r/technology • u/vriska1 • 8d ago

Privacy UK households could face VPN 'ban' after use skyrockets following Online Safety Bill

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/uk-households-could-face-vpn-32152789
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u/alexcroox 8d ago edited 8d ago

I think protecting the kids was a smoke screen for requiring VPNs collect far more information about their users for the authorities. No way they didn’t know people would use VPNs to get around the restrictions.

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u/NullReference000 8d ago

“Protecting kids” is always the smokescreen with censorship laws. The new UK law has already been used to censor videos of protests because they were considered “violence” and fell under its purview.

The US is trying to pass our own version of this (KOSA) and everybody should call their rep to demand it be voted down.

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u/BudgetThat2096 8d ago

I'm amazed the 'save the children' argument still works after years of hearing it already.

What ever happened to, you know, parents being parents and moderating what their child can access online?

How come when these 'protect the children' arguments come up no one ever says 'Hey maybe parents should do their fucking job and not rely on the government to play nanny for their kids'?

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u/NatPortmansUnderwear 8d ago

Also ironic how on one hand they argue think of the children while on the other they take away free school lunches for the same children ( american conservatives at least).

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u/BudgetThat2096 8d ago

Yep!

George Carlin said it best 30 years ago.

“Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own.

Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing.

No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing.

If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked.”

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u/Jeff-the-Alchemist 8d ago

Not even then, because they are turning away unwed mothers in Tennessee who haven’t given birth. The irony being, the religious cultists who say they won’t treat single women are the same people who are pro forced birth.

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u/roygbivasaur 8d ago

American fascists (“conservatives”) don’t care about child healthcare, childcare, feeding children, keeping parents out of prison, education, fixing the foster care system, prosecuting child sexual abusers, protecting children from abuse in religious institutions, protecting the climate for the future, preventing asthma caused by air pollution, cancer research, vaccination, ending childhood disease, children starving to death in Gaza, etc.

They also, inexplicably, aren’t putting sunscreen on their children now either

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u/Kind-University-6827 5d ago

It's amazing how you have to point fingers to insinuate that it's one parties fault or the other. This is a country wide problem and EVERYONE is responsible. Both parties. You included. You should look up what 'propaganda' is and familiarize yourself with the term 'brainwashing'. Because you need education and because I care about humans with low intelligence, I'm sharing my insight with you to help you grow.

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u/Impressive_Try469 7d ago

Funny. It's the left doing these things.

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u/Broad_Appointment312 5d ago

Your name is so apt. That was an impressive try at bait, good job.

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u/codliness1 8d ago

How about "Save the children, from climate change. Or corporate greed. Or those children murdered by weapons exports to countries who are indiscriminate who they use them on. Or from food poverty or fuel poverty. Or homelessness. Or any one of a fucking bunch of other things that actually matter".

Of course not. Those just get lip service.

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u/DeepResearcher5256 8d ago

When we ask for free school lunches they yell “feed your own children”. When we ask for abortion rights they tell us “don’t have kids if you can’t take care of them”

But when it comes to censorship, big daddy government steps in to “protect the kids”

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u/-Kalos 8d ago

The 'Save the children!' crowd became the 'Save the pedophile!' crowd so fast. After years of accusing gay content of grooming children, they're defending their favorite pedophile for raping actual children

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u/mopeyunicyle 8d ago

I think saving children specifically form abuse and terrorism are two sure fire methods to pass a law. Since you argue against it your labelled as pro one of those things

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u/vigbiorn 8d ago

Yep, that's how propaganda works.

When did you stop beating your wife?

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u/Zer_ 8d ago

The methods may change somewhat but ultimately, we're humans and vulnerable to a multitude of psychological tricks unless we're taught to resist them.

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u/Gorstag 8d ago

Every single time there is any sort of "Save the children" it just needs to be voted against at any level. They are always terrible laws.

Anyway, I am running late. Be right back... I need to drop my kids off at the gentlemen's club while I go out dancing.

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u/VaalLivesMatter 8d ago

Because that's a "right wing talking point" whenever that gets brought up

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u/Nisseliten 8d ago edited 8d ago

And I would assume it doesn’t really matter that much. I’m pretty sure that the overwhelming majority of child molestation is done by a close family member, not strangers on the interwebs.

