It's also worth stating that the worst part of that proposed amendment [1] isn't even necessarily the VPN ban, it's the next clause, on page 20:
"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."
"Regulations under subsection (1) must enable the Secretary of State, by further
regulations, to expand the definition of ‘relevant devices’ to include other
categories of device which may be used to record, transmit or view CSAM"
> any relevant device supplied for use in the UK must have installed tamper-proof system software
It's happening. Computer freedom, everything the word "hacker" ever stood for, will be officially destroyed if this passes. We're about to be robbed of control over our computers by force of law. It's just the UK now but eventually it will be every country.
This is a very dark day. I've been prophesizing its arrival for a while now. I was secretly hoping I was wrong about everything, that we'd turn this around, that we'd enshrine a right to control our computers into law. The opposite is happening instead. It's so sad...
It's already the law in Brazil that online services and "terminal operating systems" must perform age verification in a secure, auditable manner. This presumably includes smartphones and computers, meaning you can't just run an arbitrary Linux distro in Brazil anymore. I expect similar laws to pass in at least a few U.S. states by 2030—places like Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, maybe Florida...
When I say "the future is signed, verified code from bootloader to application level" I mean it will likely be backed up by force of law. No one complains about the mandatory safety features various governments require cars to come equipped with. The voices of a handful of nerds will go unheard when the law starts insisting computers come equipped with safety features also.
The modern societies run via those devices and the enforcement will move to the mostly free Internet that was "a long time ago, when it didn't matter as much".
Apple tried to do it in a way where nobody would see your personal data until they had multiple confirmed matches against known CSAM - and even then a human would check the results before involving any law enforcement.
But the internet had one of their Misunderstanding Olympics and now we're here again - with an even shittier solution, being formed into actual law.
Law never had anything to do with reason, but this is one more law that mandates an unreachable goal. This will trigger an untold amount of brain-rotten despotism.
They're probably thrilled with themselves because everything will have to be closed, locked down platforms and devices.
IMO the solution to child safety is education with strong user controls. Hell, just delete the social media apps from existence if the other option is dystopian control of our communications.
I know what you're thinking: these restrictions are easy to work around. But don't worry, we can just layer more restrictions on top. Eventually the children will be safe! The government just needs to...
- require proof of age (ID) to install apps from unofficial sources on your phone or PC. Probably best to block this at both the OS and also popular VPN downloading sites like github.com and debian.org.
- require proof of age (ID) to unblock DNS provider IP addresses like 8.8.8.8 and 1.1.1.1 at your ISP.
- make sure children aren't using any other "privacy" tools that might be a slippery slope to installing a VPN.
This makes it so much easier for the parents too! The internet will be so safe that they won't even need to talk to their children about internet safety.
You joke, but as I understand it, all internet in the UK has Government mandated 'adult content' filtering by default and you have to go through a process to prove you're over 18 to have it removed...
So they are much more than halfway there already...
It's so organic and grass roots and good for democracy™ that every single Western country suddenly decided that eliminating privacy online in lockstep was the top priority despite none of the ruling parties running on it as a platform or with any meaningful referendums from the voting public. But to what end?
> The Security Service Act 1989 sets out our functions and gives some examples of the nature and range of threats we work to disrupt.
> In summary, our functions are:
> to protect national security against threats from espionage, terrorism and > sabotage, from the activities of agents of foreign powers, and from actions intended to overthrow or undermine parliamentary democracy by political, industrial or violent means
Imagine you and I pay likely billions a year and these jokers just let asset managers like Larry Fink influence policies affecting fundamental rights of British people like it's nothing.
The country is corrupt beyond belief and soon we will wake up in corporate prison as slaves.
It is though. This is one of the few surveillance issues actually driven by grassroots organisations like (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_Shout) in particular when it comes to adult content who have been at this globally for well over a decade.
There's no shadowy cabal trying to age-restrict porn or social media, this is more like a modern day Carrie Nation. Puritanism always comes from the bottom up
On the other hand, what's your solution for completely anonymous people to be infiltrating western democracies information space and spreading propaganda lies and falsehoods. I'm 100% not in favor of this level of authoritarianism, i'm just honestly curios what your solution is? Just let it continue? Let your children be subjected to misinformation about the holocaust etc? Let children be exploited and images of them being sexually assaulted just run wild online ? Again I'm just curious what the alternatives might?
On a related note, they built their digital ID so that third parties could verify attributes (it's NOT just a single-service login across government + a linking ID across government services, which is how it was sold by the BBC).
They're pretty close to completely de-anonymising the internet for UK citizens. Say they introduce an Australian-style social media ban for under 16s, then requires all social media to link their accounts to digital IDs for this verification.
Naturally the only remaining loophole is if a UK citizen manages to avoid being flagged as British ever by using a VPN, so I expect they will focus on that going forwards. Keep in mind the UK already arrests and imprisons vast numbers of people for speech offences, there's no slippery-slope argument here because the UK is already at the bottom of the slope as an ultra-authoratitarian anti-speech nation.
> On a related note, they built their digital ID so that third parties could verify attributes
Isn’t that the entire point of government ID of any variety? The only reason anyone ever asks to see ID is so they can use it verify attributes of your identity, such as name and age. Otherwise what’s the point of an Identity Document, if it’s not to document something?
