Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Out of (scant) interest, and maybe to clear something up . . . did you try to buy the knife Hugh, or just put it in the basket and not follow on to checkout?

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Just put it in the basket…

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Just asked him and he said that the issue about age verification arose when he tried to check out.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Well this was always going to happen eventually wasn’t it?


But basically the site 4Chan (OK, fine, not the most salubrious site on the internet), have been fined some £20k by OFCOM plus £100 per day until they comply for not having any sort of age verification, and/or coughing up their (non existent) ‘illegal harms risk assessment'.

Except 4Chan’s lawyers have stated they have no intention of paying, will refuse to pay, OFCOM and the UK Government can basically ‘do one’.

So what happens now? Does OFCOM apply to the Courts to block them? Well that won’t go down well and I suspect that 'the Donald' will have something to say.

I suspect nothing will happen and the OSA will be exposed as the complete toothless paper-tiger that it is. Yes it might well shut down a few minor sites, steam train enthusiast, knitting sites which have a forum and so technically fall under the OSA umbrella, but are far too small to have a formal risk assessment or be able to age verify people.

But there we go, eventually OFCOM will publish figures showing that they ‘successfully shut down x hundred of offending sites - they’ll be the aforementioned steam train enthusiast sites - while the real problems are left running.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

I use an Xbox one as a media player for plex, Netflix and prime and i am being pestered to prove my age by microsoft via system messages.

It just proves that the implementation of the online safety bill is not understood at all and that the designers of the system need to go back to the drawing board. That is of course after they leave infants and progress to high school.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Personally I wish all of them would, and show what a joke this act is.

Atm, I suspect some other sites will, as they begin to realise the UK simply has no jurisdiction over them.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

A representative of the company that owns Pornhub was on the news earlier and she said that visits to porn sites had plummeted.

She went on to say that they, as a company, always comply with the local jurisdiction of each country that they operate in and that, as a result of the OSA, people are:either no longer using porn sites, were using a VPN or are accessing porn sites abroard that don't comply with UK law. Though Ofcom are currently investigating such sites, she is concerned that, in the meantime, these sites may have inappropriate or illegal pornography available to view.

Finally, she said that they didn't have a problem with measures to protect children, but that the age verification system wasn't working because people were reluctant to provide personal details to a porn site that they didn't necessarily trust to keep their details secure or who could be hacked.

To deal with this she suggested that all phones should be sold without the ability to access adult sites, until the owner had proved that they were 18 or over.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

No, visits directly identifiable as being from the UK had plummeted.
Everyone is now using VPNs, which get logged as being from somewhere other than the UK.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Exactly, although the clowns in Government keep saying that "Banning VPN's is not off the table" and whilst they could do it, it would be political suicide and would guarantee that Labour never get elected again.

As it is I have just wiped my Unraid Server after backing up some stuff on it, and once that server is backup, the Dell R430 server I have is going to have Proxmox installed on it, with multiple self hosted things such as VPN, Router, Password Manager, "Cloud" storage for phone, Family Image hosting etc etc.

I am also getting closer to ripping windows off my pc, it's getting more and more annoying.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Not true. Directives had to be passed in each of the member countries, but Regulations automatically applied. That is why there had to be a "cut and paste" of EU regulations into UK law, because they weren't part of UK law beforehand. The only part of UK law was that EU regulations automatically applied.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Yes, and how exactly was the EU regulations applied into UK law?


Parliament took the regulation and made an Act of Parliament...


So they were still making the legislation, or someone else had been given the powers to use secondary legislation.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Where have you come across this? The only comment that i've seen from the Government said exactly the opposite :confused:

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Multiple places have reported on it, also reporting that the useless government want to expand it to cover more things.

As I have said before, welcome to North Korea.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/21...n-table-online

https://www.thenational.scot/news/na...online-safety/

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/poli...-b1255731.html

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/no...152722538.html

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/new...e-vpn-32152789

https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/uk-govt-a...owsing-habits/

Just as I have said another reason to make sure you get a self hosted VPN etc, not only will you avoid a lot of the stupid age checks, but you will be able to actually access the internet without giving this useless government more and more information.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

It does make you wonder why, over the past couple of years, many browsers have, or are starting to, included a 'built in' VPN.

What did they know (or guess) was happening long before, and what were they hoping you'd 'circumvent' by using the VPN?

:shrug: :naughty: :D

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

There's many reasons why people would use a VPN, but if it's for privacy reasons, people should satisfy themselves that the VPN provider is trustworthy as they will gain access to everything they do on the internet.