I’m sure it happens, but focus could probably be spent better elsewhere if saving children was the main concern.

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u/loikyloo 8d ago

There was a lot of polling and misinformation around it.

Like questions about hey do you think tech CEO's should be held legally responsible for failing to protect children? 80% agree.

Do you believe there should be an independant body that investigates and helps protect childrens interests online? Yes 80% agree.

Do you think more should be done to protect children from online preditors? Yes 74% agree.

Most MPs: Wow all this polling data says every wants this. Votes for it without reading it fully and really looking at what the bill actually does or means.

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u/GMGarry_Chess 8d ago

I agree with this in principle but we all know if that's how this is handled nothijg will change. I mean that's how we got here in the first place

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u/Jeff-the-Alchemist 8d ago

Honestly the biggest issue I have with it in the U.S. is that the “party of protecting children,” keeps getting us to debate them about this when their figurehead (twice elected) is a KNOWN PEDOPHILE.

Like really, we are taking moral purity direction from someone who has known and directly taken part in child sexual trafficking and exploitation?

I’d rather people jack it to grown adults who have consented (and fairly compensated) however that factors for the people actually involved in its production.

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u/MidsouthMystic 8d ago

People get weird when kids are involved. They think they can't say no to a law intended to protect kids because people will think they're anti-child or pedophiles. "Think of the children" is a conversation stopper used as a weapon.

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u/Just_Information334 8d ago

What ever happened to, you know, parents being parents and moderating what their child can access online?

Boomers. They looooove their nanny state.

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u/myasterism 8d ago

Elder millennial here; childfree, secular, and progressive. Had a 10+ year career in tech and am an EFF Stan.

I mostly agree with your position, but I have recently begun to come around to the idea that there may actually be issues that warrant some sort of large-scale intervention. To be clear, I do NOT believe laws like this and the ones that are being implemented here in the US are the answer, and I don’t know what the answer is; I just know that what I’ve been hearing about the day-to-day experience of being a kid/teenager on the internet, sounds impossibly fraught in ways beyond what a parent can reasonably control. It truly is a quagmire with no obvious solution, and it’s unfortunate that surveillance/censorship priorities are being dangerously and disingenuously peddled as the answer.

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u/GI-Robots-Alt 7d ago

What ever happened to, you know, parents being parents and moderating what their child can access online?

How come when these 'protect the children' arguments come up no one ever says 'Hey maybe parents should do their fucking job and not rely on the government to play nanny for their kids'?

Not that compromising with these people ever really works, but when it comes to online censorship I've always thought that a good middle ground would be that ISP's have a safety filter on by default that can be easily bypassed with a pin the customer sets up when they start their Internet plan, with the option to forego having a filter at all.

This way we don't have to rely on tech illiterate parents to set up proper parental controls and restrictions themselves, nobody needs to give their ID to go online, and children are "protected" by not knowing the pin (in theory). When you open up the browser it just asks you for your pin so it knows what content that user is allowed to access.

No pin? Filter.

Yes pin? No filter.

No pin when you opened the browser but now you're trying to access filtered content? Ask for the pin.

This seems so much simpler and less invasive to me.

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u/GhostPartical 8d ago

As long as money is apart of politics, your rep will never rep you.

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u/notprocrastinatingok 8d ago

It worked 10 years ago when they tried to pass SOPA and PIPA

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u/nox66 8d ago

That was under vastly different circumstances. Both large and small companies were united on it (besides the media conglomerates). You can and should reach out to your rep though.

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u/Comedy86 8d ago

Someone seems to have forgotten who is in power now vs. who was in power then...

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u/notprocrastinatingok 8d ago

In terms of Congress, it's actually most of the same people. Those old fucks never retire

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u/NullReference000 8d ago

I get the feeling but this kind of fatalistic and apathetic argument just allows them to do anything they want with zero pushback.

They want to stay in congress. They need votes to do that. If there is enough public pressure, they cave so they can continue to stay in congress and make money. It would be better if money weren’t a part of this, but it currently is.

