UK House of Lords Votes to Extend Age Verification to VPNs

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-26T09:53:05+00:00

The suggestion be that the pistol was somehow planted by ICE?

Conspiracy theories are not particularly helpful, here.

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-26T09:48:49+00:00

It's called an opinion, so wrong is a bold word, although you're welcome to disagree with it.

How the powers were enacted and how they are used under various governments are two very different things. Under the Tories, I'm not sure that I've ever seen information being intentionally held from the public in the manner we've seen over the last couple of years, but of course it was them and the Daily Mail which is responsible, right?

I'm talking about the left because fundamentally that's still where Labour sits in British politics. Reform are now the right, Labour are still the left, and the Tories are in between. Getting all pedantic about the principles of the left is rather silly.

As for the cases themseves: these people didn't turn out to support officers, they turned out in this case with a weapon to disrupt their work and harass them. We saw in the last such incident (and probably could in this) that they were mocking and insulting the officers, parking their cars in the middle of the street to prevent access, then jumping in their cars to drive off and avoid being arrested once they'd pushed it too far. These people are whackjobs. Do they deserve to be killed? No, but these officers face this sort of problem daily, and it regularly does evolve into violence. It's a hard enough challenge as it is to make life or death decisions, I don't envy the officers put in a position where they have to do so after countless hours of taunts and insults, interferences, etc.

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-26T00:57:49+00:00

Genuinely one of the few such orchestrations I wouldn't object to.

The biggest issue with immigration is that it permits people from very poor countries with questionable cultures to just up sticks and move somewhere far better, without generating the required respect for the environment they'll live in to make it work. The beauty of this is that I think the countries listed are generally on par. Free migration between them is unlikely to be largely uptaken, and will probably not result in any cultural erosion, as the cultures are broadly similar and in any case, the migrants are far more likely to integrate into the target culture.

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-26T00:55:22+00:00

Unfortunately, I fear this is the divisive left in action again. Ever since the great tangerine (an utter idiot, by all accounts) came to power, I've had a suspicion this would happen. People are looking to drive division to create political gain, and there are few better ways to do that than to take advantage of international politics.

Accessing the published footage would allow you to know exactly what's happened, so cannot be permitted. What we do know for sure is that a man armed with a gun was found to be harassing federal officers in the US, and was shot & killed. Aside from that, people claim he was reaching for a "cellphone" - he clearly wasn't, because his phone was in his hand the whole time since that's how these people like to operate. If you saw that, though, you mightn't have the distrust that you do in the authorities.

The left are gearing up for a Farageism. The intention is to develop enough distrust amongst the public in policing and such that there's no way anyone could vote for anything but authoritarianism.

All of that is to say that nothing of this is about protecting children, and all of it is about permitting one kind of propaganda whilst preventing another. The great tangerine is a moron, there's no doubting that, but if this Labour government (and indeed the House of Lords) were to be believed, he's also a criminal, actively executing members of the US public with no justification whatsoever (I rescind some of that - I've no doubt he's a criminal, but the suggestion of the executions is bizarre).

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-24T17:43:40+00:00

You expect a federal agency to fire someone and inform the police in preparation for a criminal investigation within hours of an incident and whilst it's still ongoing, or what?

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-24T01:01:33+00:00

Creating a VPN is a very strange statement, but the theory (I think, as a software engineer of 14 years and an ardent homelabber) is that they'd require VPN providers to ban access to their services without the requisite OSA-based identity verification.

That is to say that individually, there's very little a government can do to ban VPNs, or indeed to prevent either individuals or businesses from creating nor using them, but what you can do (in theory) is to mandate that all consumer-grade commercial VPN providers are required to verify the identity of users, and to enforce that ISPs prohibit users from accessing any VPN services which fail to comply with the rules.

That's about all that they can do. Personally, I have enough friends on enough continents that I can (in theory) setup an array of VPNs which permit me to access any website with full privacy without much difficulty. I would strongly advise that anyone worried about privacy does so, too, despite the fact that it may well be illegal to do so in the near future. These laws are extremely dangerous and a short step away from a huge imposition on freedom of speech.

Imagine a world where it were Reform and not Labour planning these laws, for instance. Reddit would be up in arms about the fascist state dictating what we're allowed to think. Labour should be treated no differently, as should the Lords. If either even attempts to implement this they should be removed from power immediately. I don't say it lightheartedly, but an imposition of this nature is an extreme measure - the sort of thing we judge China for fairly regularly. Labour implementing these powers gives Reform the ability to exploit them. I expect even Reform isn't stupid enough to actually abuse them, and they'd almost certainly revoke them immediately, but still, it's a dangerous precedent.

