Uk is even more puritanical than the US,
That’s where the puritans came from.
They fled Britain and stayed in Holland a few years first.
They’re already blocking states in the US.
What vpn obfuscations do you use? Because you know they’ll block vpn next.
You can probably block companies offering public VPN services.
But good luck blocking VPN in general.
It’s not some theoretical topic, it’s the reality for China, Russia, Iran. They do block commonly used VPN protocols, so people now use VPN with obfuscations. Some work, some doesn’t, some stop working as time goes. So when people say “Ha-ha, I’ll just use VPN”, it will help you for some time but the trend is they will make it a problem for you, better start preparing before it happened.
Anything encrypted is blocked. Boom, done.
Is it stupid? Yes. Never stopped lawmakers.
How do you know if something is encrypted?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subliminal_channel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography
Or for more practical implementations: https://blog.frost.kiwi/ssh-over-https-tunneling/ (granted, this one uses normal looking encryption to hide hide maybe unwanted encypted traffic) https://nurdletech.com/linux-notes/ssh/via-http.html
Steganography is extremely far from undetectable, unfortunately. And trivial to find out once you know its there; if we ever allow a framework to be put in place to intercept communication at a large scale, it will be the inverse of the cat and mouse game we have with encryption : very hard to improve, very easy to detect.
And I’m aware of the many funky things we did. At some point people tunneled DNS queries through HTTPS, to get through wifi captive portal that only allowed HTTPS traffic until authenticated.
Just to be clear, I’m aware of the issues of detecting stealth data, and even detecting encryption against seemingly random data. It’s kinda fascinating to detect the difference, too; some people have looked into that. But the point is, if you’ve already agreed on “banning encrypted communication that can’t be listened to easily”, you can basically just say “this is gibberish, decrypt it or get to jail”. I also know that this sounds insane and throw away the “innocent until proven guilty” principle, but we’re slowly creeping toward a world where our device scans all our document and communication to notify of issues to a central authority, where black box in large networks are already present, and so on.
It’s been slowly creeping toward that. Finding way to hide traffic on public networks can only go so far if the listener can just stop you if it detect what looks like encrypted content.
And, since this is kind of a heated discussion, I’ll reiterate: it would be batshit crazy to go this way. But I would have found batshit crazy to have our own devices spy on us and report suspicious activities to third parties years ago, and yet here we are.
I knew HTTP would make a return without its brother TLS someday!
There several sites I visit I have to fight with cause of VPN blocking.
That isn’t blocking VPNs, it’s blocking requests from data centers. Important distinction
They fully can’t, there’s too many legitimate reasons that their corporate overlords use it for, the most you’ll get is loud filibuster about “we’ll totally do that!” until the topic gets forgotten.
Also, my personal conspiracy is that someone important in the gov owns some secret stocks and shares in a VPN company and this was very much a cash grab from that person.
Again, that’s not some theoretical topic. They can block most VPNs, they do so in China, Russia, Iran. And there are no riots on the streets, their corporate overlords don’t do anything against it. One of the reasons is that they do allow ipsec for corporate clients. Are you a corporate client? Do you use ipsec for vpn? Are there riots on the streets for this censorship instance?
You think the UK could?
The “tech experts” in government are fucking idiots, almost every single one of them. The most I think they’d be capable of asking providers nicely to follow their rules and then going “hahaha, no”, same as happened for every other time.
And I know for a fact that those blocks in China and Russia don’t work, cause I talk to a Russian on the daily (she wants to get the fuck out, but hasn’t got enough money)
And one major difference, it’s very very very easy to form a company in the UK, it’s literally a small fee and a form that takes 30-60 minutes to fill in
Why did your politicians become right-wing grifters? Genuine question.
Sometimes you can bait leftists into “taking the moral high ground”…
Buy those VPN shares, lol
Apparently according to the users here I2P is a good tool, so any good guides on I2P ?
Would appreciate it. Been meaning to learn about I2P for a long time.
They want to stop us from gooning This is how it starts Then they move onto full internet censorship
Yes, porn is basically the “canary of the coal mine” of the internet & please use “masturbation”, we are the sane ones here.
I remember when you didn’t have to have a VPN to enjoy the internet.
They don’t need those wankers!
And UK bollocks grew 5 shades bluer that winter
Looks like it were gonna go back to private VPNs with 10/20 people putting in each month to pay someone in a unrestricted area to run them a VPN.
Keep it small, make it look like enterprise kinda shit.
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I’m actually a little concerned some of porn torrenting communities aren’t ready for the jump to i2p yet. Gaytorrents, for example, seems to think this all being blown out of proportion and couldn’t possibly effect them.
What specific knowledge you have
There are sages all around us. Sometimes tho … Asking for their wisdom comes with a curse.
Some random YouTube video? Weak.