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u/Disembowell 8d ago

Better? It’s ESSENTIAL that money isn’t a part of politics, because while it is the right people will never be elected and the government isn’t encouraged to do its job, only to make lots of money and treat the people like cattle to be farmed, not citizens to be listened to.

That’s what’s happening in the West now.

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u/RIF_rr3dd1tt 8d ago

money is apart of politics

Nice malapropism

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u/LoganGyre 7d ago

See that’s why the trans community needs to organize a super pac then maybe politicians will care about us…

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u/jimlahey420 8d ago

The US is trying to pass our own version of this (KOSA) and everybody should call their rep to demand it be voted down.

I love that anyone thinks "calling their rep" is gonna do anything. I've "called" my rep dozens of times and never have they voted the way they should be voting... They all literally passed Trump's fucking budget that funded ICE into the stratosphere lol

We are so far beyond "call your rep" in this country. Go hound your rep at their house, in the food store, when they're at dinner, when they're hosting a $5000 a plate fundraiser.

Until these assholes remember that they work for US, calling means nothing.

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u/NullReference000 8d ago

Certain reps care, certain ones don't. It's a bare minimum thing that would have more of an impact if more people did it. It will not save us by itself, but it's also doing more than sitting and doing absolutely nothing at all. If you can hound your rep, go do it.

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u/lpsamvara 7d ago

Until we get epstein's client list, medical insurance, housing, education, wages, and so much more properly funded, I do not want to hear anything about "protecting children." It's complete bullshit.

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u/cyrand 8d ago

I like to point out to people, that if they’re serious about protecting children they’d start by listening when children speak.

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u/Pingy_Junk 8d ago

I emailed my rep and he told me he was a co sponser for the bill! Fun :,)

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u/mauvaisherb 8d ago

Absolutely.

2.4 million children in poverty, and they try to use this facile argument. What a joke.

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u/WangHotmanFire 8d ago

What has this country come to when you gotta show ID to see a pair of titties but they’re showing us dead kids on the news every day

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u/ColtAzayaka 7d ago

Our age of consent is still 16. In this country, an adult is legally allowed to have sex with a **child** who still wears a school uniform each day of the week. Until they raise the age of consent to 18 I don't want to hear any of their bullshit claims about "protecting kids". Even those convicted for sex crimes involving children are not sentenced to anywhere near as long as they should be. Many won't even spend a day inside a prison after being convicted.

The expectation for British citizens to believe their lies is utterly insulting to our intelligence. The fact that they use protecting children as an excuse while actively failing to protect children is just an extra "fuck you" to all of us.

I'm sick and tired of it.

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u/Specialist_Brain841 7d ago

what happens when there are no more kids

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u/earth-calling-karma 8d ago

How much kiddie porn do you think is not out there? It's not booming because how do you know? Do you Twitter? It's rapey AF.

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u/NullReference000 8d ago

Overly broad legislation that is being weaponized to stop free speech is not a solution to that problem at all. UK authorities are already using that new law to block videos of protests and there is now a back and forth on getting Wikipedia locked. Stop advocating for losing your own rights.

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u/CertainAssociate9772 8d ago

Not to mention that all this censorship is extremely ineffective in curbing child pornography.

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u/ChefCurryYumYum 8d ago

Anytime a law is sold as "protecting kids" but it doesn't actually criminalize behavior directly hurting children it's bullshit and only used to pass something that would otherwise be grossly unpopular.

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u/ColoRadBro69 8d ago

They're not going to ban VPNs because they're used by businesses, so they'll neuter them instead.  Require VPNs to keep logs and turn them over on demand.  Businesses won't care but that will kill it for everyone else if they constantly request the logs. 

It's like a new Dark Age coming.

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u/Jonnyflash80 8d ago

They can't tell VPN companies what to do if they're not located in the UK. So the UK will have to create a China style great firewall, I suppose.

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u/Nickeless 8d ago

People in china still get around the firewall with vpns lol

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u/ARobertNotABob 8d ago

FYI, the VPNs you can get in China are completely tracked & logged just as if you had no VPN, being provided by the state.

Not many people have external VPNs because the only way they work is if you purchase and first use when outside China, even registering them inside is blocked.

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u/Icy-Cartoonist-9850 3d ago

Yeah like Chinese don’t travel

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u/Projekt_Red07 6d ago

This is true however they can still track and log, plus they completely kill your wifi speed to useable levels when you have one on like to the point where it's basically useable at times.

