. (Is this AI generated sentiment?) Though none of them seems to be moving to China now that I think about it.

Look, it’s extremely hard to remain some kind of objective nowadays on the internet. I no longer know what is true and what is false.

Truth has lost all meaning and was replaced by politics.

Even history books written by scientists are routinely under attack.

In my country of Poland a Nobel prize winner, someone that my teachers said was a hero, suddenly became the villain. I never got my head around it. It still puzzles me. Like a some thorn in my side. He was a national hero? Now he is the bad guy? Why? It’s strange and unsettling how fast narrative changed to serve some political goal and everyone just went with it.

I am not resistant to narratives but I seem to routinely miss them. Then I wake up and everyone is saying some strange extreme things and are angry at each other and it seems fabricated to me many times.

Such as in my city was recently some uptick of anti car sentiment. Yeah like discussion is normal and we want to live in best possible environment but this wasn’t discussion. It was just people throwing shit at each other and extreme tribalism. It’s unsettling to see this. Social media has been doing something terrible to people. And I think it all serves somebody’s interests. Someone benefits from these divisions and wars.

We need to collectively unplug and get a grip

Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

#97
post #90

[flagged]

How about this: nobody shall be unsafe online or offline, and the state shall guarantee it. That's a foundation you can build law on, instead of hoping every child got lucky with their parents.

[dead]

Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

#98
post #42

Actually with data fusion VPN does not fix privacy. Ad networks does data fusion of Javascript browser finger print. So you are de cloaked any way on a VPN

You absolutely should not be using the same browser for general browsing and VPN based browsing. Check out Mullvad Browser, based on Tor Browser but without Tor.

Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

#99

I think this is a genuinely difficult problem that happens to look exactly like what you’d need for extended surveillance. When I think about it seriously, I end up coming up with the idea of a whitelist enforced on device for local accounts used by children. This would probably block most of the internet, and allow access only to sites that are validated as being safe. This would put a lot of pressure on sites and s…

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla to UK regulators: VPNs are essential privacy and security tools

#100

I think this is a genuinely difficult problem that happens to look exactly like what you’d need for extended surveillance. When I think about it seriously, I end up coming up with the idea of a whitelist enforced on device for local accounts used by children. This would probably block most of the internet, and allow access only to sites that are validated as being safe. This would put a lot of pressure on sites and s…

There are already whitelisting solutions that can be installed on devices controlled by parents.

That don’t really work because this isn’t a nation state level enforced system, and realistically the only state that can force such a thing is the US. If they worked, we wouldn’t be here having this discussion.
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