Digital ID has always been sold as something approximating your passport/Driver License (there is no official government ID in the UK), but digital, on your phone, and actually a government identity document. Rather than a government document that has a specific purpose (such as crossing the border or driving a car), which people pretend is government ID. Something that can cause a serious problem for people because passports and driver’s licenses aren’t free to obtain, replace or keep valid. Plus the government departments that issue them refuse to take any responsibility or liability for the accuracy or validity of the documents for any use case outside their very specific role in narrow government functions, like crossing the border, or figuring out if you’re allowed to drive a car.
The UK already has citizen SSO that stretches across all digital government services, and has had that for a decade plus now. Although it’s not really attached your identity, it’s just a unified auth system so government departments don’t end up creating their own broken auth systems instead.
Don't forget that Digital ID really has been pushed by Labour after a meeting with Larry Fink and BlackRock. This is how democracy gets bypassed by the wealthy and in functioning country it should result in the entire government going to prison. Unfortunately MI5 that is in charge of that is asleep at the wheel - probably corrupt themselves.
The UK is the country with the biggest yearly outflow of millionaires in the world. And the numbers are huge: there are about the same number of millionaires in the UK and in France, about 3 million. And yet there are 20x more net millionaires outflow leaving the UK than leaving France (16 000 vs 800 net outflow).
Make of that what you will but to me the net outflow is the canary in the coalmine.
This is one of dozens of amendments proposed by members, so it's more accurate to say "three members of the House of Lords attempting to ban the use of VPNs".
So lemme guess - in order to prove one's age, one needs to obtain a digital ID and use said ID to gain access to the internet thereby creating a perfect system to monitor one's internet activity.
Gotta hand it to them - "protecting the children" is a pretty good pretext.
Interesting to see these kinds of comments more in this thread compared to the one from yesterday.
The one from yesterday was discussing how australia is banning social media for anyone under 16. Most comments were supportive because they hate social media.
A few comments were discussing how it is just a way to propagate more KYC.
Blacklists are an inherently terrible, rights infringing approach to this sort of issue vs whitelists. It would be a lot better if the internet by default was simply considered 18+ (or 16+ or whatever a country wants). Instead, the tld system could be easily used to have age based domains where anyone who wanted one had to meet some set of requirements for content standards, accountability and content vetting, didn't allow user contributed content at all without review or whatever was needed.
At that point all the technical components exist to make this an ultra easy UI for parents. Require ISP WiFi routers at least to support VLANs and PPSKs, which ultra cheap gear can do nowadays no problem, and have an easy to GUI to "generate child password, restrict to [age bracket]", heck to even just put in a birthday and by default have it auto-increment access if a parent wants. Add some easy options for time-of-day restrictions etc, done. Now parents are in charge and no adult needs anything ever.
Now I highly doubt politicians are all being honest about full motivations here, clearly there are plenty of forces trying to use this issue as a wedge to go after rights in general. But at the same time parental concern is real, and non-technical people find it overwhelming. It'd be good if industries and community could proactively offer a working solution, that'd reduce the political salience a great deal. It's unfortunate the entire narrative has been allowed to go 100% backwards in approach.
To be frank, while it may have a level of technical beauty, this kind of "opt-in whitelist" approach is an authoritarian's dream.
Once the baseline is established, the playbook becomes simple: Shift that age bracket up to the very moment when someone can vote. Make sure that every new voter spends all their formative years unable to access even basic resources on the struggles that marginalized groups go through, and the history of their existence; set the bars for the "whitelist" so high that one must toe the party line in every bit of messaging, and thus is effectively a list of propagandists whose businesses can be fined astronomically if they deviate. Take away the parent's choice, and make it mandatory to use routers that block the non-whitelisted TLDs for any device that doesn't cryptographically authenticate as being operated by an adult. Find ways to impose this on groups other than children (for instance, by making it illegal for criminals to access the non-whitelisted web, then greatly expanding that definition). All in the name of peace and tranquility.
If you want V for Vendetta, this is how you get V for Vendetta.
... only to the degree it hasn't been manufactured by tabloid media and Russian propaganda warfare, that is.
With every little news about local shootings, robberies, rapes, beatings, thefts, whatever not just making national, but in the worst case international headlines, one might think that Western countries are unsafe hellholes of the likes of actually legitimately failed states - despite criminality rates often being on record lows. Of course parents are going to be afraid for their children, and it's made worse by many Western countries financially only allowing for one, maximum two children.
On top of that, a lot of the panic is simply moral outrage. Porn and "trans grooming" it seems to be these days, I 'member growing up with the "Killerspiele" bullshit after some nutjob shot up a school in the early '00s. My parents grew up with the manufactured fear of reading too much as it was supposed to make you myopic. Again, all manufactured fear by organized groups aiming to rip our rights to pieces.
Parents should relax and rather teach their children about what can expect them on the Internet, how people might want to take advantage of them, and most importantly, that their children can always come to them when they feel something is going bad, without repercussions. When children think that they cannot show something to their parents, that is where the actual do-bad people have an in.
The way this, and various other proposals/actions in other countries, are all popping up at the same time, seemingly independently though obviously not, has to be one of the biggest warning signs of trouble in my lifetime. Not helped by various European states deciding they want national service again all of a sudden.
Our governments have turned into the very thing they claimed to be opposing for decades. It's disgraceful.
