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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. ranger_danger · · focus · HN ↗
      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.
      1. codedokode · · focus · HN ↗
        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.
        1. someonebaggy · · focus · HN ↗
          If anybody is monitoring traffic patterns to this extent, it's not public knowledge. Even the NSA is unlikely to see traffic from one house to another in the same neighbourhood. And nobody except top terrorists gets prosecuted based on NSA intel because they have to reveal how they got the intel.
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