4 ms·

All I heard is more people are going to be using high-speed VPN services. Also, how the hell do they think that they're going to be able to enforce this? They

All I heard is more people are going to be using high-speed VPN services. Also, how the hell do they think that they're going to be able to enforce this? They do seem to be doing this for the right reasons, but I have no clue how in the world they think that they're going to be able to A) enforce it, and B) do so without breaking into user's privacy.

tw1010 8y ago
Simple, ignore constraint (B).
tommoor 8y ago
The road to hell is paved with good intentions
- RankingMember 8y ago
  Are there really even any good intentions here?
  - tommoor 8y ago
    I believe so, the aim is to try and protect children from pornography – which seems well intentioned to me whatever you believe of the technical feasibility or the state overstepping it's place.
    - RankingMember 8y ago
      Oh what bureaucratic atrocities have been committed in the name of protecting children. The phrase "protect children" is practically a dog whistle now- whenever I hear of the government moving to "protect children" there's inevitably a company or companies behind it whose services the government will now be using to "protect" said children.
      - etatoby 8y ago
        As mentioned above by @adwww: > Mindgeek lobbied hard for this. They (owners of Pornhub etc) are the government's approved age verifiers, so are in theory now in charge of access to all the other porn sites.
mariuolo 8y ago
> All I heard is more people are going to be using high-speed VPN services. By pushing people into clandestinity, surveillance against serious stuff will become even more complicated.
- cbg0 8y ago
  Criminals doing "serious stuff" are already using secure apps to communicate.
  - mariuolo 8y ago
    Smart criminals. There's plenty of dumb ones who don't need ideas.
- adrianN 8y ago
  They're just collecting reasons to ban encryption that doesn't have a government backdoor.
magnamerc 8y ago
What are the right reasons? I'm genuinely curious. I can't really think of any reasons why censoring porn is a good idea.
- hutzlibu 8y ago
  Protecting children. But while I agree that the average porn is not how children should get sexual education ... I doubt this is the way to change that.
  - op00to 8y ago
    I came of age in the 80s. I remember finding caches if nudie mags in the woods. Pretty raunchy stuff too, comparatively. Maybe this will trigger a renaissance of the nudie mag in the UK!
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - RankingMember 8y ago
    I'm consistently flabbergasted that these kinds of unilateral efforts are still tried by naive politicians rather than placing responsibility for monitoring of children's behavior where it logically (to me) belongs: with the parents.
  - tomjen3 8y ago
    Provide them with an actual sex education? I don't mean talking about how the penis works and how to wrap a condom on a cucumber, because I think the UK does that already. I mean actually talking about how to have great sex, what works, how to please a partner, etc. Feel free to have a final where students have to review some porn and point out the parts that doesn't work in reality. Of course that would horrify parents and teachers, but the reality in 2019 is that you can no longer _not_ talk about the subject, you can only leave the discussion up to the porn producers and mind geeks search engines or get into the fray yourself.
    - 8y ago
notahacker 8y ago
The answer is (C) leave it on the statute book to create the impression that they care about limiting access to porn and then ignore the fact that the majority of people, including the kids the law is supposed preventing from accessing it, can find a workaround if sufficiently motivated to do so. (there's an argument that "ensure sufficient motivation is required to do so" is the actual rationale for this and many other behavioural regulations anyway)
- gdfasfklshg4 8y ago
  Also it will give a tool for selective prosecution of undesirables... If everyone breaks the law then the prosecutor has the ability to arbitrarily imprison anyone.
  - notahacker 8y ago
    Well not really, because the law has no provision for prosecuting porn users, it simply provides a basis for a regulator to instruct ISPs to ban certain sites which decline to implement its porn age check, if the relevant body which usually puts age classifications on films can actually be bothered to keep updating the blacklist for every new pornblog. The latter isn't exactly without the potential for dubious consequences (the BBFC has theoretical grounds to ask my ISP to block Reddit) but "selective prosecution of undesirables" isn't one of them (and the BBFC is probably no more likely to use its power to make Reddit "adults only" than it is to do the same for Disney films with a bit of gore)
2icnefi78 8y ago
Who cares if you can enforce it; it provides probable cause (or whatever they call it) to search any device that doesn't have such a license. And if they happen to find (or plant) something on that device when it's searched: mission accomplished.
- DanBC 8y ago
  > Who cares if you can enforce it; it provides probable cause (or whatever they call it) to search any device that doesn't have such a license. No it doesn't, that's a bizarre interpretation of English and Welsh law and of police powers to search computers.
Goronmon 8y ago
I think the goal is to institute a policy that encourages people to avoid it through services like VPN. Then you get to go after VPN services to "protect law and the children", then the UK is able to more effectively spy on and track their citizens.
- HeWhoLurksLate 8y ago
  Cynical me thinks that you could use that in conjunction with some terrorists using Whatsapp or similar and you would have some great grounds for mass decryption. In America, there are supposed to be legal processes that involve a lot of work for the government to spy on people. Is there anything like that in the UK, and do politicians like it?
  - junto 8y ago
    I think that the UK have had that covered for a while, and no, the UK government did a lot of this in secret, and there is no legislation designed to protect spying on its own citizens. In fact that's the main point, as well as spying on traffic coming across from the US into Europe: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-gchq-encryption-codes-security https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-gchq-encry... And the UK government lost in the European Courts (that kind of countercheck is going to disappear after Brexit): https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-45510662 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-45510662 But all they will do is make it more secret and deny everything.
blunte 8y ago
Well obviously everyone will need a VPN voucher as well.