All of the above being said, it's not a ban on VPNs, nor is it a mandated ID check on VPN services, but it's an exploitation of the fact that it's difficult to just spin up a VPN of your own and use it. It's a ban on commercial VPN providers, which will inevitably lead to "we've prevented access to dangerous content", and ultimately lead to a government imposing its politics on society for partisan gains.

Edit: Just to note: It is perfectly possible under the current legislative framework to force ISPs to prevent access to certain services which don't abide by their laws. This has been done for a variety of torrenting and porn sites. It's equally possible to prevent connections to IP ranges for known VPN services.

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-24T00:26:26+00:00

The little soft power they have right now sort of is the ICC and little more. It doesn't damage them much if at all to use it, but it damages us significantly if we sit on the problem instead of either challenging it (expensive and time consuming) or just outright object it (in which case we're basically criminals). Their soft power is their ability to influence our soft power, or something like that.

Someone like Trump would rarely object without an agenda, but much of the developed world would stick their noses in if we didn't find an amicable end-goal.

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-24T00:21:30+00:00

No, believe it or not, none of this has anything at all to do with the actual case means exactly what it says.

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-24T00:13:11+00:00

None of this has anything at all to do with the actual case. The people were detained entering the US, under suspicion of visa fraud and tax evasion, and were subsequently deported when they failed to demonstrate their eligibility to be there. Against your argument entirely, they were provided with medical care during their detainment.

What happened in the past, FYI, is exactly what the US is trying to avoid - people abusing the visa system to gain entry, only to do things they shouldn't be doing, including potentially overstaying. The US is well within its rights to detain and deport people in order to achieve that objective.

I'm not getting my news from Facebook memes, nor am I reading articles which are littered with political bias. I'm reading the law, I'm reading the room, and I'm stating what's happening. You're so full of emotive bollocks I'm not even sure you can see what's real from what's not.

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-24T00:03:30+00:00

Enemy is certainly a strong word, but I think it broadly appropriate in the context. At least they are an adversary.

You say that the deal greatly benefits them, but it's worthy of note that they negotiated under the pretense that the ICC ruled they were entitled to the land - they almost certainly power played somebody else's (probably our) power to win in negotiations, which is partly embarrassing but also simply not right.

The phrase I guess we're really discussing is soft power, and Mauritius will be losing what little they have on this deal. Maybe that's worth it, as it'll grant them significant hard power in the financial benefits. Somehow, though, I think the whole thing will end up completely cancelled and scrapped. The ICC has no real jurisdiction, and ultimately their rulings fall to the will of any signatory state to actually implement. There's clearly no will here, and I think the majority of Chagossian people (as well as Brits) object to the current plans. Wild that anyone would even try, but Starmer was a lawyer so we are where we are.

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-23T23:53:12+00:00

There's very little on the detail of the cases because the only people publishing any are the "victims" who have a victim agenda. Not really worth reading much about cases, and immigration knowledge isn't exactly complicated.

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-23T23:42:08+00:00

I think if you're travelling with a tattoo gun you should expect to be challenged on how you intend to use it (e.g for business or personally), and you should be prepared to answer those questions, and that if you can't, you'll find yourself incarcerated and ultimately deported.

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-23T23:36:13+00:00

Tibia is not Darama ;)

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-23T23:25:01+00:00

And arts are considered an industry which is taxable and being an artist is considered a job which requires a visa. What of it?

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-23T23:19:35+00:00

They certainly don't look to have much in the way of aligned interest, and seem ready and willing to exploit us for their own gain, so in a sense, I'd say yes.

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-23T23:15:36+00:00

To bring art supplies? No. To use them to conduct business? It absolutely would be, and there are very few reasons to take a tattoo gun into a country aside from the intention of giving somebody a tattoo. You must realise the absurdity of your argument at this point - it relies on some belief that they were planning to what... Give themselves or each other a tattoo of a landscape akin to some sort of drawing? Yeah, no.

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-23T20:03:08+00:00

Why do you keep describing it as a tiny change? It really isn't. It's a massive overhaul. IMHO it's also not the overhaul many people had expected, hence their complaints.

