[embedding-shape]

If those services are provided by a company that “offered or marketed to persons in the United Kingdom” or “provided to a significant number of persons”, then they need to implement those checks. Still outside of openvpn, and still outside of general servers, you can still spin up your own server and use that, without any age checks, as you're not offering any service.

The host who lets you spin up the server might also need to implement those age checks though. But still, not openvpn.

[Imustaskforhelp]

So effectively truly Private vpn providers have to have an exit from UK. I mean even if say proton says that its not meant for UK but "substantial" people use protonvpn because its private, then they would be forced for the same laws.

Another point is what prevents UK govt or UK bots to sign up for Proton Vpn say themselves and the difference between bots and humans is becoming thin especially for such Private Vpn's and then UK govt comes again knocking asking for age verification.

Honestly makes me feel like UK citizens are hostage in their own countries & we might see more UK IP's being blocked from accessing services because the idea of Virtual private network is still vague in my opinion. One can abstract a sort of VPN on top of xmpp or matrix servers too or even telegram as the intermediate. Would that mean that UK govt would come knocking onto these asking for who created the VPN (suppose I built a VPN which uses telegram to send messages/packets or uses telegram infra, so would they come to telegram asking what is the IP/detail info of my telegram user, would they go to signal or xmpp or matrix providers too? What if I use a provider who colo's on a datacenter and they go to the datacenter asking for access or the company behind datacenter

I am not saying that they would for something so niche but the fact of the matter is that nothing's stopping them from the laws from what I can gather.

They would only have to do it once to instill fear in the masses. I mean technically just this law has instilled fear and I am not even a UK citizen

Someone familiar with UK law please comment on my message but VPN is such a vague term imo. Like at this point you are just targeting private networks or people who meet online in private

VPNs LITERALLY means Virtual "PRIVATE NETWORKS"

What gives the govt right to intercept between two parties communicating in any way (enforcing a condition for one party to have Id of other for age verification etc.)

[chrisjj]

It is not an interception. It is not a condition on either party. It does not require either party to have the other's ID.

It is no more than a requirement on the service provider.

[Imustaskforhelp]

> It does not require either party to have the other's ID.

Sure but that's literally not my point.

It's still an interception because the govt is still decided who can communicate (essentially) or not.

You cannot communicate with a vps provider if they don't have your ID and this condition being forced as a requirement otherwise the UK govt.s gonna jail and sue into literal millions is much akin to an interception in basically everything.

[chrisjj]

It literally is your point "enforcing a condition for one party to have Id of other for age verification etc".

As for the provider, there is not prhibition on communicating with him, with or without ID. Just on him providing service to other than verifed adults.

[Imustaskforhelp]

> As for the provider, there is not prhibition on communicating with him, with or without ID. Just on him providing service to other than verifed adults.

Oh okay yea I don't mean that exactly but from my original comment what I meant was that the service of VPN is still essentially just a communication layer of sorts between two devices where a middle man can sit technically.

I was referring to this as still a communication creating a network between these two vis a vis VPN

And they are having restrictions on VPN's, my point of fear in this context is that suppose I host anything between two computers, technically its still a VPN (think a proxy or even a VPS or even cf tunnels alternative or heck even my self hosted tmate)

My point is that they are all still technically VPN's and this rule can still apply. I don't think that they can refer to VPN as wireguard or something as we imagine and this gives immense power to them

It's absolutely scary to say the least.

[chrisjj]

I think unfortunately you are right. The prohibition is wide - to head off evasion.

And probably they will need to widen further - to cover anything that can circumvent the social media block.

One more step towards Iran.

Scary indeed.