submitted 1 week ago by freedickpics@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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With the UK apparently floating ideas of a VPN ban it's got me worried about the future of anonymity online. Now people have already pointed out that a VPN ban doesn't make sense because of all the legitimate uses of one and wouldn't even be enforceable anyway, but that got me thinking.

What if governments ordered websites (such as social media sites) to block traffic originating from a VPN node? Lots of sites already do this (or restrict your activity if they detect a VPN) to mitigate spam etc. and technically that wouldn't interfere with "legitimate" (in the eyes of the gov) VPN usage like logging onto corporate networks remotely

It's already a pain with so many sites either blocking you from access or making you jump through a million captchas using VPNs now. I'm worried it's about to get a whole lot worse

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[-] Jason2357@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 week ago

They are only interested in retail, anonymizing VPNs. If you spin up your own VPN you are still 1:1 linked to that IP address. If you use a work VPN, they fully track everything. The anonymizing ones that dont track users and share an IP between many users are a threat to mass surveilance.

[-] artyom@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

They are only interested in retail, anonymizing VPNs

Okay, and how will they know which ones those are?

If you spin up your own VPN you are still 1:1 linked to that IP address

I don't think you read that entire sentence. I wasn't talking about spinning one up for my personal use.

this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2025

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