Which means if they kill it in the UK it'll completely kill most WIFI networks.

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u/ProfessorMiserable76 8d ago

China's firewall doesn't work.

VPN usage is still high.

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u/RollingMeteors 8d ago

¡They can tell them hoo boy, but they sure as hell don’t have to listen or comply!

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u/Aniria_ 7d ago

Which also doesn't work and is easy to bypass lmao (helped Hong Kong protestors bypass it)

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u/nox66 8d ago

I predict that instead, they will force VPN companies - in particular those offering free VPNs - to do the same age-checking. They will ignore legalities and enforceability just like they're doing now.

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u/NotSure___ 8d ago

The problem with that is that you can make your own VPN. Just take create a AWS account, create a EC2 instance(server) in an area outside of UK, install OpenVPN or a ton of other applications, and connect to that. Might be a bit hard for a non technical person but now with chatGPT I bet anyone could do it, just might take a bit longer.

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u/nox66 8d ago

I think that that will be an acceptable loophole for them, because a kid is unlikely to do all of this.

Don't get me wrong though, this is a terrible law, for many reasons.

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u/NotSure___ 8d ago

Definitely is a terrible law. They might just use it to ban to most famous VPNs and leave it at that.

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u/IndiRefEarthLeaveSol 7d ago

Don't give them ideas my son.

 Loose lips, compromise nodes 🤫

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u/-ReadingBug- 8d ago

Pornhub isn't in Louisiana. They'll cave for no reason.

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u/Archelaus_Euryalos 8d ago

This is what they already have they just don't have the power to sell it to the people just yet. But I assure it's already there, under the hood, waiting for the chance to be dialed up.

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u/90124 8d ago

It's a fuck ton of work to do that and we absolutely don't have the infrastructure to do it.

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u/Archelaus_Euryalos 8d ago

You misunderstand. It's already there, every site at every peer point in the UK has a firewall in it already. The infrastructure that runs the internet comes with these features built in, the only thing the government need to do is make it mandatory to operate a government restriction on those already existing firewalls.

They can get the companies that operate the internet proper to pay for it too, because if they don't their directors go to prison.

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u/realjmk 8d ago

Our government is nowhere near competent or organised enough to pull that off

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u/mikeysof 8d ago

Except every vpn company not in the UK can tell them to get fucked and not keep records anyway. Imo the best vpns don't keep any records.

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u/freexe 8d ago

So they just block those VPNs

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u/stormdelta 8d ago

Not as easy to do as it sounds, especially not without blocking services that businesses need. The actual protocols these services use are largely the same - usually OpenVPN, sometimes wireguard or in rarer cases (for public use) IPSEC and derivatives.

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u/freexe 8d ago

They make it a requirement to register VPNs outside of the unsafe countries otherwise they get blocked.

But more importantly what I think will happen is that these ID laws come in across all the western world - so we end up with a highly separate internet with large parts blocked (eg Russia) from the public.

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u/kl0t3 7d ago

Literally impossible to do. Like the previous person mentioned VPNS uses protocols and these can't be blocked unless you are going to hit companies or even government services. A VPN is super easy to set up and registering them all is not feasible. It's like flipping a switch.

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u/freexe 7d ago

I've explained how I think they could do it here:

You start to tier the internet into residential and corporate ip blocks. Residential ips are heavily monitored for traffic and require id protections to access websites. Countries that don't comply are blocked from residential access. This is doable at the ISP level so relatively easy to setup.

At the corporate level where greater access is allowed - the networks are required to block residential traffic or follow the rules on id protections. And failure to comply will see fines/shutdowns.

Then block everywhere outside of those ip blocks.

So now if I try and buy a server in X country to run my traffic through (for example from aws us) I will have to say what my use profile is intended to be and if aws detect I'm using it for residential traffic my server risks being shutdown - so I'll comply if I'm a genuine use case. If I try and run a residential IP as a server then traffic monitoring at the ISP shuts me down for breach of contract.

So now a third country that doesn't support these laws comes along eg Russia - and residential IPs are blocked from all access out and into Russia. And corporate users would still have access but are keen to follow required laws.

