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What is there to research? Yes, VPNs can be used to circumvent geofences (and by extension, regional age restrictions). Yes, attempting to age-restrict VPNs is

by Retr0id 4mo ago

What is there to research? Yes, VPNs can be used to circumvent geofences (and by extension, regional age restrictions). Yes, attempting to age-restrict VPNs is at odds with strong privacy guarantees. Privacy is a human right, and one which is essential for effective democracy.

gmerc 4mo ago
Good thing then that Democracy isn’t gonna defend itself.
ranger_danger 4mo ago
> What is there to research? Probably how they can best attach a license to VPN use like they're doing with TV.
- tpholland 4mo ago
  Hi! It sounds like you may have misunderstood the TV license as you seem to be describing it as a recent thing whereas it was introduced 80 years ago in 1946. The point of the license was always to fund broadcast content--not sure how this could apply to VPN use. I think the discussion of VPNs relates to how, if we decided it was appropriate to block foreign sites, you'd accomplish this. As somebody who grew up in the heady days of the early internet this who conversation saddens me, but when you hear for example interviews with the folks running Roblox you can see where these ideas come from....
ben_w 4mo ago
> What is there to research? The trade-offs and how many people care and about what specifically. E.g., you say "Privacy is a human right", so why is it that half the websites I visit ask for permission to share details of how I use those sites with more corporate "trusted partners" than there were students and staff combined in my secondary school? I'm all on board with just banning this kind of analytics, but there's a lot of people who are more angry with the EU for forcing companies to at least ask for permission before they sell your data to all those analytics firms.
- nekusar 4mo ago
  > E.g., you say "Privacy is a human right", so why is it that half the websites I visit ask for permission to share details of how I use those sites with more corporate "trusted partners" than there were students and staff combined in my secondary school? Because capitalism itself is the enemy. And information assymmetry is a potent tool, as is constant and persistent surveillance. All of these enable extracting more money.
  - soupbowl 4mo ago
    Yeah, you don't have these issues in communist countries. . .
    - nekusar 4mo ago
      You can complain (read: peaceful protest for redress of grievances) without going whole hog the complete opposite way. Most of this end-stage crapitalism was warned by Adam Smith, and then by Marx. And what did economists do? Fucking ignore it. Or named it trickle down. So, yeah. When the capitalists control the government, you get all the abuses written about it for the last 300 years. And it fucking shows. Computation and copyright was just dropping helicopter loads of gasoline on the already terrible fire.
    - AngryData 4mo ago
      More than one set of policies and ideals can be shitty at the same time. Just because authoritarian central planned economies failed doesn't mean we should never try anything else ever again that isn't pure capitalism or refuse to criticize its faults.
  - rustcleaner 4mo ago
    >Because capitalism itself is the enemy. Let's be real here. It's investor-monopoly capitalism that is the problem. Individuals worth less than $100,000,000 owning private property or their businesses isn't the problem, it's the Financial-Industrial-Complex with its Dodge vs Ford ruling (established duty to maximize shareholder returns) that is the problem. People owning their homes, cars, agriculture fields, tractors, semi-trucks, and small/medium business are not the cause of our ills. The cause is the financialization of everything, turning everyone into rent-paying debtors always on the precarious edge. Free enterprise is good, but monopoly enterprise is not. Quit making people race to the bottom in competition for basic survival, and start making the moneyed monopolists do it instead!
baranul 4mo ago
But that's the point, circumvent democracy, to set the stage for techno-fascism. The citizen has no rights which the state is bound to respect.
- subscribed 4mo ago
  By all means. For example the vast majority of the UK residents is against the ongoing support and complicity of the UK in the genocide of Palestinians, to which the government orchestrated the whole operation to turn the protest into act of terrorism (!). Etc.
  - hactually 4mo ago
    Got any numbers/sources for that specific claim?
    - subscribed 4mo ago
      Yeah. Polls from Opinium, YouGov, even earlier ipsos, showing that UK general public does not support the genocide, but immediate ceasefire, stopping sale of arms to Israel, back ICC, et. You'd struggle to find anything that would show that UK public support aiding and abetting.
- phs318u 4mo ago
  Set the stage? Techno-fascism is already here. Private conglomerates own all the 21st century “commons” that matter and can already de-platform you at will with no explanation and no recourse, including from those platforms necessary for survival in the modern world (banking/payments). If anything, (western) governments are late to this game.
IanCal 4mo ago
Are there ways of doing age gating while preserving privacy? For whom? How many people need that kind of privacy, would it impact lots of (say) teens seeking help or is this about whistleblowers? Are many under 18s using VPNs for porn? Or have they just shifted to other platforms anyway? If we implemented it “perfectly” would it even do the thing we wanted? What are the actual numbers here? If there’s lots of fuss about vpns but actually while there’s been a big jump in use it’s not under 18s anyway it wouldn’t help. > Privacy is a human right, and one which is essential for effective democracy. And does this get broken enough for age gating something? We age gate alcohol to reasonable success, sometimes that involves showing id. I’m not arguing for age gating here but I do think understanding the tradeoffs may require more evidence.
- rustcleaner 4mo ago
  >We age gate alcohol to reasonable success, We shouldn't. >sometimes that involves showing id. Then the yokel checkout attendant proceeds to punch the 8 digit birthday into the keyboard, which serializes you as one of less than 30,000 customers in the area. Birthdays are leaky identifiers.
DrBazza 4mo ago
It's the UK gov. Rather than do something, it's endless inquiries and 'research'. Example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Thames_Crossing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Thames_Crossing - the planning application is 360,000 pages and not a single shovel is in the ground. Or HS2. The list goes on. This is a really, really minor example of the same sickness that infests British politics for the last few decades.
AngryData 4mo ago
I don't know how this works in the UK, but where I am at that would look like politicians just fishing for bribes while they stall committing to any action which also helps in PR.

