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End well, this won't: UK commissioner suggests govt stops kids from using VPNs
- jmclnx 1y agoSomething seems odd to me. Usually to use a reputable VPN you need to pay. The free ones, which I think kids would use, have more issues to worry about than porn :) In order for a kid to pay, I think some adult will see the charge some where on one of their statements. So the adult could take action. So, couldn't the UK just ban free VPNs ?
- DrBazza 1y ago> So, couldn't the UK just ban free VPNs ? We could try. And try banning Opera for example. Or doing a Great (Britain) Firewall, which must surely have occurred to these idiots at least once. We're governed by fools and people that are determined to do 'social reform' for 'reasons' - this is the commissioner in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_de_Souza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_de_Souza
- consp 1y agoFree now, pay 1ct in 10 years offers might be on the rise.
- tyre 1y agoI believe Mullvad accepts cash via mail
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- everforward 1y agoI don't see how that could be done at either a technical or political level. From the technical, there's no difference in the traffic to detect. From the political, foreign VPNs would be unencumbered and given that it's free there's no lever to pull at banks to stop payments. Some VPN providers will take payment in cash that you mail in. There's probably also convoluted ways to get access without a credit card. Roblox money -> Bitcoin -> VPN, or maybe just those crappy phone apps that have you do surveys and stuff that allow you to redeem a VPN coupon.
- dawidpotocki 1y agoFrom what I found in UK banks will let 16 year olds to open an account independently. You could also mail cash (Mullvad), buy a VPN gift card in a physical store or online or get something like a prepaid Visa/Mastercard or a paysafecard. Even if that is not an option, it's not like age restrictions have prevented everyone underage from alcohol or smoking, people will find a some shady VPN provider or a friend to buy them one. And also, the transaction can have a very useless business name.
- falcor84 1y ago> More than a quarter said that they’d first seen porn by age 11, while seven in ten had viewed it before hitting 18. Am I the only one doubting that 30% of kids didn't see any porn by age 18? They're probably just uncomfortable admitting it, right?
- EA-3167 1y agoAll things being equal, I find it easier to believe in people being dishonest on a survey, than somehow never seeing a single article of porn by age 18.
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- sejje 1y agoI saw porn when I was 8, with no Internet to facilitate it. The neighbor kids' single father had a large stash which they were always going through.
- throawaywpg 1y agoblack and white catalogue in the woods
- ThatMedicIsASpy 1y agoWikipedia. It was fun reading about all those fetishes.
- falcor84 1y agoWikipedia is amazing, and I love its explicit policy on this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_censored https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_...
- jolmg 1y ago100% - >25% by age 11 - 70% before 18 = <5% after 18. I assume the "while" means the former isn't included in the latter.
- fortyseven 1y agoNothing more pressing for these moral crusaders to tend to, eh? Dipshits.
- moomin 1y agoI’m surprised the average kid has the nous to set up a VPN, honestly. Doing it has always seemed like a proper faff.
- johtso 1y agoReally? you can just download an app on your phone (like ProtonVPN) and it just works, where's the faff?
- Steve16384 1y agoI second ProtonVPN. I assume being Android it would mean side-loading and lots of faff, but you just download it from Play and you're away. You don't even need to create a login.
- thfuran 1y agoHave you tried in the last decade or two? Mullvad et al. are trivial.
- XorNot 1y agoThe average teenager is pretty motivated, and has a lot of free time.
- dmbche 1y agoIt's just as hard as installing Chrome.
- karel-3d 1y agoVPN is literally 2 clicks. At least the more scammy, commercial ones.
- 0xCMP 1y agoYea doing it "right" and "yourself" by setting up your own server(s) is some work, but not a lot. Downloading an app to your phone is easy. And it's crazy cheap for most of these services. If not free and they mine what you're visiting or use you as a node in their scraping system.
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- throawaywpg 1y agohonestly if it stops UK porn addiction from reaching the heights its going so soar to it might actually be worth it...
- rjbwork 1y agoIt won't. It will simply allow the government to further track people and attribute "anonymous" online activity to individual citizens. It's absolutely an Orwellian program and has nothing to do with the well-being of children.
- lenerdenator 1y agoThe problem is, they're going to find other uses for this beyond just "thinking of the children". They'll use it for squashing dissent and blackmail. If His Majesty's government was so concerned about protecting children they would have told Randy Andy to go talk to American police under caution during the Biden administration.
- pydry 1y agoJust in case anybody is under any false impressions: there is no grass roots movement pushing for this. this isnt "democracy run amok" or the Labour party pandering a little too much. Labour arent interested in protecting children from pedophiles any more than they were interested in ensuring that Prince Andrew received justice for abusing a minor. Deanonymizing internet users IS the point. The attack on civil liberties is the only point.
