Privacy

Jesus Christ, what the fuck is going on in the UK and the rest of Europe right now with this age verification nanny state shit?

If I ran a website that would be subject to these new regulations, do you know what I would do? I'd fucking IP ban all of the United Kingdom, not comply in advance with this fascist horseshit.

If there's one silver lining about this digital insanity going on right now, it's that governments and corporations are essentially forcing users underground, and the dark web (unindexed websites) has the potential to grow and thrive as a result. We might have an opportunity to take the internet back from those who are trying to tighten their grip around the free and unfettered flow of information.

So...what's the point in even using a VPN, if you have to identify yourself just to use it? The whole point is to browse the web anonymously.

There's plenty of ways age checking could be decoupled from identity checking, and I find it extremely suspicious that the proponents of these laws aren't promoting them.

Age verification laws are just an excuse to kill anonymity on the internet.

if people are technically inclined, a service like Tailscale can be used to circumvent things like the online safety act. with the exit nodes.

Every politician proposing such rules must first make their browsing history public, it should go both ways right?

How should this be enforced? Mullvad doesn't even know where the customers are from (if they pay anonymosly), so they can't check if the legislation applies to a specific customer.

Also (and I'm not trying to legitimate such law projects), age verification without identity leak is possible. The government needs to distribute a ZK proof system linked to ID cards which creates a signed proof including "holder of the ID is over/under 18" and a service-dependend pseudonym (to prevent repeating the proof for other users).

ssh -D 1337 anywhere@elseinthe.world

is this a VPN?

It's not just age verification: the identity-verifying document's image is kept on servers for future use. Theoretically by governments verifying, practically so that everyone's identity can be highjacked in a leak.

Adult verification is simply determining a single bit: is this person an adult or not? We have had zero-knowledge proof for ages: if the government really wanted to determine this single bit, it could do so without jeopardizing everyone's privacy and online security.

I wonder if in the future we'll get to know exactly who pressed the digital freedoms crackdown button on the summer of 2025. Things were going backwards already before then but the sudden acceleration is curious and concerning to me.

When do we just start killing politicians?

I like how this is the same country that brought us 1984

That's going to be a crazy policy to try and enforce. Reminds me of the US attempt to ban sports gambling online but only domestically. That just prompted people to make accounts overseas.

As usual, the governmental response is to increase the surveillance state and punish the end users, without addressing the incentive to create or distribute illicit content. They're just feeding a sprawling black market which... may be the intent. Black markets are notoriously unregulated and far easier to manipulate/gouge/swindle people over.

Gotta punish the peasants for daring to look into the private life of the pedophiles.

Have you considered how you use the internet and don't spend enough money to be a greater sin? You should.

So could I VPN out of the UK to circumvent the VPN verification step?

Gonna say the thing: IDGAF if kids see porn online. I'd far prefer children explore pornography and learn what they are and are not comfortable with; rather than risk being exploited by less-naive children or adults. Open access to porn is the harm reduction. They are images on a screen.

Let's not pretend that today's adults never saw porn growing up. I, a Gen Z kid, saw porn at young ages. There are reasons I am "off" in the head but none of them have to do with porn; and many of them have to do from forces who, among other things, push the purity culture narrative. This is the exact same over-dramatic messaging as the USA's War on Drugs or its "Satanic Panic"—both of which source from purity culture and both of which have harmed significantly more kids than what they hoped regulate.

Next step will be a country wide captive portal where you need to log in with your digital id just to get on the Internet at all. We should all start looking into decentralized network infrastructure like a wifi&lora meshnet or community run satellite connection. There already is a network stack with an active community that allows that called reticulum. It can be incorporated into the existing infrastructure of meshtastic, i2p, wifi meshnets etc.

I think we all know what happens to declining empires, but is anyone clear on whether that's supposed to happen to their vassals too?

Just goes to show governments still don't understand technology.

Rent a cloud server somewhere and create a tunnel to it, done.

Fortunately all the good VPN providers have onion services and accept monero

I wonder how many MPs and Lords use VPNs. It would be a shame if someone leaked which MPs and Lords were regularly using VPNs.

Guess the number of tor users in the UK is about to explode

Is this actually possible to enforce? To stay with the example of Mullvad, you could still send an envelope full of cash over to Sweden to add time to your account (or create a new one).

Even if an ID was verified without storing any data, how would they know if people were reusing the same ID or if someone else was accessing the account? ID verification isn't the solution. But punishing negligent parents will incentivize them to do their job and watch what their kids do online