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Lawmakers want to ban VPNs

• m463 11mo ago
  Isn't apple icloud private relay a VPN?
• ktallett 11mo ago
  Lawmakers in general have less than one percent knowledge on what they make laws on. I look forward to them all logging in remotely after the ban. The key change is needed with things such as meshtastic and lora. Taking things out of the hands of regulators is key
  • codedokode 11mo ago
    They actually act perfectly rationally. Media post articles about how easy it is to bypass the law using VPN, mock the government, and what the law author should feel reading this? "Ok let them break the law"? Of course, the reasonable response is to close the loopholes.
    • ktallett 11mo ago
      The issue is tech isn't as simple as that, vpn's are key in many jobs, are they banned? It is the same issue when they ask for backdoors in every messaging app. It is rational if you don't think any deeper than surface level but once you dig an inch deep, it is clear why it isn't rational.
      • duskdozer 11mo ago
        Some company would surely jump in and get an exception written for certain corporate VPNs. But if not, it can be that those who contribute to the right people get exceptions and those who don't, don't. Rational or logical consistency just....don't have to apply
      • codedokode 11mo ago
        The companies using VPN for work can file an application for an white list exception, if they provide an application with a list of employees having access. I think this is how it works in my country. You are making an elephant from a fly (proverb meaning exaggerating minor issues). For better security, a signed obligation to observe law might be collected from every employee, and an access log kept, with records signed by company's digital signature.
        • raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
          And it’s amazing you think this is okay.
      • codedokode 11mo ago
        > they ask for backdoors in every messaging app Being a devil's advocate, you already entrust the government to register your property, issue your money, prosecute you for wrongdoing (including death penalty) and send you to the war. Your data is already collected and sold by thousands of data brokers. What are you losing by having a backdoor that would be used only in strict accordance with the law (laws being created by your elected representatives) and only for legal purposes? You must comply with the law anyway, no matter if the government can or cannot see what you are doing. If you truly believed in democracy and rule of law in your country, you would have no doubts and volunteered to install the backdoor yourself.
        • jamzer 11mo ago
          The issue being that governments in the west have repeatedly demonstrated they will implement blanket surveillance and not follow due process in using it. Further those who do wish to break the law could still utilize cryptography to avoid backdoors so this would only really apply said surveillance to those not breaking the law. Perhaps this is also different for digital activities due to the history of the digital space and the scale/ease at which if allowed it can be surveilled.
  • tonyedgecombe 11mo ago
    I think they know exactly what they are doing. This isn’t the nineties anymore. Which makes it even worse.
    • jkestner 11mo ago
      But our gerontocracy is still living in the nineties (if we’re lucky).
  • greenavocado 11mo ago
    As a rule, criticism of the ruling elite will never be tolerated in the long term. The Internet was free and unrestricted until the masses shifted their attention to it, at which point, the ruling elite cracked down on it in order to maintain their hegemony by maintaining the ignorance of the masses, which they see as cattle to be herded and milked and sacrificed ritualistically from time to time for their internal social bonding purposes.
• Havoc 11mo ago
  Stuff like this really reminds me how nobody is actually in control. Entire countries are just going where ever the rivers takes them with those supposed in charge not knowing any better and often worse than the rest and functionally being so clueless they’re passengers too
• pjc50 11mo ago
  Republican lawmakers, in this case.
  • analog31 11mo ago
    In Wisconsin, this means there's a good chance the Democratic governor will veto it, probably with widespread public support.
• create-username 11mo ago
  Why ban VPNs when you can freely force social networks like HN to tie nickname registration to an state issued digital ID certificate to guarantee freedom of speech and legal accountability? https://old.reddit.com/r/XGramatikInsights/comments/1ovd88s/spanish_pm_pedro_s%C3%A1nchez_demands_the_end_of/ https://old.reddit.com/r/XGramatikInsights/comments/1ovd88s/...
  • throw-the-towel 11mo ago
    And also to defeat AI slopbots!
  • deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  • tamimio 11mo ago
    Not just social media, expect ANY app to be able to “verify” you through the new apple digital ID (android wallet soon I assume), the “verification is simple and seamless!!”, and add few Alegria drawings explaining why providing your ID helps defeating the “bad evil guys!!” and you are good to go.
  • imtringued 11mo ago
    To this day I have no clue what the point of this idea is. Forcing you to use an ID on the internet is the real world equivalent of making everyone you interact with take a photo of your ID. It's completely nonsensical. Considering that most crimes require people to be physically present at the crime scene, it also doesn't seem to be a functioning deterrent at all in the real world. Most of the bad behaviour is concentrated in "seedy" places, where you usually have to go out of your way to interact with that place. A real name policy doesn't change the nature of the place at all. If anything, the places that would be most affected are the ones where people are roleplaying or pretending to be something other than "themselves". E.g. gay or transgender people, furries, MMO/MUD/MUSH players, streamers, etc which overall seem to be exceedingly harmless. There is also the blatantly obvious problem that this only works on people who are risk averse to begin with. So it will basically have no effect on actual perpetrators, who see some risk vs reward tradeoff for their bad behaviour.
  • 11mo ago
• codedokode 11mo ago
  It's funny how democratic countries copy whatever laws authoritarian regimes passed, but with a 5-year lag.