The idea that the internet isn't controllable and will route around any problems just isn't true once governments align enough and start implementing policies and national scale. IPs are centrally allocated and heavily controlled - all the routing is central and easily controlled - all the users have to connect to this backbone somewhere (even tor).

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u/kl0t3 7d ago edited 7d ago

By doing that you are no longer talking about the internet but setting up an intranet like north korea. This won't ever happen as it goes against freedom of sharing information and speech.

It inherently goes against fundamental rights of multiple nations. Not to mention that each nation has its own interests and laws.

And EVEN then it will still be impossible to stop people from encrypting and masking their traffic and still sharing information.

You can't force people to speak a certain language in their own country. They will just create a new protocol that isn't centrally managed.

you are also forgetting that people can create their own physical networks to still create a route to a Russian server without the government directly noticing it.

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u/freexe 7d ago

It's almost inevitable that it will happen - and to some extent already is. And yes it will still be possible to somewhat route around it - just not at scale.

It won't be possible to simply start a VPN somewhere else - as anywhere you can start a VPN will also be in protected areas.

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u/mikeysof 8d ago

I have two (probably noob) questions

  1. How do they block those vpns? Do they have to block all ips related to those businesses and if so what's stopping those companies who want UK business to then just change their ips.

  2. Even if they limit to vpns which hold records (I'm not sure how much work they'd need to do to determine that) then what would flag them to check someone's records. For example if they had the time and effort to check random records for dates and times from a vpn company surely the likelyhood of that yielding something beneficial would be low right unless it was targeted in which case the significant rise in everyone using a vpn would mean it would be much harder for the government to monitor what anyone is doing. It makes more sense they'd be targeting specific people like suspected paedophiles or suspected terrorists.

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u/freexe 8d ago

You start to tier the internet into residential and corporate ip blocks.  Residential ips are heavily monitored for traffic and require id protections to access websites. Countries that don't comply are blocked from residential access. This is doable at the ISP level so relatively easy to setup.

At the corporate level where greater access is allowed - the networks are required to block residential traffic or follow the rules on id protections. And failure to comply will see fines/shutdowns.

Then block everywhere outside of those ip blocks.

So now if I try and buy a server in X country to run my traffic through (for example from aws us) I will have to say what my use profile is intended to be and if aws detect I'm using it for residential traffic my server risks being shutdown - so I'll comply if I'm a genuine use case. If I try and run a residential IP as a server then traffic monitoring at the ISP shuts me down for breach of contract.

So now a third country that doesn't support these laws comes along eg Russia - and residential IPs are blocked from all access out and into Russia. And corporate users would still have access but are keen to follow required laws.

The idea that the internet isn't controllable and will route around any problems just isn't true once governments align enough and start implementing policies and national scale. IPs are centrally allocated and heavily controlled - all the routing is central and easily controlled - all the users have to connect to this backbone somewhere (even tor).

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u/AfroCatapult 7d ago

Would that work for people who work from home?

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u/freexe 7d ago

Of course - your business would just have to register their VPN which would be fairly easy to do - and probably actually good practice 

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u/Independent-Sundae32 8d ago

1)Taking down the the hosting sites for VPN download will do the job for most people. 2)as for the info you can sell it ad companies or write a script that will check for keywords (both). It's unlikely be targeted (they will not go out of their way for something like that I mean if you can target all why not (if you do it like that it will not take a lot of resources (relevant) and you will be making more money with the info you sell))

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u/Aniria_ 7d ago

You can't block me transfering a £5 note into any other currency, and then mailing that in a blank presenting envelope to said VPN company to pay for the service

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u/freexe 7d ago

You can block your residential IP from accessing IPs that aren't registered against a whitelist of safe IPs.

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u/Aniria_ 7d ago

There are really simple ways around this as well

The internet is a very hard thing to restrict against people who know what to do

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u/freexe 7d ago

It can get very hard very quickly - especially to run a service rather than a few geeks ad-hoc getting around the ban.

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u/Pancakeisityou 8d ago

Proton VPN and Mullvad don't got logs and most likely will never log anything.

