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Comment by otabdeveloper4

7 hours ago

So you're implying alcohol and cigarettes should be sold to children?

(Not to mention all the other consent age laws.)

That said, VPN is a national security issue, children are only a pretext.

Children have always found ways to access age restricted consumables. Whether that was porno mags, alcohol or cigarettes.

They’d just get an older sibling, or stranger to buy it. Or they’d have a fake ID. Or they’d just steal it from a family member.

But you know which kids did this the least? It was the ones where their parents / guardians took their responsibilities as a guardian properly.

  • > Children have always found ways to access age restricted consumables

    Doesn't mean that it's equivalent to giving them free access to those consumables.

    > But you know which kids did this the least?

    Source?

    • > Doesn't mean that it's equivalent to giving them free access to those consumables.

      Why do people on HN always need to look at things as a Boolean state? It’s entirely reasonable to have some preventative measures but acknowledging that there are ways to circumvent them and accept that as a reasonable conclusion.

      Things don’t need to be “all or nothing” ;)

      > Source?

      I grew up pre-WWW. Literally lived and breathed the points I’m making.

      But don’t just take my word on this. Ask anyone of a certain age and they’ll tell you the same: they either tried cigarettes or knew lots of kids in school who smoked under the age of 16. They had access to alcohol under the age of 18. And pornographic content was easy to get hold of under the age of 18.

      The age at which they gained access and the frequency of the usage depended greatly on their upbringing.

      2 replies →

What does national security even mean anymore? People are using this term for basically everything these days, as if saying "national security" is somehow a justification on its own.

What "national security" implications are there with VPNs?