VPN use surges in UK as new online safety rules kick in • Hacker News Board

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

#981

Post by a5c11 » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 6:25 AM UTC

PaulKeeble wrote: post #195

A lot of people are going to be putting their ID details into all sorts of websites and giving this to all sorts of third parties because of this law. Its going to cause a huge increase in ID related theft and fraud in the coming years and its not even going to achieve its stated goal. Worse is its blocking sites it really shouldn't, wikipedia is fighting this in court at the moment because they want to censor it! Th…

I've tried accessing one of the most famous porn sites, and I was asked to verify my age by giving either credit card details or bank details to a 3rd party company registered in Cyprus. Lol.

I'm temporarily living and working in UK, and I'm amazed how once big empire turns to a third-world country so easily.

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

#982

Post by a5c11 » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 6:29 AM UTC

ta1243 wrote: post #915

thisisit wrote: post #860

The 2nd order effect is that nearly every creator will be sponsored by NordVPN - as the market expands. As well as not being able to identify legitimate vs illegitimate uses. So, I guess mission achieved!?

Governments already want encryption back doors, this just adds more ammo.

Thankfully, encryption is math, and math doesn't have backdoors, so it's only about using proper tools.

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

#983

Post by d4v3 » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 9:24 AM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #651

ls612 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in the US the Supreme Court ruled that these sorts of laws are only kosher because they target porn, which is afforded a lower degree of legal protection (albeit not no protection at all). Trying to restrict access to protected political speech or the like the way the UK and Australia did would likely be a very different court case.

Given the rulings of the current SCOTUS, I'll go out on a limb and say that it's trivial to go after left-leaning political speech and impossible to go after right-leaning speech. They are already suppressing left-leaning speech by defunding CPB, and ahve openly said their reasons for doing so for are politically motivated. There's a 0% chance this move gets struct down by SCOTUS.

> They are already suppressing left-leaning speech by defunding CPB, and ahve openly said their reasons for doing so for are politically motivated

No longer subsidizing left leaning speech != suppressing left leaning speech

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

#984

Post by foldr » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 11:13 AM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #833

reliabilityguy wrote: post #795

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that your argument is more about the way the verification is implemented and not about the idea of verification by itself.

The idea that you should verify your legal identity to load a website is reprehensible and not something that should be treated seriously. It should be ridiculed like the authoritarian nonsense it is.

On a factual point, you don't have to verify your legal identity. You can also do age verification by uploading a selfie. (I'm sure that won't change how you feel about this legislation, but let's not spread inaccurate information about it.)

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

#985

Post by efilife » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 2:04 PM UTC

Pooge wrote: post #415

lucasRW wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

For rules introduced by Conservatives?

Hey, not sure if this is bad HN ethiquette (probably is) but I haven't found any other option to contact you. I posted the list you asked about in another thread about a week ago.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44637624

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

#986

Post by immibis » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 2:05 PM UTC

selfmodruntime wrote: post #656

graemep wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder why the UK specifically is taking action - is the issue bigger there, or are they just more aware of and willing to act on it. Other countries are moving in the same direction. The EU has repeatedly tried to push things like on device scanning or banning encryption. > Basically every new law, piece of news or media I see coming from the UK paints a picture of a beat-down, cynical & scared society that's co…

The EU is also increasingly against free speech. It turns out banning hate speech was a slippery slope to government overreach after all. Huh.

Besides the never-ending back-and-forth between the EC and the EP [1] what are the latest anti-free-speech moves you've seen in the EU?

Germany's gotten more freedom online since the EU DSA forced them to abandon their idiotic strict liability law for online activities [2]. You can't criticize Israel, but you never could - that's not a new thing.

[1] basically "Can we have mass surveillance now, pretty please?" "No and fuck off" "Please please please please please?" "No" "How about now?"

[2] they would trace the activity as far as they could, and whoever they couldn't trace further beyond was automatically fully liable for that activity. Public wifi was effectively illegal, because you'd suffer the full consequences for anything anyone did with the connection, until a few years ago when they carved out an exception, but it still remained generally illegal to share a connection in other circumstances until the DSA.

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

#987

Post by Profan » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 6:21 PM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #685

Profan wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I uh, surely you knew about visas before this?

I think people assumed there would be an ongoing deal on free travel. Personally I thought there might be. Still no there wasn't and I'm German now.

Yeah that's fair enough really, it is still surprising that there wasn't

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

#988

Post by BeFlatXIII » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 2:46 AM UTC

cooper_ganglia wrote: post #957

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #931

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Literal children”, by which definition?

By the definition of every major nation in the world, which is that anyone under 18 is a minor, which is a child who should not be intentionally exposed to pornography . Kids shouldn’t grow up viewing content that demeans women and distorts their worldview on sex and relationships, much less having the trusted adults in their lives advocate for them to watch it !! Very bold choice to argue the nuance of “But how do w…

Good thing to know that they magically become more mature once they're no longer 17 years and 11 months old.

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

#989

Post by lesser-shadow » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 11:23 AM UTC

syockit wrote: post #29

lesser-shadow wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Seems to be working in China." Yeah, let's follow the example of the authoritarian countries just to prove how liberal "democracies" have nothing to do with freedom.

The parent comment is not about following examples, but rather that the impact Streisand effect is going to be very limited, and the common folk will not bother to circumvent.

>common folk will not bother to circumvent. I think you underestimate the public's desire to coom. You can't kill everyone's sexual urges unless you drug the entirety of the population. VPNs are already soaring so they won't stop people from JOing.

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

#990

Post by sjw987 » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 12:40 PM UTC

peblos wrote: post #654

alias_neo wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having UK work experience and having talked to thousands of british folks over a decade, I find this hard to believe I only have to look as far as my own wallet to see the effects. I'm being taxed to the eyeballs while there is a glass ceiling preventing me taking any more pay home without a major jump which just isn't coming due to stupid tax rules keeping the working class from bumping into the middle class. I se…

I left in 2010 and the consensus is very much the same among my friends, or at least some of them anyway. I’m no longer eligible to have an opinion UK or local conversations. “how would you know”, “the city’s changed a lot since you left”, “why are people who chose to leave so interested in X”, statements specific to ex-pats. For those from outside the UK, ex-pat (expatriate) as a singular term is almost always derog…

I believe the issue people have with the term ex-pat is that it sounds like a fart-sniffing variation of "migrant" (or the derivatives "emigrant" or "immigrant").