The VPN panic is only getting started
theverge.com
theverge.com
WAIT! SCRATCH THAT!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore
Why not just build spyware into every computer?
WAIT! SCRATCH THAT!
https://copilot.microsoft.com/
So here's the solution. AGO: Artificial General Orgasmatron. Be working on it.
Since it's hardware, parents can restrict access at the source.
Age verification built-in? Well, since it knows your secret desires in order to work, it obviously knows your age.
One in every home. Hallucinations? It works entirely through hallucinations. Since the user builds the fantasy bank (Large Lust Model, or LLM) there's no need for an internet connection.
I remember when my daughter wanted to play Roblox with some friends I sure as shit did my best to monitor and lock down that horrible thing. Same with just general internet monitoring. Whenever she wants to play some game or something I research it.
I have sat down with her countless times and yeah she has broken my trust a few times and she looses access to the internet.
> I spent shitload of time online as a kid looking for friends
Plus I also agree in how harmful doomscrolling can be, specially for the young. Can't compare that with pedophiles though, sorry.
I don't know your age, but I think we can both agree in the fact that the Internet has changed a lot in a short period of time, and still does. I met some of my best friends online: games, forums, group chats.
However, as well as we could go out and play in the street without much concern some years ago and now the streets are for cars that can injure/kill you + other stuff, the Internet is no longer the same either.
Not only that, but now parents are also people who grew up with the Internet and no longer see it as something new or weird, so they are not as afraid as previous parents were. That means that children are raised without or with much less fear to online dangers.
Of course we are talking about a large-scale issue and we can't just use personal experience to justify anything. But I wanted to point out that using "Nothing bad ever happened to me" is specially dangerous here because we are not even talking about the same scenario.
It changes. Hasn't gotten materially less "safe" on the whole, though. And it doesn't change that much.
> However, as well as we could go out and play in the street without much concern some years ago and now the streets are for cars that can injure/kill you + other stuff,
You are out of your mind. Streets in general, in most of the world, are safer for pedestrians than they were "some years ago". And they are a whole lot safer than they were when I was a kid, which was rather more years ago than you seem to be talking about. What's changed is people's perceptions and tolerances about risk. And not entirely for the better.
Unless "some years" is somewhere over 100, you're just making up obvious nonsense here.
> Not only that, but now parents are also people who grew up with the Internet and no longer see it as something new or weird, so they are not as afraid as previous parents were. That means that children are raised without or with much less fear to online dangers.
Parents were not, in general, terrified of the Internet in the 1990s. Whereas there's a vast wave of paranoia right now. Again, what you're saying is just flat out factually false.
Tell this to teenagers regularly standing on the street corner in front of my house and being loud.
> the Internet is no longer the same either
Yes, but again, the real danger is having your brain turned into mush by algorithms, not pEdOpHiLeS. And the current social trend is to have even more walled gardens with algorithms.
> but now parents are also people who grew up with the Internet and no longer see it as something new or weird, so they are not as afraid as previous parents were. That means that children are raised without or with much less fear to online dangers.
The opposite. When I was a kid parents had zero knowledge about how computer works and what the internet is, I could browse shady or straight-up illegal websites all I wanted and nobody cared. Nowadays there's huge panic "my child saw a picture of a titty!" because parents are at least somewhat aware that there's shit on the internet. Otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place.
> But I wanted to point out that using "Nothing bad ever happened to me" is specially dangerous here because we are not even talking about the same scenario.
Okay. Can you point me to some statistics that fear-mongering is beneficial to the society at large? Because news usually paint a picture of the world getting more and more dangerous despite crime in general falling in most developed countries.
I also have those, specially at night, but at least where I live they are a minority. I used to think the same but it's easy to forget about those who we don't hear about (literally).
> Yes, but again, the real danger is having your brain turned into mush by algorithms, not pEdOpHiLeS. And the current social trend is to have even more walled gardens with algorithms.
As much as I hate seeing how pedophiles are used as an excuse for absolutely horrendous technical and legal decisions (when in the first place I straight up don't believe them), I am aware that they are an actual danger. And when you are affected (also meaning your kid or whatever related) it sucks. It's a different type of harm compared to algorithms, "brainrot" and its consequences (which doesn't mean they they are less dangerous).
I completely agree in how terrible the possibility of "having our brains turned into mush by algorithms", and not only for the younger (even though they are specially vulnerable). It infuriates me even more when I see parents letting their 2yo get stuck with videos automatically recommended by some algorithm designed as if it was a mental weapon to completely lobotomize them, but then "I don't understand why do they behave like this". Also agree in the trend to have even more walled gardens with algorithms and how that sucks.