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- afavour 1y agoI think that's an exaggeration. To take an article at random (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c24v4dl5r16o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c24v4dl5r16o): > Chris Sherwood, chief executive of children's charity the NSPCC, said Friday's new rules mean services "can no longer evade their duty for protecting children". > For Prof Elena Martellozzo, professor of child sexual exploitation and abuse research at the University of Edinburgh, the rules send a message to the tech industry that "child safety and child protection are not optional". > The Molly Rose Foundation, a charity founded by the family of Molly Russell - who took her own life at the age of 14 after seeing harmful content online - has said stronger legislation is needed to better protect children. > Derek Ray-Hill, interim head of the Internet Watch Foundation, meanwhile welcomed the new rules for sites allowing porn but said "there is still more to be done". I think there absolutely is pressure on the government for things like this. Certainly not mass pressure in all segments of the population but neither is the government acting alone.
- morkalork 1y agoHuh, the economic forecast for the next decade in the UK really is that bad isn't it
- DrBazza 1y agoWe've been stealing from Peter to pay Paul since the 1970s, or rather the UK was in a mess in the 70s, so we raised money by selling off state-owned assets such as British Telecom, British Gas, the water board, and so on, to build the economy whilst dropping taxes (though the Laffer curve helped immensely), then we deregulated further to allow foreign ownership and investment in companies which resulted in things like the closure and hollowing out of British Steel, arguably a national security industry, and brands like Rowntrees, to pick one, now owned by Nestle and manufactured abroad. All we're left with is service industries and call centres. Perhaps that's harsh. And now we're here in 2025, and the UK is running to stay still.
- Der_Einzige 1y agoYou guys deserve after Brexit. Dismantling the EU in slow motion is spiritually evil.
- AnimalMuppet 1y agoHow, exactly, can the UK be accused of dismantling the EU in slow motion? All right, they dismantled themselves out of the EU; you could view that as a single step of dismantling. Beyond that, first, what further dismantling has happened or is going to happen, and second, how is that the UK's fault when they aren't in the EU anymore?
- golbez9 1y agoThe EU is dismantling itself, no help needed
- TechDebtDevin 1y agoI'm never visiting the UK again. No love lost tbh.
- _fat_santa 1y agoThe UK is gonna realize real quick they can't just ban their way out of the mess they have created. Most VPN providers are going to be outside their jurisdiction and players like Mullvad will have no way to actually comply because of the way their VPN's are setup. The only step the UK can take is to force ISP's to block these VPN's which will kick off a cat and mouse game and for the reasonable technical, getting around any VPN ban will be as easy as spinning up an EC2 outside the UK.
- gjsman-1000 1y agoIt's not quite that hard. Hypothetically, you have a digital certificate, signed by the government, for your VPN provider with a list of VPN endpoints. Your client presents that certificate to the ISP, unblocking ports in that specific instance, to those endpoints. Otherwise, all common ports are blocked, and anything that smells VPN-y gets throttled. Alternatively, the UK could have a self-service whitelisting system, when a legal entity signs a contract stating that traffic inside the tunnel is also filtered, at the endpoints listed. Also: The UK government, believe me, does not expect 16 year olds to be capable of spinning up EC2. And if somehow they do, how are they paying for it?
- aaomidi 1y agoWhen VPNs design to hide themselves, which they will do as this law spreads, this problem becomes a lot harder. Countries like Iran and China have been trying to block VPNs for years, and all they are doing now is heuristics. For example I can tunnel traffic over a TLS tunnel. How do you distinguish that with everything else?
- gjsman-1000 1y agoHeuristics again. 99% of your traffic is going to one endpoint... and it's hundreds of gigabytes, both up and down. Obvious red flag. Even an automated system could throttle it.
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- oytis 1y agoThey've seriously set the goal that no-one under 18 should see any porn? What next? Mandatory hands over the blanket?
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- general1726 1y agoPeople think that UK is going full steam ahead to 1984. I think that they are going to live to see A Clockwork Orange.
- exasperaited 1y agoI don't see where the problem is here, actually. Most VPNs that are trustworthy and good for video are paid products, right? So the VPN provider literally only has to prevent UK customers using debit cards to pay. Problem solved.
- jandrese 1y agoSome VPN providers let you mail them cash. Bitcoin or other crypto currencies are also pretty common payment methods. Honestly VPNs are cheap enough that there are a lot of options that don't require a debit/credit card.
- globalise83 1y agoThat will kill their sales, because debit cards are hugely popular in the UK (4:1 ratio versus credit cards in transaction terms).
- exasperaited 1y agoIt will have some impact on sales, but essentially everyone has a credit card they can use for purchases.
- froddd 1y agoWhy would a VPN provider do that?