  • bamboozled 11mo ago
    It's not funny, it fucking sucks.
    • gessha 11mo ago
      “If I didn’t laugh, I’d cry” https://youtu.be/i6fGOXWO0w4 https://youtu.be/i6fGOXWO0w4
  • pjc50 11mo ago
    This sort of thing turns up very regularly in US politics, from the Comstock Laws to the Communications Decency Act. The late 90s even had a requirement to use easily breakable encryption (48-bit RSA) which big tech companies generally obeyed. And a worse proposal (the "clipper chip") which was never deployed. Authoritarianism is not limited by your birthplace, it can turn up anywhere. And when it does people are often really enthusiastic about it.
    • dreamcompiler 11mo ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip
      • cartoonworld 11mo ago
        Very related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars
  • pissmeself 11mo ago
    [dead]
  • tim333 11mo ago
• conartist6 11mo ago
  Isn't it Wisconsin law that lets the Governor change any numeric digits in a law while it's on his or her desk? One of the most bizarre legal opinions I've ever heard of, but if they used any digits in the writing of the law those are up for grabs. Law makes a 30 day window or something? The governor can just change it to a million days with a stroke of the pen and then sign the edit into law with the same pen!
  • nwellinghoff 11mo ago
    What if it’s a “thirty day” window? Safe?
    • conartist6 11mo ago
      Yes, my understanding is that only digits are meaningless per the supreme court's ruling there
  • gizmo686 11mo ago
    > Isn't it Wisconsin law that lets the Governor change any numeric digits in a law while it's on his or her desk? Pretty close. > (b) If the governor approves and signs the bill, the bill shall become law. Appropriation bills may be approved in whole or in part by the governor, and the part approved shall become law. > (c) In approving an appropriation bill in part, the governor may not create a new word by rejecting individual letters in the words of the enrolled bill, and may not create a new sentence by combining parts of 2 or more sentences of the enrolled bill https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/constitution/wi_unannotated https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/constitution/wi_unannotated The big limitation here is that it is limited to appropriations. Further, the constitution goes out of its way to try and prevent creative vetoing. Unfortunately, the court decided that numbers are not words. As a result, the governor changed "for the 2023–24 school year and the 2024–25 school year" to "for 2023–2425" https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/wisconsin-governors-creative-use-line-item-veto-extended-school-funding https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/wisco...
    • stavros 11mo ago
• tamimio 11mo ago
  20 years ago the boogeyman was "the terrorists!" And now the boogeyman is "not the children!!" Or "immigrants!!" Depending on your audience's political views, but the ultimate goal is more surveillance, more control and more power abuse by who’s in control.
  • astroflection 11mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...
  • tim333 11mo ago
    That doesn't match what I've seen in UK politics.
    • hdgvhicv 11mo ago
      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn438z3ejxyo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn438z3ejxyo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0epennv98lo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0epennv98lo https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/digital-id-cards-ill-stop-illegal-migrants-shadow-economy-5HjdDXC_2/ https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/digital-id-cards-ill-stop-ille... Terrorism still crops up occasionally but the rhetoric has certainly expanded.
      • tim333 11mo ago
        I was querying that the motivation is control and power abuse more than protecting children. I live in the UK and know people that go into politics. A lot want to protect children. People can be over cynical about assuming everyone is evil.
        • autoexec 11mo ago
          If the people you know are supporting and expanding mass surveillance you can bet that it's because they want control and power and not because of how much they want to protect children. Not everyone is evil. People who want to surveil and censor everyone are though. If they actually care about children they'll be trying to protect those children from such impositions on their freedom.
• deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
• TZubiri 11mo ago
  >So when Wisconsin demands that websites "block VPN users from Wisconsin," they're asking for something that's technically impossible. Websites have no way to tell if a VPN connection is coming from Milwaukee, Michigan, or Mumbai. The technology just doesn't work that way. https://youtu.be/Pr4v725LPOE?si=ih3gfTSpiHumtrFs&t=79 https://youtu.be/Pr4v725LPOE?si=ih3gfTSpiHumtrFs&t=79 "That's not how apps work" "Then make it work you think we are stupid but we are not, we know" VPNs have something to do with IPs which are necessarily geolocatable , and also users need to make an account to connect to a VPN, you can just ask them what country and State they are in. Being willfully obtuse draws no sympathy, and will not exclude companies from compliance
  • cestith 11mo ago
    What if your geolocated IP is from … a VPN? Maybe one outside the jurisdiction of the law?
  • Ukv 11mo ago
    > VPNs have something to do with IPs which are necessarily geolocatable The website (which is the party these obligations are being placed on) could geolocate the VPN IP, but that wouldn't tell them where the user is actually from.
  • nijave 11mo ago
    IPs aren't necessarily even geolocatable. Sometimes they are, sometimes AT&T Mobile routes you six states over and exits through a CGNAT IP
    • TZubiri 11mo ago
      IPs are geolocatable yes, not with a perfect accuracy, but with a jurisdictional accuracy. First of all, IP addresses are issued in blocks and the IPs are distributed within regional proximity. This is how connections are routed, a router in say, Texas, knows that it can route block, say 48.88.0.0/16 to the south to mexico, 48.95.0.0/16 to the west to Arizona, and so on. whois/RDAP data will tell you the precise jurisdiction of the company that controls the block. It's entirely sensible to use that for geographic bans, the mechanisms are in place, if they are not used, a legislative ban will force providers to use that mechanism correctly. I wouldn't say it's trivial, but it what the mechanism has been designed to do, and it will work correctly as-is for the most part.
