It's unfortunately no longer enough to force websites to check your government-issued ID before you can access certain content, because politicians have now discovered that people are using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to protect their privacy and bypass these invasive laws. Their solution? Entirely ban the use of VPNs.

Following the same legislative and narrative pattern as the EU for “Chat Control”, similar laws and rhetoric are now cropping up in the US. The narrative is “save the children from porn” but the action is censorship, mass surveillance, and the elimination of privacy on the Internet.

As of this writing, Wisconsin lawmakers are escalating their war on privacy by targeting VPNs in the name of “protecting children” in A.B. 105/S.B. 130. It’s an age verification bill that requires all websites distributing material that could conceivably be deemed “sexual content” to both implement an age verification system and also to block the access of users connected via VPN. The bill seeks to broadly expand the definition of materials that are “harmful to minors” beyond the type of speech that states can prohibit minors from accessing—potentially encompassing things like depictions and discussions of human anatomy, sexuality, and reproduction.

Wisconsin’s bill has already passed the State Assembly and is now moving through the Senate. If it becomes law, Wisconsin could become the first state where using a VPN to access certain content is banned. Michigan lawmakers have proposed similar legislation that did not move through its legislature, but among other things, would force internet providers to actively monitor and block VPN connections. And in the UK, officials are calling VPNs "a loophole that needs closing.

    • SeeMarkFly@lemmy.mlEnglish
      35·
      2 months ago

      I know governments work slow but there guys are still trying to figure out if freeing the slaves was a good idea.

  • Arghblarg@lemmy.caEnglish
    72·
    2 months ago

    At some point we’ll just have to tunnel IP over DNS, and then they can’t block traffic without destroying the entire internet. Not that it’ll dissuade them.

  • tate@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    50·
    2 months ago

    Wisconsin already blocks access to all goverment websites if you use a VPN. I can’t even check the garbage collection schedule for my town. I always thought it was this misguided concept that they thought only “hackers” would want to be anonymous. It seems they are really working for the data brokers, who don’t want anyone to be anonymous.

    • tuff_wizard@aussie.zoneEnglish
      91·
      2 months ago

      Sounds like a good time to deploy a bunch of small raspberry pi vpn nodes at local libraries and other free wifi spots. I don’t know enough about ip to know if they can track you past that first hop

    • OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      2 months ago

      Could it simply be that your VPN puts you in a region which Wisconsin doesn’t want to provide access? So if your current VPN server is in Vancouver, maybe Wisconsin blocks traffic from outside of WI or the US, because why should/would any legit “Vancouver” person need access to Wisconsin data?

      • mjr@infosec.pubEnglish
        3·
        2 months ago

        Could be a Wisconsin resident away on a trip longer than intended, wants to check schedules before deciding to ask a friend to drag some of their bins to the kerb and back?

        What’s the benefit to WI in denying them access?

  • Bunbury@feddit.nlEnglish
    35·
    2 months ago

    Soooo… screw the network of a bunch of companies I guess, lol. I have to use my work’s VPN while working from home, but the way they set it up I also have to use it while working at the office. This is far from a unique setup over here. If this happens to be the same in Wisconsin I have some bad news for them.

    • Elvith Ma'for@feddit.orgEnglish
      17·
      2 months ago

      That’s basically any modern network. There is no more trivial “inside our network” vs. “outside on the internet”. Networks are segmented on a need-to-know principle. You can access some information from the public internet. Some other things can be accessed from the internet, but only on corporate devices, if your user AND device is whitelisted. And then you have one or more VPNs on top of that for more sensitive stuff. Also those VPNs may be “dynamic” in the sense that it may also be dependent on the user, device and authentication method what is currently accessible over that VPN connection.

    • neclimdul@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16·
      2 months ago

      Also schools. My kids state issued laptops use vpns to connect to the schools networks as well as in a true irony limit what sites they can access.

