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Utah first state to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs — law goes into effect, designed to prevent bypassing age checks (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 3 points 6 months ago* (5 children)

You can easily make VPN's effectively illegal. You could make them require age verification for example, or you could ban commercial VPN's and only allow self-hosted ones. They could also do what Utah did and make it so that you effectively can't access any websites with a VPN, because the site would be liable for any VPN users accessing the site.

The idea that the government can't ban VPN's is giving us a false sense of security. They can at the very least completely undermine them.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (4 children)

    You can call VPNs illegal, but you can't enforce it.

    You could make them require age verification for example, or you could ban commercial VPN's and only allow self-hosted ones.

    Neither is enforceable. You can theoretically detect VPN traffic, but you can't tell if it's commercial or not. Even the detectable part will no longer be true if you make VPNs illegal, as providers will work towards "indetectability". You can have a list of known IPs, but unless the entire world follows you in your ban, that is pointless.

    They could also do what Utah did and make it so that you effectively can't access any websites with a VPN

    That law existing is more of a demonstration than an actual law, as it is also unenforceable. Sure, you can have a list of known IPs, but that's definitely not reliable and easy to work around.

    Most laws about the internet are unenforceable unless you simply turn it off. That's why piracy is still an "issue" despite it costing rights owners a gigantic amount of money and therefore not lacking incentive to deal with. That's why even China and Russia, who are trying to control their network as much as possible, are still unable to enforce their VPN restrictions properly. Even if the US turned fully fascist they wouldn't be able to enforce a VPN ban.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Neither is enforceable.

    They are enforceable. In the first case they can ban transactions to the VPN and ban the website from all ISP's. In the second case they can just ban transactions to Mullvad and should Proton not comply with the ban to Proton too.

    It's not about banning people from using the VPN, it's about scaring away the VPN providers.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    There are hundreds of VPN providers. People looking to circumvent bans where VPNs are banned are not using mainstream providers. It's only enforceable if the VPN company is in a country that will care to enforce your ban. Most of them are not.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    I'm trying to find a rebuttal to that but I got nothing, and it finally makes sense to me why the government isn't banning VPN's.

    Currently most major VPN's respond to legal requests from the government. If the government chooses to ban VPN's, then people will change to VPN's that won't respond to legal requests. That would leave the government with less power to police the internet, not more.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago*

    Exactly, that is why authoritarian countries trying to exert absolute control on their internet are still failing!

    There is even a category of VPN providers who (directly) collect absolutely no information from you and accept all kind of payment methods, some not traceable or at the very least not blockable. So even if they do respond to government requests... They have nothing to give.

    Controlling the internet is a very delicate task and that's why laws are always tiptoeing around it. There is a sweet spot where you control just enough without inciting people to go pay shady services that you have zero control over

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