• cornonthecobra 11mo ago
  I'm reminded of efforts in the 1990s to ban strong encryption in email and websites because governments tried to tell us it was used by drug dealers and pedos to do their nefarious activities. Yes, governments really did want to force us to use HTTPS with only broken/weak crypto. Same propaganda, different buzzwords.
  • add-sub-mul-div 11mo ago
    In hindsight, they really misjudged how comfortable pedos would be with discussing their affairs in plaintext email.
    • jsmo 11mo ago
      just the rich, well-connected ones with friends in high places right?
  • dreamcompiler 11mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip
    • seanhunter 11mo ago
      Yes and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States Notice that in those cases DJB was represented by the eff, so they have been involved in this issue for a very long time.
    • hahn-kev 11mo ago
      Never heard of this, thanks
• ManuelKiessling 11mo ago
  Well, let’s be honest — users of VPNs regularly don’t know what they are doing, too. Can’t count how often I‘ve heard otherwise technologically literate people saying how they use a VPN (NordVPN e.a.) because „something something security“.
  • nijave 11mo ago
    Irony being trusting random VPN providers and arbitrary foreign (exit) countries potentially makes security _worse_ than without the VPN
    • stavros 11mo ago
      Sure, but the laws weren't supposed to make you more secure, they were supposed to make "kids safer".
    • raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
      I would trust a foreign country with my data much more than I would trust the US. A foreign country can’t do me nearly as much harm as the US can as a US citizen.
  • autoexec 11mo ago
    No surprise, "Something something security" is the exact promise of many youtube ads, often spoken by people who know better.
• TZubiri 11mo ago
  >Businesses run on VPNs. Every company with remote employees uses VPNs. Every business traveler connecting through sketchy hotel Wi-Fi needs one. Companies use VPNs to protect client and employee data, secure internal communications, and prevent cyberattacks. Oh look, someone's conflating business VPNs and consumer VPNs again. This time to legitimize consumer VPNs. The cited laws propose to ban pornography for minors, and ban VPNs that hide geolocation and their use in accessing pornography. Nothing to do with businesses using private VPNs to encrypt employee traffic. >Vulnerable people rely on VPNs for safety. Domestic abuse survivors use VPNs to hide their location from their abusers. Woah, maybe VPNs have some uses I haven't considered, let's take a look at the linked article. >Use a virtual private network (VPN) to remain anonymous while browsing the internet, signing a new lease or applying for a new home loan. This will also keep your location anonymous from anyone who has gained access to or infiltrated your device. I think the loan thing is rubbish I don't get it, and it's unaffected by the law. But the idea of installing a VPN in case the device is compromised might make sense, if the device is compromised it might still be trackable, especially while downloading the VPN, but maybe if it connects at startup, and the RAT isn't configured to bypass the VPN bridge, it might work. Quite a stretch if you ask me. And again, not relevant to adult sites blocking VPNs. The rest of the example are the usual "people use it to evade the government and regulations but it can be THE BAD GOVERNMENt AND REGULAtiONS"
  • skeledrew 11mo ago
    The only way to block a VPN is to have the knowledge that certain IPs are used by VPN providers. It's pretty trivial for someone to run a script/app that spins up a server somewhere, installs VPN software on it, and uses that for the connection. Now there's no way to separate whether a user is connecting via a VPN or not.
    • SpicyLemonZest 11mo ago
      It's pretty trivial for you or I. The average 12 year old who this law aims to protect doesn't know how to do that.
      • 11mo ago
• pona-a 11mo ago
  As someone born in a post‑Soviet country with rather many odd digital laws--including one requiring that any use of encryption be registered with the department of commerce and the secret service (meaning no TLS unless you get a permit)--I can clearly see the endgame of similar proposals. These laws aren’t meant to be followed. Their text is deliberately vague, and their demands are impossible by design. They aren't foolish, or at least their ignorance isn't needed to explain the system's broader function. They are meant to serve as a Chekhov's gun that may or may not fire over your head, depending solely on whether the people holding it decide like you. In peaceful times, they fade into the background, surfacing only when it’s convenient to blackmail some company for cash or favors. In times of crisis, they declare a never-ending war on extremism, sin, and treason, fought against an inexhaustible supply of targets to take down in front of their higher‑ups, farming promotions, contracts for DPI software, and jobs updating its filters. Historically, such controls were limited by the motivation and competence of the arms dealers, usually taking the form of DNS or IP blocks easily bypassed with proxies. With modern DPI, it's entire protocols going dark. Even so, those able to learn easily find a way around them. The people who suffer most are seniors, unable even to call family across the border without a neighbor's help, and their relatives forced into using least trustworthy messengers (such as Botim, from the creators of ToTok, a known UAE intel operation [0]) thinking they're the only way to stay in touch, not knowing how or wanting to use mainstream IM over a VPNs that may or may not live another month. If wherever you are your votes still matter, please fight this nonsense. Make no mistake, your enemies are still more ridiculous than Voltaire could hope they'd be, but organizing against or simply living through a regime constantly chewing on the internet's wires is going to be a significantly greater inconvenience than taking _real_ action now. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ToTok https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ToTok
  • teddyh 11mo ago
    > Chekhov's gun that may or may not fire over your head A more apt metaphor might be Damocles’ sword?