tw1010 8y ago

Simple, ignore constraint (B).

tommoor 8y ago

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

RankingMember 8y ago
Are there really even any good intentions here?
- tommoor 8y ago
  I believe so, the aim is to try and protect children from pornography – which seems well intentioned to me whatever you believe of the technical feasibility or the state overstepping it's place.
  - RankingMember 8y ago
    Oh what bureaucratic atrocities have been committed in the name of protecting children. The phrase "protect children" is practically a dog whistle now- whenever I hear of the government moving to "protect children" there's inevitably a company or companies behind it whose services the government will now be using to "protect" said children.
    - etatoby 8y ago
      As mentioned above by @adwww: > Mindgeek lobbied hard for this. They (owners of Pornhub etc) are the government's approved age verifiers, so are in theory now in charge of access to all the other porn sites.

mariuolo 8y ago

> All I heard is more people are going to be using high-speed VPN services. By pushing people into clandestinity, surveillance against serious stuff will become even more complicated.

cbg0 8y ago
Criminals doing "serious stuff" are already using secure apps to communicate.
- mariuolo 8y ago
  Smart criminals. There's plenty of dumb ones who don't need ideas.
adrianN 8y ago
They're just collecting reasons to ban encryption that doesn't have a government backdoor.

magnamerc 8y ago

What are the right reasons? I'm genuinely curious. I can't really think of any reasons why censoring porn is a good idea.

hutzlibu 8y ago
Protecting children. But while I agree that the average porn is not how children should get sexual education ... I doubt this is the way to change that.
- op00to 8y ago
  I came of age in the 80s. I remember finding caches if nudie mags in the woods. Pretty raunchy stuff too, comparatively. Maybe this will trigger a renaissance of the nudie mag in the UK!
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- RankingMember 8y ago
  I'm consistently flabbergasted that these kinds of unilateral efforts are still tried by naive politicians rather than placing responsibility for monitoring of children's behavior where it logically (to me) belongs: with the parents.
- tomjen3 8y ago
  Provide them with an actual sex education? I don't mean talking about how the penis works and how to wrap a condom on a cucumber, because I think the UK does that already. I mean actually talking about how to have great sex, what works, how to please a partner, etc. Feel free to have a final where students have to review some porn and point out the parts that doesn't work in reality. Of course that would horrify parents and teachers, but the reality in 2019 is that you can no longer _not_ talk about the subject, you can only leave the discussion up to the porn producers and mind geeks search engines or get into the fray yourself.
  - 8y ago

notahacker 8y ago

The answer is (C) leave it on the statute book to create the impression that they care about limiting access to porn and then ignore the fact that the majority of people, including the kids the law is supposed preventing from accessing it, can find a workaround if sufficiently motivated to do so. (there's an argument that "ensure sufficient motivation is required to do so" is the actual rationale for this and many other behavioural regulations anyway)

gdfasfklshg4 8y ago
Also it will give a tool for selective prosecution of undesirables... If everyone breaks the law then the prosecutor has the ability to arbitrarily imprison anyone.
- notahacker 8y ago
  Well not really, because the law has no provision for prosecuting porn users, it simply provides a basis for a regulator to instruct ISPs to ban certain sites which decline to implement its porn age check, if the relevant body which usually puts age classifications on films can actually be bothered to keep updating the blacklist for every new pornblog. The latter isn't exactly without the potential for dubious consequences (the BBFC has theoretical grounds to ask my ISP to block Reddit) but "selective prosecution of undesirables" isn't one of them (and the BBFC is probably no more likely to use its power to make Reddit "adults only" than it is to do the same for Disney films with a bit of gore)

2icnefi78 8y ago

Who cares if you can enforce it; it provides probable cause (or whatever they call it) to search any device that doesn't have such a license. And if they happen to find (or plant) something on that device when it's searched: mission accomplished.

DanBC 8y ago
> Who cares if you can enforce it; it provides probable cause (or whatever they call it) to search any device that doesn't have such a license. No it doesn't, that's a bizarre interpretation of English and Welsh law and of police powers to search computers.

Goronmon 8y ago

I think the goal is to institute a policy that encourages people to avoid it through services like VPN. Then you get to go after VPN services to "protect law and the children", then the UK is able to more effectively spy on and track their citizens.

HeWhoLurksLate 8y ago
Cynical me thinks that you could use that in conjunction with some terrorists using Whatsapp or similar and you would have some great grounds for mass decryption. In America, there are supposed to be legal processes that involve a lot of work for the government to spy on people. Is there anything like that in the UK, and do politicians like it?
- junto 8y ago
  I think that the UK have had that covered for a while, and no, the UK government did a lot of this in secret, and there is no legislation designed to protect spying on its own citizens. In fact that's the main point, as well as spying on traffic coming across from the US into Europe: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-gchq-encryption-codes-security https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-gchq-encry... And the UK government lost in the European Courts (that kind of countercheck is going to disappear after Brexit): https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-45510662 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-45510662 But all they will do is make it more secret and deny everything.

blunte 8y ago

Well obviously everyone will need a VPN voucher as well.