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The major problem here is that our government is turning us all into criminals. Using a VPN doesn't make it legal for you to consume anonymously, even if doing

The major problem here is that our government is turning us all into criminals. Using a VPN doesn't make it legal for you to consume anonymously, even if doing so makes it harder to enforce, at least for now. Soon VPN use will be illegal in some states. Once again, hard to enforce. But these are things which, if for some reason the gov't decides to target you (in which case they can/will spend the effort to discover), can be used against you. This is not a technology problem, it's a legislative one. It's another example of some of us are using the power of the government to constrain other people's behavior.

worik 3y ago
Yes That is the problem with vice laws Tough times
zarathustreal 3y ago
Isn’t “constrain(ing) other people’s behavior” kinda the point of law? If you’re trying to make a point you’re gonna have to be more specific. Preventing rape, theft, and murder are all instances of “behavioral constraint”, without any qualifiers you’re artificially inflating the magnitude of the situation
- dijit 3y ago
  The issue is that for a large portion of the population, porn consumption is not considered immoral or even if it is immoral; not an offence worthy of calling someone a criminal over. We all know that laws are not a good indicator of morality, but society is better when we try to align laws over time with our moral code.
  - ndriscoll 3y ago
    The laws aren't against porn consumption or even anonymous porn consumption. They're about distributing porn to children, which most people are in alignment that we don't want to allow. These age verification laws all mandate that no identifying information be kept. The Texas law has a $10,000 penalty per instance for record retention. It's still perhaps not the best way to do it, but people are being very disingenuous in their characterization of these laws. It's not that much different from requiring people to show ID at the door of an adult store.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      It's still dangerous to share records that way. The structure of the law makes it be against porn consumption and anonymous porn consumption.
    - samus 3y ago
      Even assuming that an age check can be done in a privacy-preserving way*, it is naive to assume that such measures are effective prevent people from getting access to porn. Sex is one if the strongest human drive and we are not in the 80s anymore when magazines and videos were the primary medias for porn. *: are those verification schemes set up such that also the government doesn't get to see who accesses which sites?
      - ndriscoll 3y ago
        I don't think it's as intractable as people make it out to be: require porn sites to do some level of due diligence. "But what about sites outside of US jurisdiction (e.g. Russia)?" Require ISPs to have a setting for customers to opt into blocking them. The reality is no one in my household ever has any reason to communicate with Russian, Chinese, etc. or even almost any European servers (maybe there could be exceptions for news, government, and university orgs), so it makes sense for us to just block them. There you go. You just eliminated pretty much all access for children to online commercial providers. It's not perfect, but that's a silly reason not to do it. We don't let kids into adult bookstores just because they could (currently) easily get it online. We don't let them buy drugs and alcohol at stores just because they could find an older friend to get it for them. It is already illegal to provide porn to children. Businesses (mostly ad-based ones) have just been getting away with being completely negligent about it for the last 10-20 years. The Utah law for example seems to specify that either the user provides a digital id, which seems to be a sort of signed message from the state that they've saved into a secure element (so not doing realtime checks with the government. It's not really specified how it works, but it says they can save an ID file to their phone), or use a commercial knowledge based auth solution. So yes, it seems that it's been specified such that the government does not get access to that information.
paxys 3y ago
"Our government" isn't doing it, some very specific ones are. And the people they represent are 100% behind all such laws. This is the democratic process working exactly as intended.
- samus 3y ago
  Constitutions are supposed to prevent laws like this. Because it is all too easy to make people forget the principles their democratic system is based on and without which it will degenerate into a tyranny of the majority.
deleted 3y ago
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worik 3y ago

Yes That is the problem with vice laws Tough times

zarathustreal 3y ago

Isn’t “constrain(ing) other people’s behavior” kinda the point of law? If you’re trying to make a point you’re gonna have to be more specific. Preventing rape, theft, and murder are all instances of “behavioral constraint”, without any qualifiers you’re artificially inflating the magnitude of the situation

dijit 3y ago
The issue is that for a large portion of the population, porn consumption is not considered immoral or even if it is immoral; not an offence worthy of calling someone a criminal over. We all know that laws are not a good indicator of morality, but society is better when we try to align laws over time with our moral code.
- ndriscoll 3y ago
  The laws aren't against porn consumption or even anonymous porn consumption. They're about distributing porn to children, which most people are in alignment that we don't want to allow. These age verification laws all mandate that no identifying information be kept. The Texas law has a $10,000 penalty per instance for record retention. It's still perhaps not the best way to do it, but people are being very disingenuous in their characterization of these laws. It's not that much different from requiring people to show ID at the door of an adult store.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    It's still dangerous to share records that way. The structure of the law makes it be against porn consumption and anonymous porn consumption.
  - samus 3y ago
    Even assuming that an age check can be done in a privacy-preserving way*, it is naive to assume that such measures are effective prevent people from getting access to porn. Sex is one if the strongest human drive and we are not in the 80s anymore when magazines and videos were the primary medias for porn. *: are those verification schemes set up such that also the government doesn't get to see who accesses which sites?
    - ndriscoll 3y ago
      I don't think it's as intractable as people make it out to be: require porn sites to do some level of due diligence. "But what about sites outside of US jurisdiction (e.g. Russia)?" Require ISPs to have a setting for customers to opt into blocking them. The reality is no one in my household ever has any reason to communicate with Russian, Chinese, etc. or even almost any European servers (maybe there could be exceptions for news, government, and university orgs), so it makes sense for us to just block them. There you go. You just eliminated pretty much all access for children to online commercial providers. It's not perfect, but that's a silly reason not to do it. We don't let kids into adult bookstores just because they could (currently) easily get it online. We don't let them buy drugs and alcohol at stores just because they could find an older friend to get it for them. It is already illegal to provide porn to children. Businesses (mostly ad-based ones) have just been getting away with being completely negligent about it for the last 10-20 years. The Utah law for example seems to specify that either the user provides a digital id, which seems to be a sort of signed message from the state that they've saved into a secure element (so not doing realtime checks with the government. It's not really specified how it works, but it says they can save an ID file to their phone), or use a commercial knowledge based auth solution. So yes, it seems that it's been specified such that the government does not get access to that information.

paxys 3y ago

"Our government" isn't doing it, some very specific ones are. And the people they represent are 100% behind all such laws. This is the democratic process working exactly as intended.

samus 3y ago
Constitutions are supposed to prevent laws like this. Because it is all too easy to make people forget the principles their democratic system is based on and without which it will degenerate into a tyranny of the majority.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]