    • pessimizer 11mo ago
      Yes. Chekhov's gun always fires. Even if it happens after the resolution and it turns out to be a water gun.
• throw7 11mo ago
  Wisconsin "porn" websites will just move out of Wisconsin. The bill reads like you would think from someone who's been talking with the ceo of an age verification company. The bill gives the website two options: use a _commercial_ age verification product tied to gov't id checking, or "digitize" the web user's gov't id.
  • nijave 11mo ago
    Holding out for government IdP that can return verified but anonymous data (like age)--like a JWT that has no identifier besides an age claim. Seems highly unlikely it would ever happen (at least in the U.S.) but seems like it'd solve a decent amount of verification problems. With a JWT, the IdP wouldn't even necessarily need to know the recipient since the validity could be verified by the consuming party using asymmetric crypto.
    • immibis 11mo ago
      Yep and I'd just have to automate the process and give out my own JWTs to other people for $2 each
• skeledrew 11mo ago
  And cue the rise of self-hosted VPNs. 1 click to get a VPS instance, install VPN software, and make a connection. Automatically destroy the instance with another click or after a certain amount of time.
  • txrx0000 11mo ago
    If this keeps going, they will ban self-hosting next: only government-approved hosts allowed. We can't just rely on technological solutions because you can't out-tech the law at scale. People need to actually understand that the government is very close to having the tools needed for a stable technocratic authoritarian regime here in the US and all around the world. It might not happen immediately even if they have the tools, but once the tools are built, that future becomes almost unavoidable.
    • skeledrew 11mo ago
      I feel like that'd take a level of surveillance that's technically unsustainable. But then again, sustainability isn't a consideration when it stands in the way of "better" control.
      • haxiomic 11mo ago
        AI is the perfect low cost tool to enable that. Plantir knows this and has been making strategic moves to build this Seems quite achievable and sustainable to me Every human carries dense compute and sensors with them. If they don't they stand out while still surrounded by dense compute and sensors held by others at all times Not nice to think about but it is the reality we are moving towards – vote accordingly
        • hdgvhicv 11mo ago
          Voting doesn’t help. You need to win hearts and minds, and the synergy of resources available between the trillion dollar industries like AI and Marketing and you makes that a losing battle too. People want this stuff. People want ring doorbells, they want age verification, they want government control. Think of the children/criminals/immigrants. Voting won’t help.
• txrx0000 11mo ago
  A device-side IP filter locked behind a password that parents can configure in the device's settings would be much more effective and easier to implement than censoring the Internet. This should be the default solution, yet it's never brought up for whatever reason. Not to mention these online content censorship laws for kids are wrong in principle because parents are supposed to be in control of how they raise each of their own kids, not the government or other people. And these laws make authoritarian surveillance and control much easier. It's hard to not see this as the main objective at this point. And even if it isn't, this level of stupidity is harmful.
  • lukashoff 11mo ago
    > And even if it isn't, this level of stupidity is harmful. How much more proof do we need that we're speedrunning the authoritarianism and frankly we're already somewhat authoritarian, it's just pluralism for now. Wait until the elites eat each other and only one dictator is left.
  • deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  • duxup 11mo ago
    I think putting parents in control is the right path, but will reveal a sad fact. Many parents aren't taking time to be in control, and no amount of legislation will fix that.
    • deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
    • Jordan-117 11mo ago
      Or the sadder fact that it's not actually about protecting kids.
      • Spivak 11mo ago
        Honestly it should be good news because the kids never needed protecting in the first place. If the solution wasn't censorship they would give zero fucks.
• dpoloncsak 11mo ago
  I wonder if all of the journalism on Epstein would be considered "Sexual content" and if journalists would be forced to self-doxx to report in these states
• Crontab 11mo ago
  I've been thinking a lot about VPNs lately, mainly for 2 reasons: 1) In my home state I can no longer access Pornhub 2) Last month I visited Mississippi and could not access BlueSky, even though I can from my home state. [I personally blame this on the "holier then thou", "don't tread of me" conservatives who cannot resist the urge to try to rule over the activities of others.] I haven't selected a VPN provider because I have heard that a lot of websites create barriers to people who use VPNs. For example, I've seen people say that couldn't access Reddit via a VPN.
  • ThePowerOfFuet 11mo ago
    You can access Reddit from a VPN while signed into Reddit.
  • tim333 11mo ago
    I've not had much problem. Never had that problem with Reddit. I use the free veepn browser extension. Accessing imgur from the UK has been a bit tricky. Sometimes they limit certain IP addresses like the US one usually doesn't work but the Singapore one does (slowly) for some reason.
• rileymat2 11mo ago
  "Here's what happens if VPNs get blocked: everyone has to verify their age by submitting government IDs, biometric data, or credit card information directly to websites—without any encryption or privacy protection." Can someone explain how this is true? Even if there is not a VPN, there should be https encryption and privacy protection.
