UK households could face VPN 'ban' after use skyrockets following Online Safety Bill
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Prominent backbench MP Sarah Champion launched a campaign against VPNs previously, saying: “My new clause 54 would require the Secretary of State to publish, within six months of the Bill’s passage, a report on the effect of VPN use on Ofcom’s ability to enforce the requirements under clause 112.
"If VPNs cause significant issues, the Government must identify those issues and find solutions, rather than avoiding difficult problems.” And the Labour Party said there were “gaps” in the bill that needed to be amended.
Damn. Labor really wants to lose that election to Farage. Good luck to Corbyn and Sultana, I guess.
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And there's the other shoe dropping with VPNs now. Didn't even take them an extra fucking year
Didn't even take a week.
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Alberta seems to have missed that memo.
Damn Alberta; always trying to leave the EU.
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Damn. Labor really wants to lose that election to Farage. Good luck to Corbyn and Sultana, I guess.
Farage: Gets elected.
Everyone: At least you'll abolish the OSA!
Farage: Nah, I said that because it would make me popular. Amma use the OSA to ban things I consider "woke".
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Jokes on you, e2e encryption is already banned in some cases in the uk afaik. Hence apple dropping some cloud services
If I was black hatter I would be looking at these people like they just dropped a golden goose.
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Farage: Gets elected.
Everyone: At least you'll abolish the OSA!
Farage: Nah, I said that because it would make me popular. Amma use the OSA to ban things I consider "woke".
Most authoritarian option there is.
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Couldn't people just hire a VPS in another country and VPN with that using Wireguard etc, or even use RDP etc to it? Is it even a VPN if you're remotely operating a computer in another country?
I have a Digital Ocean droplet in Amsterdam, runs OpenVPN server. $6/mo., no one sees my activity, haven't logged into it in years.
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This kinda proves that it was never about the children. How many children have know how and the means to buy a VPN subscription?
I started using a VPN after my friends/classmates told me about them in my Sophomore year of HS, mostly to get around the Wifi banning us from accessing certain apps (social media). Now, like all the other dumb kids, I used whatever they recommended, which was some shitty "Free" VPN that was probably stalking my data. But by Senior year, I smartened up and learned about online privacy and got myself a Proton VPN subscription after using the free version for a bit.
So yeah, I could totally believe middle-school and up are using VPNs, cause that's what we literally did.
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I’m uninformed. What’s the reason for the porn ID thing? Is it just porn or more?
You know the old saying... The politicians don't want children to be able to recognize a cunt.
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It has always been the main aim of legislation like this to nobble VPNs, they just needed the "child" "violent pornography" etc. excuse to do so. UK government already monitors all of the internet traffic for the UK, except for MPs who are exempt, VPNs are a blocker for this.
Obviously, not even the UK government would expect a private VPN ban (work VPNs would likely need an Ofcom license) to stop everybody from using a VPN or suitable alternative, its not the aim. The aim is to stop the majority from doing so and criminalize the minority who do still bypass the block as it gives them the power to seize equipment, ask for your logins (its illegal punishable with jail time to not supply this in the UK), request ISP logs etc. to deep dive into your life.
Work VPN doesn't look any different a porn VPN to the people tapping the line.
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In my English textbook, ca. 2007 there was a comic of a child in a cage hanging outside the house. The father told the neighbor something like "This way they get out of the house, but stay off the streets."
I think that hit quite well, what many consider parenting in the UK.
Those child cages were real. They would attach to a window similar to AC units today.
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At best, they see a TLS handshake that gets upgraded to an encrypted websocket which hides VPN traffic…
And make sure to keep videos running 24/7 through said VPN so they don't know when the packets are interesting vs just YouTube or something
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You think given how well thought through this online safety act has been that they'll understand that would be an issue and legislate accordingly?
VPN ban risks pushback from their billionaire masters. Multinational corporations don't want to deal with anything that could hurt profits.
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Prominent backbench MP Sarah Champion launched a campaign against VPNs previously, saying: “My new clause 54 would require the Secretary of State to publish, within six months of the Bill’s passage, a report on the effect of VPN use on Ofcom’s ability to enforce the requirements under clause 112.
"If VPNs cause significant issues, the Government must identify those issues and find solutions, rather than avoiding difficult problems.” And the Labour Party said there were “gaps” in the bill that needed to be amended.
Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
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Prominent backbench MP Sarah Champion launched a campaign against VPNs previously, saying: “My new clause 54 would require the Secretary of State to publish, within six months of the Bill’s passage, a report on the effect of VPN use on Ofcom’s ability to enforce the requirements under clause 112.
"If VPNs cause significant issues, the Government must identify those issues and find solutions, rather than avoiding difficult problems.” And the Labour Party said there were “gaps” in the bill that needed to be amended.
Just adopt a CCP style social credit system already. Why all of this pussyfooting around being a totalitarian, censorship focused, surveillance state? Just do it. Give the good people of UK a solid reason to be a little bit more French again.
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Prominent backbench MP Sarah Champion launched a campaign against VPNs previously, saying: “My new clause 54 would require the Secretary of State to publish, within six months of the Bill’s passage, a report on the effect of VPN use on Ofcom’s ability to enforce the requirements under clause 112.
"If VPNs cause significant issues, the Government must identify those issues and find solutions, rather than avoiding difficult problems.” And the Labour Party said there were “gaps” in the bill that needed to be amended.
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Prominent backbench MP Sarah Champion launched a campaign against VPNs previously, saying: “My new clause 54 would require the Secretary of State to publish, within six months of the Bill’s passage, a report on the effect of VPN use on Ofcom’s ability to enforce the requirements under clause 112.
"If VPNs cause significant issues, the Government must identify those issues and find solutions, rather than avoiding difficult problems.” And the Labour Party said there were “gaps” in the bill that needed to be amended.
Labour was supposed to destroy the Tories, not join them!
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Most authoritarian option there is.
And Farage would say doing it is "Common Sense".
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Jokes on you, e2e encryption is already banned in some cases in the uk afaik. Hence apple dropping some cloud services
Easy enough to do when it's mega corps. They don't really care about anything but money. If everyone had self hosted services with e2e, be far harder. Encryption is everywhere now.
So they will go after the end points. Which again, is a battle they can't win. All very Cory Doctorow's "Unauthorized Bread".
If you care about this stuff:
UK: https://action.openrightsgroup.org/make-one-donation
US: https://www.eff.org/pages/donate-eff
EU: https://my.fsfe.org/donateThere will be others too, those are just in my head's cache.
Some how we need to get governments to listen to us serfs instead mega corps and authoritarian police/spooks.
The world they want is not only terrible for digital and political freedom, but competition, thus functioning markets. It's terrible for making developers and makers instead of dumb consumers, which in turn, is terrible for technology and progress.
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There are ways around this even if they do ban vpn. Its a hopeless battle being fought by the ignorant.
I mean anyone can rent a server in Europe and install OpenVPN themselves. Hell, it doesn't even need to open OpenVPN, Wireguard works just as well and is basically undetectable.
Eat shit, UK government, for real. Idiots think that by speaking the same language as US fascists they can have similarly dumb ideas.
