This is what happens when you elect morons to legislate technology they dont understand.
Don’t give them that grace. They might not understand it, but the tech-bro lobbiest sure as shit explained it to them in simple terms no doubt.
if they are so concerned about children, how about doing something about the mormon church and the fucking horrible crimes that are committed against women and children in it?
Or the king tjey elected
Nah they support that.
But spoofing a phone number and harassing me all day isn’t worth solutioning. This Gov. is not representing us.
The Biden admin was about to regulate data brokers but then Trump happened.
They’re always “about to” but never seem to do it.
If one “side” fixed anything they would not only lose the backing of their corporate sponsors, they wouldn’t be able to point to the problem anymore and say they’ll fix it to round up some votes before promptly going back to ignoring or supporting what they campaigned on stopping.
Yet another Biden failure! When will that guy stop causing all our problems?! Thanks Biden! /s
I’ve learned a little bit of multiple languages to answer the phone in a foreign language. It absolutely fucks with the scammer on the other end because they are expecting an English speaker.
I mostly ignore calls from unknown numbers, but if I ever answer any I do something similar, but I use gibberish.
“Hello sir, I’m calling to see if you are aware of the latest energy deals in your area?”
I respond with something like: ‘Ha felth malak nakufi parament, cheeshan bah farkone.’
I then get very animatedly exasperated with them if they can’t understand me.
‘BISHAN TA FALAF TOOSH? MAIR PUNAN TA FALAS!!! EDGEKA, EDGEKA MALA!!!’
I never end the call, always keep going until they do, which is often pretty quickly these days unfortunately, because I’ve started to kind of enjoy playing with them.
Occasionally if it’s clearly a scam call rather than a spam call and I have time, I’ll actually pretend to play along dumbly to see how long I can keep them on the line. All time record is 49 minutes during the pandemic lockdown (I was bored). The guy finally caught on and released a barrage of expletives and wished me death. It was awesome!
If you do anything OTHER than ignore them, your number gets marked as “active” and then sold to other scammers. I roll my eyes at the people who gleefully brag about all the ways they “fuck with spammers” without realizing that by simply answering the phone, they have already given them what they want. Sure, the low level worker on the phone (who might actually be a slave) might want you to fall for a scam and give them money, but the people running these call centers are perfectly fine if all they get is confirmation that you have an active number which can then be sold to other call centers.
Stop answering spam/scam calls.
More ways to control our lives and track our movements.
“Party of small government”.
Personally, I would stop using any site that did this. We all know nothing matters in this country but money. Companies stop making as much, they’ll get legislation changed.
We need debit cards that aren’t tethered to banking institutions which are bound to enforce this shit on their apps/websites.
Also, isn’t legislating against VPN usage just a new way to legislate over the rights of people who don’t live in your state? Because, how is a company going to prove whether you’re in California or Utah using a California based VPN? They won’t care… They’ll just enforce that everyone bides by Utah law, regardless of your origin.
They may have been at one point but they def stopped once Thiel and other big technocrats got involved
Web services and websites should block all Utah IP addresses and redirect to page explaining that because they cannot tell who’s using a VPN, their only option is to block all of Utah.
Yes, I understand how dumb that is, but sometimes you have to fight stupid with stupider.
Porn sites have been doing that for years now.
And that’s exactly what they want.
They don’t want every website to do it though.
I like the thought, but it won’t work. The big websites won’t be willing to lose money they don’t have to, and like ID laws that give them reasons to extract more data from users anyway.
They actually want to avoid the liability of storing someone’s id.
The government wants to make these things illegal, but they also want to track every person on the internet through their government ID, so they create the problem (age restriction and id checks) because they have the planned solution: digital id for every computer!
Do you have your computer license? Do you? You think the internet is a psy-op and Big Brother’s watching you? Just wait until a government admin message pops up on your screen because you visited the wrong website.
You’re getting fined for spreading misinformation or receiving a letter for libel due to some offhand tweet about some famous person. Don’t worry about receiving a notice in the mail, if you have a printer they’ll make it print your ticket for you immediately.
You don’t thing an extra 10,000 words in the EULA won’t absolve them of liability for ID theft?
Actually, the existing EULAs probably already do.
Indeed. ID laws are a wet dream of Meta and the like. Both because it gives them the unique ID the always wanted and because it is easier for them to comply than small upstarts.
They don’t want every website to do it
Are you sure?
Web services and websites should block all Utah IP addresses and redirect to page explaining that because they cannot tell who’s using a VPN, their only option is to block all of Utah.
But VPN users using a VPN outside of Utah will still get through.
What Utah (and likely other dumb states soon) are trying to do is to force age verification worldwide through a state law, forcing websites to verify the age of every user from anywhere, because any user who accesses the site from anywhere in the world might possibly be someone in Utah using a VPN.
I understand.
Which is why I’m suggesting they preemptively block everyone in Utah. Protesting needs to inconvenience people and good protests redirect that anger towards those in power.
“Utah’s new law us makes us legally liable for providing our services to residence in Utah using a VPN. As that is not technically possible, we have no choice but to cease operating in Utah, or allowing Utah residents to use our services.”
But whether or not that particular strategy would be an effective from a protest, is a moot point, as big tech is behind these types of age verification and use identification laws, and those are the only websites and services with a large enough user base to make a difference here.
Which is why I’m suggesting they preemptively block everyone in Utah.
Pornhub and other porn sites already do this.
They would still be liable for transmitting content to a Utah resident using a VPN to appear as though they were in neighboring Arizona.
That just means that people in Utah would need to use a VPN to access those sites.