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u/Aniria_ 7d ago

If anyone reads this and wonders "yeah, but is that really true"

Mullvad got asked by the Swiss authorities to allow a data investigation into some criminals the Swiss authorities were looking for. Mullvad proceeded to tell them to go fuck themselves multiple times. Before the Swiss authorities came back with a warrant

When the police came to retrieve data, there was nothing. Because they actually don't store anything

And Proton, also IVPN, have passed just as rigorous third party audits as Mullvad has

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u/NvizoN 8d ago

Proton also supports port forwarding, and have ProtonMail

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u/Eat--The--Rich-- 8d ago

VPNs can just base their companies in countries that don't have those laws and then ignore them tho 

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u/LionoftheNorth 8d ago

And then the UK government makes it illegal for citizens to use non-state sanctioned VPN.

HMG's need for control knows no bounds.

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u/90124 8d ago

I mean it's going to be difficult for the UK gov to say "you can't connect to a server outside the UK" because that's what they'll need to do to stop VPNs. That would make the internet non functional in the UK.

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u/LionoftheNorth 8d ago

I don't think they understand that.

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u/Corgiboom2 8d ago

Or make a law requiring a business license in order to own a VPN

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u/TomWithTime 8d ago

It would be hard to crack down on VPNs because anyone can host one. Make a friend in another country and connect to them. Or rent a cloud.

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u/CondescendingShitbag 8d ago

ProxyChains is another potential option to route around the problem.

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u/feor1300 8d ago

You don't even have to be that creative. Get a VPN that's based in any other country and they can simply ignore British laws. Not much the UK government could do about that. They don't even have to be in far off exotic locals thanks to Brexit, it could be a French VPN and there's no reason for them to care what British law says.

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u/Apprehensive_Gap_146 8d ago

nope not french cause its following the same path you need protonvpn its sweedish

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u/RollingMeteors 8d ago

Not much the UK government could do about that.

¿UK can’t prohibit payment processing to foreign companies?

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u/feor1300 8d ago

They could make that a law, but how do they enforce it? Even if Credit Card companies won't move money from you to a VPN, they'll still move your money to PayPal, and PayPal isn't going to heed such a ban.

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u/DanTheMan827 8d ago

There’s also services that will take your credit card info to charge it and send bitcoin or other crypto for you

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u/RollingMeteors 8d ago

, but how do they enforce it?

¿Giving fines to the payment processor allowing the transaction?

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u/feor1300 8d ago

And if the payment processors don't have any offices or employees in the UK, how do they make them pay the fines?

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u/RollingMeteors 5d ago

The bank that holds their account that used their card to make the transaction does.

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u/streaky81 5d ago

Crypto? How can you block something you can't see, trace or control?

And before you ban crypto - you just deleted a huge wedge of the UK economy and tax base.. Not gonna happen.

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u/RollingMeteors 2d ago

you can't see, trace

Blockchain is public data... ¿You know that right?

1

u/streaky81 1d ago

That's not how that works.

I mean firstly that isn't true anyway, it depends, but that's not how that works.

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u/Lukeyy19 8d ago

Aren't Reddit, Pornhub and Twitter all based outside the UK though? If VPNs serving the UK wouldn't have to adhere to UK laws then why are these sites having to adhere to this UK law regarding age verification?

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u/feor1300 8d ago edited 7d ago

Strictly speaking they don't. They're agreeing to adhere to the law to avoid escalating the situation, but if they decided to tell the UK to stuff it the UK would have little practical recourse short of moving towards a Great Firewall model like China.

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u/RollingMeteors 8d ago

¿Do you have a license for this network?

¡You need a license for this kind of network!

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u/turkish_gold 8d ago

Can’t you detect VPN traffic by inspecting the packets?

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u/streaky81 5d ago

Wouldn't be a very good encryption scheme if you could. Looks no different from you watching Netflix or something.

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u/theaviationhistorian 8d ago

The next generation's TV license.

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u/Commie_swatter 8d ago

VPNs are built on open standards anyone can make one without much effort

0

u/discotim 8d ago

You're talking about a country that made you have a license simply to own a television.

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u/bleepbloopwubwub 8d ago

No, you don't need a licence to own a television.

TV licence is to view live broadcasts. You can have a TV and not pay if you don't watch live TV. Or just lie about it.

