I went on a weekend vacation with three guys. I was asked what I thought a good VPN was. They all have VPNs on their phones apparently. Here I am thinking they are technologically adept, maybe a little bit security conscious. Or maybe misled by advertisements.
It wasn't until after I got home I realized it was because of adult content.
I always keep hoping one of these authoritarian measures will kick off a resurgence of a truly uncensorable platform like Freenet or I2P - the big reason they're currently so unusable is mostly lack of participation.
I really don't understand why it wasn't just a requirement for Apple and Google to include a client side filter. Parent sets up the phone and it's enabled by default. Much simpler option for everyone involved.
Adding a browser header field would be sufficient, could be easily integrated into the OS and browser, and would let developers handle this issue in a few hours worth of effort.
ID verification is such an invasive measure and prone to the exact same failures as the simplest solutions.
What message does it send when your government tries to impose costs on your preferred behavior while at the same time being unable to do it when you download a single app?
The words that come to mind are malicious and incompetent. The only 'achievement' is to increase contempt towards the government. And the times aren't exactly stable to begin with.
Basically every new law, piece of news or media I see coming from the UK paints a picture of a beat-down, cynical & scared society that's complacent to or in support of increasing surveillance and control by the government. Like maybe Adolescence or basically any mention of the NHS. The crimes they cite like child grooming or terrorism/hate being incited sound pretty terrible too, but I wonder why the UK specifically is taking action - is the issue bigger there, or are they just more aware of and willing to act on it.
Outside of techn journalism, this is a non story in the UK. I think it's hard to say much about the society's attitude when they don't know ow about this, never mind understand.
Average UKian is, IME, surprisingly technologically unsavvy. This might be the root cause of lack of interest or protest.
If I were to guess how this whole thing came to be, it would be thus: the UK government is increasingly dysfunctional and polarised. The attention of government and opposition goes increasingly into futile, high-stakes but always drawn battles. But that means that motivated and organised groups can push through things that look benign from the outside and don't trigger the Great Polarisation. Protecting children from suicide, what's not to like? The Parliament, where this should be shredded to pieces, is too busy trying to reshuffle deckchairs.
Meanwhile this is printed on vellum, welcome to the new reality.
> I wonder why the UK specifically is taking action - is the issue bigger there, or are they just more aware of and willing to act on it.
Other countries are moving in the same direction. The EU has repeatedly tried to push things like on device scanning or banning encryption.
> Basically every new law, piece of news or media I see coming from the UK paints a picture of a beat-down, cynical & scared society that's complacent to or in support of increasing surveillance and control by the government.
Mostly a failure of democracy - we have two major parties that are hard to tell apart.
They are both cynical and scared, and have for decades believed the future of Britain is managed decline. They also strongly believe the hoi polloi have to be forced to do what is good for them - e.g. the sugar tax and other "nudge politics", or the currently Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill which is basically about imposing central policy on how children are brought up and educated.
That's the combined power of the worst tendencies of the media and a deliberate propaganda campaign.
Take this law: it's not new, it was passed in 2023 by the previous government. The law had a two year deadline attached to it, and companies didn't introduce any restriction before the deadline. The new government has a lot on its plate, so it's hardly surprising that repealing a law that was already passed with little attention to it was not high on the list of priorities compared to things like not defaulting or unblocking planning permissions. And yet, twitter and other places are full of very loud voices describing the law as new and designed to oppress them now, even though the deadline was set two years ago.
On a more general note, we have our problems, but the UK is in a pretty good place. Sam Freedman covered some bases in his recent post [1] (crime is down, the economy is struggling but improving, etc), but I'll add some more:
* We're probably the least racist, most integrated society in the world. The leader of the opposition is a black woman and first generation immigrant [2]. When Rishi Sunak became a PM, his race wasn't brought up once in any media, including very right wing; compare and contrast with all the bullshit about Obama and his birth certificate dog whistles.
* First time in years we're reducing the backlog of asylum applications. People applying for asylum can't work because they haven't proved their status yet, so naturally they need to be looked after. All the noise you hear is caused entirely by the conservative party defunding and then outright pausing application processing. This means that people looking for asylum had to live in limbo for years, which caused multiple problems. No backlog, no problems.
* We punch WAY above our weight in arts and theatre, and the industry is flourishing. Ever noticed how overrepresented British actors are in Hollywood?
