Prominent backbench MP Sarah Champion launched a campaign against VPNs previously, saying: “My new clause 54 would require the Secretary of State to publish, within six months of the Bill’s passage, a report on the effect of VPN use on Ofcom’s ability to enforce the requirements under clause 112.
"If VPNs cause significant issues, the Government must identify those issues and find solutions, rather than avoiding difficult problems.” And the Labour Party said there were “gaps” in the bill that needed to be amended.
Funny how its always so important to ban useful and empowering things for citizens in the name of safety but someone we can’t ban business practices that cause mass extinctions, change the climate, impoverish the working class or kill enough of us to only be seen as a statistic instead of people. If they actually cared about safety, they would be banning the things that cause mass suffering and death, not VPNs. We should be opposed to these kinds of bans on the principle that it further disempowered us so we are less able to deal with the threats of all the mass suffering and death that they refuse to keep us safe from.
Yeah, businesses will not accept this. Remote work and remote connections rely on VPN for ALL KINDS OF SHIT. If you must adhere to some kinds of government compliance, it is even MANDATED BY THE FUCKING GOVERNMENT. Explain to me how the hell that is going to just poof and not cause all kinds of problems.
Lol what is going on over there. The UK is becoming more dystopian by the day.
People are “at risk”… of what? What a terrible article to not even clarify what the risk is. Because it sounds to me like the government is who put those people at risk by making them go look for solutions to a draconian policy.
To me it looks like every government in the world is pro-surveillance and anti-privacy; they’re just all at different stages of depth into those ideologies done in practice. Privacy and anti-surveillance against foreign governments and corporations, pro for domestic. And I continue decade after decade to say that you should fear your domestic government far more than any foreign unless you’re a country that may have US and allies bombing/droning and paratrooping your country. Countries with a modern enough military mostly have to worry about their own government rather than foreign governments
If VPNs cause significant issues, the Government must identify those issues and find solutions, rather than avoiding difficult problems
Your law is the difficult problem you daft cunt
this is obviously such a dumpster fire that I can’t help but wonder, “When will they realize how dumb this is and back out of it?”
then i remember that Brexit happened
fuckin stubbornness is a national identity for you blokes innit
Even the CCP can’t stop VPNs… good luck UK
Labour has already spoken out and said they will make no attempts to ban VPNs.
The linked story has been updated. The headline now reads:
Labour rules out VPN ban in UK but issues warning to UK households
Labour won’t ban the use of Virtual Private Networks
And the story begins:
Labour has ruled out a possible VPN ban after reports thousands of UK households were at risk following the Online Safety Act kicking in under the government. Labour Party Tech Secretary Peter Kyle has revealed that the Government is “not considering a VPN ban” - after reports in Guido Fawkes suggested it was possible.
How is this even feasible? People need them for work, business, school etc. The UK is going nuts with the attempts to regulate the internet.
You cant ban vpns, its easy for tech people to set up a vpn server on any server on the internet and connect to it. Wireguard for example, super simple.
“Stop defending yourself, and let me hit you” vibes.
If they outlaw VPNs then all internet-connected businesses will flee and everyone will just move to the dark net. Then you’ve got a whole other problem.
These ancient tyrants are in over their heads.
Selfishly, I think this is great for I2P/Snowflake/Tor. The incoming legitimate traffic helps to protect its most vulnerable users.
Honest question but what makes you think that would happen? Do most businesses use VPNs?
VPNs are one of the core security measures of all large companies.
VPNs aren’t just a “hide your IP” tool, they’re a way of giving someone access to an organisation’s internal network. Sensitive servers such as databases, wikis, scheduling tools etc don’t have publicly exposed IPs, they only have connections that are accessible from inside that VPN. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_in_depth_(computing)
Not only that, but they are crucial for network security. VPNs allow all network traffic (with a few necessary exceptions) to be routed through the company’s network and benefit from its security measures, mainly monitoring traffic for suspicious and malicious behaviour. Without it, finding compromised PCs is much harder and enforcing company policies regarding web use would be impossible outside the office.
I have never worked for a company that didn’t utilize VPNs.
I work in consulting. I have a VPN for my company and also for each client
Damn near every business uses VPN technology. They literally cannot exist in the modern world without it. It would be incredibly expensive and impractical to do without.
I have no less than 7 VPNs installed on my work laptop, and I work for one single company.
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The UK has long championed writing legislative checks that their emaciated state infrastructure can’t cash.
If they do outlaw it will likely be banned solely for non-business use for this reason alone.
If only I could start my own business….
become a sole trader with no assets, no expenses but still a business. Sorted!
“Hey! Stop using well known workarounds to my idiot demands! Surely this is brand new technology that no one could have known about!”