> Not helped by various European states deciding they want national service again all of a sudden
Their next-door neighbour is threatening war and their longtime ally has turned into an unreliable kook. It’s not all that surprising that countries are looking to bolster their defences.
I'm relatively confident this was the entire end goal of the Online Safety Act. Get the (relatively) easy law passed, then "oh no platforms are only requiring this for UK-based IPs and there are too many VPNs/proxies, I guess we need to de-anonymize everyone".
Does anybody have a sense of whether this is best seen as "a proposal by the UK House of Lords", or "a proposal by three fringe whackjobs in the UK House of Lords"? I honestly don't have any idea. How influential are the proposers? Who else has made noise about such things?
The amendment from the same three people about requiring all phones to "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" strikes me as in the fringe whackjob range.
This is a clearly terrible idea. It's clear to us, at least, not to them. As is on the public record, there are three proponents behind this amendment. They and their contact details are:
LORD NASH [Tory, contactholmember@parliament.uk]
BARONESS CASS [Crossbench / 'independent', rivisn@parliament.uk ("staff")]
BARONESS BENJAMIN [Liberal Democrat - which particularly disappoints me – benjaminf@parliament.uk]
If you're reading this website and are either living in the UK or are a British citizen I strongly urge you to write a personalised and above all polite email stating with evidence why they are misguided. The "think of the children" brigade is strong – you may well be able to persuade these individuals why it is a bad idea.
Oh. Cass. She was given the peerage for constructing the Cass Review, an extremely one sided anti trans "review" of the science around puberty blockers. I suspect she's against VPNs and in favor of total information control of children because of trans panic.
I've been waiting for this for some time. It's an obvious loophole in the current rules.
So how long will we have to wait before it dawns on them that VPNs are also used to circumvent IP address blocks in the UK, and other countries of course.
Britain, Australia, and Canada love massive government overreach for some reason. America seems to have escaped it by having a culture of just hating government in general.
I will say the EUs love affair with it is somewhat new (last 10-15 years or so).
Political/issue opportunism. One so-called "democracy" implementing one civilian-harmful garbage policy makes it that much easier for another to emulate it.
It is worse than you think. The country is on its knees. I go outside and no one looks happy and no one is shopping or eating out unless it is McDonalds or Lidl. No one is working, children are calling sick for school and everyone is wondering how the hell so many random people suddenly got in. The next few decades will be a story of decline.
To protect children we must install malware on their computers! Let's just hope those authorities don't use malware to peep on them through webcams ... Again
or look at their personal data
or use behavior analytics to target minority groups as
"risks" sending law enforcement to harass or kill them.
or store all their personal data on a 3rd party companies insecure servers
You have to start surveillance young, get them used to it early so they don't realize how bad it is!
Serious question: What's the gold standard in blocking certain content for an age group, without tracking ones identity?
My initial thought would it would be just making it super easy for their guardians to distribute and control device content. But let the control end at that echelon of power; Not even the local councils or schools should be given the power to regulate social media for kids to this extent IMO, let alone the govt
The more "digi-ID so we are sure you are old enough, bitte" keeps been pushed, the clearer it's about tracking and not about children. No matter how much they love to frame it the other way around. Unless they want to admit they are total inepts.
I'd have thought an OAuth flow to a government run ID system, to create an account you first must verify your age by redirecting to the ID provider logging in via FaceID/Fingerprint to verify it's you and then you are redirected back to the original site with a verification code.
Admittedly on paper that means the Gov system would know which sites you were approved for, not logging that would require legislation to not store these logs.
If we as humans take full responsibility for the world we inhabit.
It's really clear that we live inside of systems that we both control and feel that we don't.
Exploitation of children is (as strange as it sounds) a design issue.
We've designed systems that encourage and rationalize the exploitation of children as a feature of fear.
The encouraging part is that we are in control and it's easier to navigate with a system than to resist it,
so the question becomes.
- How do we modify the incentives that are already in place to not result in the exploitation of children?
Because people generally make decisions for their best interest, we're in a dangerous situation where the incentives are for child exploitation.
An example would be:
I need to feed my family
I need to work to live
I need to appease my boss to continue to work
The boss has goals to meet
We need to perform these actions to meet the goals
There isn't time or space to consider the full consequences of this action
When the impact to children is not considered by a change to a system, they inevitably reap the consequences of living in a system that never considered their welfare.
The children that grew up feeling out of control, and in a system not designed for them then seek to control the very system that formed them - not knowing that they're replicating the same harm that got them there.
This is a design cycle as I see it, if we don't look at it and understand it - then we will continue feeling powerless - while holding the reigns of our future in our hands.
I believe so much in the power of humanity - so I share this not with the idea that I have the answers, but that I am part of the collective that does.
Worse than China. They are absolutely obsessed, fanatics.
But it's not just bigotry, unfortunately. They are trying to ban free usage of computers for the general public. They want to establish authoritarianism, at least some form of it.
People are saying mean things on Twitter, or even disagreeing with government-approved opinions! They're making 12000 speech arrests per year, but there's still far too many slipping through the cracks.
Yes: somewhat cynically, they want their democratically elected affiliate party to remain in government (or they just enjoy popular support themselves) and so when the majority of people think protectin the childrun is good, you should demonstrate your purity spiraling by proposing and going along with anything that supports such an aim. You’d want to vote for that, right? I mean, the kids, right?!
