A proposed bill in Michigan has a broad reach that covers everything from adult AI content to manga and even depictions of transgender people. It includes a VPN ban to avoid workarounds.
On Sept. 11, Michigan Republican representatives proposed far-reaching legislation banning adult internet content.
The bill, called the Anticorruption of Public Morals Act and advanced by six Republican representatives, would ban a wide variety of adult content online, ranging from ASMR and adult manga to AI content and any depiction of transgender people. It also seeks to ban all use of VPNs, foreign or US-produced.
The Anticorruption of Public Morals Act has not passed the Michigan House of Representatives committee nor been voted on by the Michigan Senate, and it's not clear how much support the bill currently has beyond the six Republican representatives who have proposed it.
TL;DR: 6 Republicans in Michigan proposed a bill that won't pass, as the Senate and Governor are Democrats.
Especially when morals vary and are just someone's opinion. Morals should only be involved when it's based on the most popular opinion. Moral laws should 100% be voted on by the people not just some old people that are out of touch with society.
Businesses require VPNs to function. Banning them would decimate Michigan’s economy. The only thing these people truly value is money
I mean it's not hard to see them carve out an exception for business uses, and allow them only on business-grade ISP plans. Tech won't stump these people because they don't care about it, when they can just force the people to play along.
This is how Trump works, and it is a technique used by many others (see Brexit) though. Suggest something completely ridiculous without intention of it passing but the idea sticks and you end up with a compromise being considered that wouldn't have previously stood a chance.
Is a depiction, description, or simulation, whether real,
animated, digitally generated, written, or auditory, of sexual
acts, that includes any of the following:
Ironic that the party of fucking pedophiles wants to block pornography because it’s indecent. But raping little children is OK by them so long as you’re sufficiently rich and well-connected enough to avoid any consequences.
How do they plan to ban VPNs? Not on the legal side - they’ll just say they’re banned.
But in the real world, I can disguise my packets to not look like VPN packets, and I can also use many different types of obfuscation to ensure my activity stays private.
Except in the UK where the government is on the left. This seems to be one situation where both the right and the left are universally looking to screw over their citizens and there has to be some way we can stop it.
Reading the bill, it's pretty insane. I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to ban pretty much all sexual content and all depictions of cross dressing, along with proxies and VPNs. I'm pretty sure you couldn't show Monty Python, because they occasionally cross dress in their sketches.
Anticorruption of Public Morals Act. The name alone screams overreach.
Don't be naive and think they can't block this stuff because of encryption. They just go after the business entities. Eventually you'll only be left with super sketchy options that they'll try to block by IP.
They probably won't totally succeed, but they can make things far shitter than they are.
They can just make it a legal requirement to allow MITM, like Kazakhstan tried doing back in 2015. If every ISP requires you to have this cert installed before you can go online, you don't have many options.
A middlebox can't see the actual content but they know what sites you are visiting and how often if you are only using HTTPS - meaning they can also block you from accessing sites of their choosing
Huh.
So the UK has previously failed to block encryption. And somehow the Online Safety Act got pushed through to PrOtEcT ThE ChiLDrEn - requiring age verification for all adult content.
Resulting in a study by ministers on how VPNs stop OfCom from enforcing the OSA.
Which is a thing VPNs do. So it's very likely VPNs get de-anonymised, regulated or outlawed.
Seems like there is a war on the actual internet, owning device and services.
Why don't they licence IP addresses? Require a change to IPv6 and just assign everyone a IPv6/48 block at birth. That means there are 281 billion birth assignments available, with everyone getting septillions of personal addresses - actually more than you could provision in a vibe coded k8s manifest.
If there are 200 million births per year (it's apparently 135 million atm), thats well over 1000 years before we run out of IPv6/48 blocks (1400 years, to be slightly more accurate. At a constant 135m births per year, thats 2000 years. But conservatively, 1000 years before we reuse IPv6/48 blocks... If we don't reduce the block size to represent year born or something)
Fuck.
The good internet is gone. The convenient internet is fading fast.
But don't you dare tell an American to rise up against this. They are so busy campaigning the next election, they don't have the time and finance to insurrect.
Ok, what are you doing about the gerontocracy strangling your society?
