Surveillance. Control of all messaging. Consolidation of the british internet into government friendly hands.
The age verification law caused the collapse not only of smaller websites unable to afford to perform the necessary checks, but also of LGBTQ resources, support communities for bullied and abused children. Force ID verification, make it easier to track people across the internet. VPNs make it possible for british people to circumvent those ID checks, so now they have to go.
That's fucked up. Inb4 they make meshnets illegal too.
They can't stop Tor, which is run by volunteers is free to use and cannot steal or log your data -- which VPNs can
Tor has its own problems and is not infallible.
Tor gets better the more people run nodes. The main danger with Tor is that someone can control enough nodes to analyze traffic back to its source. The best insurance against that is loads of independently run nodes. I2p is less convenient than Tor but actually a little more secure against that kind of traffic analysis I believe.
They already have. Now they’re rolling out the red carpet for them by setting up totalitarian controls for them to abuse.
Well it's not like there are any glaring examples on the world stage of exactly how this combo can cause your country to plummet very rapidly into misery and violence from which it won't recover.
They're giving Reform tools that will be used even more oppressively by Reform than by Labour.
Want to know what's worse?
Farage said he doesn't want to get rid of the OSA, just "do it right".
Isn't this part of the same amendment that will make government spyware mandatory on all devices? So does that mean that part passed as well? VPNs are not the most concerning part here yet that's the only bit that seems to be getting reported
The “CSAM requirement” is that any relevant device supplied for use in the UK must have installed tamper-proof system software which is highly effective at preventing the recording, transmitting (by any means, including livestreaming) and viewing of CSAM using that device
So that means mandatory spyware and effectively makes alternative OS's/unlocked bootloaders illegal
tamper proof system software
Lol, tell me you're an ancient idiot with zero understanding of computers without telling me that you are an ancient idiot with zero understanding of computers
So that doesn't exist and is basically pretty much impossible
Then, how about Linux? That goes exactly against the point of why Linux exists in the first place.
So no more Linux computers then? No more Linux servers, then? No more IoT devices?
That rule is bizarrely dumb. Not just bad, just dumb dumb dumb.
So in other words, a perfect law to come from the UK government!
Even if they only targeted the plebs, it will completely tank the economy. One of the problems is that they will singlehandedly reduce the capacity of techies and engineers within this country.
New technical people will be hard to come by as there is no means/tools to pursue that passion, other than spending heaps of money.
It'll be all about selective enforcement against the usual suspects.
The operating system is not the only way of spying, there is already firmware on your device running without your permission, pretty much impossible to see what code its running, and requires expert level knowledge to disable (or tamper with :)) if a third-party firmware implementation that allows disabling the IME doesn't support your device.
Most phones today also just have a non-unlockable bootloader with a spyware Android skin installed. Locking something down to this level is not really impossible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing
As always, Stallman was right.
No free access to information or private conversations. That could cause issues for the people in power.
This will be used against the citizenry.
Someone tell them 1984 wasn’t a manual.
Badenoch promises an immidate ban for under 16s... Wow!
How exactly?
Ah right, tory magic
I love the juxtaposition of the ads and the content of the article (on work laptop which manages the browser & controls extensions before anyone chimes in about adblockers)
its to control dissent against conservative govt, nothing to do with protecting children or dealing with porn.
precious little done under the cry of "but wont someone think of the children?!" has ever, actually, been done with the children in mind.
Politicians decades ago just found out its easy to demonize opposition, if you masquerade your bullshit power seizing in some child protection lie.
Honestly this Is 100% a silver lining, as more governments crack down on freedom tor and I2P will get more users, more development, better features, and more services and tools available through them. This is a win in this small area.
- TOR
- Just getting vps hosting and installing wireguard on it.
- I2P
- Yggdrasil
- AmneziaWG
We got this fam
It'd be a good idea to read the article before complaining about this being another instance of Labour authoritarianism (of which there are admittedly already too many). This was a Lords revolt against the Labour position of not banning VPNs for under-18s.
It now goes to the Commons, where Labour has a large majority, and where it will almost certainly be decisively defeated.
And the hereditary contingent is gradually shrinking, and with luck, should disappear entirely after another round of reforms. Fingers crossed.
