Stop ministers making laws to… why the fuck they even do this bullshit? They are a government, they know everything about everyone even without such primitive control methods.
Stop children using VPNs to watch porn, ministers told
Submitted 2 weeks ago by themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn438z3ejxyo
Comments
Lembot_0004@discuss.online 2 weeks ago
Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The people pulling the strings have obviously decided that internet freedom is a threat to them and they’re taking (global) action to ensure their supremacy.
Photuris@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
We didn’t see this one coming a mile away.
Palantir execs and shareholders are buzzing with anticipation.
BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Dame Rachel de Souza told BBC Newsnight it was “absolutely a loophole that needs closing” and called for age verification on VPNs.
Saw that coming. Can’t have the populace living their lives without constant, repressive government scrutiny.
SoloCritical@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
But it’s for the kids what kind of psychopath could be against that???
Gerudo@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
You ban something, and people will always find a way around it. Always.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Yup, and that’s how the US got the Mafia. We banned alcohol, but people wanted to drink, so the Mafia made that happen.
All a ban does is hurt law abiding citizens and businesses.
Mynameisallen@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
This is a fairly revisionist history version of the mafia, they were here for decades before prohibition. One might say that they profited greatly from prohibition, but to suggest they began with it is incredibly incorrect. I hate to be the actually guy but I find organized crime fascinating and I can’t let this one go
ICastFist@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Not all bans are bad or hurt law abiding citizens. Slavery and gambling come to mind, both still exist illegally (or, in the case of gambling, semi-legally, what with the deluge of sports betting and online casinos HQd in shitty countries), but I would say them being illegal is a net positive for society.
piecat@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Dead drop USBs for file sharing?
sunbeam60@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Do the government ministers understand that setting up your own VPN is literally a 5 minute operation.
Hire a droplet VM, pre-installed with a server OS. Log in with provided credentials. sudo apt install docker Copy/paste a docker compose file that sets up a wg-easy container. Create a peer. Take a picture of the provided QR code. Connect to the server via a wireguard app. Done.
toad31@lemmy.cif.su 2 weeks ago
What a VM? What’s a server OS? How do I log in? What the fuck does sudo apt mean? What is docker? Now I’m editing files? A peer? What’s wireguard?
So many of you are disconnected from regular people because you’re chronically online.
LiamMayfair@lemmy.sdf.org 2 weeks ago
If kids have learned to run their own Minecraft private servers, hosting a VPN should be child’s play… Pun maybe intended.
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
what’s a VPN? what’s a VPN app? how do I log in? what the fuck does a tunnel mean?
kids somehow figured these out. they’ll be able to figure out their selfhosted VPN too.
sunbeam didn’t describe it very clearly but it can be described in a way that its just following instructions without even having to understand it. like something like this: “register here. click this to get a free cloud server. log in to the server like this. paste this command and hit enter. install this app on your phone. tap import and scan. point your phone to the qr code on the screen.”
LinyosT@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
You say this as if people are utterly incapable of learning.
Anyone can learn anything of they’re given a good enough reason to want to learn.
jabjoe@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
Yes plan law makers needs to have a clue on what they are making laws about. Teenagers looking for porn are going to learn.
phutatorius@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
There are instructions that are completely “type this” monkey see, monkey do. The majority of people who cannot follow such instructions should be wards of the state.
echodot@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
Do the government ministers understand that setting up your own VPN is literally a 5 minute operation.
Of course they don’t. Most of them type with their index fingers and don’t even understand what a VPN is.
GreenShimada@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Exactly this. There’s maybe 8 politicians in the whole world that understand what a VPN is. They’re told by a lobbyist and donor that it’s a thing that is bad, now they’re out to figure out how to make it go away.
buddascrayon@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Are they going to ban VMs?
They will keep banning things until they feel they have absolute control over the internet.
GreenShimada@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
If someone tells them to, they might try until a few business interests remind them that these are also fundamental components of business networks. Once money tells them to stop it, they will.