* Compared to our main ally overseas, we have a very effective parliament. The executive is kept in check even with the very large majority Labour has now, and the Lords proved their worth during Brexit, putting brakes at the worst impulses of the previous government.
* We largely preserved our core military capabilities and alliances over the decade of austerity, slowly repairing, recovering, and expanding now. We're a major partner on nuclear programs, tier-1 partner on F-35, AUCUS is happening, we do a lot in Ukraine, and we're one of the only two nuclear countries in Europe and just signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with France.
* We are helping people in Hong-Kong, Ukraine, and Afghanistan with targeted immigration programs.
* We're rolling back anti-nuclear nonsense, building two large NPPs, and deployed wind generation at a massive scale.
* A bunch of important reforms are going through the parliament [3], from enhancing renters right to a YIMBY reform.
But very little of that filters into online environments. The most unhinged, xenophobic, paranoid voices get amplified, creating the impression that you cited, even though it can't be further from truth.
Britain is a beautiful country, open to the world, with a globe-spanning network of alliances and relationships, and an incredibly resilient democracy. We should do SO MUCH MORE, yes! But it doesn't mean we shouldn't celebrate where we are now, too.
Regulating porn, guns, gambling, tobacco, and alcohol has nothing to do with authoritarianism or a lack of freedom. It's about protecting people, just like we already do with seatbelts, speed limits, and food safety.
Why do you think shops ask for proof of age when you buy cigarettes? Not because they care about cancer or want to sell less, it's because they're required to by law. Of course, teenagers can still find workarounds. They can ask an older friend to buy it for them, just like they can use a VPN to access porn.
The difference is, regulation shifts accountability. It moves the responsibility from a greedy, insensitive business owner to the kids. And at least with the kids we can guide them, and help them spend their time and money where it actually matters.
Note: I know people who love guns or porn are probably going to downvote this, but someone has to say it.
> The crimes they cite like child grooming or terrorism/hate being incited sound pretty terrible too, but I wonder why the UK specifically is taking action - is the issue bigger there, or are they just more aware of and willing to act on it.
When it comes to pedos in specific, the UK got absolutely shaken by the scandals of the last few years - Jimmy Savile, Epstein being involved right into the Royal Family, just to state the obvious ones.
As for terrorism, the problem dates back a bit deeper, the UK has had the IRA conflict for decades, and to this day the conflict isn't resolved, the only thing that did happen was the IRA got formally disbanded in 2005.
From tourist point of view UK felt to me like a police state, and I'm leaning more towards the former view. Cameras everywhere, non-stop reminders that you're being watched, being tracked everywhere(including which train car you're in now), constant reminders about possible dangerous bags being left alone etc.
Tracking would feel helpful and useful, if not for constant oppressive reminders that "Bad Thing could happen any second, be vigilant!".
While at the same time, it was vastly more unsafe than Eastern Europe.. and cities themselves were vastly dirtier.
Whole trip felt more like what i would imagine visit to mainland China would be like rather than a trip to a free western country.
To be honest and to give some context - they have been under threat of terrorism(due to The Troubles first - the name itself seems to reinforce this view, seems innocent..) roughly since end of WW2. well WW2 was a factor too.
To add a bit more context: this wasn't my first nor last trip to UK, and each time i visit it the worse it feels in every aspect:
Cleanliness of cities, safety, and oppressiveness.
> Whole trip felt more like what i would imagine visit to mainland China would be like rather than a trip to a free western country.
Have you ever been to mainland China? I've lived in both places and honestly, day-to-day life in major Chinese cities often feels more "free" in practical ways - safer, cleaner, more technologically convenient.
What is freedom really? In Shanghai or Shenzhen, I can walk out at 3am to get noodles or take the metro without a second thought. In LA or SF, I'm constantly aware of my surroundings, checking who's behind me, avoiding certain areas. The surveillance cameras in China never made me feel as watched as the constant threat assessment you do in many Western cities.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying China doesn't have serious issues with political freedoms and surveillance. It absolutely does. But the lived experience is way more nuanced than "oppressive dystopia."
I used to have similar assumptions before actually spending time there. Western media coverage (cough propaganda cough) tends to focus exclusively on the authoritarian aspects while ignoring that for many people, daily life feels safe, convenient, and yes - "free" in ways that matter to them.
