Following the same legislative and narrative pattern as the EU for “Chat Control”, similar laws and rhetoric are now cropping up in the US. The narrative is “save the children from porn” but the action is censorship, mass surveillance, and the elimination of privacy on the Internet.
As of this writing, Wisconsin lawmakers are escalating their war on privacy by targeting VPNs in the name of “protecting children” in A.B. 105/S.B. 130. It’s an age verification bill that requires all websites distributing material that could conceivably be deemed “sexual content” to both implement an age verification system and also to block the access of users connected via VPN. The bill seeks to broadly expand the definition of materials that are “harmful to minors” beyond the type of speech that states can prohibit minors from accessing—potentially encompassing things like depictions and discussions of human anatomy, sexuality, and reproduction.
Wisconsin’s bill has already passed the State Assembly and is now moving through the Senate. If it becomes law, Wisconsin could become the first state where using a VPN to access certain content is banned. Michigan lawmakers have proposed similar legislation that did not move through its legislature, but among other things, would force internet providers to actively monitor and block VPN connections. And in the UK, officials are calling VPNs "a loophole that needs closing.
ah yes, every time they want to do something abhorrent, they cry “its for the children!” to immediately try and silence any critics.
these people deserve a big FUCK YOU to the face, in front of an audience.
As usual. Our government, your government, totally clueless about how the internet works or what it actually is. And with all the money they waste every day, there seems to be no cent left to get some professional who could explain things on a politicians mental level. We’ve got people who successful teach computers to seniors, maybe politicians should hire some…
I think this is mostly a symptom of the gerontocracy. Most elected officials have not grown up with computers, which is already likely to make them incurious about them. Couple that with being in office so long, likely developing a very high opinion of themselves that they know best. I would guess a significant minority is actively hostile to learning anything about computers, so you can hire any professional to explain stuff with baby talk, it won’t work on them. Combine that with the rest of the technologically illiterate politicians just being indifferent, and you get this kind of policy.
My home network is all under Mullvad for a few months now, and I’ve noticed that recently a lot of pages block it. I just get a 403 error and I need to disable it to access. Honestly I expect this to happen more and more, which is BS.
Lawmakers Have No Idea What They’re Doing
Sounds like a headline for literally every issue regarding technology.
FTFY:
Lawmakers
Want to Ban VPNs—And TheyHave No Idea What They’re DoingI know governments work slow but these guys are still trying to figure out if freeing the slaves was a good idea.
Lawmakers
Want to Ban VPNs—And They HaveNoIdeaWhatThey’re Doing
At some point we’ll just have to tunnel IP over DNS, and then they can’t block traffic without destroying the entire internet. Not that it’ll dissuade them.
“Legislators Want to Ban the Internet”
It will just be a few approved sites that you are allowed to visit, and just by chance those sites are the ones that pay the goverment the most! Those sites will have records in the approved DNS, that you can not change. Other DNS requests are blocked, along with everything else that isn’t approved.
Anyone know how to get started with Tor?
You can do whatever you want on i2p. Nobody knows who you are.
Next on the list for a ban. They came for my neighbors ID, and I said nothing, then they came for my neighbors VPN, and an I did nothing, and now they are coming for me on I2P, and there is no one left to speak for me…
I thought L2P was just for torrents. How do I use it with my internet connection? Does it cost money?
I2P is for whatever people put on it. It’s all the Internet services that already can exist, specifically behind a piece of software such as i2pd for example. It’s free, just setup i2p software on a computer. Then you can make some local services visible to it, for example a web server.
How the fuck do they plan on monitoring VPN traffic? Isn’t the whole point of a good privacy-oriented VPN is that they don’t log traffic? How can they monitor something that doesn’t exist?
It’s not the logs or the data which they would be monitoring with an encrypted no-logs VPN. What they would be monitoring, presumably, would be the fact that you are using a VPN at all. That’s also what they would be trying to block. They might try to block it by interfering with access to certain ports or blocking certain IP addresses, but there would be limits. Even China can’t stop all VPN traffic to get around its firewalls.
That’s not what the article summary is saying, though. To clarify my question, I’m referring to this part:
If it becomes law, Wisconsin could become the first state where using a VPN to access certain content is banned.
How are they going to enforce that? Assuming the VPN provider is doing their due-diligence, they have no way of knowing what kind of traffic is going through a privacy-based VPN when someone uses one.
It’s an age verification bill that requires all websites distributing material that could conceivably be deemed “sexual content” to both implement an age verification system and also to block the access of users connected via VPN.
They intend to make the websites enforce it.
Porn websites should just start blocking access for any lawmakers that are okay with this legislative garbage.
They might be using onlyfans
There’s a genocide going on. It’s not the porn degenerates, it’s the moral religious people. Don’t push this garbage onto children. At least wait until they’re 25 and their brain is fully developed before you teach them that women are the problem, that little boys should be fondled by grown men, and that it’s OK to commit a genocide against the people who pray to a different sky wizards than you.
…really hoping this comment is dripping with sarcasm.
It’s not sarcasm, it’s cynicism.
Why? Do you identify as a witch burner, a hospital bomber, or someone that pushes gays off roofs, or something?
My IT experience is fading fast so can anyone explain this bit?
block the access of users connected via VPN
I’m running a Digital Ocean droplet on the other side of the Pond with my own, static IP. How could a site detect I’m using a VPN? Imgur blocks me if it’s on. How do they know?!
Generally, they know you’re using a VPN because of where your traffic is coming from.
They probably block Digital Ocean’s IP pool as a whole as it’s often a hub for cybercrime and it would only affect a fraction of users.
There are lots of companies selling data, just one of them is a list of known VPN IP addresses. Updated every X days. Just plug that into your service and it gets a lot harder, but still not impossible, to use with a VPN.
Don’t worry once this bites them in the ass by exposing something they have said is bad they will get themselves an exception.
