Privacy

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

submitted 3 days ago by freedickpics@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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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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[–] eleitl@lemmy.zip 7 points 2 days ago (3 children)

You can always just route your traffic through a roll your own tunnel to some cheap cloud VM. Modern automation makes it even painless.

[–] Jason2357@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I do exactly this, but it doesn’t protect your privacy. That one IP address is literally tied to your credit card number and you are the only person using it.

[–] eleitl@lemmy.zip 1 points 17 hours ago

It takes lawful intercept by ISP out of the loop and the egress point should be in a minimally cooperative jurisdiction. You know the endpoint is known good since you're the admin and the IP is not in a known VPN exit blocklist. Of course economically it makes sense to share tunnels with family and friends.

[–] Buckshot@programming.dev 2 points 2 days ago

I do this. I already had a cloud vps with a vpn on it for remote access so i figured i might as well set it up to route traffic as well.

Still get loads of sites blocking me

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

People won't do that as we are lazy as a species. Any sort of friction and the people who do it well drop considerably.

[–] eleitl@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 day ago

When privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy.

[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

People used to not use VPNs too - until they realized how useful they can be by spread in pop culture and increasing tech awareness of the general public.

If commercial VPNs are banned the tech savvy will move onto a replacement immediately, and the knowledge will slowly expand through social circles and social media until it has similar penetration in society.

A VPN ban would be both harmful (to business and consumers short term) and pointless.