this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2025
96 points (98.0% liked)

Privacy

40897 readers
900 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Hello ,

As the title says what happens if theUK requires age verification for VPN’s or makes it illegal to use them?

Does that mean everyone will move to tor or I2P?

It seems if the UK gov keep pushing their agenda under the guise of protecting children people will increasingly go dark .

I guess what I’m asking is how does everyone think this will unfold?

M

(page 2) 13 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 16 points 1 week ago (3 children)

How though? Commercial VPNs that simply function as proxies, sure. VPN as in the protocols themselves? Not possible without breaking too much stuff.

[–] mysticmartz@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

Sure but someone hosts these services . I can make a VPN right now and the service is paid by my debit card.

[–] fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 week ago

If you have a friend outside airstrip one you can tunnel through them. I could see some kind of tailscale like mesh vpn type deal being deployed for this purpose

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Get a VPN from outside the UK.

[–] mysticmartz@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

With a payment method from outside the UK? Or crypto where most companies have KYC ?

[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 17 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Go to mullvad.net and make an account. It’s a 16-digit number, and you’re never asked for personal information. There’s no credit on it, but you can pay with a card, crypto if you do that sort of thing, or by sending some banknotes in the post to the company along with the account number to top up.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] Im_old@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 week ago

dkyc fucking rocks

[–] Majestic@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 week ago (3 children)

If the UK is serious about blocking VPNs that don't comply they'll mostly succeed for the big ones. They'll get them removed from app stores which will prevent most normies from finding and using them. They'll apply network blocks to their entrance IP addresses (laughably easy, there are commercial vendors who sell data like this so they don't even need to invent the wheel here) and make it difficult. They wouldn't be able to prevent truly determined VPN providers from providing service but the days of $4/month for privacy/torrenting would be gone as the prices would likely be higher and you'd have to do things like mail cash.

Beyond the known IPs, VPN traffic is fairly easy to flag with DPI solutions and could be detected and blocked or dropped by ISPs acting under the law. This could also be used to stop people running tunnels to hosted VPS solutions outside of the country or run by friends from their homes. There are obviously ways around these, disguising traffic, various techniques but for most people they'd give up and either stop browsing porn or cough up their ID. Of course this would create a dangerous state of affairs where anyone using a VPN without being KYC'ed is clearly a criminal, at the very least a suspected video pirate, at the most a dangerous child predator or terrorist.

Additionally the UK isn't like Russia or China, lots of western CEOs and employees pass through and within its jurisdictions and if a particular VPN is providing service without this they could try and arrest c-suite people or engineering staff associated with it and slam them with jail time. So that's a problem.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Only the enlightened will move to Tor. The unwashed masses will just suck the dick as normal.

[–] davidagain@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Will any of the washed ones suck dick, though? Asking for a friend.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›