If it's anything like Australia, then yes - here the conservative major party hates the interent because it has taken so much away from their massive donor and supporters' businesses (mostly legacy media - Murdoch's News Ltd, Nine Entertainment, etc.), and the more "progressive" major party (left of the Overton window but objectively fairly centre-right) hates it because actual progressives there shoot down all their hypocrisy and they can't control the narrative at all.
They both want to go back to the days of billionare-controlled media setting and driving the narrative, because they know how to influence that (or in Labor's case, think they know but they always fail to, despite sucking up to the media). So they dispose the Internet and social media.
Remember how the morons, at the early stage, were saying "come on, don't be excessive, it's not China here", and now we are reaching a similar or worse civil rights point in most western countries...
Because the ruling class in most countries envy China's control and the people are too divided, disorganized, and ignorant to understand what they're losing. The ruling class saw an opportunity to gather more power and took it. They cede nothing voluntarily.
The UK has turned into the worst parts of 1984. The politicians are absolutely stark raving mad at this point, what a horrible country to be living in.
We’ve seen how this goes. If it doesn’t pass, they’ll try again and again until some combination of political chicanery lets it slip through. They only have to win once, we have to win every single time.
> It's crazy that there is a house of unelected lords in an allegedly modern country.
I certainly agree. But its worth noting that only 92 of the 825 seats in the Lords are reserved for hereditary peers - the remainder are nominated by the (elected) leaders of the main political parties, or are appointed for non-political achievements (science, society, business, arts, etc.) There are also 26 Church of England bishops. Legislation to remove the hereditary peers is currently going through parliament.
There's plenty wrong with the HoL, but I think there's at least an argument to be made that the UK benefits from a parliamentary revising chamber that is less party-political than the Commons.
They have very limited power these days. They advise the House of Commons, as more or less a hereditary think tank. They can delay the passage of bills, though this has been limited to a maximum delay of one year since 1949 (less for some types of bills) and there are some checks on this ability. They have a few other things they can do that are (IMO) too boring to warrant much thought unless you're a member of parliament.
The idea of a House of Lords does strike me as a bit odd, but it's not really the big deal it used to be.
Time to open a business in Roblox selling eSIMs delivered in-game through QR codes? (Assuming Roblox hasn’t been banned before we can get the MVNOs on board.)
“If Parliament enacts that smoking in the streets of Paris is an offence, then it is an offence”
This is not an enforceable law. It seems predicated on the notion that VPNs can only exist as a commercial product, but all you need is two computers connected to the internet.
Not totally enforceable, but there are not a whole lot of people with connections in other countries willing to host VPNs for them. Most people don't even know what a VPN really is.
i've long held a view that what CCP is doing is cancer to all citizens in previously free countries, our democratic leaders are quick to show disgust and disdain, but the actual owners of the country, actual powers that be are enamored and mesmerised by what they're doing to the Chinese populace especially when it comes to messaging/propaganda. block and track everyone then just tiktok your way high heavens. it's not even what aldous huxley meant by the pleasure essay anymore it's deeper and more manipulative
I've had American colleagues ask me about the London crime wave. They seem to have some sort of alternative news source that doesn't tell them murders have halved from the high point around the millennium.
Probably the media that shows the UK locking up old ladies and people in wheelchairs for speaking out publicly against ongoing UK support for genocide (among other "speech offenses").
Seems to be a device for American free speech advocates to feel like they’re contributing something while being distracted from Trump chilling free speech by shaking down CBS & ABC, defunding Harvard, bogus investigations into James Comey, Tish James & others, Texas school book bannings, AAUP vs Rubio, etc, etc.
Most Americans generally think European governments are more relaxed and less authoritarian than our own so finding out how much worse than us they are is a complete shock. It doesn't help that Europeans all jump into the comments trying to gaslight everyone that they have something even vaguely close to free speech.
I get regularly downvoted for this, but oh well. I don't post for votes:
I think the research consensus is that the internet is a dangerous place for kids. And pragmatic life experience shows that as a parent, you can't control well what your kids have access to. While I think many of these laws are poorly implemented and unnecessarily endanger the free Internet, I think they are coming from a good place.
I think arguing that there should be no restrictions whatsoever is completely ignoring the negative societal impact of modern technology and is actually unpragmatic and counterproductive, because that impact is very real and people want to control it. They won't care about arguments about freedom that seem far fetched to them.
To me a much more fruitful discussion would be on how to control these things and how to ensure it doesn't become a creeping censorship mechanism. Simply saying "no" will mean people who care about free internet will be left on the side.
Because actually there is a lot one could do to reconcile these two standpoints:
- ensure privacy-preserving mechanisms are used for age verification
- ensure laws proactively proscribe freedom of internet outside of selected (age restricted) areas
- provide transparency laws that enable citizens to see all data collected on them, GDPR-style.
- pathways for citizens to appeal or request compensation for violations of privacy
- and crucially, prevent other terrible things in this area, like the demand I saw on a related thread that all mobile devices have an unremovable black-box software that censors all internet access.
Would I mind a provably privacy-preserving age check? Not really. And it's actually achievable, as opposed to simply attempting to veto this whole wave. Hackers like us no longer own the web, it has become a common good.