Instead of imagining what China might be like based on western news coverage, why not visit and see for yourself?
Extremely unpopular opinion on HN, I'm sure. But I have a compulsion to challenge stereotypes when the reality is so much more complex.
I can also do that in Berlin, and yet, surveillance cameras in public space are illegal (the go-to-prison kind of illegal). And yet people are crying about how it's unsafe because of all the immigrants.
> Basically every new law, piece of news or media I see coming from the UK paints a picture of a beat-down, cynical & scared society
I feel like this is 100% true of the US as well, the only difference is there are multiple factions (the blue EAs, the blue EAccs, the red pro-Trump, the red anti-Trump, the red EAccs, ...) scared and cynical of different things.
> There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always -- do not forget this, Winston -- always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever.
The bureaucratic and security infrastructure built to manage colonial subjects didn’t disappear, it just refocused inward. You see it in policing, immigration policy, and intelligence. The Home Office runs on a suspicion-first logic rooted in managing threats—real or imagined.
It's one of the reasons the UK has one of the highest concentrations of CCTV cameras in the world. Public tolerance for this took hold the IRA years and cemented post-9/11 and 7/7. The narrative of ever-present threat made "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear" sound reasonable to a large portion of the population.
The press, especially the Mail, Sun, and Express, also thrives on outrage. They set the tone for national conversation, whipping up fear and anger that politicians then "respond" to with legislation. The broad assumption is that people can’t be trusted with unfiltered access to information or autonomy, especially online. You also saw it in lockdown, where Britain had to endure one the harshest COVID lockdowns among Western democracies.
It does seem to me, British people are very quick to call for "bans" on anything that they don't like. I always believed it comes from the average British person's mediocrity (and acceptance of) and crab-in-bucket mentality.
This country has so many (excuse my rudeness) lamearses, and they seem to revel in pulling everybody down to their level. Whenever they feel challenged by somebody else having genuine hobbies and interests (beyond consumption of food, drink, substances, and media), being fit and healthy, or being educated, they get threatened and start trying to pull that person down. I've seen it all my life.
However when you do find interesting and talented people here, they shine through. It's just needles and haystacks.
The new online safety rules are already being used to shut down government criticism. How it works is their new elite protection squad, if someone is deigned an influential critic of government policy, trawls through your social media posts until they find something against the laws. A lot of government critique is coming from the working class here now, who have virtually no political representation in the UK. As you can imagine, some of these social media posters don't mince their words, and end up getting caught out and arrested.
UK and Australia are slowly going the way of China in their blocking, and the eventual end effect could be that they will get their citizens cut off from the internet.
I run a website that provides English articles to trending topics from Chinese social media. It’s kinda funny that topics discussed there are sometimes “too sensitive” for western LLMs who will straight up refuse to write about them.
Take from that what you will re: China vs western censorship
The VPN trick potentially won’t last long. We’ve seen it go stale already in the world of intellectual property rights. For at least the last ten years Netflix et al have been well aware of which AS numbers / IP netblocks correspond to people sat at home in front of the TV, and which correspond to servers in a rack somewhere (including those hosting VPN endpoints.)
One tweak to the rules and all of a sudden not only do porn sites have to verify the age of their UK visitors but also anyone connecting from something other than a residential ISP.
The more troubling thing about these laws is enforcement. The threat of fines only works against websites that map to a business entity. For anything else there will surely see a ramp up in the size of The Great British Firewall Ruleset, edited by the courts, and distributed to the Big N (5?) ISPs.
What will become of the smaller ISPs that refuse to block illegal sites?
This is just a cat a mouse game. VPN services will start to offer residential endpoints when enough websites start blocking them enough to damage the value proposition. There is no way on the current internet to verify an ip address means anything at all other than it's an ip address.
>For at least the last ten years Netflix et al have been well aware of which AS numbers / IP netblocks correspond to people sat at home in front of the TV, and which correspond to servers in a rack somewhere (including those hosting VPN endpoints.)
If the vpn endpoint is in Rome or New York City, how will the UK government force that non-British vpn service and that non-British porn site to verify the age of anyone using it?
It's easy enough to get a list of IP addresses from those vpn services and just block them if you're Netflix, but to force compliance on anyone traversing the tunnel is another thing entirely. The UK government would have an easier time banning vpns outright.
