☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☭
Under the new Restrict Act ("ban TikTok act") VPN users face 20 years in jail and up to $1million fine if they evade US internet censorship.
Compared to this, the great firewall of china looks like a picket fence.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text?s=1&r=15
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@suqdiq use of Tor could almost certainly be interpreted as illegal circumvention under this bill
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@yogthos where does tor fit in all that ?
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@PiiiepsBrummm welcome to the land of the free
Piiieps & Brummm
@yogthos What? The? F**k?
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@matunos it doesn't appear to be worded in a way that focuses on individual, but it can also be construed that you are providing yourself a service using your own VPN. Also consider any distributed technologies like tor. By using tor you became a node and handle data for others.
This is an absolutely draconian law.
Matunos
@yogthos that's a definition, but the clause that references it in section (a) makes it harder to fit with an individual using a VPN simply to bypass IP range blocks (unless they're doing a lot more, like offering a public proxy)…
it's also unclear how the US government would even impose filtering such that a VPN is required for access, unless the service itself (eg TikTok) imposed a country filter
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@matunos the bill is intentionally worded in open ended fashion. This bit in particular means that effectively any piece of hardware or software could fall under the law
Matunos
@yogthos the subsection a referred to is this?
not to say an inventive prosecutor might not try, but it seems quite a stretch to say an individual using a VPN to access a service like Tiktok for themselves would be violating any of those provisions
Matunos
@yogthos yes I can definitely see them going after someone for using tor or running an open proxy service for a prohibited service, effectively becoming a middlemen for the banned service (though in the case of tor the question of intention might come in
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@mxl the law isn't specific to China, it's any country that US deems to be an adversary
Mx. L
How can you use VPN to surpass US Internet censorship? There isn't any server of VPN services in China.
rain variety wood elf
@yogthos classic. get the masses riled up about TikTok as a smoke screen to pass draconian shit
exactly what they did to pass the Patriot Act way back when, too
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@schoolingdiana I think TikTok is largely a distraction, the goal of the bill is clearly much broader than TikTok
schoolingdiana
@yogthos Totally ridiculous and I predict will come to nothing. Why? It’s not because TikTok is a Cayman Islands company and it’s CEO is Singaporean. It’s because half it’s board are US venture capitalists who got their start in BlackRock. #TikTok
Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅
@cupcakezealot @yogthos When they think blocking something in DNS stops piracy or child porn or whatever their excuse is for trying to break things, then their ignorance is a blessing.
When they go this far and bring out the big legal hammer their ignorance is cause for worry, not cause for relief.
Katherine ✨️ she/her
@yogthos I'd feel a lot more worried about this if the TikTok hearings didn't just reveal that American politicians are fucking idiots about the internet
Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅
Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅
@mxl @yogthos Brazil, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Kenya, maybe even Canada ... these places all have VPN exits.
You don't have to go specifically to mainland China to bypass US rules if they're unique to the US.
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@blobfrog it mentions any software or hardware that could be used to circumvent the ban
Blobfrog9001 ☯️ 🐸☀️
wonofone 🍉
@yogthos and watch Democrats eat this up
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