As a postscriptum, there's a ton of cynicism about "think of the children" and CSAM. I can well believe it's BS when politicians say it. Equally I don't take it as a given. I feel uncomfortable when my freedom to browse innocuous stuff shelters predators and gives 12 year olds access to SM porn. You're free to disagree, but it seems the world is moving on. You can shout at the clouds or try to find a compromise.
As someone fully supportive of the social media ban for Australian kids, I think As someone fully supportive of the social media ban for Australian kids, I think we need to teach UK kids to vibecode their own VPNs with OSS models at this point so they can save what's left of their future civil liberties.
We all know where this is going, they're going to ban the one mathematical tool we have that gives us control over machines, encryption.
When that's said, there are forces in the EU as well which try stunts like this, kind of, but in the EU there are at least lots of countries and lots of opposing voices. In the UK the situation is different.
Very true, just see what happened to the Graphene project recently. They were approached by the French government for a backdoor, threatened when they refused, and left the country in fear.
UK House of Lords are a buncha of Jimmy Savile pal types, if you get my drift. The same blackmail and bribery networks that exist in the US largely were learned from the Brits, who of course gave Palestine to the zionists on behalf of dragging America into a war they mostly engineered via Edward the 7ths diplomatic intrigues and the pre-war formation of the entangling alliances.
So for a long time, I traced most roads in the US back to London... (for example Star Chamber origins)...
After a while though, as I dug into the real history of banking, I realized when William of Orange was installed it was shortly after that the Bank of England was established to take them over the same way they later influenced us (Jekyll Island) to establish the Fed, the main trojan horse for a country being monetary countrol.
So I now understand just like the masons, or intel dudes, etc, many of them are just so compartmentalized they don't know what they are a part of. I now view the UK the same way.
So lets keep following the strings up the chain...
"You win battles by knowing the enemy's timing, and using a timing which the enemy does not expect." - Miyamoto Musashi
Some comments were deferred for faster rendering.
azalemeth|2 months ago
"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."
"Regulations under subsection (1) must enable the Secretary of State, by further regulations, to expand the definition of ‘relevant devices’ to include other categories of device which may be used to record, transmit or view CSAM"
Apple, what did you start?
[1] https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/63901/documents/746...
matheusmoreira|2 months ago
It's happening. Computer freedom, everything the word "hacker" ever stood for, will be officially destroyed if this passes. We're about to be robbed of control over our computers by force of law. It's just the UK now but eventually it will be every country.
This is a very dark day. I've been prophesizing its arrival for a while now. I was secretly hoping I was wrong about everything, that we'd turn this around, that we'd enshrine a right to control our computers into law. The opposite is happening instead. It's so sad...
bitwize|2 months ago
When I say "the future is signed, verified code from bootloader to application level" I mean it will likely be backed up by force of law. No one complains about the mandatory safety features various governments require cars to come equipped with. The voices of a handful of nerds will go unheard when the law starts insisting computers come equipped with safety features also.
freefaler|2 months ago
The modern societies run via those devices and the enforcement will move to the mostly free Internet that was "a long time ago, when it didn't matter as much".
theshrike79|2 months ago
Apple tried to do it in a way where nobody would see your personal data until they had multiple confirmed matches against known CSAM - and even then a human would check the results before involving any law enforcement.
But the internet had one of their Misunderstanding Olympics and now we're here again - with an even shittier solution, being formed into actual law.
unknown|2 months ago
[deleted]
classified|2 months ago
donmcronald|2 months ago
They're probably thrilled with themselves because everything will have to be closed, locked down platforms and devices.
IMO the solution to child safety is education with strong user controls. Hell, just delete the social media apps from existence if the other option is dystopian control of our communications.
an0malous|2 months ago
dave1010uk|2 months ago
- require proof of age (ID) to install apps from unofficial sources on your phone or PC. Probably best to block this at both the OS and also popular VPN downloading sites like github.com and debian.org.
- require proof of age (ID) to unblock DNS provider IP addresses like 8.8.8.8 and 1.1.1.1 at your ISP.
- make sure children aren't using any other "privacy" tools that might be a slippery slope to installing a VPN.
This makes it so much easier for the parents too! The internet will be so safe that they won't even need to talk to their children about internet safety.
stephen_g|2 months ago
So they are much more than halfway there already...
unknown|2 months ago
[deleted]
int32_64|2 months ago
varispeed|2 months ago
> The Security Service Act 1989 sets out our functions and gives some examples of the nature and range of threats we work to disrupt.
> In summary, our functions are:
> to protect national security against threats from espionage, terrorism and > sabotage, from the activities of agents of foreign powers, and from actions intended to overthrow or undermine parliamentary democracy by political, industrial or violent means
Imagine you and I pay likely billions a year and these jokers just let asset managers like Larry Fink influence policies affecting fundamental rights of British people like it's nothing.
The country is corrupt beyond belief and soon we will wake up in corporate prison as slaves.
See:
https://thewinepress.substack.com/p/tokenization-blackrocks-...
https://www.cityam.com/reeves-and-starmer-meet-blackrocks-la...
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-digital-id-scheme-to-...
tick_tock_tick|2 months ago
But yes in the last ~20 years are so it's somehow become a top EU goal as well.
stebalien|2 months ago
house of lords
Barrin92|2 months ago
It is though. This is one of the few surveillance issues actually driven by grassroots organisations like (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_Shout) in particular when it comes to adult content who have been at this globally for well over a decade.
