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feedum_sneedson ,

porn orb

Luisp ,

Million dollar idea: fediverse pornhub, ok I can already see some challenges

downdaemon ,
@downdaemon@lemmy.ml avatar

that's peertube

Plopp ,

The porn version needs a better name. How about PeerLube?

redfox ,
@redfox@infosec.pub avatar

I enjoy these threads. I have noticed people really hate two themes here: (1) internet censorship, and (2) people screwing with their porn :)

(I'm not a pornhub user, nor advocating for the internet censorship nonsense, just a devils advocate question for fun)

Pretend for a second it was reasonably feasible to enforce this, so I'm asking you to forget how the internet/VPNs/tons of options work :)

  • If a site like pornhub 'PROMISED' to not log any user data under threat of death, but all they did was run a query against some government database that verifies age >= 18, would you do it?

  • Also, the government database 'PROMISES' to not log the source of the age only verification queries, would you do it?

So, if you say no, is it because you believe there's no way each of those organizations would keep their word or something else?

Atlas_ ,

I don't trust them first off, but even trusting them to not voluntarily disclose it doesn't mean they won't have a security breach and disclose it involuntarily. Also, the database has to be created and queried somehow; some employees and govt workers will be able to see what queries are made. Even trusting the business and the govt and the security of both, I don't trust those random people having access to that info.

What evidence do you have to give the website that you are person X that they're running the database query against? If that's an ID there's going to be some available online, or a kid can just sneak it from the parent. Everything I've heard proposed for the identification strategy is either grossly invasive or quite easy to step over.

I don't believe that Canada will actually enforce this across all websites. If they do it on only the large/main ones, it makes it harder for kids to access the relatively safe and legal porn hosted on sites making effort to follow the law, and pushes them towards sites that aren't making such an effort and therefore probably have more objectionable content.

w2tpmf ,

To put a positive spin on that...

If they enforced it on the big sites it would push many users (not just the kids) to other sites.

This could work toward breaking up the monopoly held by just a few big porn companies, and could be a good thing for the consumers.

Not all smaller sites are inherently nefarious. Maybe we'll see some competition start to rise. And maybe that competition won't be entirely full of "I fucked my sister/brother and/or my mom/dad" type porn like all the big companies keep cranking out.

redfox ,
@redfox@infosec.pub avatar

Yeah, I agree with not liking people having that info, but ISPs do, unless you use VPN, and then the VPN does.

We just usually don't hear of that getting leaked from VPN providers since their reputation is on the line.

Data breach would also be a bummer. If a criminal group takes the time to breach a government database, I think it would be wasted effort to try black mailing people over porn access. Unless you're a priest. Then uh oh.

The way you get positive ID that can't be skirted is with government issues ID card with PKI. All US federal employees have ID cards issued by their department. It has certs that let you sign into computers, sign documents, etc. It's 2FA, card and a PIN.

Every driver in the US is supposed to have a driver's license. They just need to add PKI to them. Then you sign into a website with your DL and PIN. You'd never need a million accounts anymore. Caveats apply.

Luftruessel ,

As some wise man once said:

I'm fairly sure if they took porn off the internet, there'd only be one website left, and it'd be called "Bring back the porn!"

boatsnhos931 ,

Let's start blocking websites in our country because it might be inappropriate for the children. Yes I understand that it is very easy to get around but ask yourself how many pornographic websites are out there...Who is going to decide which sites or content is ok? AI? LOL
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/87c900db-d72d-41bb-8c89-5856cd074a1c.jpeg

n3m ,
@n3m@lemmy.electrospek.com avatar

This is what parental controls are for. Why is the government trying to be every kids parent? This is definition of big brother. Say it's for the kids to get people on board then use that info for other means.

I don't care about porn sites personally but to what end will this take us?

boatsnhos931 ,

I will snap in this motherfucker if I can't look at femboys with big tiddies

therealjcdenton ,
@therealjcdenton@lemmy.zip avatar

Hmm mullvad just got a spike in users, very interesting

paddirn ,

Torrenting porn is still alive and well, so who cares?

aelwero ,

options include the establishment of a digital ID system or services that can estimate an individual's age based on a visual scan of their face.