---------- Post added at 14:23 ---------- Previous post was at 14:22 ----------

Thanks. I personally doubt that the Government would ban VPN's for both technical & political reasons.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

I was chatting to an engineer at a datacenter in Manchester last week who had heard that there had been meetings between Government ministers, ISP's and the big datacenters such as Equinox on options to limit or ban VPN's within the UK. It's a rumor but i would not put it past this Government who have put more surveillance on the public than any other Government.

My question to those who requested and got the online safety bill, what is there next target for the public to have to endure.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Sod it. Let's just ban the internet altogether.

We'd have to go back to proper newspapers, libraries and books, thriving High Streets with shops, people cooking food at home, and IMO a massive boost to education and social welfare without mobile phones in everyone's face 24/7.

Postal service delivering actual letters, music shops selling CD's and Vinyl Albums, no more gigantic Data Centers being built, etc etc


oh, and no more Virgin price rises :D

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

No, whatever else, there will always be Virgin price rises!

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

:D

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Mr K would love that!

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Probably not, who would he troll then ? :angel:

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

It's the Tories who passed the Snoopers Charter and the Online Safety Act. But yes, Labour are no better.

I doubt they'll ban VPNs, too many knock-on effects.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Pornography featuring choking & strangulation is to be made illegal.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Good, however making it illegal will not stop it. there are lots of actions that are illegal but there will always be those that still do it.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

They could do but I doubt they will.


And yes, although it was the Tories who introduced the OSA Labour have had plenty of opportunity to repeal it, if they did not agree with it (not sure what happened when it was voted on). The fact they haven't done that, even when there have been petitions (none of these ever really achieve anything though) etc to show how unpopular it is, shows they too agree with it.


Honestly I think the idea that sites should have responsibility for content which is posted on it, particularly around trolling/bullying, harm, children etc is a good one in principle. But none of it accounts for the fact that the internet is global, the UK can't realistically pass a law and expect sites in places like the US, Canada, Botswana to abide by it, and even the whole concept of "what's a UK site" is a bit fluffy, especially considering most of the content which could apply is on Meta, X, Reddit etc as opposed to smaller forums like this (which I don't think is even hosted in the UK these days).


I don't like 4chan at all, but their response to the whole thing is totally as expected, in reality there's no enforcement the government or Ofcom or whoever can have on that position, other than ordering UK ISPs to block them, and that has worked well before - most people know how and have the access to evade them.


The only watertight way is to ban ISPs and then set up a state ISP and have them block VPNs. That would be something you'd likely see out of somewhere totalitarian though, like North Korea. I think even China allows VPNs.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

When the Act was making it's way through Parliament, it had all party support.

A further country (Italy) will shortly be introducing age checks in a weeks time, but it's going to be done differently to the UK:

https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-pr...adult-websites

Looks like more & more countries are doing this, so anyone using one of the countries that are doing so will have to change their VPN country setting.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Indeed, we are hosted in Germany, and have been for a while.

There will always be plenty of choices of countries that dont.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

What if it’s doing it to yourself ? Asking for a friend

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Whatever floats your boat!

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

When are you going to give me my orange back ?

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Not 100% sure how many will get the reference.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

When I get my bin liner.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Ok ...... back to the topic please.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Report that Ofcom are using a third party to monitor VPN's as their use has soared since the age verification began:

https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-pr...-act-heres-how

Is there a way to stop them being used to access porn sites, I can't see how they could be banned altogether as people use them to access their company websites when working from home etc.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

quote from above link . .

oh, bit of a catch 22 there I feel, especially as they'll be checking the useage by underage children . . won't they?

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Sounds a bit like blustering to me, the point of VPNs is they are private, you cant just "monitor" them.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Does sound like a degree of handwaving is going on here - the lack of any specifics, the use of fairly meaningless buzzwords etc.

Since ISPs by law have to keep records of which sites you connect to and when, they will know that an individual home/account (they can’t say who in the house it was) connected to a known VPN endpoint; after that they are blind. As you rightly say the ‘P’ in VPN stands for ‘private’.

After connecting to a VPN, where you go from there, what sites you visit, what you download etc. is completely hidden.

