Refer to other comment. They don't see "VPN traffic", they see encrypted tunnels between two ports to some offshore vps. At best, they see a header saying "openvpn". The article is alluding to the country effectively wanting to crack down on encrypted tunnels (because you cannot discriminate VPNs from them). At best, maybe they're just christofascist idiots.

No other than it's geographically closer to my actual location so I thought the speed would be faster.

Maybe it and maybe it isn't, but kicking against it trying to change won't help because there is a certain amount of the population who believes that it isn't for control, but it is actually for sex or protecting the children or what not.

If you want to get those people over to change their behaviour, you want to work on compromises or in this case you want to deflect them into fixing something else.

Trust me, I have a lot of right and even some mildly right people around me and with going hard against them you will just confirm their bias.

Like i said, that won't work, because VPN has more important uses than mere homoffice.

For starters, the whole "Progressive" thing is an American concept born out of the American environment (with its very deep religious moralistic strain amongst a large fraction of the population) and does not really applicable to Britain because, at least until recently, they didn't really have regressive tendencies.

Beyond that Labour hasn't been Leftwing since Tony Blair took over in the 80s and started talking about it being New Labour - they're Neoliberals and quite strongly so, so pretty rightwing.

What they did was performative Identity Politics like in the US: theatrics in the Moral space to make them seem different from the other mainstream party, rather than actually having genuine Liberal Principles.

Of late they even ditched that and seem to be trying to outfascist the Fascists.

The solution is very simple, just require a license /s

Neoliberal political class implementing fascist surveillance capitalism laws — masquerading as child protection — because they are owned by a fascist oligarchy.

I’d email my MP to ask why this Labour Government is using the BBC to promote Reform talking points and implementing brain dead Reform policies, but I don’t expect anything other than the blandest party line response.

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?

I believe China can stop any kind of access at any time, they just choose to allow a certain percentage of folks to get through above a certain bar of sophistication and need.

I don't think it's that centralized. Just some elite somewhere pushes through what elites everywhere would want, and they try to do the same around it.

Like spread of a disease.

I think the way to fight it is similar. Unions, customer associations, parties (not for election, but for having as many people as possible for mutual aid and actions ; it might even be counterproductive to get into government, since that breeds expectations which are not delivered upon, which hurts the party ; better to do volunteer projects without using state power as much as possible).

Pretty much every single website uses HTTPS these days which means all traffic is encrypted anyway. Instead of a VPN you could use an encrypted proxy that connects over HTTPS. I doubt the UK is just going to completely cut itself off from the rest of the world’s internet (because all it takes is one path out).

Tempora already snoops on traffic.

This ends with just another war on encryption.

When encryption is legal, they can't know what is going on between two points. They going to make is so we can only have encryption to nodes they trust?

It is dangerously technologically illiterate to wage war on encryption.

Still an important part. Free VPNs that spy on you are a thing, but work

I remember in Cory Doctorow's Little Brother (Great read, Free e-book here.) they had an insider at the ISP who just encrypted all the traffic that came through, so it just became the "new normal".

At best, they see a TLS handshake that gets upgraded to an encrypted websocket which hides VPN traffic…

Absolutely not, of course. I'm just hoping they try to enforce this so a shitstorm of proportions only seen in the brexit will ensue.

One thing we must acknowledge to these idiots is how much effort they put on showing the world the consequences of extremely stupid acts so the rest don't have to do it.

I saw this news and I guess it’s good that privacy is being discussed somewhat soberly over there in the wake of this investment decision.

Personally I have recently been exiting out of the UK, a much more invasive country, so Switzerland for now does seem like an improvement for me. Norway is further out geographically and has less Mullvad servers, would seem like the less favorable option for me unless the proposed laws actually pass.

Frankly I’m scrambling after the UK’s ID thing.