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

The problem is that content filters don’t work all that well in the age of https everywhere. I mean, you can block the pornhub.com domain, that’s fairly straightforward … but what about reddit.com which has porn content but also legitimately non-porn content. Or closer to home: any lemmy instance.

I think it would be better if politicians stopped pearl clutching and realized that porn perhaps isn’t the worst problem in the world. Tiktok and influencer brainrot, incel and manosphere stuff, rage baiting social media, etc. are all much worse things for the psyche of young people, and they’re doing exactly jack shit about that.

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ErmahgherdDavid@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
They know. The “think of the children” angle is just cover to enrage the tabloid readers and to be used as a straw man against anyone criticisng the law (“you’re a pedophile”). The real purpose is “let’s enumerate the IDs of everyone who uses the internet for anything we don’t like” and “let’s censor anything we don’t like starting with LGBTQ content”

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arc99@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
That’s a problem is for ISPs and content providers to figure out. I don’t see why the government has to care other than laying out the ground rules - you must offer and implement a parental filter for people who want it for free as part of your service. If ISPs have to do deep packet inspection and proxy certs for protected devices / accounts then that’s what they’ll have to do.

As far as the government is concerned it’s not their problem. They’ve said what should happen and providing the choice without being assholes to people over 18 who are exercising their rights to use the internet as they see fit.

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- SpaceCadet@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  
  That’s a problem is for ISPs and content providers to figure out
  
  No, there are very good technical reasons why this approach can’t work.
  
  ISPs … deep packet inspection
  
  There is no deep packet inspection on properly encrypted TLS connections. I know TLS termination and interception and recertifying with custom certificates is a thing, but even if it were feasible to implement this on millions of client computers that you don’t own, it is an absolutely god awful idea for a million reasons and much worse for privacy and security than the age-gate problem you’re trying to work around.
  
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  - arc99@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Actually it can be done and is being done. Software like Fortigate Firewall can do deep packet inspection on encrypted connections by replacing certs with their own and doing man in the middle inspection. It requires the browser has a root cert that trusts the certs issued but the proxy but that’s about it.
    
    And if Fortigate can do it then any filtering software can too. e.g. a kid uses their filtered device to go to reddit.com, the filter software substitutes reddit’s cert for their own and proxies the connection. Then it looks at the paths to see if the kid is visiting an innocuous group or an 18+ group. So basic filtering rules could be:
    
    If domain is entirely blocked, just block it.
    
    If domain hosts mixed content, deep packet inspection & block if necessary
    
    If domain is innocuous allow it through
    
    This is eminently possible for an ISP to implement and do so in a way that it ONLY happens when a user opts into it on a registered device while leaving everything open if they did not opt into it.
    
    And like I said this is an ISP problem to figure out. The government could have set the rules and walked away. And as a solution it would be far more simple that requiring every website to implement age verification.
    
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    SpaceCadet@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    I know how it works, so spare me the explanation. It’s not that as easy as you make it out to be. OS and browser companies are actively fighthing “rogue” root CAs and making it harder and harder to use custom CAs, especially on mobile devices.
    
    And for good reason, because by accepting a rogue root CA you’re basically undermining the whole trust system that SSL is based on and surrendering all your online privacy and security to the government and your ISP. Whoever has control over that custom root CA has the keys to your online life.
    
    Rolling such a system out countrywide is utter madness.
    
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- glog78@digitalcourage.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  @arc99 @SpaceCadet thats basically allowing the Government to force ISP to build a solution which is able to sensor every content. Sorry there is alot of reasons why you should be against it.
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  - arc99@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Deep packet inspection already happens on encrypted traffic (Fortigate Firewall) so it’s eminently possible for filtering software to do the same.
    
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    glog78@digitalcourage.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    @arc99 please inform yourself about end to end encryption and decryption.
    All i say is you haven't understand what is happening on this firewall and what this firewall can do and what i can't do.
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