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> more often then not, VPN is used to circumvent something they shouldn't be accessing Who knew Cisco was selling enterprise-grade circumvention devices to the

by __jal 9y ago

> more often then not, VPN is used to circumvent something they shouldn't be accessing Who knew Cisco was selling enterprise-grade circumvention devices to the world's corporations? Somebody better notify the MPAA! More seriously, this type of thinking is pernicious. It demands "consumers" simply "consume" is easy-to-control ways, stay in their lanes and not be suspicious. There would be no internet if people did that. Don't get me wrong; if people want to be sheep, they can be. I will happily encrypt, tunnel, send weird packets and otherwise play on the net the way it was intended, and anyone with a problem with that can chose not to do business with me if they prefer more tractable clientele who will shut up and eat what they're fed.

Spivak 9y ago
And if you were on a corporate VPN you wouldn't get detected and blocked by Netflix. Let's not be disingenuous here: we're not talking about VPN the technology -- it's impossible to detect if someone's traffic has passed though a VPN. We're talking about public 'VPN Services' which are all but billed for circumventing region locking, ISP throttling, and piracy. Any kind of content provider would blacklist those endpoints in a second.
- __jal 9y ago
  Don't believe I was being disingenuous. Read the comment to which I was responding. I honestly don't care if "content providers" want to block VPNs, as I mentioned in my comment. I much more strongly object to this notion that there's something somehow wrong with users using things like this. The attitude of suspicion directed at anyone who values privacy, wants to learn how things work, or even does somewhat dodgy things sometimes is what I object to. That creates sheep, not citizens, and discourages engagement and learning. It is up to businesses that depend on artificial scarcity (really, any business, but the legacy copyright industry is being discussed here) to make their businesses work; it isn't my responsibility to make my behavior fit their business model. And if they can't, well, they deserve to die.
- snakeanus 9y ago
  > We're talking about public 'VPN Services' You can use most (any?) dedicated server or VPS service as a VPN. I personally just create a SSH tunnel to my server in order to browse any site. You do not need to rent any shady "VPN Service". > for circumventing region locking, ISP throttling Circumventing either of these is a fine act. > and piracy If they wanted to "pirate" they would not have used Netflix.
FireBeyond 9y ago
You jest, but in fact, MPAA, RIAA, absolutely -have- in the past tried to mandate, lobby, require that enterprise devices do L7 inspection for exactly this reason. They have been more than happy to argue that their member's products should have explicit preventions in third party hardware and software (at the third partys expense, of course) to protect revenue. And on the flip side, certain firewall providers have marketed similar features to restrictive regimes such as China for the Great Firewall. And not just 'nudge nudge wink wink', but produced marketing material saying "This will help you prevent Falun Gong material being available, and help identify end users trying to access this material."

by __jal 9y ago

Spivak 9y ago

And if you were on a corporate VPN you wouldn't get detected and blocked by Netflix. Let's not be disingenuous here: we're not talking about VPN the technology -- it's impossible to detect if someone's traffic has passed though a VPN. We're talking about public 'VPN Services' which are all but billed for circumventing region locking, ISP throttling, and piracy. Any kind of content provider would blacklist those endpoints in a second.

__jal 9y ago
Don't believe I was being disingenuous. Read the comment to which I was responding. I honestly don't care if "content providers" want to block VPNs, as I mentioned in my comment. I much more strongly object to this notion that there's something somehow wrong with users using things like this. The attitude of suspicion directed at anyone who values privacy, wants to learn how things work, or even does somewhat dodgy things sometimes is what I object to. That creates sheep, not citizens, and discourages engagement and learning. It is up to businesses that depend on artificial scarcity (really, any business, but the legacy copyright industry is being discussed here) to make their businesses work; it isn't my responsibility to make my behavior fit their business model. And if they can't, well, they deserve to die.
snakeanus 9y ago
> We're talking about public 'VPN Services' You can use most (any?) dedicated server or VPS service as a VPN. I personally just create a SSH tunnel to my server in order to browse any site. You do not need to rent any shady "VPN Service". > for circumventing region locking, ISP throttling Circumventing either of these is a fine act. > and piracy If they wanted to "pirate" they would not have used Netflix.

FireBeyond 9y ago

You jest, but in fact, MPAA, RIAA, absolutely -have- in the past tried to mandate, lobby, require that enterprise devices do L7 inspection for exactly this reason. They have been more than happy to argue that their member's products should have explicit preventions in third party hardware and software (at the third partys expense, of course) to protect revenue. And on the flip side, certain firewall providers have marketed similar features to restrictive regimes such as China for the Great Firewall. And not just 'nudge nudge wink wink', but produced marketing material saying "This will help you prevent Falun Gong material being available, and help identify end users trying to access this material."