this post was submitted on 03 May 2026
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Utah first state to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs — law goes into effect, designed to prevent bypassing age checks (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 1 day ago by LuminousLuddite@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] quack@lemmy.zip 27 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (3 children)

So how do they plan on figuring out if any given user behind a VPN is in Utah?

[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago

We can just add a few thousand tor nodes too. Not sure how they will ever enforce this.

[–] MojoMcJojo@lemmy.world 6 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Age and identity verification. Unfortunately selling user data is profitable, so I think this will become more common.

[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago

So let's cripple websites that have VPN users... Lmao. Dumbest fucking government ever.

[–] Johanno@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Well while your isp can't see what you do when you use a vpn. They can see you use a vpn.

So there is that. However you could use an isp that is not in utah

[–] NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 2 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

They can see you use a vpn.

How? Deep package inspection?

[–] generic_computers@lemmy.zip 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

There are known IP ranges for some VPN services. Plus even if they don't have that, they can see that all your traffic is going to one IP address and can guess/assume it's a VPN.

[–] Pyrodexter@lemmy.world 2 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

they can see that all your traffic is going to one IP address and can guess/assume it’s a VPN

Umm... What?

[–] qaeta@lemmy.ca 0 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Like with phone carriers, ISPs can see the numbers (IPs) you are connecting to. If you use a VPN, you're always connecting to the same IP, which is unusual from a regular user perspective and would tend to indicate VPN usage.

[–] Pyrodexter@lemmy.world 0 points 9 hours ago

If you use a VPN, you’re always connecting to the same IP No, you're not. A VPN provider can have hundreds of thousands of IP:s.

which is unusual OK, but not unheard of. And even a a dynamic IP might remain the same for months, if not years, depending on the operator.

would tend to indicate VPN usage No, it wouldn't.

[–] quack@lemmy.zip 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

That works from the ISP end, but this legislation makes websites themselves accountable. Even if it was about ISPs, as you said they can't see what you're doing to stop it and there's too many use cases for VPNs to just block the protocols outright.