> When I was a kid parents had zero knowledge about how computer works and what the internet is, I could browse shady or straight-up illegal websites all I wanted and nobody cared. Nowadays there's huge panic "my child saw a picture of a titty!" because parents are at least somewhat aware that there's shit on the internet.
As with the first point, this is highly subjective, since different families grew and grow up in different environments (regional, cultural, legal, etc.) Where I live and with all the parents that I have discussed this topic (pretty frequent in my case), I found out that most of them understand up to some degree that the Internet has its bad stuff, but see that as inherent and inevitable, so they don't care that much. Maybe they already saw that stuff, but since they are OK they don't perceive a danger. You always find a couple of "Karens" in the other opposite, that's a worldwide species, but here a minority. I would love having actual data in how parents position with this in different areas and generations, I am really interested in this topic. Since I don't I work with that I have locally, but I know I can't just extrapolate that to the rest of the world.
> Can you point me to some statistics that fear-mongering is beneficial to the society at large? Because news usually paint a picture of the world getting more and more dangerous despite crime in general falling in most developed countries.
Unfortunately not, but the think is that I also agree here, panicking is hardly a good choice. However, that's not the same as ignoring the danger. If we are getting lower crime rates and safer environments it's because we are more aware (and take consequent actions) than ever of different types of dangers. That's my whole point: ignoring that the Internet has dangers because we happened to grow up in it and without issues isn't ok. There are dangers, we should be aware of them, and we should have mechanisms to avoid them or at least mitigate their impact (Virus? Antivirus. Pedophiles? Don't engage with certain interactions/requests, or idk, I don't have the answer to be honest). About the news... a hole other topic, but yeah, they live of sensationalism and I could argue how harmful and stupid that is for hours.
Are you under the impression that crime was just invented 5 years ago?
However the tone implied a “know-it-all-it’s-easy-just-do-this” solution, which, as everybody who has had children knows, does not exist. Every child is different, and they all respond differently to the same thing.
Furthermore the comment gave explicit orders and judgments of other parents, which, if he is not a parent himself, is completely unacceptable (and even if he is, it is still unacceptable). The rule is simple: never ever judge a parent. You do not know the sh*t they have to deal with (and tbh the same goes for non-parents too…).
Obviously giving advice is completely fair, but the tone matters.
B: “To suggest such, you must not have kids yourself”
Is someone feeling inadequate? Better to look into the mirror than to try to turn it on those who challenge you
That is truly and desperately stupid, I hope you’re joking.
All that does is encourage her to lie and find work-arounds rather than fess-up and suffer consequences.
Come to think of it, I never got punished much as a kid myself, unless you count lectures. Did OK.
Sorry about your cycle of authoritarianism there.
The only thing we were punished for in my childhood was lying. Not forgetting/not following on promises ('yes I will do it, don't worry '), that was fine, but saying 'i did it' when it wasn't done, that was getting harsh punishment. You didn't clean the toilet after use despite multiple warnings? As long as you admit it, no punishment, only a calm talk. I destroyed my little sister room and ran out for an hour during a teenager fit? Calm talk, asked to fix everything the best I can (and I did). Lying after the fact? Yeah, you've gained a curfew, and an unpaid job. The 'where were you' that most kid are asked in their late teenage years was always answered truthfully, even when it was doing illegal stuff (happened with my younger brother, in front of my even younger sister). Calm discussion, no punishments.
A few year, my sister called my dad at 3 am, while inebriated and high, and afraid (I don't remember if it was because she didn't trust her friend to drive her or that she felt weirdly bad and was afraid of GHB). The trust built in the early years from this approach might have saved her life.
I - 49 - also had boomer parents who didn't monitor my internet back then. I really don't think it can be compared to today.
My partner, a gen Xer, had it even looser. Talks about just hanging out in a patch of random dirt until the street lights came on.
Notably, I haven't heard anyone use the terms 'helicopter' or 'bulldozer' parenting lately, and I kind of wonder if it's because that's just the norm, now.
There was way less advocating that slavery and Nazis weren't so bad and it was much harder to upload a photo of yourself, but nearly everything these censorship laws are trying to block existed in some form on the early Internet. Parents need to parent and we have an entire generation that grew up fine with the Internet and video games.
Much less regulated, you could find all sorts of weird stuff (and yes, also porn) in it.
And it didn't mess us up. Before that, we teens had access to naughty magazines. I had a friend who managed to rent porn movies from the local videoclub (before Blockbuster).
"Life, uh, finds a way."
