4 ms·

route everything through a vps?

Aerroon 1y ago
It's a temporary solution though. It's only going to get more draconian. Next thing you know the talk is about punishing VPN users, because now they can be painted as evading the law.
- nicman23 1y ago
  i mean yeah but you cannot do shit all about a vps. commercial vpns yeah you can ban and monitor. a vps is your own device just elsewhere
  - mschuster91 1y ago
    > i mean yeah but you cannot do shit all about a vps Of course you can. The AS numbers of major hosting providers are well known and it is already common practice to ban associated IP addresses for stuff that should only be done by legitimate users.
    - nicman23 1y ago
      you cannot ban aws or linenode my dude
      - jbstack 1y ago
        Why not?
        nicman23 1y ago
        because half of the internet is there
        mschuster91 1y ago
        That's why I explicitly wrote: "for stuff that should only be done by legitimate users". That means Netflix et al can (and do) ban everything that even remotely smells like a datacenter IP range and not a residential one, because that is a common method of evading regional bans or undermine pricing structure. And on top of that... if the focus of your website is humans, you might want to cut off all datacenter originating traffic as well. Save yourself the hassle of dealing with AI scrapers.
        jbstack 1y ago
        But in many cases a server operator doesn't expect any legitimate traffic from that half of the internet, or is willing to block traffic from it. For example, there's generally no reason a customer would use their internet banking app with traffic routed via a datacentre other than for the reason you proposed (masking their IP address), so if the bank wants to prevent people doing that then blocking all data centre traffic is an effective way of doing it.
jbstack 1y ago
It's not a full solution. I've seen UK sites that, following the Online Safety Act, simply require all users to verify their age rather than bother to figure out whether you are actually a UK customer or not. I guess it's easier to implement and many sites mainly rely on domestic customers anyway so they don't care if international users are affected. Also, this isn't just about porn. For example, I can barely use Reddit now if I connect with a UK IP address: the merest hint that there might be some NSFW angle to a post is enough to trigger their algorithm into requiring age verification.
ulrikrasmussen 1y ago
I would much rather fight this and retain my rights instead of participating in some kind of privacy and censorship arms race.
- nicman23 1y ago
  you fight this by the arms race

It's a temporary solution though. It's only going to get more draconian. Next thing you know the talk is about punishing VPN users, because now they can be painted as evading the law.

nicman23 1y ago
i mean yeah but you cannot do shit all about a vps. commercial vpns yeah you can ban and monitor. a vps is your own device just elsewhere
- mschuster91 1y ago
  > i mean yeah but you cannot do shit all about a vps Of course you can. The AS numbers of major hosting providers are well known and it is already common practice to ban associated IP addresses for stuff that should only be done by legitimate users.
  - nicman23 1y ago
    you cannot ban aws or linenode my dude
    - jbstack 1y ago
      Why not?
      - nicman23 1y ago
        because half of the internet is there
        mschuster91 1y ago
        That's why I explicitly wrote: "for stuff that should only be done by legitimate users". That means Netflix et al can (and do) ban everything that even remotely smells like a datacenter IP range and not a residential one, because that is a common method of evading regional bans or undermine pricing structure. And on top of that... if the focus of your website is humans, you might want to cut off all datacenter originating traffic as well. Save yourself the hassle of dealing with AI scrapers.
        jbstack 1y ago
        But in many cases a server operator doesn't expect any legitimate traffic from that half of the internet, or is willing to block traffic from it. For example, there's generally no reason a customer would use their internet banking app with traffic routed via a datacentre other than for the reason you proposed (masking their IP address), so if the bank wants to prevent people doing that then blocking all data centre traffic is an effective way of doing it.

jbstack 1y ago

It's not a full solution. I've seen UK sites that, following the Online Safety Act, simply require all users to verify their age rather than bother to figure out whether you are actually a UK customer or not. I guess it's easier to implement and many sites mainly rely on domestic customers anyway so they don't care if international users are affected. Also, this isn't just about porn. For example, I can barely use Reddit now if I connect with a UK IP address: the merest hint that there might be some NSFW angle to a post is enough to trigger their algorithm into requiring age verification.

ulrikrasmussen 1y ago

I would much rather fight this and retain my rights instead of participating in some kind of privacy and censorship arms race.

nicman23 1y ago
you fight this by the arms race