  • joquarky 11mo ago
    My guess is that this data isn't secure even at rest, as the constant flow of data breaches has shown.
  • stavros 11mo ago
    They mean "no privacy protection from the website", presumably. Websites getting compromised and leaking IDs is a big deal, now that we've decided that websites should be seeing our IDs.
  • jamzer 11mo ago
    I think they're referring to the verification end, in terms of being required to hand over personal info to various parties, a certain percentage of which will have insufficient security and be compromised resulting in your info being leaked. Or otherwise that if you want to effectively ban VPNs you'll end up at the point where secure encryption is effectively banned, because there are ways to tunnel traffic over pretty much any protocol eg. SSH, HTTPS if you're creative.
  • 9rx 11mo ago
    If you have https encryption and privacy protection, how is the VPN ban going to be enforced?
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 11mo ago
  "Here's what happens if VPNs get blocked: everyone has to verify their age by submitting government IDs, biometric data, or credit card information directly to websites-without any encryption or privacy protection. We already know how this story ends. Companies get hacked. Data gets breached. And suddenly your real name is attached to the websites you visited, stored in some poorly-secured database waiting for the inevitable leak. This has already happened, and is not a matter of if but when. And when it does, the repercussions will be huge." Then "Let's say Wisconsin somehow manages to pass this law. Here's what will actually happen: People who want to bypass it will use non-commercial VPNs, open proxies, or cheap virtual private servers that the law doesn't cover. They'll find workarounds within hours. The internet always routes around censorship." Even in a fantasy world where every website successfully blocked all commercial VPNs, people would just make their own. You can route traffic through cloud services like AWS or DigitalOcean, tunnel through someone else's home internet connection, use open proxies, or spin up a cheap server for less than a dollar." EFF presents two versions of "here's what will happen" If we accept both as true then it appears a law targeting commercial VPNs would create evolutionary pressure to DIY rather than delegate VPN facility to commercial third parties. Non-commercial first party VPNs only service the person who sets them up. If that person is engaged in criminal activity, they can be targeted by legislation and enforcement specifically. Prosecution of criminals should not affect other first party VPNs set up by law-abiding internet users Delegation of running VPNs to commercial third parties carries risks. Aside from obvious "trust" issues, reliability concerns, mandatory data collection, potential data breach, and so on, when the commercial provider services criminals, that's a risk to everyone else using the service This is what's going on with so-called "Chat Control". Commercial third parties are knowingly servicing criminals. The service is used to facilitate the crime. The third parties will not or cannot identify the criminals. As a result, governments seek to compel the third party to do so through legislation. Every other user of the service may be affected as a result Compare this with a first party VPN set up and used by a single person. If that person engages in criminal activity, other first party VPNs are unaffected EFF does not speculate that third parties such AWS, DigitalOcean, or "cheap server[s] for less than a dollar" will be targeted with legislation in their second "here's what will happen" scenario Evolutionary pressure toward DIY might be bad news for commercial third party intermediaries^1 But not necessarily for DIY internet users 1. Those third parties that profit from non-DIY users may invoke the plight of those non-DIY users^2 when arguing against VPN legislation or "Chat Control" but it's the third parties that stand to lose the most. DIY users are not subject to legislation that targets third party VPNs or third party chat services 2. Like OpenAI invoking the plight of ChapGPT users when faced with discovery demands in copyright litigation
• etchalon 11mo ago
  Couldn't all of this be handled by META tags, request/response headers and some "they'll obviously do it" laws aimed at operating systems, device manufacturers and browser companies?
• stavros 11mo ago
  You don't need to burn books if you can just ban access to them!
• kbrkbr 11mo ago
  After Wisconsin finds out how to reliably filter vpn, they can then teach Netflix and Akamai how to do it. Last time I checked modestly reliable geoblocking existed, and completely unreliable vpn blocking. A friend told me that when he comes across a site for which Nordvpn is blocked, he just changes IP. Latest the third one always works, even on YouTube (he is all about privacy).
  • aydyn 11mo ago
    Lots of sites do in fact block VPNs successfully. How? Well they could just sign up for NordVPN and see which IPs they use directly. Its not rocket science.
    • kbrkbr 11mo ago
      I do have a bit of experience with managing WAFs for large online gaming providers and I can tell you it's not a solved problem. Netflix would also love to hear how I guess. Even if you somehow manage to enumerate the Nordvpn IPs - a thing of which Nordvpn probably thought in their threat model - then you still have thousands of other providers.
  • rda2 11mo ago
    It’s different if you have influence over the network, like a government might. I spend a lot of time in China, and they’ve done a good job of blocking VPNs in recent years, including my personal WireGuard connection to my home network. Not that any technical solution is impossible to bypass, but a motivated state government could make VPN use difficult if it wasn’t for the whole Constitution thing.
  • phantomathkg 11mo ago
    It is a cat and mouse game, it is whether the service provider do or not. I remember AWS WAF can block VPN ages ago, according to this announcement, it is 2020. https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2020/03/aws-waf-adds-anonymous-ip-list-for-aws-managed-rules/ https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2020/03/aws-waf-a...
  • charcircuit 11mo ago
• InMice 11mo ago
  Of course, what if I use an SSH tunnel instead as that normally suffices a lot easier for me. It's basically the same underlying libraries? They would have to regulate the use of libssl, libcrypto, etc. This makes no sense lol. Am I going to find myself in jail one day for "Unregulated use of a private/public key pair?"
