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YouTube runs experiment addressing users with ad blocker

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magic:

--- Quote from: Bicurico on October 20, 2023, 08:00:07 am ---I would say only few failed states are prohibiting the use of VPN.

--- End quote ---
And new failed states may join, if necessary. Yours included.
FYI, your ISP is already mandated to block your access to Russian news, for example.

Of course nobody will ban using VPNs, that would be too economically disruptive.
But connecting to unlicensed VPNs? Abroad?? Man, why would you ever do something shady like that?

madires:
Those popular services sold as VPN aren't really VPNs. They are NAT services with a VPN connection between client and NAT gateway.Their purpose is to hide your IP address and location while also keeping the traffic between the NAT gateway and you private. So it can be also used to circumvent state sponsered internet filtering measures.

Besides some oppressive regimes, VPNs can't be banned as they are often required by laws or regulations in most countries (transfer of medical images, GDPR protected data or corporate compliance, to name just a few).

Ranayna:

--- Quote from: madires on October 20, 2023, 09:58:20 am ---Those popular services sold as VPN aren't really VPNs. They are NAT services with a VPN connection between client and NAT gateway.Their purpose is to hide your IP address and location while also keeping the traffic between the NAT gateway and you private. So it can be also used to circumvent state sponsered internet filtering measures.

Besides some oppressive regimes, VPNs can't be banned as they are often required by laws or regulations in most countries (transfer of medical images, GDPR protected data or corporate compliance, to name just a few).

--- End quote ---
For companies, yes, they cannot really be banned. Highly regulated, but an outright ban would be difficult. Even China allows VPN for companies, but only if these play by their strict rules. This can have very heavy penalties though if you misuse it. Authorities have the right for auditing any company to make sure VPN is not misused.

But why could a government not ban private VPN connection to targets abroad? I see a decent chance of that happening. The lobby for that will be strong:

- Content providers do not like VPNs, since these are used to circumvent licensing deals
- Some Porn sites are now blocked in various US states and Germany. Currently VPNs can circumvent these blocks, but there are already calls to ban VPNs by the same people that got the porn banned
- Governments that want more control and insight over what the people are communicating will also have an incentive to ban secure VPNs. Both the EU and UK are at the moment trying to ban secure cryptography

There are actually a lot of interests to control and limit the internet. Banning private use of VPN services can, and quite likely will be, a part of that.

Bicurico:
My goverment is indeed blockinig part of the internet. I cannot open sites like PirateBay when using the DNS servers of my internet provider. But, I can chose to simply use some other DNS server and yes, I do use Google's DNS server. I accept that in return of being able to have unfiltered access to any domain using Google's DNS, Google gets to know my whole surfing profile, including all the shady sites I visit.

Stil, in this case I prefer Google to know it instead of my local ISP that is monitored by my goverment.

Human kind has managed freedom in a very poor way, giving minorities the freedom to be against freedom. But that is a whole new subject, fully off-topic.

tom66:
VPNs couldn't be banned technically, once you have encrypted DNS (DNS-over-HTTPS) it's possible to tunnel everything through a VPN and all that can be seen is you are sending encrypted traffic to an IPv6 address, that could be anyone and the IPv6 address can be frequently renewed. 

Encrypted traffic looks similar to compressed video/data, so unless you're doing deep packet inspection it's very difficult to distinguish it from that, and of course there are entirely legitimate non-VPN uses for encryption.

Governments hate encryption being used en-masse by big tech because it makes the NSA's (and national equivalents) job much, much harder.

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