UK peeps, things are going to change..

[overandout]

Ofcom could regulate 'harmful but not illegal' online content

Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan has laid out proposals for Ofcom - which already polices TV, radio and broadband - to be responsible for ensuring the internet is safe.

www.dailymail.co.uk

"However, while the government insists the measures are designed to tackle problems such as online suicide forums, there is alarm that they could hammer legitimate internet content".

 

[Defenestrator]

Yeah, it's not as easy as the DM are making out though - it has to be passed through parliament and even then it will be a ballache for them to do.

Don't expect it any time soon.

 

[ghostspace]

Holy shit, this is scary. Not even in the context of this forum but jesus christ, they're basically using parental controls on everyone.

 

[Defenestrator]

Also, I love the comments on it. ahhaha

 

[kerolox]

I wouldn't worry too much, they've been 'blocking' stuff for years but all you need to do is change your DNS server or use a VPN, try it.

List of websites blocked in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[overandout]

Yeah, it's not as easy as the DM are making out though - it has to be passed through parliament and even then it will be a ballache for them to do.

Don't expect it any time soon.

The longer they delay it the better. It's such a shame that they make it harder and harder for us to connect with each other. I actually wish they provided more services for people that are suicidal as opposed to being locked away in hospital/ medication. I know it depends on the area but my experience has been very poor. You end up making up lies to be discharged ASAP, you feel like you are in a prison cell. You can be forced to take medication, it's a controlling environment and that seems to be the answer to keep you 'safe'. We have no where to go. They don't seem to want suicidal people to mix with eachother, you have support groups for alcoholics / narcotics/ bipolar. But we seem to be afraid of the term suicide. Suicide rates are constantly increasing and they wonder why......

 

[Defenestrator]

I'd recommend getting an alternative browser to those of you who don't use a VPN. Opera has always been pretty good to get past these things. It's slower than chrome, safari and firefox but you won't be blocked from sites at least.

 

[Escape_Reality]

Fuck em'

 

[overandout]

I'd recommend getting an alternative browser to those of you who don't use a VPN. Opera has always been pretty good to get past these things. It's slower than chrome, safari and firefox but you won't be blocked from sites at least.

Thanks for the tip!

 

[Banquo501]

They don't learn do they. They just spent ten years and millions of pounds trying to limit access to porn, and shelved it Just before Christmas. This is just a publicity stunt imo.

 

[AllorNothing]

I live in the US, where luckily our fanatic attachment to freedom of speech keep such government intervention at bay...for now. What is frustrating is that the people who support this kind of legislation don't realize that they are just doing more harm.

Attacking forums like this, restricting access to things that people have used to peacefully CTB, refusing to give people, even old/very ill people, a choice. None of that will help lower the rate of self-euthanasia, because none of those action tackle the issue that is at the root of most instance of self-euthanasia. All they are actually doing is causing more suffering to people who are already suffering a great deal.

 

[Quarky00]

I wouldn't worry too much, they've been 'blocking' stuff for years but all you need to do is change your DNS server or use a VPN, try it.

List of websites blocked in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Can you switch to ISP not in the big 5 ?

I'd recommend getting an alternative browser to those of you who don't use a VPN. Opera has always been pretty good to get past these things. It's slower than chrome, safari and firefox but you won't be blocked from sites at least.

Could you explain that ? ISP blocks target IP in their "router" , at their facility . A browser does not change that (other than Tor) :)

 

[Defenestrator]

Can you switch to ISP not in the big 5 ?

Could you explain that ? ISP blocks target IP in their "router" , at their facility . A browser does not change that (other than Tor) :)

It has a "boost" mode, which effectively works in much the same way Tor does iirc. I personally don't use it (I use Tor) but I have used Opera in the past to access sites often blocked by my ISP.

 

[Quarky00]

It has a "boost" mode, which effectively works in much the same way Tor does iirc. I personally don't use it (I use Tor) but I have used Opera in the past to access sites often blocked by my ISP.

Does this (see below) means they take the entire page , process it (convert images change src tags etc) , and then user get that web page entirely from opera server , rather than directly ? ( I am asking )

Opera Turbo Mode is a new feature in Opera 10 Browser that allows a page to load much faster by compressing the image. When this mode is enabled, Opera's servers will compress the images and other graphic elements from a webpage and send them to your browser, resulting in a faster load time

If so that's an interesting take and an interesting possibility .

This is pseudo onion/Tor/VPN , in the sense that you do have another layer there, but it is not discrete or secure as logs / content / client / target are all save on Opera's servers . I'm not saying this is bad (actually cool feature) , just speculating about its limits .