There's no shadowy cabal trying to age-restrict porn or social media, this is more like a modern day Carrie Nation. Puritanism always comes from the bottom up
unknown|2 months ago
[deleted]
unknown|2 months ago
[deleted]
bamboozled|2 months ago
baazaa|2 months ago
They're pretty close to completely de-anonymising the internet for UK citizens. Say they introduce an Australian-style social media ban for under 16s, then requires all social media to link their accounts to digital IDs for this verification.
Naturally the only remaining loophole is if a UK citizen manages to avoid being flagged as British ever by using a VPN, so I expect they will focus on that going forwards. Keep in mind the UK already arrests and imprisons vast numbers of people for speech offences, there's no slippery-slope argument here because the UK is already at the bottom of the slope as an ultra-authoratitarian anti-speech nation.
avianlyric|2 months ago
Isn’t that the entire point of government ID of any variety? The only reason anyone ever asks to see ID is so they can use it verify attributes of your identity, such as name and age. Otherwise what’s the point of an Identity Document, if it’s not to document something?
Digital ID has always been sold as something approximating your passport/Driver License (there is no official government ID in the UK), but digital, on your phone, and actually a government identity document. Rather than a government document that has a specific purpose (such as crossing the border or driving a car), which people pretend is government ID. Something that can cause a serious problem for people because passports and driver’s licenses aren’t free to obtain, replace or keep valid. Plus the government departments that issue them refuse to take any responsibility or liability for the accuracy or validity of the documents for any use case outside their very specific role in narrow government functions, like crossing the border, or figuring out if you’re allowed to drive a car.
The UK already has citizen SSO that stretches across all digital government services, and has had that for a decade plus now. Although it’s not really attached your identity, it’s just a unified auth system so government departments don’t end up creating their own broken auth systems instead.
iamacyborg|2 months ago
I think you’ve been spending too much time on Twitter
varispeed|2 months ago
TacticalCoder|2 months ago
Make of that what you will but to me the net outflow is the canary in the coalmine.
The UK is headed for a dark future.
u_sama|2 months ago
anthem2025|2 months ago
[deleted]
goobatrooba|2 months ago
[deleted]
exasperaited|2 months ago
No it fucking doesn’t.
andyjohnson0|2 months ago
Vast? No, they really don't.
ascorbic|2 months ago
TSiege|2 months ago
impure-aqua|2 months ago
jjgreen|2 months ago
lijok|2 months ago
unknown|2 months ago
[deleted]
Etheryte|2 months ago
immibis|2 months ago
Beestie|2 months ago
Gotta hand it to them - "protecting the children" is a pretty good pretext.
SpaceManNabs|2 months ago
The one from yesterday was discussing how australia is banning social media for anyone under 16. Most comments were supportive because they hate social media.
A few comments were discussing how it is just a way to propagate more KYC.
xoa|2 months ago
At that point all the technical components exist to make this an ultra easy UI for parents. Require ISP WiFi routers at least to support VLANs and PPSKs, which ultra cheap gear can do nowadays no problem, and have an easy to GUI to "generate child password, restrict to [age bracket]", heck to even just put in a birthday and by default have it auto-increment access if a parent wants. Add some easy options for time-of-day restrictions etc, done. Now parents are in charge and no adult needs anything ever.
Now I highly doubt politicians are all being honest about full motivations here, clearly there are plenty of forces trying to use this issue as a wedge to go after rights in general. But at the same time parental concern is real, and non-technical people find it overwhelming. It'd be good if industries and community could proactively offer a working solution, that'd reduce the political salience a great deal. It's unfortunate the entire narrative has been allowed to go 100% backwards in approach.
btown|2 months ago
Once the baseline is established, the playbook becomes simple: Shift that age bracket up to the very moment when someone can vote. Make sure that every new voter spends all their formative years unable to access even basic resources on the struggles that marginalized groups go through, and the history of their existence; set the bars for the "whitelist" so high that one must toe the party line in every bit of messaging, and thus is effectively a list of propagandists whose businesses can be fined astronomically if they deviate. Take away the parent's choice, and make it mandatory to use routers that block the non-whitelisted TLDs for any device that doesn't cryptographically authenticate as being operated by an adult. Find ways to impose this on groups other than children (for instance, by making it illegal for criminals to access the non-whitelisted web, then greatly expanding that definition). All in the name of peace and tranquility.
If you want V for Vendetta, this is how you get V for Vendetta.
mschuster91|2 months ago
... only to the degree it hasn't been manufactured by tabloid media and Russian propaganda warfare, that is.
With every little news about local shootings, robberies, rapes, beatings, thefts, whatever not just making national, but in the worst case international headlines, one might think that Western countries are unsafe hellholes of the likes of actually legitimately failed states - despite criminality rates often being on record lows. Of course parents are going to be afraid for their children, and it's made worse by many Western countries financially only allowing for one, maximum two children.
On top of that, a lot of the panic is simply moral outrage. Porn and "trans grooming" it seems to be these days, I 'member growing up with the "Killerspiele" bullshit after some nutjob shot up a school in the early '00s. My parents grew up with the manufactured fear of reading too much as it was supposed to make you myopic. Again, all manufactured fear by organized groups aiming to rip our rights to pieces.