  • willis936 11mo ago
    That depends on if you are poor and/or considered a political enemy. Where is the party of small government?
    • autoexec 11mo ago
      The actual size of government doesn't much matter, it's what the government does and doesn't do that counts.
      • deleted 11mo ago
        [deleted]
      • brookst 11mo ago
        “Small government” is ambiguous. It used to mean exactly that — scope of powers. These days it’s become unclear and some people use it to mean headcount.
    • coldpie 11mo ago
      > Where is the party of small government? It's the conservative 2/3 of the Democratic party.
    • deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
    • LexiMax 11mo ago
      > Where is the party of small government? "Small government" in all its forms and variations is smoke. If you hear someone who says they desire small government, they are either lying to your face because they want their despot to have power, or haven't given their position enough interrogation to ask themselves the question "If the government isn't powerful, what is preventing a power-hungry despot from seizing power?"
• dabinat 11mo ago
  Part of the problem is that in order to prove your age you need to hand over a bunch of unrelated data about yourself. Why do they need to know my name, address, signature, and what I look like? They don’t even need to know my actual age, just that I’m over 21. Laws like this would go down a lot better if there were privacy-respecting ways of verifying age.
  • SwtCyber 11mo ago
    Probably because the real priority isn't age verification it's data collection and control.
  • owisd 11mo ago
    There are privacy-respecting ways, e.g. https://blog.google/products/google-pay/google-wallet-age-identity-verifications/ https://blog.google/products/google-pay/google-wallet-age-id... uses Zero Knowledge Proofs to just verify age without revealing any other personal data. If Online Safety was just a data collection Trojan horse than this kind of approach wouldn’t be allowed.
• James_K 11mo ago
  It seems it would be much more effective to regulate ISPs, requiring them to disallow users from accessing adult sites and VPNs without first verifying their age. This also wouldn't be a violation of privacy since you are already giving your ISP your physical address. The only place users would be expected to identify themselves is over public wifi.
• zerof1l 11mo ago
  I'm curious how they plan to enforce it lol, because I don't think they can. Unless they plan to build something similar to the Great Firewall of China. But it will have to be nationwide. I don't think one state can do it.
• defanor 11mo ago
  > It Won’t Even Work I heard similar sentiments about censorship efforts in Russia, but it does seem to work, unfortunately. So far they have outlawed and blocked major VPN providers (and keep blocking more, including non-commercial ones, like Tor bridges, and foreign hosting companies' websites), blocked major detectable protocols used for those (IPsec, WireGuard), made usage of proxying ("VPN") an aggravating circumstance for the newly-introduced crime of searching for "extremist" information. That seems to deter many people already, and once the majority is forced to use the local approved (surveilled, censored) services, it is even easier to introduce whitelists or simply cut international connections (as is already practiced temporarily and locally), at which point the ban is successfully applied to everyone.
  • LadyCailin 11mo ago
    It won’t even work* *without resorting to complete Russian style government control The US is not (yet) Russia. The rule of law is definitely being destroyed as we speak, so who knows 5, 10 years down the road, but there are still several prerequisite institutions that need to be destroyed before the US could reliably enforce a VPN ban.
    • forgotoldacc 11mo ago
      Every country that has slid into North Korea style total control begins with a "it won't happen here. And it'd stop before it gets that bad."
      • jhrmnn 11mo ago
        Can you name some examples?
      • vinay427 11mo ago
        From my reading, the GP comment isn’t claiming otherwise, but just that that sort of VPN ban isn’t enforceable in advance of some of those changes. They do directly suggest they don’t know how long this will remain the case.
• ninetyninenine 11mo ago
  How are vpns detected?
• pipes 11mo ago
  I'll be surprised if my country (the UK) doesn't go down the same path. I don't like the reform party, but they seem to be the only party that see the danger in all of this.
• SwtCyber 11mo ago
  It's like trying to ban people from whispering in public because someone might say something inappropriate
• billy99k 11mo ago
  Still not as bad as the previous administration colluding with Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube to censor American citizens and in many cases, get them fired from their jobs.
  • raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
    Yes instead now we have a president accepting bribes from companies - Paramount, Disney, Google, Twitter and Facebook. Trump also called out someone to be fired from Microsoft he didn’t like and let’s not forget that the FCC threatened ABC because Kimmel dare speak bad about a racist podcaster. States also were firing teachers because they said mean things about the same podcaster. https://amp.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article312903189.html https://amp.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article312903...
  • dpoloncsak 11mo ago
    Because the current administration doesn't get along with the CEOs of Meta, X, or Google, right? Dana White is on Meta's board. Musk had a new government position created for him to oversee. Google donated $300 mil to the Ballroom and somehow their antitrust case went overwhelmingly in their favor.
• keraf 11mo ago
  Reminds me of my time in Zanzibar, where the internet was censored and some VPN providers (like Proton) weren't working. The authorities then imposed a complete ban of VPNs without permit, with threats of harsh punishment (2000 USD fine or 12m in prison). Exceptions could be made by filling a form justifying the use of the VPN and details about it (for example IP address) but reviews are slow and obscure. The context with this article is different but the similarities are with how lawmakers misunderstand VPNs. They are an essential tool for workers and there are many other ways to circumvent censorship without VPNs anyway. The irony of this ban is that Zanzibar also wants to attract digital nomads, and the most important tool for them is an unrestricted and reliable internet connection.
