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

802 points · 405 comments · hn_acker

  1. SoftTalker · · 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. not_a_bot_4sho · · focus · HN ↗
      Kinda.

      I use VPN most of the time. My work requires it, and I like Mozilla VPN for personal privacy. (Note: it has ad blocking DNS built in which is nice!)

      I occasionally get blocked by websites or services, especially streaming apps, if I'm on VPN. I suspect they're just looking out for Amazon/Microsoft/etc IP address blocks. It's very annoying

      1. manquer · · focus · HN ↗
        Mozilla VPN runs on Mullvad who are transparent and publish active server and IP lists <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mullvad.net&#x2F;en&#x2F;servers.so" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mullvad.net&#x2F;en&#x2F;servers.so trivial to block them without blocking all of Azure&#x2F;GCP&#x2F;AWS[1]

        There are also third party providers of IP annotations to classify known VPN address ranges that content providers typically subscribe to blanket block providers.

        The reason for this aggressive approach is streaming apps all need your IP as core signal for tagging your region and all content licensing is region locked (even on YT).

        Netflix are&#x2F;were the most relaxed about it , and for long time would only buy content if they got global distribution rights, but not anymore. Many VPN ads specifically used to market that you can watch Netflix geolocked content.

        [1] IME they block DC IPs too although not needed for blocking professional VPN, even self hosted OpenVPN on cloud box usually gets flagged.

        1. VanTheBrand · · focus · HN ↗
          Don’t think there was ever a time since Netflix started streaming where they only licensed global rights to shows. For their own originals they get global rights but the majority of their content is licensed and has always been slightly different in different territories.
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