Which is hilarious, and a predictable result when your legislature is mostly filled with people who could’ve retired decades ago…
With a button saying “Actually, I’m using a VPN so it looks like I’m in Utah but I’m actually not.” that gives you access
It’s actually quite trivial to detect most VPN providers. There’s publicly available IP lists
Many VPN providers regularly rotate their IP ranges.
Regardless, that wouldn’t reveal to a website where the traffic was originating from.
Even worse, that would not necessarily help. If someone’s accessing your website through a VPN that’s not located in that state, you would not block it… then become liable.
Better block everything at this point -_-
The great firewall of Utah, all your pron must be inspected by government officials prior to delivery…
Yes, I understand how dumb that is
i don’t think you do. residents of utah don’t have to use vpn with endpoint in utah, so in order for your “gotcha” to work, they would have to block whole world. since most people will choose endpoint far from them, it would probably be enough to block anything but utah…
That’s the point…
It would be protest against Utah’s dumb law, with an even dumber response, that’s designed specifically to inconvenience people in Utah…
so you would bully the people being bullied by this law to protest the law that bullies them? well that would show them!
Unless you are willing to admit that Utah is a dictatorship, then yes “bullying” the people is very appropriate.
This is an issue with american thinking, the sanctity of normality. You think doing anything that effects the every person is somehow off limits, you think the daily life of the people is unassailable. Its the same nonsense over and over across everything and I think why americans always talk about how “nothing can be done” about any issue that comes up. The us of a is flying off a cliff in multiple ways but americans will put up with it as long as they don’t notice a change in their daily life.
It is why you are all ok with war, right up until the gas price goes up.
It is why you are all ok with losing liberties, right up until it effects you personally.
It is why you are all ok with your media and entertainment pushing usa #1 bullshit that always ends up “back to normal”, right up until you can’t ignore reality.
It is why you are all ok with a clearly broken and non democratic system, right up until nether party is able to guarantee your lifestyle.
It is why you are all ok with draconian “purity” laws being put into place, right up until sites you like to use realize that Utah is not worth the work to be there.
Land of the free etc
Maybe we should just start blocking Utah like folks block North Korea. Utahans clearly want only Facebook and MySpace, and it’s rude of us to second-guess.
It seems like it’s just a matter of time until the US has it’s own red firewall.
Not just a US thing. EU is pushing for much more restrictive measures regarding mandatory ID registration. And it will be EU-wide for us. US will most likely be much better in that regard from 2027 onward, since only a few states seem to change things.
For now, They’re trying to do it federally as well.
Well that sucks. If it was just the EU, we’d still have the US being more open to free expression. Hopefully it won’t pass over there at least federally.
I would bet my shoes Facebook or someone lobbied for this.
It’s easy to blame Mormons, but I think that bloc was more of a mark.
Utah is the homeland of American embarrassment
I remember the days before corporations started to see the internet as a sales and advertising platform and governments allowed it to grow organically. It was honestly great. I miss those days
I find it so interesting that they will dance all the way around VPN’s, yet do nothing to make them actually illegal.
Why would you want VPNs to be illegal?
I don’t, but doing so would be the easiest solution to alot of the “problems” they have with online behavior.
You can’t make VPNs illegal. There is a lot of infrastructure dependent on VPNs.
You can easily make VPN’s effectively illegal. You could make them require age verification for example, or you could ban commercial VPN’s and only allow self-hosted ones. They could also do what Utah did and make it so that you effectively can’t access any websites with a VPN, because the site would be liable for any VPN users accessing the site.
The idea that the government can’t ban VPN’s is giving us a false sense of security. They can at the very least completely undermine them.
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.
Neither is enforceable.
They are enforceable. In the first case they can ban transactions to the VPN and ban the website from all ISP’s. In the second case they can just ban transactions to Mullvad and should Proton not comply with the ban to Proton too.
It’s not about banning people from using the VPN, it’s about scaring away the VPN providers.
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.
I’m trying to find a rebuttal to that but I got nothing, and it finally makes sense to me why the government isn’t banning VPN’s.
Currently most major VPN’s respond to legal requests from the government. If the government chooses to ban VPN’s, then people will change to VPN’s that won’t respond to legal requests. That would leave the government with less power to police the internet, not more.
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
Every website would be better served to come up with a way to block all IP ranges that come out of Utah ISPs. Better to just block the whole state than try to play this game.
And the reverse too, spam the state servers with age-unverified connections and then file a complaint against the state.
Have they thought about passing a law that checks to see if the people making the law have an IQ above 50?
This is the dumbest, most waste of time bullshit particularly when the rest of the country is imploding. Maybe they should focus on things that matter.
Maybe they should focus on things that matter.
That requires effort. Something Republicans are incapable of doing unless it involves consolidating control over other’s lives.
These aren’t “age checks”…it’s identity tracking.
Absolutely! Journalists really need to start describing these as what they are rather than the marketing term. It is much more accurate to call them “ID Checks” or something like that.
Wait, how long until literally any software business realizes what this is, and hard lobbies against it?
You basically must conduct all your business unencrypted in the state of Utah if this is to be understood.
Only business that would require an ID/Age Verification check, but yeah. Except they don’t want to hold actual websites liable. They want to hold ISP’s liable.
There’s literally no way to know if the people using the VPN’s are located in Utah. So this law would be unenforceable against actual websites.
It might possibly be enforceable against ISP’s but the problem is, once you fire up a VPN your ISP can only see your entry point and maybe that there is a volume of traffic going to and from your device. They can’t see what websites you visit (provided your VPN is properly configured).
I also don’t understand how this bill could effectively lay any blame against the websites for knowing you use a VPN because they also can’t see any of that information. They know that you visited and from a specific IP “located” in “place” and they can either assume that the use of a VPN means you’re in Utah (very unlikely), or they can assume you’re not (more likely given the population that lives outside Utah).