Parents should relax and rather teach their children about what can expect them on the Internet, how people might want to take advantage of them, and most importantly, that their children can always come to them when they feel something is going bad, without repercussions. When children think that they cannot show something to their parents, that is where the actual do-bad people have an in.
fidotron|2 months ago
Our governments have turned into the very thing they claimed to be opposing for decades. It's disgraceful.
iamacyborg|2 months ago
Their next-door neighbour is threatening war and their longtime ally has turned into an unreliable kook. It’s not all that surprising that countries are looking to bolster their defences.
parliament32|2 months ago
torified|2 months ago
God I'm sick of the constant attacks against online freedom.
God forbid anyone should ever have a private conversation.
Hizonner|2 months ago
The amendment from the same three people about requiring all phones to "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" strikes me as in the fringe whackjob range.
a2fz|2 months ago
burnt-resistor|2 months ago
azalemeth|2 months ago
LORD NASH [Tory, contactholmember@parliament.uk] BARONESS CASS [Crossbench / 'independent', rivisn@parliament.uk ("staff")] BARONESS BENJAMIN [Liberal Democrat - which particularly disappoints me – benjaminf@parliament.uk]
All three can be contacted by sending an email to contactholmember@parliament.uk using the proper form of address as detailed in https://members.parliament.uk/member/4270/contact
If you're reading this website and are either living in the UK or are a British citizen I strongly urge you to write a personalised and above all polite email stating with evidence why they are misguided. The "think of the children" brigade is strong – you may well be able to persuade these individuals why it is a bad idea.
pjc50|2 months ago
sph|2 months ago
fredoralive|2 months ago
don't you remember 2010?
ninalanyon|2 months ago
So how long will we have to wait before it dawns on them that VPNs are also used to circumvent IP address blocks in the UK, and other countries of course.
pksebben|2 months ago
I think the whole idea is that we don't have to wait, and that "it dawned on them" before they even wrote the draft law.
teeray|2 months ago
tick_tock_tick|2 months ago
I will say the EUs love affair with it is somewhat new (last 10-15 years or so).
burnt-resistor|2 months ago
torified|2 months ago
Bender|2 months ago
hexasquid|2 months ago
random9749832|2 months ago
Economy: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyp7v7r28yo
Youth unemployment: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/12/11/britains-you...
Health care: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/dec/11/nhs-bracing-...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crrkervnxvqo
kylecazar|2 months ago
lucb1e|2 months ago
Can't seem to link the section but down this page are some options that don't require that: https://mullvad.net/en/pricing
StanislavPetrov|2 months ago
unknown|2 months ago
[deleted]
casey2|2 months ago
or look at their personal data
or use behavior analytics to target minority groups as "risks" sending law enforcement to harass or kill them.
or store all their personal data on a 3rd party companies insecure servers
You have to start surveillance young, get them used to it early so they don't realize how bad it is!
ghm2199|2 months ago
My initial thought would it would be just making it super easy for their guardians to distribute and control device content. But let the control end at that echelon of power; Not even the local councils or schools should be given the power to regulate social media for kids to this extent IMO, let alone the govt
ElectroBuffoon|2 months ago
For some history and related standards, see Wikipedia:
PICS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_for_Internet_Content_...
POWDER https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_for_Web_Description_R...
ASACP/RTA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Sites_Advocatin...
The more "digi-ID so we are sure you are old enough, bitte" keeps been pushed, the clearer it's about tracking and not about children. No matter how much they love to frame it the other way around. Unless they want to admit they are total inepts.
rossriley|2 months ago
Admittedly on paper that means the Gov system would know which sites you were approved for, not logging that would require legislation to not store these logs.
w_for_wumbo|2 months ago
The encouraging part is that we are in control and it's easier to navigate with a system than to resist it, so the question becomes.
- How do we modify the incentives that are already in place to not result in the exploitation of children?
Because people generally make decisions for their best interest, we're in a dangerous situation where the incentives are for child exploitation.
An example would be: I need to feed my family I need to work to live I need to appease my boss to continue to work The boss has goals to meet We need to perform these actions to meet the goals There isn't time or space to consider the full consequences of this action When the impact to children is not considered by a change to a system, they inevitably reap the consequences of living in a system that never considered their welfare.
The children that grew up feeling out of control, and in a system not designed for them then seek to control the very system that formed them - not knowing that they're replicating the same harm that got them there.
This is a design cycle as I see it, if we don't look at it and understand it - then we will continue feeling powerless - while holding the reigns of our future in our hands.
I believe so much in the power of humanity - so I share this not with the idea that I have the answers, but that I am part of the collective that does.
stevefan1999|2 months ago
unknown|2 months ago
[deleted]
cynicalsecurity|2 months ago
But it's not just bigotry, unfortunately. They are trying to ban free usage of computers for the general public. They want to establish authoritarianism, at least some form of it.
outside1234|2 months ago
Havoc|2 months ago
encom|2 months ago
gorgoiler|2 months ago
stephen_g|2 months ago
They both want to go back to the days of billionare-controlled media setting and driving the narrative, because they know how to influence that (or in Labor's case, think they know but they always fail to, despite sucking up to the media). So they dispose the Internet and social media.