  • moffkalast 11mo ago
    I guess the sultan of Oman will have to move somewhere else now.
• mark_l_watson 11mo ago
  Sadly (at least for me, I am a US citizen) we are seeing the slow burn collapse of western ‘democracies’ and the slow steady rise of the global south. Western leaders are in panic mode. I am not very political but when I look at the last Biden administration and the current Trump administration I see two men in panic mode - very weak. A partial solution to western civilization collapse is to make ourselves as individuals strong: prioritize family, friends, continual life long education, spirituality, highly productive work, supporting our local communities, etc.
  • elzbardico 11mo ago
    You're one of the few that correctly sees this goes beyond partisanship boundaries. The polarization keeps us divided. Meanwhile, the billionaire become more and more rich and powerful, no matter which sides currently has the power. Baillouts, tax cuts, regulation or de-regulation. Doesn't matter, there is a group who always win.
    • LexiMax 11mo ago
      Our current crop of leaders are, to quote Succession, not serious people. You could point to many examples why, but I don't think there's a better example of this than how China managed to utterly snooker the west when they tried to run the same old economic imperialism playbook on them. The nepo-babies making those decisions who wanted to coast on the US's global superpower status were outsmarted by a hungry up-and-comer. Now they're pissed off, but don't have an actual plan for how to fix things, so they're resorting to a series of own-goals that make them feel good in the moment. Some of them are even building bunkers, but don't seem to have the foresight to understand that they're either setting themselves up to bend the knee to the first warlord who lays siege, or betrayed from within by their bodyguards. Like I said, not serious people. These are dark times, and as an individual it can sometimes feel hopeless. I don't know if we can save our country. But you can try saving yourself, your friends, your family, you community, the people you truly care about. Good luck, everyone.
  • hylaride 11mo ago
    Western "democracies" are most certainly fraying, but the rise of the global south is nowhere near a certainty. Their institutions are nowhere near strong enough, especially rule of law. People are also not migrating en-mass to them, either. > A partial solution to western civilization collapse is to make ourselves as individuals strong: prioritize family, friends, continual life long education, spirituality, highly productive work, supporting our local communities, etc. I broadly agree, but western civilization has had so much regulatory capture by vested interests that sap productivity (whether it's US billionaires capturing the tax code or retirees in France demanding the state fund their arguably too early retirement) that individualism may not be enough.
• fwip 11mo ago
  Okay, I'm generally a fan of the EFF, but what they say in this article is untrue? > Their solution? Entirely ban the use of VPNs. > Yes, really. Which is then followed by the actual explanation: > an age verification bill that requires all websites distributing [...] “sexual content” to both implement an age verification system and also to block the access of users connected via VPN. This doesn't ban VPNs - it requires age-verified sites to block VPN users. Which makes 3 of the 4 categories they describe basically unaffected by the change to the law. Business users, students, journalists protecting sources - all can turn off their VPN to access porn when they want to, and enjoy the use of their VPN at any other time. (The fourth category is "people who want privacy," who are in fact negatively affected by the law.) Don't get me wrong, I think this is a bad bill, but it's also a bad article that is basically lying.
• trollbridge 11mo ago
  Considering many of these VPNs are operated by shady groups that probably sell data to intelligence services, I suspect efforts to ban them will mysteriously fail.
  • pxc 11mo ago
    It's also possible to write legislation that makes it difficult for new or independent entrants, which funnels more business and traffic to the honeypots.
• bithead 11mo ago
  They will then need to be all encrypted traffic if such a law survive legal challenge.
• motohagiography 11mo ago
  ive been invovled in privacy for decades and not once has anyone named the parties behind the bills or authors of it, or who lobbies and uses leverage over lawmakers to push these bills through. they are persistent and have continuity through generations, organize across borders, influence manufacturers and even pressure individual developers. tech doesnt secure privacy. finding these people and calling them out directly might.
• treebeard901 11mo ago
  All it does is make it easier for the Government to monitor VPN connections. They already can request logs from providers. Most, if not all VPNs require a proof of identity which is used to subpoena your data. Next up is device security itself. Most phones can be remotely compromised with man in the middle style certificates. Most sites do not use certificate pinning and there is always a master key for decryption built in at the certificate authority level. Unless you have banking level certificates with certificate pinning between sites, a random VPN not tied to your identity and secure devices, a VPN just sells you the illusion of security.