Porn sites don't have any interest in keeping this law either. Nobody with a functioning brain thinks you should have to upload your government ID to a website to browse content, no matter what that content is.
I don't know. A lot of countries in the Middle East block all sorts of stuff and yet VPN usage is ubiquitous, but the governments appear to turn a blind eye. Like "we've done our bit and made the law." So it remains to be seen how far they'll go with this.
A lot of countries in the Middle East throw gay people off the roofs of buildings as punishment, let's assume for the sake of argument that anything we do that moves us closer to the Middle East is the wrong thing to do.
> One tweak to the rules and all of a sudden not only do porn sites have to verify the age of their UK visitors but also anyone connecting from something other than a residential ISP.
The UK does not have jurisdictional power over anything outside their country - they can not a foreign site to do age verification of foreign residents.
Now, the UK can say that they need to check for all UK residents, regardless of them using VPNs. But if there are no practical way to do this, I think the UK will have diplomatic issues enforcing anything to non UK companies breaking that laws - as they would need, eg. Germany, to help them enforcing the law on certain providers.
However, if I was running a foreign site not subject to UK law or other privacy law, with UK visitors, and I was a ruthless businessperson, I'd definitely implement this verification thing in order to collect and store a photo of every visitor.
> but also anyone connecting from something other than a residential ISP
It's up to service provider to implement such involved checks. Not sure about e.g. Netflix allocating resources to implementing this, clearly resulting in customer loss.
I expect service providers to cut corners to both comply with local laws and not frighten customers away.
https://dn42.network/ - don't actually use dn42 since many participants won't be fans of your high-traffic idea, but make a new network with a similar design. (You may get some of the same people to participate in both networks)
I don't think the incentive structure is there for porn sites to start blocking VPNs the way Netflix does. And legislation requiring them to would be pretty toothless since the only mechanism they rely on to enforce the rules is making local ISPs block the offending sites.
IP addresses are routed in aggregate groups using BGP. The groups are called Autonomous Systems and are handed out to ISPs. Your home ISP has a bunch. The ISP that hosts your virtual server has some too. You can see the one you’re connecting from right now with tools like https://bgp.tools and https://bgp.he.net.
The number of these systems scales in a reasonably tractable way — on the order of the number of ISPs and physical Internet infrastructure around which traffic needs to be routed.
As well as making aggregate routing possible you can use the ISP’s registration details see what location (or legal jurisdiction) a whole chunk of address space has. Hopping around IP addresses will give you unique ones every five minutes but they’ll all still be inside 2001:123::/32 from AS1234 aka Apathetic Onion’s Finest Habidashery and Internet Connections LLC, Delaware, USA.
> One tweak to the rules and all of a sudden not only do porn sites have to verify the age of their UK visitors but also anyone connecting from something other than a residential ISP.
That would be quite the overreach as those endpoints are no longer under the UK jurisdiction and there is no way for a website to tell if the user connecting through them is or is not in the UK.
I don't care for the framing: users evading the law.
First, this is a law limiting the actions of service providers not users.
But by using a VPN, I'm making my own safety choices. I wish there was an easier opt-out (like an ISP account-level flag), but it I want to present to service providers as (eg) Swedish, so what? I'm an adult, the "safety" laws do nothing for my safety.
The truth is service providers and ISPs have done next to nothing to stop children signing up for (eg) Snapchat, despite a plethora of laws. Of course the parents are to blame, but fixing shitty parenting is hard.
Destroy cultural integrity, national identity, create a low-trust society, become more authoritarian to manage low-trust society, import more immigrants at an exponential rate while house costs rise along with unemployment. The list keeps going. This is why far-right is surging on the polls. The country has completely lost all sense.
Sad thing as that the good times are very likely never coming back, and the far-right in power will only make everything worse by bolstering even more tribalism and mistrust among the public.
There are a lot of comments and thinking along the demo and gloom lines.
On the "silver lining" side, could be a eye-opener for the population of the UK, that things they take for granted cant get summarily yanked away if they don't actually do something.
And with any luck it will pull up the technical competency of every person using these services (pretty much every adult).
With any luck parents might even be forced to gain the skill their kids already live and breathe and don't think twice about.
I used to be optimistic that way, but if you look somewhere similar developments happened before like China: yes, people adapted to circumvent their regime's oppression, but the laws never changed.
