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Will they criminalize VPNs? I guess that is the next question. In Middle Eastern countries every home has a VPN subscription, it is an open secret, and there i
by qingcharles 2y ago
Will they criminalize VPNs? I guess that is the next question.
In Middle Eastern countries every home has a VPN subscription, it is an open secret, and there is no effort to crack down on it or block it (i.e. not like China). It lets the government say "We banned the naughty stuff," while allowing their citizenry to rightly access everything at the same time.
The only people put out by the bans in the Middle East are tourists fresh off the plane who didn't do their research.
- sneed_chucker 2y agoSeems unlikely. VPNs have far too many legitimate uses. How many people are on VPNs for work alone? I also don't think the law in Texas is written against the consumer, e.g. it doesn't say it's illegal to view porn if you haven't shown an ID. Rather, it's levied against the distributor to say it's illegal to show porn to someone you haven't age verified. So it's not like the act of using the VPN to circumvent this would be criminal.
- qingcharles 2y agoOK, that makes perfect sense, thank you. The ME is obviously a bit of a different situation as they run ISP-based firewall rules to outright ban unwanted sites.
- shrimp_emoji 2y agoAnd they're training people to use VPNs, which should be a mandatory facet of tech literacy anyway! :D Win-win
- rbax 2y agoI was in China earlier this year. Most of the popular and well known VPN endpoints were blocked. Even with stealth oriented settings. It would be pretty easy for government workers to sign up for the top 10 services, see all their endpoints and just blacklist them. However, the VPN I had setup at my house worked fine and had no issues with being blocked on the basic VPN setup.
- toast0 2y agoI don't think US states can really criminalize VPNs. Countries can, but I don't see how a state is going to justify a VPN ban. They're clearly useful for all sorts of things, and it's awfully hard to confirm what it's used for. And it would be a big overreach of state powers IMHO.
- qingcharles 2y agoIt would definitely be odd. I don't see the tech companies rolling over and allowing it to happen. How do other countries police VPNs? Is it only at the border? I think technically a state could legislate against it. States have some laws in the US already which would probably raise eyebrows. Illinois makes it up to 5 years in prison to violate the ToS of a web site, for instance. People say to me, "But it's not enforced!"... I'd rather you argue that to the judge at your bail hearing.
- jfengel 2y agoThey don't need to criminalize VPNs. Instead, they will find some child who used a VPN to access porn, then sue PornHub for failing to validate the child's age. Is that legal? I have no idea. You'll have to ask six Federalist Society judges on the Supreme Court.
- FMecha 2y agoThe UAE for example has laws that some interpret as being anti-VPN, with some also using it to get around anti-VoIP laws in that country, but the enforcement of that is pretty much weak.
- qingcharles 2y agoI could never get a straight answer. Everyone kinda snorts and laughs if you ask about it, "Like, really?" I tried translating Arabic statutes. I don't want to test ME laws because they generally have Sharia for the locals and a standard criminal code for foreigners, but that all sounds like a recipe for A Bad Time(tm). It ain't no China, though. It's a really flimsy attempt to block things. Skype worked perfectly, but not Facetime, even though not having an iPhone for natives was like not owning a Toyota Landcruiser.