Anyone who thinks a government can ban VPNs without destroying economy is deluded. Politicians who say they will don’t understand the internet, they’re old. Countless businesses use them every day.
Hmmm. China
Isn’t a democracy. We’re talking about the UK, remember?
What about China? There are VPN in China. They only try to block those that are used to act as if you are not from china.
Company VPN or university VPN are generally allowed.
So you can still easily hide your location? If I live in Maine and my IP says California, that’s still the same country.
Companies and universities are controlled by China in China. There’s no opposition party that will win the next elections based on the bad economy.
Again, this thread is about the UK, which is WHY I’m speaking in terms of Western democracies.
Yeah so seen in the context of the OP it would be enough
True. That is probably what the UK will settle on too.
No, it won’t. The CCP has no competition. The UK is different.
Anyone who thinks a government can ban VPNs without destroying economy is deluded
Anyone who thinks government would never do something as utterly stupid as shooting itself repeatedly in the everything out of spite is deluded. Banning all form of encrypted traffic would be insane. Now tell me, how many insane things have we witnessed in the recent years from our collective governments?
Anyone who thinks government would never do something as utterly stupid as shooting itself repeatedly in the everything out of spite is deluded
Yeah, that’s just kind of unsubstantiated anti-any-government that is not reflective of reality. We can already see the discontent causes by Trump’s economy, it’s the biggest threat to him.
Now tell me, how many insane things have we witnessed in the recent years from our collective governments
What does “insane” mean? How is that measured, however you see fit?
It’s not unsubstantiated. Push for government-sanctioned client-side spyware already happened years ago with the intent to scan all content and keeps happening every other year, each time with more support, inefficient laws about age control have been pushed in many countries and other are following suits, there’s constant harassment to tech company for them to create backdoor for spying on demand, device manufacturer are threatened for allowing custom software that can be used to circumvent such provisions, etc.
If you haven’t seen any of this, then sure, be surprised that a ban on general public encryption is not unthinkable.
Just about every serious commentator in the tech and business spheres find a total VPN ban to be extremely unlikely, despite the rumblings of a few geriatric Parliamentarians. More leaders in the UK have publicly stated that banning VPNs is not on the table and that they have legitimate uses.
Restricting something for children is not the same as so doing for adults. Society already does in a number of ways (driving, smoking, alcohol etc.).
Enforcing a complete ban would be extremely difficult technically and would do serious harm economic harm and undermine cybersecurity. The government is not going to do that out of “spite” despite your generalized anti-government sentiments. Restrictions on kids is not a VPN ban, which would be catastrophic and frankly impossible in the UK. It’s not China. Not only does the UK have different standards and not only do they lack the strangle hold China has, a governing party in the UK would face repercussions for the economic devastation and be voted out of power. As I stated before, in democracies at least, politicians care about the economy because voters care about it, usually more than anything else.
Push for government-sanctioned client-side spyware already happened years ago with the intent to scan all content and keeps happening every other year, each time with more support
Any serious attempt to implement CSS would be met with fierce opposition from constituents and the industry. Not too mention the economic fallout and technical infeasibility. These are the reason any such proposals have consistently been discarded. It’s worth it to pay attention, sure. And to push back if they ever really try. But the odds of it happening are low.
each time with more support
That’s not really true. At best, support fluctuates. Amongst some lawmakers and law enforcement, you’d probably see a higher level of support but those are pretty much it. Media headlines overstate it because it gets views.
there’s constant harassment to tech company for them to create backdoor for spying on demand
Maybe but I think many of them would stop operating in the UK rather than take such a major hit to their reputation globally. This very thread is about companies refusing to operate in the UK. Apple and Signal have both said they’d leave the UK market before allowing CSS. Not even Google would be down for that.
Years of them pushing for this without success is an indicator that it won’t happen, not that it will. We have to keep in mind that the limitations and fallout that have kept this from happening so far continue to exist. The UK would become a tech pariah, which is actively doesn’t want.
Politicians who say they will don’t understand the internet, they’re old
And that’s exactly why they will try. Keep in mind their will still be VPN’s. You just won’t be able to access it. It will only be for governments and the elite.
And that’s exactly why they will try
And exactly why they’ll fail. I can guarantee it’s already a minority of lawmakers and that number will dwindle when younger members of their staff tell them how stupid it is.
And every business or school of any size is the “elite”?
Have you been paying attention to the state of the world recently?
Coz thats the only place porn exists
Policy makers so naive
Sexuality is a human right, and controlling sexuality is an authoritarian tactic to manufacture compliance.
“Age verification” is not just a tool for elimination of Internet privacy, it’s also a tool for sexual control.
Someone has been reading 1984… I’m not disagreeing with you, just saying ‘hi fellow doom reader’.
Bro, we are living 1984.