Honest question: If it did, how would we know? Here is a thread on incels.is where a dude tricked a woman into flying to another country because he "knows she deserves it". https://incels.is/threads/i-just-made-a-woman-fly-from-spain...
With reproduction rates falling, and people having all sorts of trouble with relationships, what does "messed up" look like, and why are we so sure that we actually aren't when the world is increasingly polarized and having trouble with authoritarianism? How can we prove those things aren't actually linked?
Theres a long history there. It is already a good thing that most people identify that behavior as weird and awful instead of it being socially acceptable or even the law.
This is 100% a crusade against online anonymity and a bid for control. Children aren't using VPNs, adults are, and politicians are quite convinced that that's where dissidence and danger lies.
How much of that "horrible thing" is due to a handful of youtube videos you've seen as opposed to first-hand experiences? What if you found out that the very well-produced youtube videos which regularly attack Roblox have the exact same agenda as the US/UK laws you're opposing?
And then there's the constant begging for fewer restrictions and more things being permitted, to the point where you're basically screaming "no" in their face and want to smash the damn tablet.
Then it settles down, and starts up again a month later.
And at this point, most kids, most people, spend more time online than outside walking around
Because there's no whatsoever downside in requiring bars to not serve children (if we assume that it's just to not give alcohol to children); online age checks instead have very big negative consequences for the whole populace.
I guess maybe this was sarcasm. If so, carry on good sir.
I am not the OP, but I interpreted them as suggesting this serves as a good form of censorship while advertised as improving child safety.
It's been a hallmark of his Administration, so you not seeing it is...interesting.
> For the first time in years I'm actually not worried about the FBI and what dastardly political maneuverings they are up to.
In the sense of it not being a mystery because it is more naked in both the direction and the specific approach to partisan political abuse, I guess I could see that, but in terms of not being concerned, the only explanation for that is GP’s “But I guess its fine when your side does it.”
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The vast majority of causality conclusions in the report are that the evidence was inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship. Some might interpret that to mean either of the following statements:
- Because the committee did not find convincing evidence that the vaccine does cause the adverse event, the vaccine is safe.
- Because the committee did not find convincing evidence that the vaccine does not cause the adverse event, the vaccine is unsafe.
Neither of these interpretations is correct. “Inadequate to accept or reject” means just that—inadequate. If there is evidence in either direction that is suggestive but not sufficiently strong about the causal relationship, it will be reflected in the weight-of-evidence assessments of the epidemiologic or the mechanistic data. However suggestive those assessments might be, in the end the committee concluded that the evidence was inadequate to accept or reject a causal association.
----
The overwhelming majority of the rhetoric around vaccines, including from governmental figures, is doing exactly what they warn against. There's simply a lot of nuance on most of every issue worth discussing, that people often don't want to acknowledge.
[1] - https://www.nationalacademies.org/projects/PHPH-H-08-17-A/pu...
In order to "move past" that, you have to find a way to address official lies and cases where the majority is wrong.
.
For example the official denial of the fact that the Wuhan lab was researching things similar to covid-19. (Doesn't matter whether it actually came from there.)
Or the official lies about mask effectiveness. (Regardless of whether they're effective or not, the government told people things that it believed at the time were false.)
Or the lies about the world's best anti-parasite medication (that just isn't an antiviral) being dangerous horse-paste.
Or the lies about Hunter Biden's laptop being Russian disinformation.
Or that still-ongoing culture war topic where both sides claim the other is lying.
Or, you know, we could huck our failed systems out with the trash instead. Reinvent democracy to be more direct and flexible. Could be nice.
It won't happen over VPN restrictions.
I'd like people to protest these draconian measures, but realistically, outside the tech bubble of HN, this is not foremost on people's minds.
Is it just politician FOMO, when they see someone trying this somewhere they feel they need to try it too?
It feels like a concerted push to deanonymize the web.
VPNs aren't capable of harming kids. They aren't content and even the usual imagined harms can't be caused by a VPN.
The Gov's entire argument seems to be 'We aren't getting our way".
Imagine if Gov officials cared about Gov officials trading law for favors - like they do about popular hysteria.
The actual goals are always to maximize control over the public while Gov officials and their allies avoid accountability.
What if the kid just rent a foreign VPS, put Windows on it, enable RDP, and then just "gooning" away on that? UK is going to ban all VPS providers too?
Then what if it's "just a foreign friend's computer"? Ban all foreign IPs?
Beside that, I never believed that what UK's doing is for protecting the children, otherwise where are so many other more important things to do, for example, UK can support low income families so their kids won't go hunger, UK can also provide social housings for young people so they know they have a roof to safely sleep under.