At best, all OFCOM can say is, "we have noticed and ‘monitored’ an x% increase in traffic to known VPN endpoints all located abroad.” And that’s it.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

On what do you base this ? Because as far as I can tell, its not true.

https://decoded.legal/blog/2021/06/m...sites-i-visit/

Also, again as far as I can tell, any that do only record Source IP/Port, Destination IP/Port, Protocol, and size of data transferred (this is pretty much all thats available to them anyway). VPNs do not all use the same protocol, they can use tcp or udp (or both), just the same as http/https/dns etc also use tcp or udp, so you cannot reliably tell if the traffic is a VPN or not - at best you could try and guess from the port numbers as some default to using specific port numbers.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Between the lines, I’d suggest they’re monitoring the connection endpoint rather than the traffic itself . So probably a dictionary list of known urls/Ip’s combining with ports , using ssl vpn on 443 reduces it to known ip or urls unless they’re mitm the traffic (which they’re not) sorry preaching to the knowledgeable!

https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-pr...-act-heres-how

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

The parents arrested for their WhatsApp messages have been paid £20k damages by the police who massively over-reacted at the time.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gz1qy30v5o

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Interesting video that explains what i see as the flaws in the Online Safety Bill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F27n0kvBGfE

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

This is insane as well.

Seriously, couldn't one officer not review the messages and go 'actually, what the hell?'

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Across the country, certain senior officers have clearly decided that hurty words on the internet are a priority and have instructed their subordinates to act accordingly. There doesn’t appear to be much consistency to how and where it’s applied. I wonder whether some of them hit on it as a wheeze for improving their detection rates.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

About time he shut up, he's not the spokesperson for everyone.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Some seem to think regulation is going too far and some seem to think it's not going far enough.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Much like the Lawrence’s, the death of a child is horrific for any parent, under any circumstance but them some channel that grief for a cause and then relentlessly pursue it. To unhealthy degrees.

Whilst we can sympathise initially, when their crusade starts to go beyond the bounds of the reasonable they soon lose our sympathy

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

As has happened with many 'crusades' in the past few years . . even the subject of this thread is seeing it.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

It’s also not very effective and impacts on free speech as well. It should be focussed on the actual problem and the people that have been so badly affected by these problem sites. The legislation should not impact on adults, given the reason for it is safety of children in terms of what they can access.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Two interesting observations;

Firstly https://cybernews.com/tech/pornhub-a...ewership-drop/

OK so Pornhub has seen an (apparently) massive drop in traffic since the introduction of the OSA, but has it? I wonder if there has been a corresponding massive increase in traffic from, say, Scandinavia, which has a number of VPN endpoints?

Alternatively, Pornhub and its sister companies have implemented some kind of age verification as required. I wonder if that just hasn’t had the effect of pushing people to some, let us say, 'less scupluous’ sites, who may host some far more harmful* material?

And then we have this; https://www.theguardian.com/society/...t-commissioner

Which does, on the face of it, seem to be claiming that the OSA has been a complete failure, in fact has worsened the situation. Or that they are pushing for even more regulatory powers? What do you think?

I am reminded of the 'Law of Unintended Consequences’!

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Remember, what happens in porn hub stays in porn hub :erm:

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

I've always gone with "be careful what you wish for" ;)

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

How can it not, possibly impact adults?

Say I set up a website, say ‘filthyporn’R’us.net’. I may expend time and money trying to make sure that it only hosts content made by consenting adults, and user-generated content is checked and double-checked before being released.

Fine, but I am now required to ensure that anyone viewing is over 18; how, how can I do this?

I need to make some kind of check, all I can say is that a particular connection is being made, I have no idea who is actually sitting at the other end. So I absolutely have to inconvenience everyone, just to be sure.

Or I don’t, I simply shift my site to another jurisdiction and don’t bother to do any of this!

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

I just had to verify my age on my Xbox account. Which I've had since about 2005/6, if I didn't I would have lost access to online chat and messaging etc. Frankly ridiculous. The main Microsoft email account it is linked to has been mine since the mid 90s.

You would think my dob and how long I've had the account would have been enough to suffice without me having to prove it via selfie or passport scan.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

"You would think my dob and how long I've had the account would have been enough to suffice without me having to prove it via selfie or passport scan.”

Yes you might think that, but a consequence of the Law is that providers have to ‘play safe’, just in case. Sorry, you have been inconvenienced!

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Play it safe, lol. Having a microsoft/Hotmail account for literally 30 years and my dob should not mean my age needs to be checked 'just in case'.

This is why people think this whole bill is ridiculous.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Wouldn't work, if the site is available in the UK it is covered by the OSA & age verification would be required.

