Thread

Court agrees with EFF: Utah's VPN law demands a technical impossibility

802 points · 405 comments · hn_acker

SoftTalker · 1790960547 · focus · HN ↗
> platforms are left with an impossible choice: completely block all VPN traffic nationwide or withdraw access from Utah entirely
Is it even possible to reliably know that a connection is from a VPN? Anyone can proxy through a random hosting provider.
1. happyPersonR · 1790967013 · focus · HN ↗
  Requires the vpn provider to snitch and possible tag the ip frames or http frames lol
  Folks would just host their own vpns various places and this would be pointless ….
  1. mmooss · 1790969790 · focus · HN ↗
    > Folks would just host their own vpns various places and this would be pointless
    In the real world, very few people have that capability.
    mey · 1790969983 · focus · HN ↗
    Do you have a friend/family out of state? Do they have a commodity router? Many have such a feature built in.
    Less savvy individuals/business would also have no reason to obey these laws.
    See <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit
    mmooss · 1790971243 · focus · HN ↗
    The limitation isn't access to the technology. There is endless OSS, it's probably built into many standard OSes, and there are many available products and projects that will deploy the whole thing for you.
    The limitation is technical skill, even having enough skill to know that this is a solution.
    mightyham · 1791028533 · focus · HN ↗
    How many out of state friends and family would you feel comfortable asking to set up a VPN for you so you can watch porn?
    ddlsmurf · 1790985253 · focus · HN ↗
    But also there's very little need today, it's very cheap to do, just complicated, a barrier that can be easily solved if there appears demand
    mtlmtlmtlmtl · 1791001410 · focus · HN ↗
    This is such a common HN trope, and it's tiresome.
    Yes, lots of things will at any point be beyond the technical ability of most people as long as they remain niche. But as soon as a sizable market exists(e.g one created by a law, like in this case), products and services that close that gap will appear.
    Hell, there's even stuff for doing this already, which is not that hard for non-technical people to set up, like Tailscale. I can easily imagine a Tailscale-like product that easily allows friends to use eachothers networks as a VPN with zero configuration or Wireguard knowledge required. I mean, when you think about it it's just Tailscale but more streamlined for that particular purpose.
    someonebaggy · 1791027721 · focus · HN ↗
    Chinese people manage. Mostly by knowing someone who has the capability.

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.