What are you doing about the Chinese fishing your waters to death?
Beyond all of that — are you taking the same steps you're advocating to United States citizens?
People are overwhelmed with money problems, scared of losing their jobs, scared of going to jail. There a multitude of reasons why they simply can't drop what they're doing and make the journey to Michigan. We are talking about ordinary every day people go against a trillion dollar propaganda/war machine — what would you ask of them?
TOR, I2P, tunnel via SSH, or any number of techs that tunnel VPN via HTTPS.
Wireguard recently released an update to enable VPNs via QUIC. QUIC is the transport layer of HTTP/3. So VPNs would be indistinguishable from HTTPS traffic, unless the filters had the root certificates to decode/intercept the traffic.
It's the root certificates that are the weakest spot, IMO.
When governments start attacking the globally trusted root certificates, we will be back to the 20th century of word-of-mouth (IE, sharing) root CAs that can actually be trusted, and will need to keep an eye on canary posts or whatever to know when those root CAs have been compromised.
I'd love to see how the banning of VPNs interferes with businesses lmao. I work for an MSP and like all of our clients have VPNs for business critical stuff.
71 Comments
curbstickle@anarchist.nexus · 107 pts · 321d
TL;DR: 6 Republicans in Michigan proposed a bill that won't pass, as the Senate and Governor are Democrats.
IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works · 82 pts · 321d
Any law that contains the word "morals" or "morality" in the title terrifies me. They 100% of the time are a net negative for society.
ThePantser@sh.itjust.works · 19 pts · 321d
Especially when morals vary and are just someone's opinion. Morals should only be involved when it's based on the most popular opinion. Moral laws should 100% be voted on by the people not just some old people that are out of touch with society.
balrog@programming.dev · 10 pts · 321d
Even if the entire state government were Republican, it wouldn't pass. This bill is basically the definition of governmental virtue signaling
Businesses require VPNs to function. Banning them would decimate Michigan's economy. The only thing these people truly value is money
curbstickle@anarchist.nexus · 12 pts · 321d
Whether or not its realistic or functional has no real impact on a bill passing.
The_Decryptor@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 321d
I mean it's not hard to see them carve out an exception for business uses, and allow them only on business-grade ISP plans. Tech won't stump these people because they don't care about it, when they can just force the people to play along.
Hector@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 321d
Not a chance this would pass. This is virtue signaling, or what is the opposite of virtue in government oppression.
Faschignalling. But a lot of other shitholy States have passed these kind of laws, like Montana and Texas.
Unquote0270@programming.dev · 3 pts · 321d
This is how Trump works, and it is a technique used by many others (see Brexit) though. Suggest something completely ridiculous without intention of it passing but the idea sticks and you end up with a compromise being considered that wouldn't have previously stood a chance.
curbstickle@anarchist.nexus · 1 pts · 321d
Of course not, republicans don't hold the senate or the governors seat.
Photuris@lemmy.ml · 66 pts · 321d
WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 321d
A government so small they have their dick deep inside your asshole at all times.
banazir@lemmy.ml · 9 pts · 321d
Hey now, you can't say that, read the bill:
HubertManne@piefed.social · 6 pts · 321d
Ill tell my wife. legislature insists only blowjobs.
piccolo@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 321d
Party of 'free speech' at work as well.
nosuchanon@lemmy.world · 60 pts · 321d
Porn for me but not for thee.
Ironic that the party of fucking pedophiles wants to block pornography because it’s indecent. But raping little children is OK by them so long as you’re sufficiently rich and well-connected enough to avoid any consequences.
alekwithak@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 321d
It's just like the oversexualization of our natural forms. By taking away something that leaves those who have it with a commodity to sell.
lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.world · 53 pts · 321d
How do they plan to ban VPNs? Not on the legal side - they’ll just say they’re banned.
But in the real world, I can disguise my packets to not look like VPN packets, and I can also use many different types of obfuscation to ensure my activity stays private.
So my question is: where are the epstein files?
metoosalem@feddit.org · 21 pts · 321d
Rolder@reddthat.com · 6 pts · 321d
Well the Chinese firewall must not be very effective at blocking VPNs considering the numbers of Chinese players I see in various online games
somerandomperson@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 321d
No way.
skulblaka@sh.itjust.works · 16 pts · 321d
They don't, because every business uses one.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 321d
Sounds like they are basically planning to tell ISPs to just figure it out, and suing VPN companies that don't block people from their state.
