Privacy

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Could VPNs Be 'Banned'? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 4 days ago by freedickpics@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

55 comments fedilink hide all child comments

With the UK apparently floating ideas of a VPN ban it's got me worried about the future of anonymity online. Now people have already pointed out that a VPN ban doesn't make sense because of all the legitimate uses of one and wouldn't even be enforceable anyway, but that got me thinking.

What if governments ordered websites (such as social media sites) to block traffic originating from a VPN node? Lots of sites already do this (or restrict your activity if they detect a VPN) to mitigate spam etc. and technically that wouldn't interfere with "legitimate" (in the eyes of the gov) VPN usage like logging onto corporate networks remotely

It's already a pain with so many sites either blocking you from access or making you jump through a million captchas using VPNs now. I'm worried it's about to get a whole lot worse

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[–] chaoticnumber@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I have moments when I think "I might get banned for this", this is one of those moments.

You may try to ban vpns but you can not really, people usually find ways around censorship. We are notorious for this stuff, as a species.

Its infuriating to me when people just roll over for the powers that be. They may ban some nodes, others will pop up, those will get banned too and so the cycle of cat and mouse begins.

You can host your own vpn with wireguard. It takes a bit of figuring out, sure, but you can literally do so with a raspberry pi. Stick it in a network of choice and voila.

Oh they may control stuff, but this is not a game that can be won, human repression is a futile effort, it may work for a while, but there is a reason why regimes fall. See the wall of Berlin and so many other examples.

Fret not friend, for hope dies last.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

They could ban VPNs and not play cat an mouse. I always think China allows some VPN use when they could stop it completely. I always think of the Matrix with the option of leaving.

[–] sqgl@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I had my Internet crippled in China in 2012 after I used Hamachi to log into my home computer in Australia.

The crippling got worse if I repeated my action eventually disabling the internet completely for about an hour.

I played this game a few times to pick up on the pattern.