      It’s actually so limiting it’s nearly impossible to print the required assignments on a printer in our home but that’s a different rant.

  • Lemminary@lemmy.worldEnglish
    30·
    2 months ago

    Lawmakers Have No Idea What They’re Doing

    Sounds like a headline for literally every issue regarding technology.

  • tidderuuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
    30·
    2 months ago

    Porn websites should just start blocking access for any lawmakers that are okay with this legislative garbage.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    19·
    2 months ago

    As usual. Our government, your government, totally clueless about how the internet works or what it actually is. And with all the money they waste every day, there seems to be no cent left to get some professional who could explain things on a politicians mental level. We’ve got people who successful teach computers to seniors, maybe politicians should hire some…

    • stormeuh@lemmy.worldEnglish
      91·
      2 months ago

      I think this is mostly a symptom of the gerontocracy. Most elected officials have not grown up with computers, which is already likely to make them incurious about them. Couple that with being in office so long, likely developing a very high opinion of themselves that they know best. I would guess a significant minority is actively hostile to learning anything about computers, so you can hire any professional to explain stuff with baby talk, it won’t work on them. Combine that with the rest of the technologically illiterate politicians just being indifferent, and you get this kind of policy.

  • DaMummy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    278·
    2 months ago

    There’s a genocide going on. It’s not the porn degenerates, it’s the moral religious people. Don’t push this garbage onto children. At least wait until they’re 25 and their brain is fully developed before you teach them that women are the problem, that little boys should be fondled by grown men, and that it’s OK to commit a genocide against the people who pray to a different sky wizards than you.

  • Railcar8095@lemmy.worldEnglish
    17·
    2 months ago

    My home network is all under Mullvad for a few months now, and I’ve noticed that recently a lot of pages block it. I just get a 403 error and I need to disable it to access. Honestly I expect this to happen more and more, which is BS.

    • imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      4·
      2 months ago

      Is it due to geo-blocking?

      I have noticed that some sites would load my local language version even if I point out original site. E.g. southpark.cc.com would stubbornly redirect to southpark.de no matter how you tried to trick it. And, of course, some content on some sites would also report that is is unavailable in my region.

  • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    13·
    2 months ago

    They understand what they’re doing. They’re treating the problem as a black box - they want to decide what you can do in the field where they are strong, making laws and rules as the (in their piss cockroach opinion) dominant apes in the crowd. They are breaking the technical possibility for you to avoid that. They don’t see a problem with breaking it for everyone, because if some use they need as well is broken so, they can make an exception for themselves, it’s in the domain of making rules too, and they can make punishments so gruesome that nobody will bother except for mafia and law enforcement, just like with heroine.

    And the answer doesn’t lie in protecting VPNs or making technical means to avoid them further, by using plentiful possible information channels in the standards comprising the Internet. The answer lies in dipping them face into their own shit and saying “don’t do that again or I will kill you”. Because it’s a social, not technical, problem. It can be reduced to unauthorized people telling you what to do and you obeying.

    • pulsewidth@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      Or… They ban VPNs and overnight the VPN providers start offering cheap VPS services that can run a self-managed VPN over them, or proxies, or tor exit nodes, or Wireguard/Tailscale exit nodes, or… <The list goes on indefinitely and will be added to as needed by users>.

      You can’t ban people running private servers and routing encrypted data through them unless you want to shut down 90% of the internet.

    • BlackJerseyGiant@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      2 months ago

      Next on the list for a ban. They came for my neighbors ID, and I said nothing, then they came for my neighbors VPN, and an I did nothing, and now they are coming for me on I2P, and there is no one left to speak for me…

    • Psythik@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      I thought L2P was just for torrents. How do I use it with my internet connection? Does it cost money?

      • MissingGhost@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        I2P is for whatever people put on it. It’s all the Internet services that already can exist, specifically behind a piece of software such as i2pd for example. It’s free, just setup i2p software on a computer. Then you can make some local services visible to it, for example a web server.