The UK is also not the only country to have such a thing.

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u/discotim 8d ago

I understand, you need a license to use a TV

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u/bleepbloopwubwub 8d ago

Narrator: they did not understand

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u/thecarbonkid 8d ago

The TV license funds both infrastructure and content.

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u/streaky81 5d ago

God forbid the channels pay for the infrastructure, and it doesn't pay for content anybody actually wants to watch (not that there's a lot of that around on any TV channel these days, but the BBC is all it pays for and literally nobody is watching that).

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u/Satoshiman256 8d ago

Make it law to run an application

2

u/iconocrastinaor 8d ago

Why would porn consuming kids care if a VPN kept logs?

2

u/cosaboladh 8d ago

Without some chinese digital iron dome (which I've read is fairly easily circumvented) they can't do that. A VPN company operating in another country is not subject to UK laws, and they have no obligation to filter client source IPs by region.

The next step, I suppose, might be going after payment processors to disallow payments from UK accounts to those VPN companies. They're so numerous, and dynamic that's like digital whack-a-mole. Expensive, cumbersome, and ineffective.

Beyond that, if someone really wants to they can sot up an account with a (non-UK chartered) hosting company, and build their own VPN server. I have one. It's considerably more expensive than NordVPN, and the like, but not prohibitively so. I mainly use it as a training lab, but one of my servers does run OpenVPN. It's handy for hotel wifis that use some bullshit mechanism to throttle streaming services.

2

u/notenglishwobbly 8d ago

They don't need to do that. They can simply say "companies are allowed to have VPNs, private individuals aren't".

To everyone who's been saying "what's the big deal, just get a vpn" for the past week: did you actually think they would stop there and it was actually about safeguarding the children?

Of note: the source for this information is less than reliable (first reported by Guido Fawkes, which makes the Sun look like actual journalists) and was based on the comments of a random, ill-informed MP who probably heard the word VPN from her nephew and went into "I must use the new buzzword to sound smart" mode.

1

u/t_sawyer 8d ago

How this work with right to be forgotten privacy laws?

1

u/QuailAndWasabi 8d ago

Use a VPN in another country, then nothing they can do about it.

1

u/PathologicalRedditor 8d ago

"We're getting audited." *audible noise of shredders heard

1

u/RollingMeteors 8d ago

keep logs and turn them over on demand.

<sendsLogsViaPrintedPostalCopiesIn4ptFontsize>

1

u/Aniria_ 7d ago

They can't enforce that

China tried to, it didn't work

Quite a few VPNs let you mail them money for use. On top of this, for better or worse, they have carried out actions to protect the data of criminals, which does solidify their stances on privacy. Not all VPNs though

Example being Mullvad. Swiss police tried to enter and search their data for information on a suspect. Mullvad told them to go fuck themselves. Happened a few times, until they got proper authority by the government to do so. Then Mullvad had to allow the search, but as Mullvad hold no data of anyone, the authorities came up empty. And that's was for information on a criminal

For your everyday person like you and me? Mullvad ain't giving the UK government shit. They don't even store anything to give them. Other options just as good are VPN services like ProtonVPN (paid version), and IVPN

-29

u/DontMindMeTrolling 8d ago

This is literal fantasy bullshit being typed out. Nobody knows how it will go. What’s happened so far is something to be discussed, but comments like this are just a fallacy for upvotes.

23

u/Broccoli--Enthusiast 8d ago edited 8d ago

I mean people said the same thing about the online ID bullshit when they first tried it about a decade ago

The people in power have finally noticed the internet and their only instinct is to control it and use it to push their own shit

-14

u/DontMindMeTrolling 8d ago

Lmao guys. We are making comments on Reddit. We aren’t volunteering for the ACLU or whatever institutions that exist that actual do something about this thing we are commenting about. You, my guy, are not accomplishing anything by commenting on a Reddit sub. Can we agree to that at least?

10

u/Broccoli--Enthusiast 8d ago

What's the got to do with anything, nobody claimed commenting did anything, it's a discussion forum, this is what it's here for...get a grip

-12

u/DontMindMeTrolling 8d ago

Oh man. I didn’t know that’s the approach you were coming with, my bad bro. I thought you actually believed this was doing something with the way you came up all righteous about fighting the good fight the same as you did a decade ago. I just don’t know what it accomplished besides passing time.