lunar_rover|2 months ago
abroszka33|2 months ago
IshKebab|2 months ago
popopo73|2 months ago
delfinom|2 months ago
postepowanieadm|2 months ago
stronglikedan|2 months ago
Kenji|2 months ago
[deleted]
greatgib|2 months ago
burnt-resistor|2 months ago
insane_dreamer|2 months ago
reenorap|2 months ago
wackget|2 months ago
31337Logic|2 months ago
YurgenJurgensen|2 months ago
nephihaha|2 months ago
tjpnz|2 months ago
theshrike79|2 months ago
I really don't get their reasoning here.
bilekas|2 months ago
tehjoker|2 months ago
andyjohnson0|2 months ago
I certainly agree. But its worth noting that only 92 of the 825 seats in the Lords are reserved for hereditary peers - the remainder are nominated by the (elected) leaders of the main political parties, or are appointed for non-political achievements (science, society, business, arts, etc.) There are also 26 Church of England bishops. Legislation to remove the hereditary peers is currently going through parliament.
There's plenty wrong with the HoL, but I think there's at least an argument to be made that the UK benefits from a parliamentary revising chamber that is less party-political than the Commons.
pjscott|2 months ago
The idea of a House of Lords does strike me as a bit odd, but it's not really the big deal it used to be.
raverbashing|2 months ago
(That is, none at all)
fidotron|2 months ago
The UK went culturally off the deep end a long time ago.
patrakov|2 months ago
YurgenJurgensen|2 months ago
ghxst|2 months ago
crest|2 months ago
semiquaver|2 months ago
This is not an enforceable law. It seems predicated on the notion that VPNs can only exist as a commercial product, but all you need is two computers connected to the internet.
morshu9001|2 months ago
alliao|2 months ago
iamacyborg|2 months ago
What the heck media are these folks consuming to have such a warped view of this country?
lordnacho|2 months ago
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/london-murder-rate-dr...
Then they say it's about knife crime. Where the UK also does better than the US.
https://www.euronews.com/2018/05/05/trump-s-knife-crime-clai...
bondarchuk|2 months ago
("(Redirected from Freedom of speech in the United Kingdom)" kind of funny innit)
StanislavPetrov|2 months ago
matheusmoreira|2 months ago
owisd|2 months ago
tick_tock_tick|2 months ago
kneel25|2 months ago
Razengan|2 months ago
"They're too stupid to have a say"
Same shit used against women in some countries.
rich_sasha|2 months ago
I think the research consensus is that the internet is a dangerous place for kids. And pragmatic life experience shows that as a parent, you can't control well what your kids have access to. While I think many of these laws are poorly implemented and unnecessarily endanger the free Internet, I think they are coming from a good place.
I think arguing that there should be no restrictions whatsoever is completely ignoring the negative societal impact of modern technology and is actually unpragmatic and counterproductive, because that impact is very real and people want to control it. They won't care about arguments about freedom that seem far fetched to them.
To me a much more fruitful discussion would be on how to control these things and how to ensure it doesn't become a creeping censorship mechanism. Simply saying "no" will mean people who care about free internet will be left on the side.
Because actually there is a lot one could do to reconcile these two standpoints:
- ensure privacy-preserving mechanisms are used for age verification
- ensure laws proactively proscribe freedom of internet outside of selected (age restricted) areas
- provide transparency laws that enable citizens to see all data collected on them, GDPR-style.
- pathways for citizens to appeal or request compensation for violations of privacy
- and crucially, prevent other terrible things in this area, like the demand I saw on a related thread that all mobile devices have an unremovable black-box software that censors all internet access.
Would I mind a provably privacy-preserving age check? Not really. And it's actually achievable, as opposed to simply attempting to veto this whole wave. Hackers like us no longer own the web, it has become a common good.
As a postscriptum, there's a ton of cynicism about "think of the children" and CSAM. I can well believe it's BS when politicians say it. Equally I don't take it as a given. I feel uncomfortable when my freedom to browse innocuous stuff shelters predators and gives 12 year olds access to SM porn. You're free to disagree, but it seems the world is moving on. You can shout at the clouds or try to find a compromise.
chrismatheson|2 months ago
Razengan|2 months ago
niggertopia|2 months ago
[deleted]
unknown|2 months ago
[deleted]
bobse|2 months ago
[deleted]
ravenical|2 months ago
okokwhatever|2 months ago
nisten|2 months ago
We all know where this is going, they're going to ban the one mathematical tool we have that gives us control over machines, encryption.
pjc50|2 months ago
richwater|2 months ago
Tor3|2 months ago
When that's said, there are forces in the EU as well which try stunts like this, kind of, but in the EU there are at least lots of countries and lots of opposing voices. In the UK the situation is different.
g947o|2 months ago
pavel_lishin|2 months ago
immibis|2 months ago
jonathanstrange|2 months ago
blitzar|2 months ago
drnick1|2 months ago
arminiusreturns|2 months ago
So for a long time, I traced most roads in the US back to London... (for example Star Chamber origins)...
After a while though, as I dug into the real history of banking, I realized when William of Orange was installed it was shortly after that the Bank of England was established to take them over the same way they later influenced us (Jekyll Island) to establish the Fed, the main trojan horse for a country being monetary countrol.
So I now understand just like the masons, or intel dudes, etc, many of them are just so compartmentalized they don't know what they are a part of. I now view the UK the same way.
So lets keep following the strings up the chain...
"You win battles by knowing the enemy's timing, and using a timing which the enemy does not expect." - Miyamoto Musashi