I will disagree on the RAM scanning being easier. It is my opinion that the weakest link here is the password store.

The security hole here is a password management system that can work without external secret. It is shocking that this is still common practice and that people use them.

Chrome's handling is barely more secure. A compromised device will have a much easier time reading Chrome's encrypted store than scanning your RAM to find passwords.

Remember that if you don't need to input a password to open the store, then anything with access to your device can also read it.

Wether it's encrypted in your RAM or not barely makes any difference in how difficult the task is.

The only solution is: Browsers should require a password. Or even better: Use a dedicated, properly secured password manager.

Or simply... Make it encrypted with a password. That simple.

Yeah, I can't believe I'm defending Microsoft but that's probably what they meant. No browser password saving feature is safe if your device is compromised.

Use a proper encrypted password manager

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

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.

Again?! Isn't Iran supposed to be vaporized three times over by now?

Eh. To be honest it indeed does not matter much. Scanning your RAM for passwords is much harder than simply reading them off the browsers files. Sure, it is encrypted and the key is not necessarily on your computer, but remember that if the software can decrypt your passwords without you inputting a password or similar, then anything with access to your device can as well.

Don't use your browser's password manager.

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.

You can't make VPNs illegal. There is a lot of infrastructure dependent on VPNs.

I don't know how it is done on the US, but it'll always be samples, of course. Which does not make it a useless result at all, statistics on a population sample can be true for the full population if the sample is well done.

Typically polling agencies will not pick people at random to answer their questions. There is always criteria they respect to have a valid sample. It is of course not an exact science, but done properly and transparently (that's where I don't know if the US does it right) it is very powerful.

It does. It reflects the general population's approval and therefore affects the decision making of politicians looking for reelection.