Oh yeah... I'm sure that won't cause any unintended issues at all...

pineapplelover ,

The future is back to playboy magazines

Max_P ,
@Max_P@lemmy.max-p.me avatar

In a world where there's VPN ads literally everywhere and even bitcoin ATMs, I'm sure that will be of tremendous effectiveness

ininewcrow ,
@ininewcrow@lemmy.ca avatar

Just like the pop up notice when you visit pornhub for the first time and asks you to click whether you are 18 or not.

Which makes me wonder what happens when you click that you're not.

DarkMessiah ,

I clicked it out of curiosity, once. It just took me to Google.

eager_eagle ,
@eager_eagle@lemmy.world avatar

I'd like to try that too, but unfortunately I'm over 18.

Hadriscus ,

You could get a child to click that button for you

hakunawazo ,

So it would just be fair if all users on Google with wrong age would be linked to PH in return. (jk)

Weslee ,

I gotta wonder if these people know that these kinds of laws will do nothing, and they are just pandering, or if they actually think this time they got it

Max_P ,
@Max_P@lemmy.max-p.me avatar

I think they all just fundamentally don't understand how the Internet works and how it doesn't care about borders.

They approach it like companies are providing services to users directly like you just walked into a store and they're in full control of everything. Like companies are explicitly entering all the markets worldwide by being available on the Internet and providing their services to users. Obviously if you provide services to Canadian users you must be a company with a presence on Canadian soils.

Except you can't exactly put customs on the Internet like you can block sketchy imports from China when they arrive at the border. It literally crosses the border at the speed of light.

aelwero ,

I'm reasonably certain that once enough governments jump on the "we need to control the internets" bandwagon, there will be a region specific convention adopted similar to country codes for phone numbers so that they can, in fact, apply customs to it...

I suspect it won't be in the name of righteousness though, more likely it'll be taxes, copyright, etc, on internet sales that trigger it.

jaybone ,

Don’t IP addresses already provide you with region info?

Weslee ,

America's IP addresses are governed by ARIN, how long until you see that name in headlines for controversy...

Weslee ,

But somewhere down the line someone knows, either the lawmakers, or the advisors, or maybe they all know and it's just grandstanding to those of the public that don't know.

Really all this does is train the people with the drive or ability to learn things like DevOps to be even better at circumventing it, well this is not that hard, but generally, laws like this.

tsonfeir ,
@tsonfeir@lemm.ee avatar

VPN bans are next.

iopq ,

How do you ban a VPN? If I connect to a server that's a big cloud provider, how do you know the connection is to a VPN or a website?

anyhow2503 ,

It's not feasible to prevent it completely, but you can certainly make it harder for the average person and discourage usage by simply outlawing it. That's what China is doing at least.

iopq ,

China is not successful in it, since you can still use a VPN in China. You can even self host

anyhow2503 ,

Somehow I knew when I wrote that comment that someone would interpret "it's possible to discourage VPN usage and make it harder for the layman" as "it's possible to prevent VPN usage completely and China is 100% successful at doing that". China hasn't gone all in on blocking VPN traffic either way, since corporations can still use them and tourists don't like having their internet connection dropped without warning (which they actually did at one point), but someday they might and it will probably be enough to prevent the majority from using VPNs to circumvent government censorship.

iopq ,

It's technically impossible without blocking cloudflare and breaking most of the internet. You can route your VPN through cloudflare, so there's that

tsonfeir ,
@tsonfeir@lemm.ee avatar

They just make it a law and use it against people at will. They make it the ISPs responsibility for blocking and tracking access. They ban vpn software and all the corporate OS makers obey.

You’re right in a way, how do they really have a 100% block? It’s not possible. But they can scare 90% of users away.

iopq ,

Again, how do you track a connection to a data center? VPN software is freely available on GitHub. Are you blocking GitHub too?

