← Back to context

Comment by ranger_danger

6 hours ago

Not when the definition of VPN is subjective. I could proxy/VPN through a friend's house and nobody would ever know it wasn't them.

A lot of law is adjudicated based on the intent, not the black-and-white definition. Proxying your traffic thru a friend's house (VPS in another location, etc) would be considered a "VPN" by a court. Definitional hacks, for the most part, don't fly with judges.

To handle the matter technically Utah would need a "great firewall of Utah" and a legislative mandate that all ISPs route thru it. Somehow they'd have to factor-in signals from cellular sites neighboring states and satellites.

This requires a lot of extra work though, and extra work is downward pressure on the behavior (underage people looking at pornography) that the state of Utah is trying to exert downward pressure on.

The inability to immediately and perfectly eliminate a behavior is not a good enough reason to be against any attempt to eliminate that behavior.

  • > The inability to immediately and perfectly eliminate a behavior is not a good enough reason to be against any attempt to eliminate that behavior.

    So if you are legally required to block all VPN users and then fail to actually block all VPN users what is stopping you from being punished for not complying with the law?

    • Common sense on the part of the judge presumably. Best effort and common practice will enter into it. Lots of regulation is like that.

    • Yeah, that's the problem. But if they changed the law to not require all users to be blocked, it'd still have the outcome they want.

Yes but isn't it suspicious that all your traffic goes to the friend's house and not to Facebook and Reddit? If you claim it is not a VPN does it mean your friend is providing illegal unlicensed hosting? That's even worse.

  • > does it mean your friend is providing illegal unlicensed hosting

    Since when do you have to pull permits to put a server on the web?

  • Split tunnel is a thing, and in that instance the platform required to comply (like a porn site) doesn’t have any way to see all your traffic to determine if it’s a VPN/proxy connection or not.

    • If you cannot determine the traffic type, you can block it and wait until someone appears with proper documentation and explains what they were sending.

      1 reply →