 

[Defenestrator]

Does this (see below) means they take the entire page , process it (convert images change src tags etc) , and then user get that web page entirely from opera server , rather than directly ? ( I am asking )

If so that's an interesting take and an interesting possibility .

This is pseudo onion/Tor/VPN , in the sense that you do have another layer there, but it is not discrete or secure as logs / content / client / target are all save on Opera's servers . I'm not saying this is bad (actually cool feature) , just speculating about its limits .

Pretty much, yeah. I think that's how it works. Your explaination is precisely why I don't use it personally, however not everyone is concerned about those things and will just want to more easily access the site. My recommendation is more for people who are currently using the more standard web browser.

If you already use Tor, then obviously just keep using that.

 

[Quarky00]

Pretty much, yeah. I think that's how it works. Your explaination is precisely why I don't use it personally, however not everyone is concerned about those things and will just want to more easily access the site. My recommendation is more for people who are currently using the more standard web browser.

If you already use Tor, then obviously just keep using that.

Okay , that is a cool "hack" (Opera) . Thanks for the patience :)

Problem with Tor is bandwidth . It's good for text and simple sites and the .onion dedicated network ; not good with 'heavy' sites , or media (or am I wrong? that was my experience)

 

[Defenestrator]

Okay , that is a cool "hack" (Opera) . Thanks for the patience :)

Problem with Tor is bandwidth . It's good for text and simple sites and the .onion dedicated network ; not good with 'heavy' sites , or media (or am I wrong? that was my experience)

Yeah Tor is very slow, even compared to Opera. Opera is fantastic for downloading/streaming if you have nothing better.

 

[marriedindeed]

Opera has a poor man's VPN built in - its not very good.

Just use the TOR browser and it will bypass any blocks your ISP put in place. Its how I've been accessing Pirate Bay for years which my ISP has blocked.

 

[Fallen Angle]

There seems to be some confusion regarding this topic. Hopefully this post will clarify some of that.

The first thing to note is that SS utilizes a CDN(content delivery network) namely Cloudflare.

So what does this mean? Well when you try to access SS from your web browser(assuming your DNS settings are "typical") your web browser will perform a DNS request. Only since SS utilizes Cloudflare the DNS server will return the IP address of a Cloudflare server where a version of the SS website is cached. The IP address that the SS DNS request resolves to thus depends on your location furthermore multiple websites will be associated with that particular IP address as Cloudflare hosts more websites than it has IP address. Furthermore it should be noted that the SS host server's IP address is unknown to the public as all DNS requests for SS will be resolved to a Cloudflare server.

Ok, so what? Well if the UK government tries to block the SS IP they will have a very difficult time as they do not know the true IP of SS and even if they did it would not matter since the clients of SS all access the website through Cloudflare servers.

The UK government could approach the banning of SS in a few different ways each approach has its own problems and bypasses of us. Bellow are the possible approaches to banning SS in the UK:

1. They could try to do is stop Cloudflare from hosting SS but that would affect Cloudflare server's in the UK which can be quickly bypassed by just accessing a Cloudflare server which host's SS and is not in the UK.

2. They could do is try to block all the IPs associated with SS. Well if they do that then they will be blocking access to a lot of other sites as well. Doing this would be crazy and highly unlikely but if they did approach the problem in this manner first they would have to have sufficient technical understanding to propose this approach which I do not think is the case, second they would have to keep up with the SS IP changes that may occur on Cloudflare's side which is hard and expensive to implement especially when you take into account their inherent incompetence, and third they would risk blocking very key sites which have nothing to do with Suicide which undoubtedly cause an out cry against such an approach. Due to this I believe this is highly unlikely. Even if this does occur you would still be able to access SS using TOR, a proxy, or a VPN.

3. They could do is block all IPs associated with Cloudflare. Well this is similar to the 2 just more extreme. If they take this approach they will be blocking traffic to many key sites as many sites use Cloudflare. I believe this is even less likely than 2 but can be bypassed in the same way as 2.

4. They could also just block DNS requests for SS. That is to say force ISPs to refuse to resolve DNS requests for SS. This I believe is the most likely approach and is also the easiest to bypass. Currently most DNS requests are unencrypted and are sent to servers hosted by your ISP. In order to bypass this blocking mechanism all you have to do is first change your DNS server and second enable DNS over HTTPS(DoH) or DNS over TLS(DoT). DoH and DoT are newly emerging DNS standards which require DNS requests to be encrypted and allow for verification of DNS servers similar to how you verify website identity today. Thus when you utilize one of these standards your DNS request will be going to a non ISP server and more importantly will be encrypted and thus undecipherable by your ISP.