---------- Post added at 00:29 ---------- Previous post was at 00:23 ----------

Ofcom say that age verification is required where appropriate, how this is achieved is up to each site owner.

Your DOB could easily have been made up, so means nothing. However, Ofcom have previously confirmed that the length of time someone has had an account can be used to verify that someone is over 18, so you're correct in saying that this could have been used for age verification.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

I think you missed the point, again. If its in another jurisdiction, you dont need to care what the OSA says.
Short of blocking the site, which is very unlikely, no one can really do much about it, if you ignore the requirement.

Even blocking would fail, torrent sites have been blocked for years, they are all still happily functioning, and in regular use.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

This is the very issue with the stupid way it's been implemented, once innocent people begin to get caught up in the widely cast 'net of consequences', the repercussions become harder to manage . . often leading to even more 'illegal' ways to circumvent the aforementioned incompetence of the original law

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

You don't need illegal ways, a VPN (legal) can easily circumvent it.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

I was setting out the legal position, as that's what I believe was being referred to, people could choose to break UK law, but they must be prepared to face any consequences that may arise as a result.

I was told earlier this week that Ofcom (and the Advertising Standards Authority) are now using AI to find problematic sites.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

So they are using AI to do very thing they want to stop ? Classic. :sleep:

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Yes, but that was my point, hypothetically I decide to move my site out of the UK’s jurisdiction, then I can quite happily break the UK law, and, realistically, there won't be any consequences at all.

Well OK, OFCOM might get a Court order to instruct the large ISPs to block access to my site - but see how well that worked in the case of, say 'The Pirate Bay', blocked by Court order so completely impossible to access in the UK - you think?

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

I don't miss the heady days of Napster . . 3 weeks to download a file that turns out to be something completely different to what you wanted.

Not that I still do that torrent download stuff . . . apart from the occasional Unix distro to experiment with on old laptops

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Politicians have said that various methods would be used to circumvent this tactic eg forbidding UK hosts from hosting such sites, forbidding British advertisers or ad agencies from supplying them with ad revenue/services, a way to starve them to death if you like.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

No, no, please understand that this is simply ‘sound-bites’; ‘forbidding UK hosts from hosting sites.

Yes that’s the whole point, these sites won’t be hosted in the UK site - so irrelevant.

Now, your second point which seems to be ’non-compliant sites won’t be able to collect money from the UK and hence won’t bother to supply a service to the UK’? Well, OK fine, except it is trivially easy to bypass. Also, do you seriously think this will happen?

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

No idea, that'll be down to Ofcom/politicians.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

The first discussion in this programme is with the head of Ofcom concerning the next focus, which is about protecting women & girls online:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002mmrx

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Which is the best way to do this?

A) ban females from the internet.
B) ban males from the internet
C) ban the internet




* in the current arguments between who is female and who is male, I believe option C would be the fairest and easiest to implement

;)

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

I want to know why Women and Girls are the ones that need protecting?

Why is not all people that need protecting?

As usual Men are labelled as the only people who harm others!

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Have you never looked at the statistics around violent crime?

Overwhelmingly, such crimes are committed by men. That includes crimes against women. *A man* may be perfectly safe around *a woman* - but as a category, statistics show that women are not safe around men.

We don’t object to laws against tax evasion just because those laws don’t do anything to make the roads safer.

---------- Post added at 13:02 ---------- Previous post was at 12:59 ----------

A woman is an adult human female. A man is an adult human male. It is not possible for an individual human being born in one category to change to the other. That’s settled science, and is reflected in UK law.

The contrary view isn’t an argument, it’s an activist demand. Feel free to ignore it. The sooner we do, the sooner the men in dresses will get the message.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

And that is because as usual people ignore Men being abused, assaulted etc and just say "he must have done something to deserve it".

How many times are women penalised for slapping a man? I will tell you it's basically never, but a bloke does it and he is either socially or criminally penalised.

How many times does a women make comments about a blokes appearance, finances etc and nothing get's said, but a man does it and it's socially and criminally penalised.

Crimes against men are rarely reported or recorded when a woman commits them, police laugh at blokes for reporting it, blokes and women laugh at blokes when they report it, so blokes just don't bother anymore.

If all the crimes were reported those numbers would switch dramatically but let's keep saying that Women and Girls are the only ones that need protecting.


As for the OSA, if they are going to try and implement new features to protect Women and Girls, well they better make sure that Women and Girls cannot talk to other Women and Girls since they are the main ones who abuse Women and Girls online!

