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UAE introduces federal law banning the use of VPNs to access blocked services
- jswny 10y agoDoes anyone know how this affects foreigners? A relative of mine is a pilot and flies to Dubai a few times a month usually. She always uses a VPN to watch Netflix while she's there. Is she at risk?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Archio 10y agoNetflix has blocked VPNs for at least a few months now. Unless she uses VPNs for other things, she won't be using one anyway.
- narrowrail 10y agoJust to be clear, one can setup OpenVPN on their home network (I have it running on my dd-wrt router). So, Netflix has taken measures to prevent usage of VPN services, but not VPNs, per se.
- geff82 10y agoThat just killed Dubai/UAE off my list of countries I consider moving to.
- rplnt 10y agoThis is hardly the first time I would remove them from such list. Not that they would ever get there with the weather there :)
- mrgoldenbrown 10y agoI hope that it was only on your list at all because you're somehow unaware of their human trafficking and slave labor issues? It seems like it should have been crossed off your list a long time ago... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_Arab_Emirates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_Ara...
- geff82 10y agoI instantly want to post a link to Guantanamo as a counter argument. VAE are far from perfect and I know it. Compared to many other countries in the region, it feels like pure "freedom" to be there. I found the residents to be relatively open minded. And their respected leader, while an absolut monarch, has the problem he has to rule a country that has a heterogenous population that is partly ultra-modern and ultra-conservative and he does a quite good job (compared to other countries in the region, again). For example, drinking alcohol is allowed at home and in hotels, but it is strictly forbidden in public. If he ruled in favor of total freedom, the conservatives would complain. If he ruled in Saudi-style, the 80% foreigners and Tourists would stay away. For family reasons, business reasons, tax reasons and weather reasons, I have some appreciation for UAE. But I absolutely need open internet and will not accept anything else.
- rayiner 10y ago> I instantly want to post a link to Guantanamo as a counter argument. That's not a counter argument, it's a fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes. It's also an argumentative tactic that means that no country can ever be criticized for what it's doing because the country of the person doing the criticizing will always be doing something worthy of criticism as well. It's also intellectually and morally bankrupt to compare a country's treatment of more than 50% of its population (women + the foreign laborers that outnumber Emirati citizens) with a country's treatment of a few hundred people captured on foreign battlefields.
- geff82 10y ago
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y agoImagine the kind of thinking that would consider "literally everything else the UAE does" to be OK, but draws the line at "no vpns".
- telesilla 10y agoWell that's awkward. I had a friend visiting there for business and she needed to access her home computer while away. So as any good friend does I set up a VPN for her. I am not sure who she would have been more angry at - me or the UAE - should there have been repercussions.
- joebergeron 10y agoSo silly. And for what, to prevent people from "illegally" using Skype? Plenty of sane, rational reasons to use a VPN that don't involve VoIP services. This move directly supports monopolization of the market for VPNs.
- nartz 10y agothis looks like a marketing material for viber
- nartz 10y agothis looks like a marketing material for viber
- mrgoldenbrown 10y agoOnly a fine? Sounds pretty lenient in a place where being gay is a death penalty. Even hetero kissing in public can get you deported.
- aioprisan 10y agoAdd to that "temporary imprisonment". How temporary that is depends on how much you value your freedom.
- ajamesm 10y agoEasy. Just run your VPN usage through a VPN.
- nathancahill 10y agoI'm behind 7 proxies and use ZoneAlarm, Sygate and Comodo Internetnet Securtiy which I all keep up-to-date. THAT'S THREE FIREWALLS AT THE SAME TIME
- themihai 10y agoWell.... if only one of them is hijacked you are busted!
- 794CD01 10y agoThe headline is sensationalized and inaccurate. The actual law reads: >“Whoever uses a fraudulent computer network protocol address (IP address) by using a false address or a third-party address by any other means for the purpose of committing a crime or preventing its discovery, shall be punished by temporary imprisonment and a fine of no less than Dhs 500,000 and not exceeding Dhs 2,000,000, or either of these two penalties.” Key point being "for the purpose of committing a crime or preventing its discovery". It's a way to throw the book at people already committing crimes. Rather than being outraged at this, it would be more appropriate to focus on the things that are crimes and should not be, like their moronic VoIP laws.
- jorge-fundido 10y agoInterpretation of "preventing its discovery" and what they consider fraud is the concerning bit to me. It's not clear whether they consider using a VPN to access Netflix as fraudulent.
- 794CD01 10y agoAccessing Netflix is not a crime, so using a VPN to access netflix would not be. If you used a VPN in a different country to access Netflix in order to circumvent their licensing restrictions, it probably becomes a complex matter of international copyright agreements. But that is already against the netflix terms of service no matter which country you are in, so complaints that you should be allowed to do that should be primarily directed at Netflix themselves, not the UAE.
- ptaipale 10y agoWell, a part of the problem obviously is that it's "throwing the book at people already committing crimes" in a place where the definition of a "crime" is not very reasonable. For instance, a woman getting raped is defined as "extramarital sex" which is a crime. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/26/hundreds-of-women-prosecuted-for-extramarital-sex-in-uae-finds-bbc https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/26/hundreds-of-wo...
- 10y ago
- azurelogic 10y agoHow are any large enterprises expected to do business there then? So many of them require a VPN to get things done. This is bonkers.
- frandroid 10y agoSelective enforcement. This is another tool for going after dissidents and blow-hard foreigners.
- maxxxxx 10y agoIt's the perfect kind of law for oppressive governments. Everybody does it. If you play nice they will ignore it but if you don't play along they immediately have something against you.
- aqme28 10y agoJust reading the headline, but isn't the use of a VPN to access a blocked service a criminal CFAA abuse in the US? Aaron Swartz did basically just that and was threatened with decades in prison.
- titomc 10y agoThis is for boosting profitability for Etisalat. The sole telecom provider in UAE. This mainly targets migrants workers in UAE. They get paid 90 or 100 dirhams/month. Etisalat charges a lot to make international calls. The migrant workers have to spent atleast 20% of their salary to call their dear ones,so the migrants make use of VOIP services. This move is to ban the low salaried workers from using VOIP. I have seen plain cloths officers randomly checking migrants mobile phones in public to see if they have installed any VOIP software.