Since surveillance is only a 2nd tier issue in terms of mind share (at best), it's untouched by electoral democracy. And because rulers automatically support more surveillance, there are no mechanisms for positive developments on that side, both in the UK and in China.
If COVID policies and mandates including the vaccine passports which absolutely paved the way for digital IDs for any action in society, didn't wake up populations around the world, nothing will.
You just need to scare them when there's an appearance of dissent and that's that.
Few people can combat them effectively from a tech and legal framework, for sure, but don't expect magic from nowhere.
Every time this comes up, an accusation with some label becomes sufficient to dismiss any arguments from a person.
Everyone with any ability to open their eyes migrated to the US from the UK ages ago. The civilization that exists today is what happens when people too scared to get on a boat live in the dregs of a dying empire.
But we did, I've been protesting against laws like this for 17 years now! Genuinely, they've always been trying to implement these laws, and simply relied on us missing the ship one time.
155 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 120 ms ] threadIt wasn't until after I got home I realized it was because of adult content.
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/onli...
ID verification is such an invasive measure and prone to the exact same failures as the simplest solutions.
The words that come to mind are malicious and incompetent. The only 'achievement' is to increase contempt towards the government. And the times aren't exactly stable to begin with.
Average UKian is, IME, surprisingly technologically unsavvy. This might be the root cause of lack of interest or protest.
If I were to guess how this whole thing came to be, it would be thus: the UK government is increasingly dysfunctional and polarised. The attention of government and opposition goes increasingly into futile, high-stakes but always drawn battles. But that means that motivated and organised groups can push through things that look benign from the outside and don't trigger the Great Polarisation. Protecting children from suicide, what's not to like? The Parliament, where this should be shredded to pieces, is too busy trying to reshuffle deckchairs.
Meanwhile this is printed on vellum, welcome to the new reality.
Other countries are moving in the same direction. The EU has repeatedly tried to push things like on device scanning or banning encryption.
> Basically every new law, piece of news or media I see coming from the UK paints a picture of a beat-down, cynical & scared society that's complacent to or in support of increasing surveillance and control by the government.
Mostly a failure of democracy - we have two major parties that are hard to tell apart.
They are both cynical and scared, and have for decades believed the future of Britain is managed decline. They also strongly believe the hoi polloi have to be forced to do what is good for them - e.g. the sugar tax and other "nudge politics", or the currently Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill which is basically about imposing central policy on how children are brought up and educated.
Being a free society comes with both good and bad. This type of law, whether it's good or bad, is akin to China's Great Firewall
Take this law: it's not new, it was passed in 2023 by the previous government. The law had a two year deadline attached to it, and companies didn't introduce any restriction before the deadline. The new government has a lot on its plate, so it's hardly surprising that repealing a law that was already passed with little attention to it was not high on the list of priorities compared to things like not defaulting or unblocking planning permissions. And yet, twitter and other places are full of very loud voices describing the law as new and designed to oppress them now, even though the deadline was set two years ago.
On a more general note, we have our problems, but the UK is in a pretty good place. Sam Freedman covered some bases in his recent post [1] (crime is down, the economy is struggling but improving, etc), but I'll add some more:
* We're probably the least racist, most integrated society in the world. The leader of the opposition is a black woman and first generation immigrant [2]. When Rishi Sunak became a PM, his race wasn't brought up once in any media, including very right wing; compare and contrast with all the bullshit about Obama and his birth certificate dog whistles.
* First time in years we're reducing the backlog of asylum applications. People applying for asylum can't work because they haven't proved their status yet, so naturally they need to be looked after. All the noise you hear is caused entirely by the conservative party defunding and then outright pausing application processing. This means that people looking for asylum had to live in limbo for years, which caused multiple problems. No backlog, no problems.
* We punch WAY above our weight in arts and theatre, and the industry is flourishing. Ever noticed how overrepresented British actors are in Hollywood?
* Compared to our main ally overseas, we have a very effective parliament. The executive is kept in check even with the very large majority Labour has now, and the Lords proved their worth during Brexit, putting brakes at the worst impulses of the previous government.
* We largely preserved our core military capabilities and alliances over the decade of austerity, slowly repairing, recovering, and expanding now. We're a major partner on nuclear programs, tier-1 partner on F-35, AUCUS is happening, we do a lot in Ukraine, and we're one of the only two nuclear countries in Europe and just signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with France.