None of that, but porn and VPN, wow, that's the enemy number one, kids must be protected from those things.
Because yeah, fuck that shit. The presumption should be that all content on the internet is for adults. If you want your site to be child friendly you can opt into a higher standard of moderation. How did we go from the internet is for porn to this?!
You want to sequester children from the 'harms' of the internet? You have to do more work - create a .kids TLD and build browsers and websites for that. Make a smartphone that has the protections baked into the kernel (and works fine for everything else a phone must be so parents actually buy them). Attempting to graft child protection into the existing ecosystem is attempting to build a tower on top of a swamp. It simply isn't happening.
Unless (and I think we all see this) the goal isn't to build the tower, but to convince people to pave the swamp.
The 'think of the kids' argument is also kind of dumb at face value. So what, like at 18 you're magically gifted with the ability to understand and manage the hard edges of the world? How on earth are you supposed to develop that understanding in a vacuum? I think we're not giving kids enough credit, frankly. Each generation seems to develop a more nuanced and complex view of the world than the generations previous (which makes sense, they learned with better tech).
I was kind of ok with age checks for porn etc. but if kids are together enough to use VPNs then I guess leave them to it.
Or internet backbone alternatives. Household backyard microwave repeater mesh networks? Residential wifi meshes?
I'm only indulging in sci fi because I don't have a good answer either. I do hate being dependent on systems with few points of failure.
Shocking! Unprecedented! Film at 11!
On the other hand, fuck scummy porn and social media platforms.
Can we get rid of both? Maybe we can have some kind of Hamlet-esque ending where they all die in the duel.
It usually does involve fucking, yes.
"Rid of both"? This is against all kinds of porn, sexy stuff, erotica, and also unsexy things considered not suitable for teens. It has nothing to do with "scummy", even honest to goodness porn is affected.
And I'm sure you can see grownups don't necessarily want to be tied to specific porn watching habits (multiple scenarios for why this is, but all can be chalked up to "human nature").
I'm arguing this isn't about "scummy porn". It's about censorship in general, but when it's about porn it's about all sorts of porn or sexy/naughty content. And it's wrong to want to restrict access to that.
What's wrong with sexy? Everyone seems afraid to even talk about it. It's safer to talk about other things like free speech.
But it's ok to watch porn made legally between consenting adults. And as for teens watching it, most of us old enough had access to naughty magazines back then, and it didn't mess us up.
The moral panic is unwarranted is my point.
I mean, there was plenty of explicit sex in those magazines.
I mean two (or more) people of your preference fucking. Nothing avant garde about it, just the good ol' thing goes inside another thing, or rubbing things together.
I don't know what "algorithmic ad filled parasocial platforms" you mean, but when you're ready to discuss banning Facebook, Twitter, and almost every platform we can resume this chat.
Let's be honest about the other stuff: there's nothing wrong about watching porn. Maybe if this impedes you forming real world relationships, but heh... everything in excess is bad for you.
I know this is an uncomfortable topic to discuss openly in some cultures. The USA or the UK, for example. They like their porn habits private and not talked about... which is why banning VPNs is bad!
I _am_ ready to discuss banning Facebook and Twitter and TikTok. I just extend that to Pornhub and OnlyFans too. Not saying you shouldn't be able to buy videos of whatever your heart desires. Just the free ad driven platforms and the parasocial OF type platforms.
You can pay for PornHub, you know.
You did mention "avant garde porn", which is an extremely weird turn of phrase. As if I was talking about some sort of high art or whatever. No, I'm talking about nudes and people fucking. Is that weird to you? It's just... "performance sex" for which you pay, like you would pay to watch Tom Cruise in "Mission Impossible 4000: Too Old For This Shit". Are you also for banning "Mission Impossible"? Maybe I can get behind that!
> I _am_ ready to discuss banning Facebook and Twitter and TikTok.
You won't find much traction for that position here, I'm afraid. In general I'm against banning stuff just because I don't like it; I can see why you'd support this VPN initiative if that's your standpoint.
edit:
> and the parasocial OF type platforms.
There are lots of parasocial things in the modern world, are you also for banning them? Like, do you know the kind of relationship some fans feel they have with Taylor Swift, or what about K-Pop fans? Do you think that should be restricted/banned too?
I'm trying to isolate if your hangup is specifically about sex, or whether there's a whole range of stuff you'd also ban/regulate/restrict.
It seems like you are trying to put some kind of puritanical words in my mouth such that I think all porn should be illegal or something even though I have explicitly indicated otherwise in several comments. It does not seem like you are having a good faith discussion here, so I am going to let it go at this point.
we really are living in a dumb timeline