this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023
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List of countries prohibiting the use of a VPN:

  • πŸ‡¨πŸ‡³ China
  • πŸ‡·πŸ‡Ί Russia
  • πŸ‡¦πŸ‡ͺ United Arab Emirates
  • πŸ‡°πŸ‡΅ North Korea
  • πŸ‡ΉπŸ‡² Turkmenista
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[–] HeChomk 149 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Literally impossible to enforce. Any business worth a damn uses vpns. Blocking such would be bad for business. Also, ssl vpns are as far as I'm aware, indistinguishable from regular https traffic.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Its France, your logic has no power here!

[–] [email protected] 36 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm sure they're already planning a traditional riot as I type this comment.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Mon dieu! Cette comment est trop intolerable! Je proteste!

[–] TheBat 12 points 8 months ago

Omlette du fromage

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Honhonhon c’est une bonne bonne utilisation de le grand franΓ§ais

[–] AlmightySnoo 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Veuillez accepter mon haut-vote

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

I shall block your filthy Internet queries with my OpenOffice firewall!

[–] [email protected] 46 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They'll ban the known IPs of any well known VPN provider. It'll not really affect 90% of VPN users that are tech literate, but the 80% of the People that are Tech illiterate shall be punished and the Politicians shall pretend it works. This is how all the Countries blocking VPNs do it now.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago

Nah it's far more stupid than that. They want to ban some (most?) VPN apps from the iOS and Android stores. You would still be able to sign up for any VPN from your browser, and manually set it up on your phone.

That's the current proposal anyway, soon they'll understand how moronic it is and either double down and try to "fix" if or quietly drop it.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Exactly, how would anyone work from home without a VPN?

[–] Bakersfield 5 points 8 months ago

In a very insecure way.

[–] dinckelman 57 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This kind of nonsense is only mandated out of fear, but in reality it's not only colossally stupid, but also really difficult to enforce. Any proper business uses one. Anyone who wants privacy, and ad network anonymity uses one. There's plenty of other uses people would want one, obviously

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I just think it's corporate interests, not fear, that's driving this. Terror and Children are just the easiest excuse to ensure a lot of people go blindly along with it.

[–] dinckelman 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

There aren't any real corporations left in Russia, that aren't either government owned, or actively circlejerking around the president for any praise. But otherwise you're right

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Oligarchy seems to work out pretty well for the rich elite of Russia, until they piss off Putin.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 8 months ago
[–] cheese_greater 52 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

What a great ~~club~~ list to be a part of

[–] pdxfed 28 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Take out Russia and it's the CUNT club

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Rearrange Russia and they can be the CUNTRs.
I like the sound of that.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Im a fan of CRUNT personally

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

With France you can go for FUC NTR, which is somewhat worth it.

[–] JoeKrogan 17 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That's better, I must admit.

[–] JoeKrogan 6 points 8 months ago

It was a team effort πŸ˜‰πŸ‘

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I fear that the UK might try to join this list not just out of authoritarianism, but out of a fear of technology they do not understand. Worse yet, the Conservative party once threw around the idea of banning encryption in its entirety and acted like WhatsApp is only used by criminals.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Ironic, considering how many members of the cabinet are being served court orders for their WhatsApp messages.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

It's almost like certain members of the cabinet associate encrypted messages with misdeeds because of all the misdeeds they do through these apps. If I were a sceptical man.

[–] FlyingSquid 23 points 8 months ago (7 children)

I've taught my daughter to use a VPN here in the U.S. There's "Kids Online Safety Bill" making it through congress, and if it passes, kids won't be able to access all kinds of websites. Porn, yes, but also just websites about LGBT+ stuff which are perfectly safe for kids. As I have a queer daughter, I want to make absolutely sure she can access those sites if she needs them.

[–] AlbyEvent 4 points 8 months ago (3 children)

May I ask how would the "Kids Online safety bill" differentiate between an underage user and adult? I'm not from the US so that's why I don't know

[–] FlyingSquid 10 points 8 months ago

I don't know. From what I can see, that hasn't been made clear yet. I am guessing, like porn in several states, IDs will be required to access things like TikTok or maybe even YouTube because it requires them to filter content for minors.

There's a reason anti-LGBTQ bigots love it.

But even if that doesn't happen, it allows for parental surveillance, and I want her to know that I don't have the option to do that to her even if I wanted to. It should go beyond mere trust.

If she VPNs to Canada, none of those issues will be things she has to care about.

[–] OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Oh it's such a fun and novel and not at all dystopian idea they've come up with.

Content requiring an adult will just require some kind of identification, surely you can't be against providing your ID to any website that hosts adult content or that website checking/accessing/logging with a national archive that you visited said website, right?

So far, no concrete things put forward, but all of them seem to be related to an ID-required system.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

That's the big question no one has an answer for

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Nice, Good on ya πŸ™Œ

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago

It's not just France, it's EU based politics too. There's certain liberal & center right parties & politicians that heavily push for shit like this, just like the chat control crap.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago

Russia isn't prohibiting the use of VPNs but it is making it increasingly more headache inducing (protocol based blocking, ip bans of popular vpn providers).

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

It's not a total ban of VPNs, I went to read a bit on the subject (easier since I'm french), it's just that some politicians came up with a few amendments relative to the bill called "SREN" which very literally translates to "Securing and regulating the digital space". As you may guess that bill also ticks the "child porn" box as a reason why it came to existence.

One amendment proposes to ban mobile VPNs that do no comply with European or french regulations in the context of app stores. So it's only on mobile, nothing about desktops.

Of course it's inapplicable in practice.

Several amendements already failed due to backlash, one was about preventing people from posting on social networks if they use a VPN.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Yeah was also just listening to a podcast about this. So yeah not a straight total ban. But from what I heard, it would ban people from using VPNs outside of Europe, which obviously is not OK.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago

I love our slow descent into authoritarianism with a hint of fascism to go with it.

[–] FartsWithAnAccent 13 points 8 months ago

Le smooth brain

[–] merthyr1831 13 points 8 months ago (2 children)

The UK also recently tried banning VPNs. It simply isn't possible. However, it'll make prosecuting dissidents and people with good opsec a lot easier because they can just say "well you might not have anything incriminating on your hard drives but you DO have a VPN client" and use that to get a tiny victory against someone who would otherwise go free.

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[–] sturmblast 4 points 8 months ago

I just wonder how the hell they plan on enforcing things like this

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