VPN companies should just hire a lobbyist for a week and this will all go away.
TwitchingCheese@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
They’ll ban encrypted Internet traffic that they don’t have a backdoor to
stealinspect the contents.deepus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Don’t give them ideas!
serenissi@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
setting up vps requires money which ideally children do not have access to (not even crypto)
DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The VM is associated with your name and payment method. It is about removing privacy so they can remove free speech and other rights. Not about porn. You don’t need a VPN to access porn in the UK Half the sites don’t verify age.
phutatorius@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Docker’s an unnecessary extra step. Just install wireguard server on the VM.
sunbeam60@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Myeah sort of agree if you compare wireguard vs wireguard docker.
But wg-easy has a management interface for creating peers and seeing who’s active so it’s somewhat easier to get set up.
bilb@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
They could require age verification or even special licensing to use any sort of internet server architecture. That’s what I would do if that was my goal.
IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
If they were really after kids watching porn (or even porn in general) it would be technically somewhat simple to force ISPs to provide filters on their end as a subscription service. I’m pretty sure I’ve even heard that kind of services in the past. Make it even opt-out if you really want to.
That way ISPs would just ban everything from pornhub and others unless you spesifically want it allowed or even provide a portal where you could block reddit, twitter, tumblr or whatever you wish on your account. That kind of technology already exists and it’s used on many corporate setups.
There’s obviously ways around that, but there’s no technical way to block every possible way to move bits between computers. Even if they would shut down the whole internet there’s still ways to build mesh-networks or even buy USB-drives from a shady alley.
But as we all know, it’s not about porn and not about children.
x00z@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You can’t block porn completely without blocking VPNs. If you connect to a VPN that’s all they can see. They can not see what you use the VPN for.
jim3692@discuss.online 2 weeks ago
You can’t block VPNs without blocking the entire internet. You can block known VPN services, but you can’t prevent people from hosting their own.
Some known VPN protocols could be blocked, using introspection tools. However, this would just render corporate VPNs useless. VPN traffic is just bytes, and so is WebSockets. Good luck figuring out whether my HTTPS traffic is legitimate internet traffic, or masked VPN traffic.
IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
VPN, Tor (and similar, like I2P), every imaginable P2P network, proxies, all non-http protocols (smtp, ftp, nntp, xmpp and other instant messengers and so on) can all transfer any kind of data, porn included. And a ton of other things. Heck, I’m quite sure there’s a minecraft mod where you can assemble JPG-images out of the blocks and view them that way. And then you can use stuff like uuendoce where you can use anything that can move plain text to transfer binary data.
There’s no way to block all of that unless you shut the whole internet down. And even then you can still trade good old playboy-magazines with your friends. VPN in itself has very little to do with the actual problem, beyond that someone apparently noticed that their current “save-the-children” iteration had pretty large holes in it.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
You can’t block porn completely without blocking VPNs. If you connect to a VPN that’s all they can see.
This makes it sound like VPNs can ONLY access porn. lol
jjlinux@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Depends on the VPN
MrRazamataz@lemmy.razbot.xyz 2 weeks ago
Before the Online Saftey Act I believe ISP routers default behaviour was to block adult sites (maybe depending on time of day). From what I can find tho, it wasn’t required by law. The OSA now places the responsibility on the websites.
FUCKING_CUNO@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Dame Rachel told BBC Newsnight: “Of course, we need age verification on VPNs - it’s absolutely a loophole that needs closing and that’s one of my major recommendations.”
If this bitch had any idea what VPN even stood for they’d realize how fuckin stupid this statement is…
Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
How about parent your children?
What about the crappy late night TV channels with the women waving a cordless house phone like it’s 1996?
I’m perfectly able to watch porn because I’m 45, but I refuse to interact with any of this prove your age bollocks because I know full well that “we won’t store your details” and “we will share your details with 1284 trusted data partners” are the same picture.
ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Also “Data breach of 500K users IDs discovered on dark web”
ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 2 weeks ago
Kids watching porn is a much smaller problem than data breaches. Those can fucking ruin people.
tarknassus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
And nothing will be done about that until it affects the power brokers in charge*.
* - hopefully, I mean we’ve had a series of ministers embroiled in scandals that would have caused immediate resignations in the past whereas now it’s “Fuck off, I’m working here. I’M IMPORTANT!”
MyDogLovesMe@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Ya! Let them watch all that violence on Netflix instead!
Quazatron@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’ve always been fascinated by the lengths puritans will go to prevent kids from seeing mammary glands, while simultaneously being ok with them watching blood and violence.
toad31@lemmy.cif.su 2 weeks ago
I’ve thought about this at length, and the conclusion I came to is that violence about self-sufficiency, while sex is about cooperation. With violence, you take matters into your own hands and you’re in control regardless of what others feel. With sex, it’s the exact opposite. You’re at their mercy and they have power over you.
It makes sense in our hostile culture to teach kids about self-sufficiency and taking power for themselves. If they give that power up to others, then it opens them up to manipulation and exploitation.
I’m not making a judgement call on what’s right or wrong, only what is.
BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Seriously though. We’ll legislate anything to keep them from seeing stuff they might reasonably expect to see and do one day and glorify things nobody should ever see or experience in person.
balder1991@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah, is the next step to ban games like Free Fire, Counter Strike etc.?
Baggie@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Why are the kids technologically illiterate and undersexed until it comes to matters of government control? I’m not usually into tin foil hats, but this doesn’t feel like the kids are the primary concern here.
Pure_Psykosis@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
They aren’t.
echodot@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
I don’t think it’s a conspiracy theory if everybody already knows it.
What you said there, that was just a fact.
Baggie@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I know, it just bothers me how little they’re trying to hide it.
bampop@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
But Dame Wontsomeonethinkof de Children saw a government report which says 65% of children under 5 have seen explicit videos of kittens being raped to death using power tools! Surely this constitutes an emergency which requires us to abandon online anonimity
fluxion@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Clearly it’s a parental problem to determine if the VPN they are buying for their kids is being used to wank off, but apparently this party of ‘liberty’ has an unhealthy obsession with monitoring our children’s genitalia these days.
AlpacaChariot@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Unfortunately, neither Labour nor Conservatives are parties of liberty, although there are some individuals within both that see the importance.
greatwhitepapertiger@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
This has nothing to do with porn or protecting children. It’s a backdoor way to attach names and faces to VPN usage so movie and music studios can sue specific people for torrenting. They failed in bringing lawsuits previously because they couldn’t pin point the piracy to specific individuals. I would bet money that the ministers leading this charge have ties to groups in the movie and music industry. The UK will be the testbed before the full rollout in the EU and then worldwide.
Jason2357@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
This is a lot bigger than the entertainment industry now. Creeping fascism and the trillion dollar surveillance capitalism industry are hellish bed buddies.
phutatorius@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Even with an association of an identity to a VPN provider, there is no one-to-one correspondence between a person and an IP address.
greatwhitepapertiger@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
True but that at least gives them a start point to try a prosecution that they didn’t have before. It also depends on if the VPN provider responds to a subpeona request or national/international jurisdictions.
wabafee@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I think the best way to solve this is to not have kids in the first place.
Rooty@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
And deprive capital of all that cheap labor? Have you no heart sir/madam?
DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
FYI, with Mullvad VPN set to UK, sites that require age verification:
- pornhub.com
- youporn.com
- redtube.com
- porn.com
- bellesa.co
- tube8.com
- thisvid.com
- quorno.com
Sites tha do NOT require age verification:
- hqporner.com
- xhamster.com
- youjizz.com
- alohatube.com
- qqqporn.com
- xnxx.com
- xcafe.com
- helloporn.co
- go.porn
- cartoonporn.pro
And xvideos.com is a bit special since it shows you the thumbnails of porn videos but won’t let you play them.