Colloidal@programming.dev · 5 pts · 321d
Had me in the first half, NGL.
Epzillon@lemmy.world · 30 pts · 321d
Literal China surveillance state bill. How the fuck do I keep reading shit like this every day. What even is the US?
Erasmus@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 321d
RipLemmDotEE@lemmy.today · 29 pts · 321d
That's one hell of a misleading headline. It should read ”Michigan Republicans Introduced a Bill...”
lukaro@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 321d
If it's something shitty that the government is doing you can be assured, it's a republican.
Scoopta@programming.dev · 3 pts · 321d
Except in the UK where the government is on the left. This seems to be one situation where both the right and the left are universally looking to screw over their citizens and there has to be some way we can stop it.
banazir@lemmy.ml · 26 pts · 321d
Reading the bill, it's pretty insane. I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to ban pretty much all sexual content and all depictions of cross dressing, along with proxies and VPNs. I'm pretty sure you couldn't show Monty Python, because they occasionally cross dress in their sketches.
Anticorruption of Public Morals Act. The name alone screams overreach.
4am@lemmy.zip · 23 pts · 321d
Wait until they find out that HTTPS traffic is encrypted
FizzyOrange@programming.dev · 9 pts · 321d
Don't be naive and think they can't block this stuff because of encryption. They just go after the business entities. Eventually you'll only be left with super sketchy options that they'll try to block by IP.
They probably won't totally succeed, but they can make things far shitter than they are.
The_Decryptor@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 321d
They can just make it a legal requirement to allow MITM, like Kazakhstan tried doing back in 2015. If every ISP requires you to have this cert installed before you can go online, you don't have many options.
Lumisal@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 321d
The last thing the rich want is to slow their internet access down to Kazakhstan levels at their businesses
Transform2942@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 321d
A middlebox can't see the actual content but they know what sites you are visiting and how often if you are only using HTTPS - meaning they can also block you from accessing sites of their choosing
towerful@programming.dev · 20 pts · 321d
Huh.
So the UK has previously failed to block encryption. And somehow the Online Safety Act got pushed through to PrOtEcT ThE ChiLDrEn - requiring age verification for all adult content.
Resulting in a study by ministers on how VPNs stop OfCom from enforcing the OSA.
Which is a thing VPNs do. So it's very likely VPNs get de-anonymised, regulated or outlawed.
Seems like there is a war on the actual internet, owning device and services.
Why don't they licence IP addresses? Require a change to IPv6 and just assign everyone a IPv6/48 block at birth. That means there are 281 billion birth assignments available, with everyone getting septillions of personal addresses - actually more than you could provision in a vibe coded k8s manifest.
If there are 200 million births per year (it's apparently 135 million atm), thats well over 1000 years before we run out of IPv6/48 blocks (1400 years, to be slightly more accurate. At a constant 135m births per year, thats 2000 years. But conservatively, 1000 years before we reuse IPv6/48 blocks... If we don't reduce the block size to represent year born or something)
Fuck.
The good internet is gone. The convenient internet is fading fast.
Sylos@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 321d
you'll own nothing and be Happy
LordCrom@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 321d
Heh, I allocated a ipv6 cidr to a dev to use for ha testing. He created 1 /48 subnet then came back and asked for another 3. Sigh.
DrunkAnRoot@sh.itjust.works · 19 pts · 321d
sadly for them i2p and tor exist so not sure who this bill will be keeping safe
TaviRider@reddthat.com · 10 pts · 321d
It sounds to me like I2P and tor would also be illegal.
DrunkAnRoot@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 321d
not illegal if you dont get caught vpns are very easy to detect
towerful@programming.dev · 1 pts · 321d
Not VPNs via QUIC. IE VPNs that looks exactly like HTTPS traffic
henfredemars@infosec.pub · 9 pts · 321d
It’s some sort of weirdo purity thing not a safety thing.
jedibob5@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 321d
So... how do they plan to sell this idea to companies that require their employees to sign into their corporate VPNs when they're on the job?