* We are helping people in Hong-Kong, Ukraine, and Afghanistan with targeted immigration programs.
* We're rolling back anti-nuclear nonsense, building two large NPPs, and deployed wind generation at a massive scale.
* A bunch of important reforms are going through the parliament [3], from enhancing renters right to a YIMBY reform.
But very little of that filters into online environments. The most unhinged, xenophobic, paranoid voices get amplified, creating the impression that you cited, even though it can't be further from truth.
Britain is a beautiful country, open to the world, with a globe-spanning network of alliances and relationships, and an incredibly resilient democracy. We should do SO MUCH MORE, yes! But it doesn't mean we shouldn't celebrate where we are now, too.
[1]: https://bsky.app/profile/samfr.bsky.social/post/3luwmp2vpd62...
[2]: she was technically born in Britain, but she and her mother returned to Nigeria very soon after her birth
[3]: https://labourreforms.uk
Why do you think shops ask for proof of age when you buy cigarettes? Not because they care about cancer or want to sell less, it's because they're required to by law. Of course, teenagers can still find workarounds. They can ask an older friend to buy it for them, just like they can use a VPN to access porn.
The difference is, regulation shifts accountability. It moves the responsibility from a greedy, insensitive business owner to the kids. And at least with the kids we can guide them, and help them spend their time and money where it actually matters.
Note: I know people who love guns or porn are probably going to downvote this, but someone has to say it.
When it comes to pedos in specific, the UK got absolutely shaken by the scandals of the last few years - Jimmy Savile, Epstein being involved right into the Royal Family, just to state the obvious ones.
As for terrorism, the problem dates back a bit deeper, the UK has had the IRA conflict for decades, and to this day the conflict isn't resolved, the only thing that did happen was the IRA got formally disbanded in 2005.
Tracking would feel helpful and useful, if not for constant oppressive reminders that "Bad Thing could happen any second, be vigilant!".
While at the same time, it was vastly more unsafe than Eastern Europe.. and cities themselves were vastly dirtier.
Whole trip felt more like what i would imagine visit to mainland China would be like rather than a trip to a free western country.
To be honest and to give some context - they have been under threat of terrorism(due to The Troubles first - the name itself seems to reinforce this view, seems innocent..) roughly since end of WW2. well WW2 was a factor too.
To add a bit more context: this wasn't my first nor last trip to UK, and each time i visit it the worse it feels in every aspect: Cleanliness of cities, safety, and oppressiveness.
Have you ever been to mainland China? I've lived in both places and honestly, day-to-day life in major Chinese cities often feels more "free" in practical ways - safer, cleaner, more technologically convenient.
What is freedom really? In Shanghai or Shenzhen, I can walk out at 3am to get noodles or take the metro without a second thought. In LA or SF, I'm constantly aware of my surroundings, checking who's behind me, avoiding certain areas. The surveillance cameras in China never made me feel as watched as the constant threat assessment you do in many Western cities.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying China doesn't have serious issues with political freedoms and surveillance. It absolutely does. But the lived experience is way more nuanced than "oppressive dystopia."
I used to have similar assumptions before actually spending time there. Western media coverage (cough propaganda cough) tends to focus exclusively on the authoritarian aspects while ignoring that for many people, daily life feels safe, convenient, and yes - "free" in ways that matter to them.
Instead of imagining what China might be like based on western news coverage, why not visit and see for yourself?
Extremely unpopular opinion on HN, I'm sure. But I have a compulsion to challenge stereotypes when the reality is so much more complex.
Empires take a very long time to die, but when they finally do, it is never pretty.
Historical example are abundant.
I feel like this is 100% true of the US as well, the only difference is there are multiple factions (the blue EAs, the blue EAccs, the red pro-Trump, the red anti-Trump, the red EAccs, ...) scared and cynical of different things.
- George Orwell, 1984
It's one of the reasons the UK has one of the highest concentrations of CCTV cameras in the world. Public tolerance for this took hold the IRA years and cemented post-9/11 and 7/7. The narrative of ever-present threat made "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear" sound reasonable to a large portion of the population.
The press, especially the Mail, Sun, and Express, also thrives on outrage. They set the tone for national conversation, whipping up fear and anger that politicians then "respond" to with legislation. The broad assumption is that people can’t be trusted with unfiltered access to information or autonomy, especially online. You also saw it in lockdown, where Britain had to endure one the harshest COVID lockdowns among Western democracies.