But we need to stop VPNs! Think of the whole two children that have VPNs! What if instead of just going to the half of sites that don’t verify age, they figure out how to use a VPN?! Oh the humanity!
Yeah, UK wants to de-anonymize VPN users. It is laughable to think this is about anything else.
mechoman444@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Very interesting. I’ll have to inspect and research each of these sites, many I never knew about, in very close detail for the sake of science.
DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I mostly picked top results for “porn” on duckduckgo, but I do find hqporner.com scientifically interesting ;)
ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah, it’s just all these children with their bank accounts paying for their VPN subscriptions doing it all… Do they think we’re that stupid? Don’t answer that. 😔
stsquad@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
It’s the free VPNs that are the problem. They are privacy nightmares.
thr0w4w4y2@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
If only there was some way the government could have predicted this would happen and maybe not rushed a poorly thought out law in the first place!
maybe then they would not have:
- forced big tech companies to withdraw service to the uk
- forced uk-based small forums and message boards to close
- given free vpn providers tons more data to sell
- reduced the overall cyber resilience of the country by forcing people to choose between giving photos of their passports to some weird online service or signing up for a free vpn which sells their data, may inject their own unregulated adverts etc
- reduced uk based advertising effectiveness and thus investment and marketing spend
- pissed everyone off while doing it, scoring yet another win for the far right
absolute roasters the lot of them
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Which is worse, the free VPNs or the UK government?
pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
How much you wanna bet the ministers use VPN to watch porn as well?
twinnie@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
Everyone’s scared of Reform getting in and yet Reform are the only ones promising to reverse all this. All this is done based off the back of a 2016 survey where parents said they were worried about kids watching porn on the internet, but the survey gave no indication of what a solution would look like and gave no online age verification and banning VPNs.
vane@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Stop fucking but make children.
queueBenSis@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
if the strategy is to tell children to stop circumventing the rules with a workaround, couldn’t the original messaging just have been “talk to your children about not watching porn”
it’s so obvious the identification laws have nothing to do with protecting children from porn and everything to do with Big Brother surveillance
theacharnian@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Streisand effect: the BBC is telling every last kid that VPN is exactly is the way to circumvent the prohibition.
isekaihero@ani.social 2 weeks ago
This is fascists using “think of the children” to violate everyone’s online privacy and spy on everyone worldwide.
frongt@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Let’s say they do. So people start using non UK VPNs. So you need age verification for any Internet access? For any computer or phone that could connect to the Internet?
Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
I remember when my step-son was a teenager. I didn’t care that he watched porn. I cared that he infected the family PC with viruses and malware trying to watch porn.
laz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Moronic bit is atlast asking parents to be responsible
UltraBlack@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Ok one question: Why do we have to protect children from porn if they’ve already gotten exposed to it?
ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 2 weeks ago
Children aren’t using VPNs. Also I am going to say this: it doesn’t matter that fucking much. I watched porn before I was 18. It didn’t really do much to me. It did not give me unrealistic expectations of women. What did affect me were entirely unrelated stuff. Which is why I do need therapy and sexual therapy, but it wasnt the porn. It was people like that fucker.
NGC2346@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
When they effectively make the internet a dangerous place, Usenet will rise from the darkness. P2P will also always exist and these politicians dont understand computer math, so a lot of what they’re trying to accomplish is bound to fail.
subarctictundra@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Hmmmmm, let me play devils advocate and say that kids should have access to porn.
toad31@lemmy.cif.su 2 weeks ago
If I had to guess, I’d say the government pushback against porn is a result of members of the ruling class catching their offspring with porn.
aeronmelon@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Stop ministers using VPNs to watch child porn.
Told!
toad31@lemmy.cif.su 2 weeks ago
Yeah, never forget how the people in power routinely gave Epstein a pass because they were participating in raping kids.
All this “for the children” is performative bullshit to take more power away from the average person.
HyperfocusSurfer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Pidof files aside, them implying they need to watch children watching porn is not much better.