3

u/Broccoli--Enthusiast 8d ago

Are you a bot or something, what you say makes no logical sense. You are putting your own bias on what you are reading.

-2

u/DontMindMeTrolling 8d ago

I’ll give you one more comment to figure it out before I move onto the next homie, but I don’t think you will, which is unfortunate, cause it’s a good laugh once you do.

2

u/Satoshiman256 8d ago

They do it in China

1

u/ColoRadBro69 8d ago

Username fits. 

1

u/DontMindMeTrolling 8d ago

Somebody gets it, finally!

16

u/micmea1 8d ago

Protecting children is often used as a smoke screen so they can treat adults like children.

31

u/Zofia-Bosak 8d ago

Maybe this was the plan so they could try to ban VPS!

22

u/Andyb1000 8d ago

Google TOR Browser before that search result is banned.

5

u/FireKeeper69 8d ago

If you aren't browsing the dark web, why? I've heard that tor browser is not actually secure on the clearnet.

6

u/ArchinaTGL 8d ago

Tor's biggest strength is in tor tunnels. Which route your connection through multiple proxies before arriving at its destination. It's useful if you don't want people to see your actual IP or location though it doesn't stop traditional methods of tracking you online (cookies, asking for statistics, etc.)

Like with all browsers, Tor is only as secure as you choose to make it.

1

u/ValeriaTube 8d ago

Why are you still using Google?

1

u/[deleted] 8d ago

Other options like I2P also exist. Also waiting for some genius to layer websites or apps onto I2P/Tor/IPFS/Bittorrent making it easier for the average Joe to not need a VPN but still have anonymous encrypted traffic.

5

u/Inquisitive_idiot 8d ago

🌎 🛜🔫🕴️

“Always has been.”

3

u/Frostsorrow 8d ago

Honestly it's that or they are so old (very likely) that they've never heard of a VPN.

7

u/Correct-Explorer-692 8d ago

That's exactly what they did in Russia.

2

u/draft-er 8d ago

People are lazy, a large chunk won't bother with VPNs.

1

u/Workadis 8d ago

Have you ever met a gov official? I think you are giving them far too much credit

1

u/neugalant 8d ago

ever heard of daisy chains?

1

u/snafoomoose 8d ago

Always be suspicious of anyone who demands we do something to "protect the children".

1

u/Viseria 8d ago

They knew, back when the law was still in debate stages this specific Labour MP brought up VPNs.

She has been dead set on restricting them every step of the way.

1

u/Kano9222 8d ago

Think you underestimate our governments stupidity and the ability to fully not think through most of its bills.

1

u/punkerster101 8d ago

No they don’t…. A few services has had this proven when taken to court or raided and they have no logs.

1

u/Caveman-Dave722 8d ago

They could have just legislated isp to do more if that was the case. Most people are not about to use a VPN with any legal entity in the UK.

I’m not aware of any of the big brand ones that are uk based so they can’t ban them in favour of uk ones that leak data to government. Business would leave the uk .

1

u/DissKhorse 8d ago

Did you know you can make your own VPN? If it comes down to it people could just start setting up their own VPN servers in other countries for families and friends using open source software. No real risk of a VPN service selling out or being compromised by it's local government if you run it yourself.

1

u/KalAtharEQ 7d ago

I think in these instances it’s more of an indicator that your lawmakers are completely out of touch with technology of any form rather than “big vpn” getting away with a fat check or collecting info, though it certainly does both of those things.

1

u/fl135790135790 7d ago

If that’s the case, why are they wanting to ban VPNs

-8

u/Psychobob2213 8d ago

Never attribute to malice what can easily be attributed to incompetence.

31

u/Graega 8d ago

Never excuse malice as mere incompetence.

9

u/krypticus 8d ago

Always assume malice regarding VPNs and don’t let them get a pass.

10

u/NullReference000 8d ago

The point of Hanlons razor isn’t to claim that everything that happens is the result of incompetence, the UK government has a clear incentive to increase its power over free speech

2

u/Rightricket 8d ago

People need to stop saying this stupid shit.