UK PEOPLE: this is REALLY IMPORTANT.

[highlandlawyer@mastodon.social]

@Uilebheist @cstross @capriciousday So clerical staff will be required to use a separate computer system to the fee earners, since some of them may be 16 or 17?

And yes, it is IngSoc we're talking about.

[fonant@social.vivaldi.net]

Defining a "VPN" will be extremely difficult, but that's not my point.

My point is that it is impossible to block access to VPNs, and equally impossible to ban them.

This is a mathematical certainty. We can't un-learn how to have securely encrypted communications.

[jaawerth@functional.cafe]

@Nicovel0 @dan @cstross

"Did you pass the underage VPN ban?"
"Sure did, boss! Required federated identity on every *nix host accessible from the UK, real impossible just like you asked!"

[ahltorp@mastodon.nu]

@oschonrock @cstross @Fonant @PeterSommerlad One reason for a Twitter ban is that it would then be much more difficult for people to excuse their presence there. And for people not wanting to be there but feel pressured to, to get an excuse to leave.

[petealexharris@mastodon.scot]

@HighlandLawyer @Fonant @david_chisnall @cstross

Exactly this.

A bad law isn't one that states its own intention to be abused, it's one that doesn't include specific concrete measures to prevent abuse, because the intent to abuse will surely come along soon enough, like it always has.

[ahltorp@mastodon.nu]

@Fonant @cstross @david_chisnall One should design a society so that there is as little as possible for the people in power to grab on to once it becomes a police state. A legislation process that only considers fair weather is really bad, and the weather already seems kind of cloudy.

[hypostase@bsd.network]

@oschonrock

A little sarcastic, yes.

But I think it'll be more than just the "smart" ones, I think the kids'll share.

As you say some will get hurt, but I'm not convinced that the numbers will be any different from what they would have been without intervention.

Just as with pretty much every "tech" problem, effective intervention for harm reduction needs to be social, but nobody will actually fund the workers needed to do that.

@cstross

[ret@furry.engineer]

@Fonant @cstross @david_chisnall actually it's one unfortunate incident or altercation in the street or false report or log interpretation error or mistaken identity or... or... or... etc away.

[pikesley@mastodon.me.uk]

@cstross I have a fleet of devices in the field that communicate back to my infrastructure over VPN links. Do those devices now have to prove they're over 16? Do both ends? Does anybody in charge have any fucking idea what they're doing?

[dryak@mstdn.science]

@cstross Reason number "a zillion and some" why privacy, etc. is better served using something decentralized like Tor, rather than VPNs companies that can be forced to ID-check UK users.

[bob_zim@infosec.exchange]

@oschonrock @PeterSommerlad @cstross This gets at a particularly dumb part of “banning VPNs”: the VPN is just the transport mechanism the proxy service uses.

No, we’re not a VPN, we’re a SOCKS proxy.

No, SOCKS is banned now, so we shut that down. We do offer a QUIC proxy, though.

And so on.

[drwho@masto.hackers.town]

@dan @jaawerth @cstross @Nicovel0 It will include whatever they deem it does for whatever purpose they see fit. Even Citrix and VNC if they think they need to.

[ulrich_the_elder@thecanadian.social]

@cstross @oschonrock @Fonant @PeterSommerlad Perhaps try putting a labour MP in charge of the labour party instead of a fucking tory.... It failed with Blair and it is failing with Starmer.

[oschonrock@mastodon.social]

@Ulrich_the_elder @cstross @Fonant @PeterSommerlad TBF... Blair was better..

He communicated better. So he managed to achieve more things that a labour govt should..

Notably in education for him..

But yeah he fucked it up by being a religious nutcase going on crusades in the middle east...(Very Tory) Among other things

[wokstation@universeodon.com]

@cstross like I said ages ago, licensing VPN users is the intent. You'll need a "good" reason to obtain one, otherwise your isp will block #vpn traffic.

[sophieschmieg@infosec.exchange]

@cstross it also means banning anyone under age from owning/renting a server in a different country, with very much the same implications for people over the age limit, since setting up a VPN endpoint is reasonably easy enough for your average technically inclined 16 year old. Oh and also, it outlaws TOR, if taken to its logical conclusion.

[cstamp@mastodon.social]

@cstross Haven't adults clued into the fact that trying to force kids into boxes never works out? On top of the privacy issues.

[fooker@infosec.exchange]

@cstross as a kid growing up in europe and taught again and again about the resistance, I'd always thought that my lack of physical prowess would mean I'd be mostly useless if it ever happened again. But now that it's rearing it's head all I can hear is my mother saying "you'll never amount to anything spending all your days on that computer". Look at me now mom, my knowledge may just save the free world.

[rrb@infosec.exchange]

@sophieschmieg @cstross When I was a kid and somebody would ask my parents if I was old enough for a given book, they would say: "If he is innocent, he won't understand and it won't hurt him. If he isn't, and understands it, it won't hurt him."

[jbqueru@floss.social]

@cstross Soon you'll need to get your age verified before you can use an age-verification service.