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Always been the same mate, put 2 women in the same room and within a couple of hours they'll be bitching at each other over some miniscule perceived clash about hair/handbag/shoes/dress/eyeliner/cellulite/holidays/kids/husbands . . .


and that's before they've had a drink

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

The head of Ofcom did explain why women & girls needed extra protection during the discussion.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

"Overwhelmingly" does not mean all/completely, and is not an excuse to ignore it.

A man may also not be safe around a woman (or another man).
Aside from that, a woman may not be safe around another woman either.

This constant focus on women (or girls) only needs to stop.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

But it isn’t a constant focus on women only. This is one initiative in a parliament that will last 5 years and pass innumerable bills and other measures. Having said that, if one thing is a bigger problem than another, there shouldn’t be any problem with giving a higher profile to attempts to address it. Nothing in these measures says male-on-male or female-on-male violence isn’t a thing. Just that violence against women is more of a thing and needs more attention.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Well thats your view, I disagree.
I have long ago lost count of the number of articles that bang on about Women, Girls & Misogyny, while none about Men, Boys or Misandry. In fact its so rare I had to look it up - as I could not remember the exact word.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

There’s a reason for that!

If you think for one moment that men have anything like as much trouble as women do in these matters, where have you been?

---------- Post added at 16:32 ---------- Previous post was at 16:28 ----------

I agree that men also need protection. Both sexes experience these problems, but women are the main victims on the whole.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

On planet Earth, what planet are you on ?

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

No they are not, not if you look at the figures.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statis...stem-2023-html

From that:

"In 2022/23, there were 590 homicides reported in the Home Office Homicide Index; 71% of which were males and 29% females." tell me how is saying that women are the main victims??

It then carries on "Females were the victim in 59% of homicides acquainted with the suspect, whereas in cases where victim was male 41% were acquainted with the suspect."

Then

"Excluding fraud and computer misuse, females were significantly less likely of being a victim of personal crime than males."

And here is the problem, if Men are not reporting crimes against them because they get laughed at which happens all the time, the crimes committed to them are belittled which happens on a daily basis, why the hell are men going to report that their misses has just slapped them round the head for looking in the general direction of another women, I saw this twice yesterday when I took my mum shopping, or report that their partner is verbally abusing them based of the new rules, again I saw this yesterday multiple times, not once though did I see a man hit a women, a man verbally abuse a women, a man financially control a women, but yes they need more protection, let's just keep giving women more and more protections and ways to make men out to be the bad person so they cannot be held responsible for their actions!

Remember as it is currently Women are not prosecuted or penalised as much as men for commiting crimes, they don't get the same sentences when they are prosecuted, and if children are involved the mother will 99% of the times avoid prison because "it would do harm to the children" meanwhile a bloke will always 99% of the times go to prison and the children will be put in foster care!

I would love to live in the world that some of you live in, must be so nice to never experience or see any abuse.


Back on topic

Now we have American states banning VPN's, we have Australia banning social media for under 16's, only way to do that is by forcing national id's to be used thereby exposing all users to identity theft, because we all know the governments are incapable of keeping data secure and the EU are looking to follow in Australia's footsteps, no doubt the UK is looking at it all as well.

Rumours are Germany is looking apparently at a complete ban on social media full stop, cannot see that being true but how many times have some of these rumours turned out to be true.

There are now rumours online that the Government is considering going to all VPN providers, demanding the IP's of all servers, then apparently going to all ISP's and telling them to block all traffic to and from those servers as well as banning them from accepting users from the UK.

Next rumour is apparently all mobile phone companies such as EE, O2, Giff Gaff, Lebara etc etc will be required to implement a system to allow video calls to be made so that if someone buys a new sim card from a petrol station etc, they won't be able to register it until they have done a video call with said provider and information recorded so that "kids can be kept safe from burner sims".

I have said it before and I will say it again, if all this comes true, even North Korea will look better and have more freedom than this hell hole!

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

I’m firmly on Earth. Maybe you’re in a different dimension where left is right.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Ah, you're on the mirror earth. That explains a lot.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

:LOL:

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

OB with a goatee and sleeveless shirt :disturbd: :D

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...1&d=1764443674

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Yes, but were those male homicides all the result of domestic violence or was it just male on male aggression?

---------- Post added at 21:08 ---------- Previous post was at 21:02 ----------

All over 18s are adults. Just leave them to decide these adult decisions. It’s children we should be protecting.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

You know, Chris, I can’t help but wonder, just how many people will get the references, oh and the logo?

