
New porn laws will mean Pornhub asks for your name and address - eplanit
http://metro.co.uk/2018/01/31/new-porn-laws-will-mean-pornhub-asks-name-address-wnking-begins-7275023/
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davb
Seems like the thin edge of a thick wedge. First porn, then what next? Video
games? Movies? Netflix?

It seems like another data grab. I’ve not seen the technical specification but
presumably porn sites will hold on to a verification token of some sort from
the government ID database, which could then be used to correlate your viewing
habits (at the porn site end) to your age verification request (and thus ID,
at the government end).

I imagine this will drive more and more people to use VPNs. I’ve got to assume
someone involved in this has considered that. Maybe this is a prelude to
banning VPNs in the UK? (“They’re only used by criminals and people trying to
circumvent the age verification system”)?

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davb
To piggyback on my own comment - another possibility is that every site or
application with user generated content will eventually be subject to age
verification. Meaning that all semblance of anonymous/pseudonymous
participation online will disappear. Every username you have online will be
tied back to a request token in the age verification database. Those reddit
alts you use for porn, your Pornhub account, your LinkedIn, HackerNews,
email.. all tied back to your passport.

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majewsky
Prediction: When this happens, identity theft will enter the mainstream.

~~~
flipchart
I think selling your identity will become bigger

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mywittyname
I predict a surge in the popularity of pornography among British elderly
women.

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gervase
It is not clear to me from the article whether this is something which will be
rolled out only to viewer from the UK, or to all viewers globally.

If it's the latter, I think it will be received very dimly in countries with
more-robust internet privacy regulations (or privacy-sensitive public
sentiment) than what is currently the norm in the UK.

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guiambros
New source of income for spammers: forget about Nigerian scams or fishing
emails trying to install malware: just use stolen porn databases and blackmail
users directly.

It's incredible that UK government really thought this was a good idea.

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olivermarks
I wonder if they have ever heard of fake ID (or spoofed ip addresses)? Boris
Johnson is going to be spending a million man hours a day on porn sites...

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RKearney
You'd have a difficult time spoofing your IP address for a TCP connection
(HTTPS).

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eudoxus
I'm fairly convinced you just used on online technical jargon generator for
100% of this comment. There are a dozen ways to spoof your IP address for
TCP/UDP/SCTP/DCCP/STP/DTP/etc. connection (Even HTTPS - Don t know why you
feel this makes any difference whatsover).

Like the other the comment has suggested VPN's are a very effective way to to
such a task...really any proxy system in general, TOR works as well. Hell,
just have a friend leave a RaspberryPi in his house would work and tunnel TCP
over SSH to it...

I'm going to use too many electrons informing you on the plethora of ways to
spoof an IP address.

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throwaway2016a
I could be wrong but I think what you are describing is technically "masking"

To me "spoofing" implies packet shaping.

I tried to find a good definitive difference between the two and couldn't find
one. So as I said, could definitely be wrong.

~~~
eudoxus
I think its pretty fair to assume to comment was referring to the process of
tricking a website into thinking you are at a different IP address then what
is actually assigned by your ISP... :/

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speakeron
Well, that's a 'stimulating' site. It seems to be channeling the 1980s UK
paper the Sunday Sport[1] (famous for its "World War 2 Bomber Found on the
Moon" headline).

My favourite line so far is: "He has been banned from every farm in Britain".
I can't imagine what it looks like without an ad blocker.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Sport](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Sport)

~~~
fredley
The Metro is a free paper given out in London (and elsewhere?). It's part of
the same media group as the Daily Mail.

~~~
davb
> and elsewhere?

UK-wide, with regional variations.

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lokedhs
They exist in other countries too. I don't know if there is any crossover when
it comes to the content though.

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zitterbewegung
This sounds like fun.

Step 1. Get the name and address of people who use your service.

Step 2. You get hacked.

Step 3. Everyone now gets to have their identify stolen and possibly
blackmailed.

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mrits
How long before someone makes a chrome plugin that enters a random Brit's
information each time?

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dhimes
Random? I'd say something quite close to a member of Parliament :)

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mindcrash
Waiting for the moment Labour and the Tories proudly announce they unite as
the English Socialist Party [1], ban the monarchy and other political parties
and rename Britain to Airstrip One [2].

Happening any day now.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingsoc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingsoc)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nations_of_Nineteen_Eighty-
Fou...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nations_of_Nineteen_Eighty-Four#Oceania)

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amriksohata
Stupid and pointless because everyone will move to other underground sites and
mirrors that flout the rules, better for parents to use parental protection

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percival_krusen
Uh, I wouldn't know myself, but my friend informs me that tons of pornography
is available just through Google Image Search. Does the UK have a plan to
block that, or to force Google to?

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lucozade
> Does the UK have a plan

You could just have stopped there. They (the Government) don't. They're
signalling. I'm sure they don't really care at all.

This is just playing to the gallery. Or, at least, a specific segment of the
gallery that generally votes Tory but has flirted with the likes of UKIP etc
in the recent past.

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danjoc
Will Snapchat also be required to collect names and addresses?

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adventured
It's fascinating to watch the British tolerate this bizarre puritanical
fascist shift. The forced surveillance laws are not unexpected, that's going
on in most of the developed world these days to one degree or another. The
laws around porn are the part that I never would have expected. It seems like
something the more extreme conservatives in the US would have cooked up.

~~~
dragonwriter
> It seems like something the more extreme conservatives in the US would have
> cooked up.

It sounds more like something the US _did_ cook up back in the 90s; the
Communications Decency Act in 1996 and then after the relevant part of that
was struck down the Child Online Protection Act in 1998; similar age
verification was widely adopted by adult sites in the US to avoid liability
under these acts, in the brief time they were in force. Usually, credit card
verification was used.

~~~
nkkollaw
> Usually, credit card verification was used

How convenient. That doesn't prove age at all. In fact, as a kid I'd steal my
parent's credit card, but now that I'm an adult I don't own one.

Go figure.

~~~
dragonwriter
> How convenient. That doesn't prove age at all.

That criticism was noted in a number of media outlets at the time; it probably
would have eventually become a legal issue had the laws not been struck down,
rendering it moot.

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TwoNineA
10 Downing Street.

~~~
ajeet_dhaliwal
Yeah, I suspect Theresa May is going to ‘watching’ a lot of porn commencing
April 2018.

