[HN Gopher] Lawmakers Want to Ban VPNs-and They Have No Idea Wha...
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Lawmakers Want to Ban VPNs-and They Have No Idea What They're Doing
Author : speckx
Score : 56 points
Date : 2025-12-01 21:08 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.techdirt.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.techdirt.com)
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45924483
| TZubiri wrote:
| Ironically, I can't access the cited bills, possibly because I',
| not within the States:
| https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2025/proposals/reg/asm/bill...
|
| I wanted to double check that the bill "demands that websites
| block VPN users from Wisconsin", as opposed to "demand that adult
| sites hosted in Wisconsin block VPN users in general" or "demand
| that Wisconsin VPN providers or Wisconsin/US compliant providers
| block websites according to the registered user's location rather
| than their proxy location".
|
| The details are important, and I don't trust that either "the
| lawmakers are idiots", or that treating the opposition as idiots
| is productive in general. Laymen, and legally trained laymen have
| just as much say in technical matters as technical folk. Lest we
| setup the feared technocracy...
| sudobash1 wrote:
| From the bill summary:
|
| > The bill also requires a business entity that knowingly and
| intentionally publishes or distributes material harmful to
| minors on the Internet from a website that contains a
| substantial portion of such material to prevent persons from
| accessing the website from an internet protocol address or
| internet protocol address range that is linked to or known to
| be a virtual private network system or provider.
|
| Later:
|
| > A business entity that knowingly and intentionally publishes
| or distributes material harmful to minors on the Internet from
| a website that contains a substantial portion of such material
| shall prevent persons from accessing the website from an
| internet protocol address or internet protocol address range
| that is linked to or known to be a virtual private network
| system or virtual private network provider.
|
| No mention is given to where the business is located.
| TZubiri wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| It looks like the interpretation of the article is quite
| incorrect, there is no part of the law that demands that porn
| websites "block VPN users from wisconsin".
|
| Rather that:
|
| 1- Porn websites must block underage users from wisconsin. 2-
| VPN websites must block underage users from wisconsin from
| accessing . 3- Porn websites must block vpn users in general.
|
| And this is not strictly laid out in the law, the law
| specifies the functional requirements, and we are estimating
| how the technical implementation will play out, the author
| strawmanned a stupid hypothetical technical implementation to
| paint lawmakers as technical troglodytes.
| zdragnar wrote:
| The wording of the bill is as follows: (c) A
| business entity that knowingly and intentionally publishes or
| distributes material harmful to minors on the Internet from a
| website that contains a substantial portion of such
| material shall prevent persons from accessing the
| website from an internet protocol address or internet protocol
| address range that is linked to or known to be a
| virtual private network system or virtual private network
| provider.
|
| In effect, Wisconsin is demanding that no publisher of obscene
| materials (porn, basically) allow anyone to access their
| content via VPN. The wording of the bill doesn't care whether
| or not either the person viewing the content or the data center
| that publishes the content is in Wisconsin. With that said,
| Wisconsin won't be able to bring charges, and the civil
| liability portion won't trigger, unless one or the other does
| happen to be in Wisconsin.
|
| Where the bill gets its teeth on the VPN side of things is in
| section (4) of the assembly bill, which is probably intended
| for parents of children to sue publishers:
| (4) Civil liability. (a) A person alleging a violation of sub.
| (2) or (3) may bring an action seeking actual and
| punitive damages, court costs, and reasonable attorney
| fees notwithstanding s. 814.04 (1). A person bringing an action
| under this paragraph is not required to first exhaust
| any relevant administrative remedies.
|
| In short, if my child uses a VPN to circumvent the age
| verification rules or some other safeguard to access the
| obscene materials, I can sue any site that operates in or
| employs people in Wisconsin for damages in a civil lawsuit for
| punitive damages. Alternatively, if my child accessed the
| material from a computer in Wisconsin, that would also be
| grounds for such a lawsuit. I'm not a lawyer, don't take this
| as legal advice.
| TZubiri wrote:
| So it seems that the article is factually incorrect and is
| quite obtuse in interpreting that the lawmakers are idiots.
|
| The bill demands that porn distributors OR VPN providers that
| deliver content to Wisconsin residents, must block traffic
| from virtual private networks.
|
| "In short, if my child uses a VPN to circumvent the age
| verification rules or some other safeguard to access the
| obscene materials, I can sue any site that operates in or
| employs people in Wisconsin for damages in a civil lawsuit
| for punitive damages."
|
| I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but I believe
| that any company that operates outside of the State but
| serves residents of the Wisconsin state would still be in
| violation and the State of Wisconsin and its laws would still
| have jurisdiction. If your website serves users from
| Wisconsin, it must abide by Wisconsin laws and both Wisconsin
| jurisdiction and venue is proper, absent any other agreement
| (which would be null anyways if the Wisconsin resident is a
| minor).
|
| I think it's more that the author of this article is being
| obtuse AND "has no idea" about law.
| qingcharles wrote:
| What does it mean for an IP range to be "known" to be a VPN?
| Where are web site owners supposed to get this data?
|
| (also it only affects web sites, so gopher is still good my
| friends)
| observationist wrote:
| Content of sites should be 1000% irrelevant wrt a state or
| municipality blocking it. It's like phone numbers- they don't get
| a say in what gets transmitted, period, full stop, and any access
| of the content requires a well worn and battle tested legal
| process. This sort of arbitrary, whiny, "we dont like it so we're
| going to pretend things like freedom of communication and
| association don't exist" and other perspectives don't survive the
| technical reality, let alone the principled legal framework.
|
| It's 100% legal for me to read off the zeroes and ones of a file
| I own that exists on my computer over the phone talking to anyone
| I want. Even if it's horribly offensive. Even if it's hateful, or
| makes people feel bad. I can even mock the deceased mothers of
| congress people, and there's nothing they can (or should) do
| about it.
|
| Internet regulation should begin and end there. If you're
| wiretapping, getting a warrant, etc, then there has to be
| justification and law in support of your actions, otherwise, the
| communication should not even exist as a concept in your mind, at
| the governmental level. They should consider any and all network
| traffic to be completely meaningless, illusory babble from which
| no conclusions can be drawn, absent underlying due process.
|
| Somehow we've gotten to a state where it's now being debated as
| to not only who you are allowed to connect to, but under what
| conditions, and what may be communicated once the network is
| connected. That sort of default surveillance and censorship is
| 100% never used for the good of a society, historically 100% of
| the time used to the detriment of society, and it's only in those
| cases where substantial protections of due process exist and are
| robustly followed where any sort of surveillance and censorship
| actually does any good.
|
| These actions are power grabs. Any attempts to extend and expand
| state surveillance and control over communications should be
| vehemently condemned, up to and including running the authors out
| of any community they're in if they don't drop it.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > It's 100% legal for me to read off the zeroes and ones of a
| file I own that exists on my computer over the phone talking to
| anyone I want.
|
| False. What if it's plans for a terrorist attack or pedo stuff?
| fragmede wrote:
| Or worse yet, a Disney movie?
| fooey wrote:
| imagine Cloudflare saying, okie dokie then, guess we don't serve
| Wisconsin anymore
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