AntiBullyRanger@ani.social · 5 pts · 321d
Forced to work in their
private equitybuildings, like they’ve been doing forever?Hector@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 321d
They were just carve it out for them and assure them that this would only be used against the dirty others.
stoly@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 321d
This won't survive lobbying by corporations who need VPN to work.
bagsy@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 321d
You can say that about alot of stupid trump laws, they just keep getting passed.
thatradomguy@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 321d
I sure as hell hope you're right.
stoly@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 321d
Business is the number one user of vpn and the reason it was created.
cyborganism@piefed.ca · 10 pts · 321d
Isn't this similar to what the Brits are implementing?
incompetent@programming.dev · 1 pts · 321d
Yes.
AntiBullyRanger@ani.social · 8 pts · 321d
But don't you dare tell an American to rise up against this. They are so busy campaigning the next election, they don't have the time and finance to insurrect.
So enjoy your Syrian internet.
feddylemmy@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 321d
This is for Michigan and it will not pass. No wonder I have you tagged as a knee jerk flame fueler.
AntiBullyRanger@ani.social · -9 pts · 321d
Let me get your praxis correct: you label folks in lemmy, instead of holding these Michigan Fascists accountable. How should I react?
Jax@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 321d
Let me get your praxis correct: Michigan is the United States? As in everyone currently living in the U.S. is actually from Michigan?
Because that's what you're implying. I think I'm also going to tag you as knee jerk flame fueler.
AntiBullyRanger@ani.social · -5 pts · 321d
If fascists can make trips to blue states to enforce their “crackdowns,” why aren't Michigans taking Nazis out to a great lake?
Jax@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 321d
Michigander or Michiginian, and boy do I wonder why that isn't happening.
Mind giving me a ballpark of where you live? I'm sure I can tailor an answer specifically for you.
Edit: Answer my question.
AntiBullyRanger@ani.social · 1 pts · 321d
Sure shoot.
Jax@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 321d
Ok, what are you doing about the gerontocracy strangling your society?
What are you doing about the Chinese fishing your waters to death?
Beyond all of that — are you taking the same steps you're advocating to United States citizens?
People are overwhelmed with money problems, scared of losing their jobs, scared of going to jail. There a multitude of reasons why they simply can't drop what they're doing and make the journey to Michigan. We are talking about ordinary every day people go against a trillion dollar propaganda/war machine — what would you ask of them?
shalafi@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 321d
If you're not from a given Congressman's district, you usually can't even fill out a form on their website.
AntiBullyRanger@ani.social · -2 pts · 321d
Then go to their homes and knock them a lesson.
feddylemmy@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 321d
I can do both.
AntiBullyRanger@ani.social · -5 pts · 321d
Congrats then. Humans are not plants. Please rectify actions.
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 8 pts · 321d
Friendship with VPN has ended.
New best friend is Proxy Server.
arcayne@lemmy.today · 6 pts · 321d
Can't catch me, FBI-man. I'm behind 7 proxies.
Tikiporch@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 321d
I learned this on Law and Order circa 2007.
Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 8 pts · 321d
BREAKING NEWS: It's time to jump ship
Runaway@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 321d
So how to evade a VPN ban?
towerful@programming.dev · 3 pts · 321d
TOR, I2P, tunnel via SSH, or any number of techs that tunnel VPN via HTTPS.
Wireguard recently released an update to enable VPNs via QUIC. QUIC is the transport layer of HTTP/3. So VPNs would be indistinguishable from HTTPS traffic, unless the filters had the root certificates to decode/intercept the traffic.
It's the root certificates that are the weakest spot, IMO.
When governments start attacking the globally trusted root certificates, we will be back to the 20th century of word-of-mouth (IE, sharing) root CAs that can actually be trusted, and will need to keep an eye on canary posts or whatever to know when those root CAs have been compromised.
LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 320d
I'd love to see how the banning of VPNs interferes with businesses lmao. I work for an MSP and like all of our clients have VPNs for business critical stuff.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 321d
Idiots
NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 321d
I did not see that coming.
Railcar8095@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 321d
Please. My company VPN sucks. Hope this allows me to stop using it