by Retr0id 4mo ago

gmerc 4mo ago

Good thing then that Democracy isn’t gonna defend itself.

ranger_danger 4mo ago

> What is there to research? Probably how they can best attach a license to VPN use like they're doing with TV.

tpholland 4mo ago
Hi! It sounds like you may have misunderstood the TV license as you seem to be describing it as a recent thing whereas it was introduced 80 years ago in 1946. The point of the license was always to fund broadcast content--not sure how this could apply to VPN use. I think the discussion of VPNs relates to how, if we decided it was appropriate to block foreign sites, you'd accomplish this. As somebody who grew up in the heady days of the early internet this who conversation saddens me, but when you hear for example interviews with the folks running Roblox you can see where these ideas come from....

ben_w 4mo ago

> What is there to research? The trade-offs and how many people care and about what specifically. E.g., you say "Privacy is a human right", so why is it that half the websites I visit ask for permission to share details of how I use those sites with more corporate "trusted partners" than there were students and staff combined in my secondary school? I'm all on board with just banning this kind of analytics, but there's a lot of people who are more angry with the EU for forcing companies to at least ask for permission before they sell your data to all those analytics firms.

nekusar 4mo ago
> E.g., you say "Privacy is a human right", so why is it that half the websites I visit ask for permission to share details of how I use those sites with more corporate "trusted partners" than there were students and staff combined in my secondary school? Because capitalism itself is the enemy. And information assymmetry is a potent tool, as is constant and persistent surveillance. All of these enable extracting more money.
- soupbowl 4mo ago
  Yeah, you don't have these issues in communist countries. . .
  - nekusar 4mo ago
    You can complain (read: peaceful protest for redress of grievances) without going whole hog the complete opposite way. Most of this end-stage crapitalism was warned by Adam Smith, and then by Marx. And what did economists do? Fucking ignore it. Or named it trickle down. So, yeah. When the capitalists control the government, you get all the abuses written about it for the last 300 years. And it fucking shows. Computation and copyright was just dropping helicopter loads of gasoline on the already terrible fire.
  - AngryData 4mo ago
    More than one set of policies and ideals can be shitty at the same time. Just because authoritarian central planned economies failed doesn't mean we should never try anything else ever again that isn't pure capitalism or refuse to criticize its faults.
- rustcleaner 4mo ago
  >Because capitalism itself is the enemy. Let's be real here. It's investor-monopoly capitalism that is the problem. Individuals worth less than $100,000,000 owning private property or their businesses isn't the problem, it's the Financial-Industrial-Complex with its Dodge vs Ford ruling (established duty to maximize shareholder returns) that is the problem. People owning their homes, cars, agriculture fields, tractors, semi-trucks, and small/medium business are not the cause of our ills. The cause is the financialization of everything, turning everyone into rent-paying debtors always on the precarious edge. Free enterprise is good, but monopoly enterprise is not. Quit making people race to the bottom in competition for basic survival, and start making the moneyed monopolists do it instead!

baranul 4mo ago

But that's the point, circumvent democracy, to set the stage for techno-fascism. The citizen has no rights which the state is bound to respect.

subscribed 4mo ago
By all means. For example the vast majority of the UK residents is against the ongoing support and complicity of the UK in the genocide of Palestinians, to which the government orchestrated the whole operation to turn the protest into act of terrorism (!). Etc.
- hactually 4mo ago
  Got any numbers/sources for that specific claim?
  - subscribed 4mo ago
    Yeah. Polls from Opinium, YouGov, even earlier ipsos, showing that UK general public does not support the genocide, but immediate ceasefire, stopping sale of arms to Israel, back ICC, et. You'd struggle to find anything that would show that UK public support aiding and abetting.
phs318u 4mo ago
Set the stage? Techno-fascism is already here. Private conglomerates own all the 21st century “commons” that matter and can already de-platform you at will with no explanation and no recourse, including from those platforms necessary for survival in the modern world (banking/payments). If anything, (western) governments are late to this game.

IanCal 4mo ago

Are there ways of doing age gating while preserving privacy? For whom? How many people need that kind of privacy, would it impact lots of (say) teens seeking help or is this about whistleblowers? Are many under 18s using VPNs for porn? Or have they just shifted to other platforms anyway? If we implemented it “perfectly” would it even do the thing we wanted? What are the actual numbers here? If there’s lots of fuss about vpns but actually while there’s been a big jump in use it’s not under 18s anyway it wouldn’t help. > Privacy is a human right, and one which is essential for effective democracy. And does this get broken enough for age gating something? We age gate alcohol to reasonable success, sometimes that involves showing id. I’m not arguing for age gating here but I do think understanding the tradeoffs may require more evidence.

rustcleaner 4mo ago
>We age gate alcohol to reasonable success, We shouldn't. >sometimes that involves showing id. Then the yokel checkout attendant proceeds to punch the 8 digit birthday into the keyboard, which serializes you as one of less than 30,000 customers in the area. Birthdays are leaky identifiers.

DrBazza 4mo ago

It's the UK gov. Rather than do something, it's endless inquiries and 'research'. Example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Thames_Crossing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Thames_Crossing - the planning application is 360,000 pages and not a single shovel is in the ground. Or HS2. The list goes on. This is a really, really minor example of the same sickness that infests British politics for the last few decades.

AngryData 4mo ago

I don't know how this works in the UK, but where I am at that would look like politicians just fishing for bribes while they stall committing to any action which also helps in PR.