Even China can't do it fully

tsonfeir ,
@tsonfeir@lemm.ee avatar

Again, if vpns are banned, and vpn software is banned, all US companies will have to abide or die. GitHub is American. Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc. Windows, macOS, Android, could all be forced to report. The year of the Linux desktop!!

Your ISP knows where you go. They just pull the plug on IPs they know are VPNs.

iopq ,

No, nobody cares about Canadian law

How do you know an IP is a VPN? I can change the address of my VPS at any time

spencer ,

Pornhub might care about Canadian law, seeing as they’re a Canadian company

iopq ,

They will comply, but the users won't. Pornhub can't tell you're using a VPN

tsonfeir ,
@tsonfeir@lemm.ee avatar

Jfc. If you’re running your own vpn then you’re fine. Unless your host is in the States, and then installing it would be a violation. Detecting the presence of vpn software on a vps would be cake.

Would they do it? Probably not.

It’s less about would it and more about could it. I think it would be hilarious to watch any government spend time on this instead of… actual shit.

iopq ,

It's a Canadian law, wouldn't affect America. America banning VPNs would be much more dire

Also having a VPN in the country where pornhub is banned would be pointless for the purpose of going to pornhub

tsonfeir ,
@tsonfeir@lemm.ee avatar

Right, Canada. I mean Canada.

frezik ,

That's not feasible. A lot of companies have VPNs to protect their own networks. This increased with work from home during the pandemic. There are too many domino effects.

With SSH and an AWS instance, I can create my own VPN. It's not that hard with a bit of Linux experience. Canada would be about as successful at this as the US was at keeping PGP away from foreign exports.

tsonfeir ,
@tsonfeir@lemm.ee avatar

Government can do whatever it wants.

frezik ,

Not really. The definition of failed state is when people openly ignore the government.

tsonfeir ,
@tsonfeir@lemm.ee avatar

What is it called when the government openly ignores itself?

nihilvain ,

With deep packet inspection they can detect a VPN protocol connection attempt and drop it.
There are already countries utilizing this method.

iopq ,

Only works if you use a protocol that can be detected.

https://github.com/XTLS/Xray-core/ has been defeating Chinese censors

nihilvain ,

Yes, my point is that banning protocols will kill all the commercial VPN offerings. Restricting a big size of the population. Obscure protocols like X-Ray can work but not everyone can set it up.

And I think you can also raise some suspicion if you use too much bandwidth on that connection.
GBs of data consumption from MyTotallyLegitWebsite.me can raise eyebrows.
And that would be the only thing needed for a court notice or a visit by the police, depending upon the country.
And in anti-democratic countries you're guilty until proven innocent anyway.

iopq ,

There are commercial xray servers where you just share them with people for a subscription price and it automatically updates with the freshest info

GBs of data from a connection is not that uncommon. There's a thing called cloudflare and you might already be hitting those IPs for gigabytes per month. You can route the VPN through cloudflare so it just looks like you're visiting a lot of websites hosted by cloudflare

autotldr Bot ,

This is the best summary I could come up with:

A House of Commons committee is set to study legislation proposed by Independent Sen. Julie Miville-Dechêne that would require Canadians to verify their age to access porn online.

The bill outlines a range of concerns about minors having access to sexually explicit material, including the potential to develop a pornography addiction and the reinforcement of harmful gender stereotypes.

Such suggestions have prompted widespread concern from privacy experts about the overarching impacts, from the risks associated with asking Canadians to share personal information with an external provider to the use of measures such as facial recognition technology.

In 2023, his firm acquired ownership of Pornhub's parent company as it was reeling from reports that exploded in late 2020 about the site being home to countless examples of child sexual abuse material and other images and videos uploaded without an individual's consent.

Tories have routinely raised concerns about children's access to sexually explicit material, while also decrying  government efforts to regulate social media companies as censorship.

Ontario MP Karen Vecchio, who sponsored the bill in the House, told MPs back in December that she agreed personal information shouldn't be collected by individual sites.

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