Plus really shit media that loves negative clickbait and low effort outrage stoking.
This country has so many (excuse my rudeness) lamearses, and they seem to revel in pulling everybody down to their level. Whenever they feel challenged by somebody else having genuine hobbies and interests (beyond consumption of food, drink, substances, and media), being fit and healthy, or being educated, they get threatened and start trying to pull that person down. I've seen it all my life.
However when you do find interesting and talented people here, they shine through. It's just needles and haystacks.
https://freespeechunion.org/protest-footage-blocked-as-onlin...
If not for kids, then why they introduce data-gathering solutions? I wonder why...
Take from that what you will re: China vs western censorship
One tweak to the rules and all of a sudden not only do porn sites have to verify the age of their UK visitors but also anyone connecting from something other than a residential ISP.
The more troubling thing about these laws is enforcement. The threat of fines only works against websites that map to a business entity. For anything else there will surely see a ramp up in the size of The Great British Firewall Ruleset, edited by the courts, and distributed to the Big N (5?) ISPs.
What will become of the smaller ISPs that refuse to block illegal sites?
If the vpn endpoint is in Rome or New York City, how will the UK government force that non-British vpn service and that non-British porn site to verify the age of anyone using it?
It's easy enough to get a list of IP addresses from those vpn services and just block them if you're Netflix, but to force compliance on anyone traversing the tunnel is another thing entirely. The UK government would have an easier time banning vpns outright.
The UK can't tell a company in Cyprus or Switzerland to do anything unless they're ready to tell the SAS to put their boots on.
The UK does not have jurisdictional power over anything outside their country - they can not a foreign site to do age verification of foreign residents.
Now, the UK can say that they need to check for all UK residents, regardless of them using VPNs. But if there are no practical way to do this, I think the UK will have diplomatic issues enforcing anything to non UK companies breaking that laws - as they would need, eg. Germany, to help them enforcing the law on certain providers.
It's up to service provider to implement such involved checks. Not sure about e.g. Netflix allocating resources to implementing this, clearly resulting in customer loss.
I expect service providers to cut corners to both comply with local laws and not frighten customers away.
It's conceivable that a VPN provider could change the V6 IP on their server every hour for the rest of time and still get unique addresses.
If the VPN server only has an IPV6 address and no V4 address, can they connect to the target website?
The number of these systems scales in a reasonably tractable way — on the order of the number of ISPs and physical Internet infrastructure around which traffic needs to be routed.
As well as making aggregate routing possible you can use the ISP’s registration details see what location (or legal jurisdiction) a whole chunk of address space has. Hopping around IP addresses will give you unique ones every five minutes but they’ll all still be inside 2001:123::/32 from AS1234 aka Apathetic Onion’s Finest Habidashery and Internet Connections LLC, Delaware, USA.
That would be quite the overreach as those endpoints are no longer under the UK jurisdiction and there is no way for a website to tell if the user connecting through them is or is not in the UK.
First, this is a law limiting the actions of service providers not users.
But by using a VPN, I'm making my own safety choices. I wish there was an easier opt-out (like an ISP account-level flag), but it I want to present to service providers as (eg) Swedish, so what? I'm an adult, the "safety" laws do nothing for my safety.
The truth is service providers and ISPs have done next to nothing to stop children signing up for (eg) Snapchat, despite a plethora of laws. Of course the parents are to blame, but fixing shitty parenting is hard.
Fixed that for you.
On the "silver lining" side, could be a eye-opener for the population of the UK, that things they take for granted cant get summarily yanked away if they don't actually do something.
And with any luck it will pull up the technical competency of every person using these services (pretty much every adult).
With any luck parents might even be forced to gain the skill their kids already live and breathe and don't think twice about.
:)
Since surveillance is only a 2nd tier issue in terms of mind share (at best), it's untouched by electoral democracy. And because rulers automatically support more surveillance, there are no mechanisms for positive developments on that side, both in the UK and in China.
You just need to scare them when there's an appearance of dissent and that's that.
Few people can combat them effectively from a tech and legal framework, for sure, but don't expect magic from nowhere.
Every time this comes up, an accusation with some label becomes sufficient to dismiss any arguments from a person.