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Comment by cjs_ac | Hacker News Reader

Of course, it'll be possible to circumvent this with a VPN or a proxy. So what this will achieve is it will reduce the number of British muggles on social media, thus bringing us a bit closer to the Good Old Days when only nerds were online. I'm fine with this.

This comment was brought to you by the British Class System: Making Nanny Proud.

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Which is why the UK Government is currently discussing restricting VPNs behind real-ID style verification too.

So all of the legit providers will be required to collect ID, and anyone not willing to will be funnelled onto the sketchy providers; which I'm sure won't backfire at all...

I think it's worth mentioning the likes of tor, lokinet, yggdrasil, i2p, freenet and maybe other "esoteric" forms of networking like vless or v2ray. If they really do put significant barriers in the way of nerd-to-nerd communication, other metrics will only grow really.

At the moment, it's network effects that are the biggest deterrent to using these technologies -- at the moment I don't want to browse eepsites or .loki domains at the moment although I think the technology is interesting -- because the use cases are "normal" consensual porn, horrific illegal porn / CSAM, illegal drugs, and organised crime, none of which are me. If they manage to drive even 0.1% of the population towards talking about, say, cat pictures, unreal tournament matches (gamer-to-gamer communication is itself banned under these proposals without age verification!), or something that normal nerds would like, then (a) the popularity of these methods would explode; (b) the ability of law enforcement to surveil them as proxies for genuinely bad stuff would be significantly hampered; and (c) I think the net result is that more people would be exposed tangentially at least to criminality than before.

It's a shockingly short-sighted proposal. I wrote to my MP about it; her response was basically "We have a difference of opinion".

So every VPS provider as well. Thankfully, these restrictive measures only lead to wider adoption of VPN technology among the general population. You end up with people who know how and are willing to use these circumvention tools, which is a very good thing for society in general. In Russia, for example, every slightly tech-oriented teenager knows Amnezia, VLESS, MTProto, etc., which leads to virtually everyone having a working VPN. Aside from turning the Internet completely off, the government has very few options left; it basically can’t restrict anything anymore.

> So what this will achieve is it will reduce the number of British muggles on social media, thus bringing us a bit closer to the Good Old Days when only nerds were online. I'm fine with this.

I think you have a skewed and inaccurate understanding.

Why would "British muggles" be so up in arms over an ID check that they swear off social media if they can't "circumvent this with a VPN or a proxy"? It's not like everyone has the same attitudes as your stereotypical computer geek, but with less computer skills.

I think underestimate how suspicious the British people are of carrying ID. You don't have to have your driving licence with you when driving a car. Having to show ID to vote was controversial when introduced, remains controversial, and backfired on the party that introduced it. We don't even have a proper ID system here; you need to use utility bills to provide proof of identity for a surprising number of government services. This is a crowded little archipelago; we're fiercely protective of our privacy, in ways that would surprise someone who hasn't lived here.

I'm in a state that PornHub and most of the other adult sites will block due to age restriction laws. I'm not going to make a login, or give them my ID, and I'm not motivated enough to use a VPN or otherwise work around the restrictions... so I guess the law achieved its goals. I don't think I'd bend over backwards to keep access to social media either. It's really not that important.

That includes hackernews right?

I would say yes. I would not give Ycombinator my ID to be able to post here.

If they decided this site was for 16+ or whatever, and there was some privacy-preserving way to prove that, I might consider it. But not by sending them my driver's license.

You won't be sending ID to site operators. It all gets hoovered up by third party identity verifiers who can suffer a breach at any time.

They can have the proof that the person accessing a given site is of age, but they don't ever get to know who.

> Of course, it'll be possible to circumvent this with a VPN or a proxy.

Not if they can make Apple forbid this.

You don't need Apple (yet) to access the Internet.

Apple only dominate the US mobile phone market

> Not if they can make Apple forbid this.

I mean, even in China, Apple users can still use VPN to get around the great firewall. And that's despite the fact that their government already imposed quite a few extra requirements on Apple in terms of iPhones sold in the country + any China-based accounts. I also don't think that any of it really applies to general purpose computers at all there (as opposed to smartphones).

So I don't see VPNs going away with that recent UK requirement. To be clear, I am 100% fully opposed to the ID verification requirement from the UK, for plenty of reasons that were discussed on HN and elsewhere to death by now. My only point is that even if China didn't get to forbid Apple from allowing VPN, I don't see UK succeeding at this either.

P.S. For those curious about what "extra requirements" for Apple look like in China (only listing the directly relevant ones to this discussion, as there are more of them that aren't):

* iCloud is operated by GCBD/AIPO Cloud, a Guizhou-based Chinese cloud operator, rather than directly under Apple’s standard global iCloud entity.

* Apple also moved the relevant iCloud encryption keys into China. This means Chinese authorities can pursue access through Chinese legal procedures without needing to go through US courts or obtain data from US-based servers.

* App Store is much more heavily censored, but that's not really relevant. VPN apps aren't as easily available, but nothing is stopping a person from just connecting to the same VPN providers through the iPhone VPN settings (they just get to type info in a few fields, as opposed to a one-click-app solution).

> I mean, even in China

And Iran?

It’s very difficult to setup a VPN from inside China. I had to use a China specific VPN provider when I visited a few weeks ago as all the main providers are blocked. You can still get an eSIM from Hong Kong that bypasses the firewall

If the app on the kid's phone knows that the phone is registered in the UK, how would a VPN circumvent it?

Suppose the user isn't using a device that leaks its location to any userland software that asks?

Not it's location.

You know perfectly well what I meant.

Doesn't sound like the kind of device that your average schoolkid has in their pocket?

Are you the Sisyphus of goalposts or something?

I am willing to be educated; does the average schoolkid carry such a device?

I suspect that the number of kids using not using an app on a device that is aware of its locality is a rounding error.

Tesco* phones on some network's family plan must be 95th percentile.

(* other high street retailers are available)

> I am willing to be educated; does the average schoolkid carry such a device?

Yes.

On at least Android phones, and I'm pretty sure also on iOS, location access is a user-controlled permission that's not necessarily granted to any given app. There always leaks, but are you going to require commercial software to play cat-and-mouse games to get around system security settings?

And some, possibly most, "social media" can also be used without apps.

This would only work for anyone foolish enough to attempt to access content and services with their phone. You don't own your phone. It might has well be a company-owned device.

"But everyone uses their phone all the time!" Yes, and everyone will be worse off for making the obviously worse choice.

"But everyone uses their phone all the time!"

Kids do.

Sure if they want to circumvent and go home and use Dad's laptop to cyberbully or send pictures of their wang they probably could ...

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