- general1726 1y agoIf you are outside of UK's jurisdiction (i.e. EU), why would you even care if somebody from UK is paying by a debit card? What is UK going to do? Send bobbies on you?
- exasperaited 1y agoEU/Asia-Pacific/US firms obey UK jurisdiction if they sell to a significant number of UK customers, believe it or not. Collecting and remitting UK VAT is normal, for example, so is recognising UK consumer rights, distance selling regulations etc. Obeying the laws of the jurisdictions where your customers are is actually pretty central to successful international trade. Surprised to find anyone on this site who thinks otherwise.
- afavour 1y agoA recurring thought is that the modern day really, really suffers from politicians having no clue how tech works. And if you are someone who knows how tech works, why would you go work for the government when you could earn far more working in tech itself? I'm not really sure what the answer is. The government is always going to be susceptible to "won't someone think of the children" logic and there's no-one trusted to push back.
- ekianjo 1y agothey dont just have no clue about how tech works. They have no clue about how ANYTHING works. We are ruled by imbeciles.
- joquarky 1y ago> And if you are someone who knows how tech works, why would you go work for the government when you could earn far more working in tech itself? It used to be a great place for people who prioritize job security over income, but that is no more.
- cptcobalt 1y agoIs this not going too far? It's a pretty weak "let's save the kids argument" that only serves to improve mass-surveillance outside of the argument presented. Like, this is the advent of strong thought policing and thought monitoring over the wires—oh no, you can't use a VPN because it's bad for "the kids"!
- lyu07282 1y agoI don't think anybody thinks this has anything to do with child safety. It's not a coincidence that the UK, US and the EU, all working on implementing similar surveillance and censorship regimes. The platforms will develop the infrastructure, similar to the GFoC just privatized. The legacy media lost all influence with younger generations, just look at what the vast majority of young people think of Israel now. If the media can't fulfill its role anymore they need a big stick.
- munksbeer 1y agoIn the UK, most of our elected MPs are idiots. I cannot imagine they're anywhere near intelligent enough to be part of some sophisticated conspiracy while on the face of it saying "save the children". So it can't be coming from the MPs. If this is all a cover for full government control, where is it coming from? Who is doing the push and how are they keeping it secret?
- ryandrake 1y agoOppression doesn't necessarily have to be deliberately planned by brilliant villains in secret smoky rooms, twirling their mustaches and conspiring against the public. It can easily emerge organically out of hundreds of tiny, stupid decisions made by stupid people.
- munksbeer 1y agoI don't think that would explain the assertions by the person I was responding to.
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- ekianjo 1y agoWait until they realize that LLMs and Stable Diffusion models can be used to create questionable content. Will they ban disk storage and GPUs?
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- unethical_ban 1y agoThrough history, the people and the government have been close to parity. A sufficient amount of planning by everyday people with everyday equipment could topple a government. If that parity, that use of force, that forceful evolution of government is to remain a possibility, we must sacrifice some security in order to maintain privacy from government and we must be able to possess tools for communication and offense and surveillance (drones). Any government that can perfectly quash a rebellion is too dangerous to exist.
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- lucyjojo 1y agoit will eventually end up like the good old days. torrents/irc and cd/dvds full of xvids (well.. usb keys or iphone air sharing thingie).
- timsh 1y agoThis whole online safety act thing gives me goosebumps. I’d lived most of my live in Russia until migrating in 2022 and I’m pretty familiar with what it means when the gov starts messing with digital censorship. If you’re not aware, it’s getting systematically harder and harder to browse the free web in Russia despite 50%+ of population using “some” VPN app. And I’m not even talking extremist / anti-russian resources that the government turned against originally, but most of the independent websites that use CloudFlare free tier, for example. Because cloudflare enables proxying and a couple other IP-masquerading techniques by default, to effectively block a single website you have to block the entire cloudflare IP range and DNS - which is >20% of the web. As for the VPNs, most of the common protocols and frameworks (eg OpenVPN) are already banned + detected via DPI, and people have to get into more and more sophisticated setups like VLESS+Reality (= most of the non-technical people can’t set it up by themselves or even buy a subscription to such thing). “Simple” shadowsocks, originally popularized in China to fight the great firewall are already almost rendered completely useless. And it will get worse. The gov service which is responsible for blocking has a very high budget + some pretty neat tech to help them cut off more and more ways to bypass the censorship. This is the future of any state that gets into this game. The future where you might have to become very proficient in networking and use some “shady” stuff like Tor to just read a blog post about Linux. It doesn’t matter what it starts with - fighting anti-gov propaganda or, for god’s sake, porn (the least harmful thing for the kids in this horrible ai-post-capitalism world that we live in) — once the regulators get the feeling of power over the free web, every lobbyist, organization and party will come for a part of the web that you personally might enjoy, or even earn living from.