Sad really, it was a very good episode!

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

How many of the female homocides were female on female aggression ? Why does it matter anyway ?

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

On this forum. Maybe a lot of people. Don't forget the mirror universe has been revisited in Enterprise and Discovery too.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

and on that note, time for this to get back to the subject.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

American Government advises people to stop using personal VPN's:

https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-pr...-personal-vpns

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Well what else did you expect, they cannot track you when your using a vpn. The British government has found out that to there cost. The Online Safety Bill has created a massive issue for the UK government with the increase in VPN's. People don't want to be tracked and forced to verify there age with unknown companies.

BTW i see 4chan have still not paid a fine and will not be. I believe a freedom of information request has been submitted to Ofcom requesting information on how many fines have been submitted, how many have been paid and how many have been ignored.

It will be interesting to see the results of that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2biDMArnio

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

A total of 61 companies are being investigated for non compliance. Of those concluded, one paid the fine, the one you mention is refusing to pay it and one that encourages suicide agreed to block UK users. Unfortunately, after a while they switched the UK back on and Ofcom had to speak to them again with a warning that they will be keeping a close eye on them.

I agree, it will be interesting to see what happens.

Do you think that this is scaremongering by the American Government to try and curtail the use of VPN's?

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Remember an old saying "knowledge is power" . . which in todays world means the more data you can collect (harvest), the more power you have to do . . . well, whatever you want, with any demographic you want.

Quite obviously if everyone starts using a VPN, the ability to track, trace and collect the data required for World Domination then becomes a huge concern for those doing so . . . and so begins the push to outlaw them :D

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Now although it is understandable that some will crash in with the obvious ‘conspiracy theory', argument that this is some devious ploy to stop people using VPNs, naturally the advice is more nuanced than can seem at first.

I do trust that everyone commenting on this has followed the link provided and read the entire article, something I try to do before posting, always best to have facts on your side when making an argument.

Now what the CISA advice said was that “personal VPNs simply shift residual risks from the internet service provider (ISP) to the VPN provider, often increasing the attack surface.”

And as the article itself says; "However, as CISA's advice implies, the rush for a quick privacy fix can lead users to download dubious apps that are, at best, ineffective and, at worst, outright spyware."

At best a VPN will hide what you are doing from your own ISP, but hand over all of this information to whoever controls the other end of the VPN tunnel, who could be....?

The article is simply pointing out that just jumping on the VPN bandwagon without actually understanding what they are, how they work and what they can and can’t do - can actually decrease a users privacy. I’ve lost count of the number of posts in the past on this and other forums with users saying ‘I always use a VPN for extra security’; no, not necessarily, no!

Ironically the OSA is a prime example of the ‘law of unintended consequences’. Although I’m sure most people would agree that there is content unsuitable for children and there should be some guardrails in place; but demanding they hand over personal information to some random third party to prove their age, is a step too far, and they will go to considerable lengths to bypass it.

Alas, these lengths can often involve downloading ‘random malware ridden widget A’ and installing it with no thought about what else it might be doing. And that’s the crux of the recommendation.

Of course this is the same CISA who only a month ago was recommending that users don’t use simple text messages as they are too easy to intercept, but instead only use encrypted systems.

https://www.computerworld.com/articl...messaging.html

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

What a sensible and well considered post.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

:shocked: well done for attempting at least to protect it's citizens. The online filtering isn't working obviously :dozey:

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Soon these under 16 year olds will be voters and then it's payback time

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

According to the BBC news, many countries have considered this and are watching closely after Australia was the first to do it. They went on to say that there have been calls to strengthen the Online Safety Act as, now that Australia has gone ahead and done this, it is falling behind.

---------- Post added at 00:42 ---------- Previous post was at 00:26 ----------

Since my earlier post, this has come to light about the monitoring of VPN's:

https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-pr...ine-safety-act

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Again, nothing at all about monitoring VPNs, because you cant.
There are just picking numbers from a company whose job is to make up numbers and convince you they are right.

The best part of that article was near the bottom ...
"Today's best NordVPN, Surfshark and Proton VPN deals" :rofl:

No matter what their blustering, they know the majority of voters use VPNs, as well as any IT related home working. Going after them would be political suicide.

Re: Online Safety Bill Etc
 

Thought you might have heard of Apptopia, SimilarWeb, and Ipsos Iris (I haven't).

Yes, the irony of advertising VPN's at the bottom wasn't lost on me :D