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.
Nanny state
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Next step: ban on remote work.
It's not just remote work. All our manufacturing sites use to VPN connections data centres. It would cripple manufacturing on an epic scale if they were instabanned.
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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.
If they outlaw VPNs then all internet-connected businesses will flee and everyone will just move to the dark net. Then you’ve got a whole other problem.
These ancient tyrants are in over their heads.
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They couldn't switch off VPNs for businesses. I work in a hospital and we use VPNs to create secure tunnels to other third party health care companies as well as NHS adjacent health services amongst other things. This is to protect patient sensitive data amongst other things. This would cripple our service and go against NHS england and government requirements for the secure transfer and sharing of data.
This would have to be public VPNs only. Despite the fact that it would be complete bullshit either way.
Exactly. The best they could hope to do would be to create an exemption for businesses in which case I open my own fapping business.
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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 as a heads up, Birmingham Live (and any news outlet part of Reach) isn't a reliable source, and reading through the article offers no sources, even anonymous government sources. The only fragment of truth is from a comment from Labour in 2023 whilst in opposition stating VPNs are potentially a problem and that the government might need to do something.
There has been no on the record or off the record comments from the current government about VPNs other than it is illegal for websites to offer a work around, specially websites that are mandated to have an age gate since the BBC offers a detailed breakdown of how VPNs work...
That isn't to say that they won't try and ban them, though the bill was passed by the previous government, the current one has supported it's implementation without regard for the consequences so why not make the situation worse?
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There has been a widespread misconception that China operates a nationwide and unitary social credit "score" based on individuals' behavior, leading to punishments if the score is too low. Media reports in the West have sometimes exaggerated or inaccurately described this concept.[4][5][6] In 2019, the central government voiced dissatisfaction with pilot cities experimenting with social credit scores. It issued guidelines clarifying that citizens could not be punished for having low scores and that punishments should only be limited to legally defined crimes and civil infractions. As a result, pilot cities either discontinued their point-based systems or restricted them to voluntary participation with no major consequences for having low scores.
What about all the people blocked from air travel due to low Social Credit? Are you saying that never happened?
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Every society has its pathway there. TERFs are one of the last milestones.
GB has really wanted to go fascist autocratic since Germany looked over in the 1920s and saw a like minded kin.
Did we? Some maybe, I do recall the fascists got the shit kicked out of them on Cable Street. More of that please.
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It would have been smarter for the UK to mandate that every ISP must provide a family filter for free as part of their service. Something that is optional and can be turned on or off by the account holder but allows parents to set filters (and curfews) if they want. They could even require that ISPs require new signups to affirm if they want it on or off by default so people with families are more likely to start with it enabled.
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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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.
"Safety" meanwhile these same mp's can't budget can't run critical public services like bloody hospitals.
But don't worry, your thoughts and activity are policed.
Democratic failure to prioritise and run a country at its finest on display for the world to see. The waste is astounding.
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Exactly. The best they could hope to do would be to create an exemption for businesses in which case I open my own fapping business.
and now you have to pay lost of business taxes even if you don't have any income
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It would have been smarter for the UK to mandate that every ISP must provide a family filter for free as part of their service. Something that is optional and can be turned on or off by the account holder but allows parents to set filters (and curfews) if they want. They could even require that ISPs require new signups to affirm if they want it on or off by default so people with families are more likely to start with it enabled.
The problem is that they're not trying to protect kids. They're trying to be like China where every user has to identify themselves so they can be tracked across the internet.
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the Government must identify those issues and find solutions, rather than avoiding difficult problems
The government: Parents have you tried being a parent to your children?
Parents: Oh lord no that's too difficult can't you just, I don't know lol, ban it or something?
This government literally can't afford to fuck about wasting money yet here they are. Proving they are imposters failing the country.
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and now you have to pay lost of business taxes even if you don't have any income
I shall pay my debt in crusty socks.
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What's a reply attack? Do you have people activity MITM-ing your connection?
Personally I've found Wireguard performance to be significantly better, especially on spotty mobile InternetMan in the middle can be part of it. It's just basically recording and sending stuff back. Generally I use WireGuard, but on unhygienic networks, were OpenVPN is warning about possible replay attacks, WireGuard doesn't work as well. Could be something else of course, but I've got one end. It's not constant or always.
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If they outlaw VPNs then all internet-connected businesses will flee and everyone will just move to the dark net. Then you’ve got a whole other problem.
These ancient tyrants are in over their heads.
If they do outlaw it will likely be banned solely for non-business use for this reason alone.
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"Safety" meanwhile these same mp's can't budget can't run critical public services like bloody hospitals.
But don't worry, your thoughts and activity are policed.
Democratic failure to prioritise and run a country at its finest on display for the world to see. The waste is astounding.
We call this a waste of tax payer's money.
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If they outlaw VPNs then all internet-connected businesses will flee and everyone will just move to the dark net. Then you’ve got a whole other problem.
These ancient tyrants are in over their heads.
Selfishly, I think this is great for I2P/Snowflake/Tor. The incoming legitimate traffic helps to protect its most vulnerable users.
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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.
wireguard is not undetectable, even wireshark has a simple way to identify it, but there are more accurate ways
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Man in the middle can be part of it. It's just basically recording and sending stuff back. Generally I use WireGuard, but on unhygienic networks, were OpenVPN is warning about possible replay attacks, WireGuard doesn't work as well. Could be something else of course, but I've got one end. It's not constant or always.
Oh replay attacks, that makes a bit more sense. Honestly I've never been on such a poor network to run into that. I don't know your situation, but I'd be doing anything I could to get away from that ISP if they're actively manipulating your traffic
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and now you have to pay lost of business taxes even if you don't have any income
Unless things have changed massively in the UK in the last 5 years or so, in my actual experience you don't unless you make a profit.
The yearly baseline costs of opening and operating a Limited company in the UK are pretty low (less than £100 if I remember it correctly).