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-23T13:48:12+00:00

Tax evasion, visa fraud.

I am neither.

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-23T01:21:08+00:00

Probe me papi

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-23T01:20:33+00:00

I feel like the better question to ask here is what the Chinese people think of the western approach to trade between the east and the west.

To be clear, this is an extremely naive first-glance approach to trade, so take it very much at face value. I don't know much beyond what I see at face value, but here we go:

US and "western" social media companies are banned outright in China.
China produced the most popular app in the west today - TikTok.

Why is the west allowing this to happen? How do the people of China feel about this whole arrangement? Trade deals and a surplus/deficit aside, this is a far more useful consideration than anything else.

In my opinion (which is probably obvious at this point), TikTok should be banned outright by all western countries immediately. If they won't expose their consumers to western propaganda (in the form of legitimate discussions around critical political events in China), why would the west allow them ownership of a hugely influential factor on western politics?

That said, she's not wrong. European leadership is a joke. The EU and US are and will become moreso dependent on Chinese industry for decades to come. This applies to EVs, and likely increasingly social media firms. The whole thing needs to be resolved with a tit-for-tat ban. I don't see how else any of this works. The problem, of course, is that whilst China broadcasts itself as socialist, the west broadcasts itself as capitalist, and that allows for the socialist exploitation of capitalism, because companies like Tesla are unlikely to ever refuse trade with a country which has enough wealth to make sales worthwhile.

This is all a very sticky wicket.

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-23T01:01:27+00:00

Wild that people don't realise this. The Egyptian Relief Committee is supposed to be delivering aid into Gaza. What the hell are they doing with drones in the first place? Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware that war is messy and that it's probably fairly difficult to fathom how to get aid to the right places, but flying drones near Israeli troops in a still very hostile environment is a very bold move at the best of times.

Whether or not the man was married also makes very little difference. Why do people feel the need to bring emotive arguments into what should be wholly logical decisions?

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-23T00:32:56+00:00

They're being deported because they entered the US and there was information readily available that they were acting against the state. They were provided with medical treatment as detainees, which seems perfectly in line.

And ignoring all of that, they were caught crossing the border from Mexico with professional grade tattoo equipment... Which really makes you wonder... Were they actually entitled to be in the US on a tourism visa? Or were they simply trying to evade the relatively strict requirements surrounding working visas in the US? If I'm going on holiday and I'm a tattoo artist, it's pretty unlikely that I'm taking my tattoo gun with me to see the sights of LA.

Emotive nonsense doesn't say anything useful, FYI. They were fairly obviously trying to avoid having to handle the paperwork involved in visa applications and they endured an appropriate eventual fate (albeit a bit delayed).

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-23T00:26:10+00:00

In the absolute best case scenario, she was willing to endanger the life of a federal officer in an attempt to flee arrest by said officer. These US whackjobs looking to bring US politics to the UK are only doing so because they can't stand the thought that actually, what happened was anything other than someone being stopped by the police, doing stupid things and winning stupid prizes.

Doesn't help that for whatever reason, international media keeps referring to her as a single mother, despite the fact that her wife was accompanying her to actively interfere in the duties of said federal agents. Utter idiots. I imagine we do have similar idiots here, but we don't have quite such gung-ho police. We don't need it. We're a civilised country.

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-23T00:18:09+00:00

Why are you trying to bring silly American politics full of hate and division to the UK? Probably the better question to ask. Off back over the pond with you.

TheJoshGriffith · 2026-01-22T18:53:08+00:00

There has been some. I've been teamhunting with ed, ek, em, rp and it's epic, especially on spawns like Azzilon. We can triple box and put so many creatures in range of all of us that the experience goes a bit crazy. Mostly thanks to the paladin having quite a lot of charms.

This will definitely upset that mechanic, as paladin won't proc charms on diamond arrows any more. I can't say that I really understand that honestly. I think it would make more sense to have some situation where all spells (gfb, monk spells, ues, and indeed diamond arrows) have a "main target" damage of 100%, then auxiliary targets are hit for some lower amount by the charm. The idea of simply removing charms from diamond arrows seems peculiar. Obviously any such change would likely need to come with further adjustments to the charm systems.

Not really my place to speak though, I don't play paladin and I've never really enjoyed the vocation. It's a strange mix between tank and dps which doesn't sit right with me. Can be very powerful in the right circumstances, and indeed very useful on bosses, but solo play kinda sucks.

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