It's the upper house of parliament.
Banning VPNs for under 18s. Wonder how they'll get around kid's using their parents VPN.
Oh they are stupid.
The name of the game of 90% of politics in the UK is "Pleasing the Dailies (Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Telegraph, right wing papers here). Young people on social media and young people accessing porn are big moral panic issues so kneejerk reactions are what are expected and demanded.
Do I believe there is an element of "silencing opposition"? Of course there is! Be it silencing opposition to the government or stopping "woke", there is an element of that, but a good number of MPs and Lords don't know shit about fuck about technology and are just going with what Mumsnet are telling them. During the debate on the OSA in the Lords Baroness Fox of Buckley said, and this is a direct quote from Hansard:
My Lords, I would like to say something very quickly on VPN. I had a discussion with some teenagers recently, who were all prepared for this Bill—I was quite surprised that they knew a lot about it. They said, “Don’t worry, we’ve worked out how to get around it. Have you heard of VPN?” It reminded me of a visit to China, where I asked a group of students how they dealt with censorship and not being able to google. They said, “Don’t worry about it”, and showed me VPN.
This is the kind of people we're up against. The "something must be done" type who don't know what the fuck they're talking about, get most of their information from people who either actively want to censor the internet or don't know what they're talking about themselves and believe "something must be done" regardless of if that thing actually works or the type of person who ends the dumbest rant you've ever heard with "it's just common sense" like that somehow makes them right.
You have no idea how dumb but also insidious UK politicians are and how resistant they are to actual reason.
Man reading this makes me realise this is exactly how an out of touch aristocracy works. It's just so bizarre how it's ticking away affecting millions of people, despite how divorced from reality it's reasoning is.
Do you want to know what's worse?
Most MPs aren't from the aristocracy. Most are just middle class or upper middle class.
They're just that disconnected.
this is exactly how an out of touch aristocracy works
Most members of the House of Lords are not aristocrats, and are appointed to the position.
Baroness Fox is a well-known nutcase, having at various times been a Trotskyite, a libertarian, a supporter of UKIP, and a so-called independent who supported Boris Johnson. She belongs to no party, and has essentially zero influence.
The UK might genuinely be more fucked than the US is in certain ways. Your new overlords will probably hold onto power better than any one group in the US, meaning while we will deal with decades of internal strife that could even result in civil war, you'll be living under totalitarianism more complete that will probably last longer. Your elites seem far more united than ours will probably be.
I lived in the UK as an EU immigrant before Brexit and I can tell you that they were already well on their way before that.
Just go have a look at the Stasi-like civil society done in the UK as shown by the Snowden Revelations: it was actually worse than the US and, unlike in the US, none of it was rolled-back in the UK and instead new laws were passed to make the whole thing retroactivelly legal.
This is far from the only way in which Britain hasn't really been a proper Democratic nation for quite a while (for example, did you know they have a Press Censorship system called "D-Notices" or that there is not right to legal counsel when interrogated at a border crossing?).
Brexit was not the cause of Britain's increased authoritarianism, it was a consequence of it (though indirectly, due to things like Press ownership concentration, the BBC to quite an extend a Propaganda outlet for the party in government and the pain of the Austerity that was chosen in the aftermath of of the 2008 Crash as a way to pay for the costs of saving the wealth of the rich and the bonuses of bankers).
It's just that unlike in places like the US or Hungary, the culture of the elites gives a huge importance to "keeping appearences" (hence the "English gentleman" stereotype, which at least nowadays is all about how one presents oneself and not at all about morals, ethics or honor) so you get a posh kind of Fascist rather than the raging strongman populist style of fascist you get in other countries. Also Britain is far more likely to hide the use of force for oppression with "It's the Law" and "Proper procedure" than the others - again a form of managing appearances.
Does this mean that I'll need to use a VPN to obscure the fact that I'm using a VPN?
What I still can't believe is that there are positions in UK that is House of Lords and House of Commons.
Like you plebs can meet over there, and us lords will do whatever here, don't mind us.
Anyway, UK has been always super dystopian, so nothing new here I guess.
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Why do they want this so badly.
save