2026 - 1984 = 42
o__O
If you live in the UK or in another country where porn is being restricted:
- Talk with friends and family about getting a VPN (everyone says good things about Mullvad VPN, so it’s probably one of the best choices)
- Learn to use the Tor network (it’s really easy to start, and unlike popular belief, Tor isn’t only for illegal activities)
- Pressure MPs that didn’t vote in favor of the age verification bill by sending emails to them about it so that they fight (or keep fighting) this age verification nonsense.
You don’t need to be a porn addict to do these things. In fact, they have started with porn, but they may as well keep going and fight for age verification in other types of content, making access to said content way more difficult. The best thing you can do right now is to learn to fight back.
If you live in the UK or in another country where porn is being restricted: Talk with friends and family
Hmmmmm… Maybe not though
" Help me, stepbro. I can’t access PornHub anymore 🥹 "
Im stuck in age-verification
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Don’t use tor for porn. Use i2p. You can torrent without breaking shit on i2p.
UK is going to be requiring age verification for VPN access. https://reclaimthenet.org/uk-house-of-lords-votes-to-extend-age-verification-to-vpns
Will this mean all VPNs will comply? Obviously not, but the bigger names will either pull out or comply as we seeing with the bigger porn sites.
The next step after this will be criminalization of using a VPN without age verification.
Wait, WHAT? They already voted? I didn’t expect that so soon…
It was planned from the beginningas the real drivers behind the detail of the legislation, the security services, knew people would use VPNs and those have always been the main target.
Its why the legislation was written in the first place. Most people’s identity is already tied to their connection via big tech social media. Its the people who use VPNs they can lose track of.
I would expect this to be a live requirement by the end of the year at the latest.
Just be glad the client side scanning keeps getting rejected thats in the same legislation.
Advertising for mullvad harms the peer2peer network. (They blocked port forwarding and won’t be bringing it back)
How does it harm p2p? I’ve been downloading and seeding without issue. Genuine question
P2P requires at least 1 person to have open port forwarding. Ideally, everyone has it open on their VPN. The more people start recommending vpns without it, the more torrents as a whole start to die as everyone I inherently becomes a burden on the system.
I had no idea. According to what I’m reading, if I switch to IPv6, it would effectively solve the problem? I see that mullvad does support it, but will have to look into the individual containers I’m using, as well as docker itself I guess.
Networking is a nightmare to understand
Are there any VPNs that didn’t? I couldn’t really find any, and tbh it’s not a massive issue for torrenting. I still upload a fair bit, but obviously not as much as I would be if I had ports open.
Private Internet Access and Njalla both allow port forwarding.
Mullvad is heavily shilled, and for some reason no online discussion ever ends on a critical note. Be wary and don’t assume the group is always correct.
Maybe not massive issue for individuals yet, but I guarantee anti piracy orgs love everyone switching to a VPN that inherently weakens the torrent ecosphere.
AirVPN allow port forwarding.
I use Mullvad for my day to day devices like my phone and laptop, and AirVPN in my homelab for things like torrenting.
Fair point. I just assumed most people reading my message wouldn’t care much about torrenting, but in this economy where censorship is pretty much happening, port forwarding would definitely be a plus. Do you have better suggestions?
Airvpn or Private internet access seem to be the good options nowadays, MAYBE protonvpn if you can separate the product from the owner, due to the CEO making inflammatory statements on his socials. That’s a call you have to make for yourself and your own threat model.
What VPN(s) would you recommend?
PIA (Private Internet Access) seems really good. I am currently finishing up a 2 year discounted Protonvpn subscription but am reevaluating it as a viable option due to recent political posts from the CEO. As far as the service goes it was great though.
Here’s a free VPN that you can use: https://riseup.net/en/vpn
Try not to assume that there aren’t free alternatives to what “the crowd” is constantly herding you to pay for. Do some digging, and you may be surprised by what you come across.
Most of the good stuff is buried underneath mountains of bullshit.
The cost for us to offer RiseupVPN is approximately $60 USD per person per year. If you use the VPN, please consider donating at least this much. Thank you!
That’s the same as Mullvad then, or more if you consider that everyone who can afford it should pay for more than their fair share because some can not.
There’s always a 🤡 trying to get people to pay for what they can be getting for free.
If no one pays for it then it disappears, dummy.
Honk honk
It’s a volunteer service. If you use it and don’t donate but could afford to, you’re just selfish.
Now it’s a circus!
Hey I heard that theres a Very Pretty Neat trick for Brits to “travel abroad” effortlessly
House of Lords voted for age verification on VPNs. Not for them of course…
So rent a VPS abroad and run your own VPN from it. Comercial VPNs have a business to maintain so they’ve got to comply to keep operating and public advertising, but a privately run VPN just for yourself is just another TLS connection in a sea of other traffic.