  • jamzer 11mo ago
    Huh? > All it does is make it easier for the Government to monitor VPN connections. That is not all it does. We're talking about them banning VPNs. > They already can request logs from providers. Most claim they do not keep logs. This has been proven for certain providers. Providers operating in different jurisdictions are not necessarily obligated to provide these logs. > Most, if not all VPNs require a proof of identity... I have never been asked by a VPN for proof of identity. > Next up is device security itself... This is by far a separate issue. Yes it is true mitm attacks are still possible when using a VPN, they do however provide an extra layer of security and shift trust to an entity you should consider trustworthy (your VPN) from a possibly untrustworthy LAN, ISP, or country. This is ignoring the primary use which is of privacy. Governments have shown time and time again when possible they will implement blanket surveillance and often not follow due process. Just as someone, some organization, or some government should require a very good reason to open your mail, or obtain a warrant to search your house, they should too require this to eavesdrop on your digital communications. VPNs and similar technology are also useful to those under oppressive regimes to communicate privately. While this is not currently the case in the US, the mechanisms to retain the freedoms currently enjoyed should be upheld in case they are ever required. Further, you ignore the benefits VPNs provide in terms of geoblocking. Finally, VPNs are also useful in corporate, education, and other networking settings including accessing your home network from elsewhere or remote services you host.
  • Longlius 11mo ago
    >Most, if not all VPNs require a proof of identity I've never been asked for proof of identity by a VPN.
• helterskelter 11mo ago
  The water's getting a little warm isn't it, fellow frogs?
  • lifty 11mo ago
    Too much hassle to fight it. Better scroll a bit more on tiktok
• Traubenfuchs 11mo ago
  So 2020 - 2030 will be known as the years when "western societies" (read: corrupt politicians that see us as nothing but cattle) decided to become more authoritarian and dystopic than China and Russia.
• senshan 11mo ago
  If the goal is to protect minors, then alcohol may be a better model: a) Alcohol is considered harmful for minors, hence b) It is unlawful for minors to posses and consume alcohol; c) It is unlawful to sell alcohol to minors; Similarly: 1) Internet may potentially contain harmful material, hence: 2) It is unlawful for minors access Internet; 3) It is unlawful to sell or provide to minors access to Internet or any devices or services that facilitate access to Internet Easy-peasy
  • para_parolu 11mo ago
    Protecting minors is never a goal. But punishing VPN providers will be next step after banning usage.
    • senshan 11mo ago
      Exactly, but each time any lawmakers wants to "protect the children", the "alcohol solution" needs to be brought up. While it is somewhat ridiculous when applied to Internet access, it bring in the right perspective -- the population as a whole does not need to be affected by the measure
      • para_parolu 11mo ago
        Except with alcohol everyone is affected by the measure. I need to show my personal data to random grocery store worker to buy alcohol. I an not minor.
  • TZubiri 11mo ago
    Showing ID to buy alcohol is pretty common though.
    • Spivak 11mo ago
      Yes but on the internet, at least in the US, asking "Are you 21 Yes/No" with no actual check has been acceptable. Same with all mature content like violence and porn. Someone needs to make a case as for why in 2015 this was perfectly acceptable but in 2025 it's not anymore. The internet has gotten tamer since its inception and porn is still porn, exactly as depraved as it always was. What's considered the bad parts of the internet these days used to be the whole thing.
• wartywhoa23 11mo ago
  People of the West, repeat after me: Xray Vless Hiddify Streisand (and buy VPSes by heaps while you can)
• Bender 11mo ago
  This will be an unpopular take, but... ban all the VPN's. Do it now. Every time such a thing happens new technology is created out of necessity. The more totalitarian a regime is the more people are pushed under ground. This only hurts big companies and governments that benefit from having all the juicy delicious data flowing through cooperating CDN's and big centralized platforms where they can see it real time and with real identities. Motivate developers to make easy-peazy tools to push the normies to Tor, SSH tunnels, hybrid open source VPN's, DNS tunneling, HTTPS piggy-backing, Obfuscated HTTPS websockets, Domain Fronting, Lora Relays, Laser Relays, open source user-space mesh VPN's like Tinc and watch the arms race unfold. My super secret ulterior motive is that I despise the big platforms including all the big VPN platforms that have money trails or claim BTC is anonymous and claim to not log anything or have real time lawful intercept API's thus allowing them to claim no logs. I octo-dog dare governments to ban VPN's.
• TZubiri 11mo ago
  How does changing post titles work? I think it's more accurate that: "Lawmakers want to ban VPN users from accessing porn websites." or "Lawmakers wants porn websites to ban VPN users" It's an important distinction that has caused a lot of confusion in the last thread about this article. I know that the author is arguing a slippery slope for political reasons, but it's not factual and it causes confusion.
• matheusmoreira 11mo ago
  Remember the days when governments the world over didn't seem to realize the internet existed? I miss those days. I used to complain about and laugh at their technological ineptitude. Now I wish I could turn back time.
• winningChild 11mo ago
  [dead]
• mcintyre1994 11mo ago
  This seems like an insane way to achieve what they want. I’m surprised they don’t pass a law like the UAE has - it’s illegal to use a VPN to get around internet censorship.
• Palmik 11mo ago
  > To both implement an age verification system and also to block the access of users connected via VPN. This would require blocking VPN use for all users, regardless of where the user comes from (at just until their age verified). That seems like a big invasion of rights of users from other states. If they insist on blocking VPN use, the onus should be on VPN service providers, or VPN service users.
• PeterStuer 11mo ago
  "People who want to bypass it will use non-commercial VPNs, open proxies, or cheap virtual private servers that the law doesn't cover. They'll find workarounds within hours. The internet always routes around censorship." This is naive. The goal is not to make VPNs technically impossible, it is to move the use of VPNs into the realm of illegality. If successfull, it is just a case of selective enforcement, another vector of going after anyone you don't like.