The DNS change and use of DoH or DoT are solutions to approaches 1 and 4. You can look up how to do this for you specific OS and browser online there will be a step by step guide to do so.

If the UK government is insane and decides to implement approaches 2 or 3(which is highly unlikely) than unfortunately your only options are to use TOR, a proxy, or a VPN. Each of these have their own issues. TOR is slow, VPNs are unsafe because for most VPNs they do not negotiate a TLS connection between you and the destination server thus all traffic you send to the destination server will be able to viewed by the VPN and proxies have a similar issue.

I hope this helps clarify the situation.

 

[kerolox]

There seems to be some confusion regarding this topic. Hopefully this post will clarify some of that.

The first thing to note is that SS utilizes a CDN(content delivery network) namely Cloudflare.

So what does this mean? Well when you try to access SS from your web browser(assuming your DNS settings are "typical") your web browser will perform a DNS request. Only since SS utilizes Cloudflare the DNS server will return the IP address of a Cloudflare server where a version of the SS website is cached. The IP address that the SS DNS request resolves to thus depends on your location furthermore multiple websites will be associated with that particular IP address as Cloudflare hosts more websites than it has IP address. Furthermore it should be noted that the SS host server's IP address is unknown to the public as all DNS requests for SS will be resolved to a Cloudflare server.

Ok, so what? Well if the UK government tries to block the SS IP they will have a very difficult time as they do not know the true IP of SS and even if they did it would not matter since the clients of SS all access the website through Cloudflare servers.

The UK government could approach the banning of SS in a few different ways each approach has its own problems and bypasses of us. Bellow are the possible approaches to banning SS in the UK:

1. They could try to do is stop Cloudflare from hosting SS but that would affect Cloudflare server's in the UK which can be quickly bypassed by just accessing a Cloudflare server which host's SS and is not in the UK.

2. They could do is try to block all the IPs associated with SS. Well if they do that then they will be blocking access to a lot of other sites as well. Doing this would be crazy and highly unlikely but if they did approach the problem in this manner first they would have to have sufficient technical understanding to propose this approach which I do not think is the case, second they would have to keep up with the SS IP changes that may occur on Cloudflare's side which is hard and expensive to implement especially when you take into account their inherent incompetence, and third they would risk blocking very key sites which have nothing to do with Suicide which undoubtedly cause an out cry against such an approach. Due to this I believe this is highly unlikely. Even if this does occur you would still be able to access SS using TOR, a proxy, or a VPN.

3. They could do is block all IPs associated with Cloudflare. Well this is similar to the 2 just more extreme. If they take this approach they will be blocking traffic to many key sites as many sites use Cloudflare. I believe this is even less likely than 2 but can be bypassed in the same way as 2.

4. They could also just block DNS requests for SS. That is to say force ISPs to refuse to resolve DNS requests for SS. This I believe is the most likely approach and is also the easiest to bypass. Currently most DNS requests are unencrypted and are sent to servers hosted by your ISP. In order to bypass this blocking mechanism all you have to do is first change your DNS server and second enable DNS over HTTPS(DoH) or DNS over TLS(DoT). DoH and DoT are newly emerging DNS standards which require DNS requests to be encrypted and allow for verification of DNS servers similar to how you verify website identity today. Thus when you utilize one of these standards your DNS request will be going to a non ISP server and more importantly will be encrypted and thus undecipherable by your ISP.

The DNS change and use of DoH or DoT are solutions to approaches 1 and 4. You can look up how to do this for you specific OS and browser online there will be a step by step guide to do so.

If the UK government is insane and decides to implement approaches 2 or 3(which is highly unlikely) than unfortunately your only options are to use TOR, a proxy, or a VPN. Each of these have their own issues. TOR is slow, VPNs are unsafe because for most VPNs they do not negotiate a TLS connection between you and the destination server thus all traffic you send to the destination server will be able to viewed by the VPN and proxies have a similar issue.

I hope this helps clarify the situation.

Am I right that method 4 is what they used for the current blocks on file sharing and streaming sites ?

 

[Fallen Angle]

Am I right that method 4 is what they used for the current blocks on file sharing and streaming sites ?

Yes they use method 4 for the current blocks. Method 4 is the most common these days due to the prevalence of Virtual hosting and CDN usage. The only countries that really use ip blocking are countries like North Korea and China.

 

[EndItQuickly]

The UK is on a fast track to becoming a dystopia, sadly.

 

[Mr2005]

Ok but if your plan is to kill yourself who cares?

 

[ForensicallyAware]

The UK is on a fast track to becoming a dystopia, sadly.

Except it is hate week every day