I’m aware, got options set up. But the vast majority of people? It’s not all about me like.
Other people will get swept up in VPN scams and data miners after the legitimate companies are forced to pull out
Give it a bit of time and you’ll need a license to use a VPN. Without a license, your ISP can snitch in you. Unless you use starlink.
Your ISP could snitch on you for tons of ‘illegal’ traffic, but they don’t because that would require deep packet inspection on an absurd amount of traffic and they gain nothing for it. Instead they pass on notices when they receive them from third parties, and take enforcement actions (like cutting off their service to you) only when they’re directed to. They want your money after all.
Torrenting for example; only gets flagged when copyright holders join torrent trackers, then send letters to ISPs that control the IPs found in those groups. That’s not the ISP hunting you down, they’re just passing on a legal notice they’ve been given and thus are obligated to pass it to you.
From and ISPs perspective; a VPN connection doesn’t look any different than any other TLS connection, ie https. There’s nothing for them to snitch because a) they can’t tell the difference without significant investment to capture and perform deep analysis on traffic at an absurd scale and b) they have no desire to even look and then snitch on customers, that just costs them paying customers.
The ONLY reason this can be enforced at all, is because comercial VPN companies want to advertise and sell their services to customers; so lawmakers can directly view and monitor those services.
Lawmakers have no way of even knowing about, let alone inspecting an individuals private VPN that’s either running from private systems or from a foreign VPS.
All that’s not even touching things like SSH tunneling - in a sense, creating a VPN from an SSH connection; one of the most ubiquitous protocols for controlling server infrastructure around the globe. Even if traffic was inspected to find SSH connections, you CAN’T block this or you disrupt IT infrastructure at such an alarming scale there’d be riots.
This is the UK. You need a licence for a TV. I almost would guarantee that this is happening
You need a TV licence because that’s the funding model for the BBC (and wider broadcasting infrastructure), not because the government want to keep tabs on who has a TV.
You don’t think they are using that data to see who doesn’t have a licence to go sniffing around for violators?
Besides £174.50/year is ridiculous ($241.06). I’ve watched the BBC, it ain’t worth that much.
Given how you translated the cost into $, am I correct in assuming that you’re not British?
Because I am, and honestly, £14.50 a month for what the BBC actually offers is, if anything, not enough. Because it’s not just TV.
The income from the licence fee covers TV, radio, broadcasting infrastructure, and R&D into said infrastructure. It also covers a broad range of community initiatives (several orchestras receive much of their funding from the BBC). And let’s not forget the iPlayer. It may have since been surpassed in utility by some of the other streaming companies, but it was one of the first to offer that kind of service, and for a long time, pretty much the gold standard.
On top of that is the intangible benefits of having a state broadcaster that is, according to the rules by which it is bound, absolutely not allowed to run advertising for commercial products. Other broadcasters in the UK are held up in comparison to the BBC, which means that they have yet to fall to the diabolical levels that commercial broadcasters in places like the US have. If they did, people would switch off.
BBC News can piss up a rope though. Sometimes stories don’t need balance.
Or pay for your VPN with crypto?
Time for a VVPN.
Jokes aside, a Double VPN exists, which masks your VPN with a VPN.
Then we just need a hero to route all our traffic through the House of Lords.
Doesn’t matter. Chinese people found a way around the firewall, pretty sure there are nerds in UK that will find a way.
A bunch of VPNs are owned by Israel. A bunch of them are also data brokers.
What does age verification mean for VPNs?
Because if I’m using a VPN using a UK server and I get any issues, I can switch to Spain, or Italy, or Zimbabwe or whatever. Is that not the case?
The government can decree that ISPs have to block the IP addresses of known VPN endpoints. That’s perfectly possible. They did something similar with piracy sites before (e.g. if you go visit piratebay on virgin media you’ll get an error page). It’s a game of cat-and-mouse because if it’s done with DNS then aliases pop up immediately, and if it’s by IP then other proxies pop up, but the fact is they could make is so difficult for average users that people give up.
Not really. They just announced they want to age gate VPNs too.
China doesn’t even really allow VPNs at all, yet some people can still go over the firewall.
If it’s just “age restriction”, I’m sure there will suddenly be a lot of grandpa/grandmas buying VPNs¹
¹When China tried to restrict online video games, kids just used their grandparents IDs for verification lmfao
China’s VPN blocking is actually very, very effective, and the vast majority of people don’t go around it.
And that’s kinda the point - the controls don’t have to be 100%, they just have to cover the majority. And for the few that do circumvent - well, that’s just one more easy crime for the authorities to charge you with if they ever feel the need.
the vast majority of people don’t go around it
That’s because there’s also a language barrier thing.
Exhibit A: My parents (born in China) are here in US and they just be using wechat all the time even without the firewall.
So I guess no more internships at companies with more than one office.
