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Wisconsin wants to force all adult sites to block VPNs – here's what we know (www.techradar.com)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/usa@midwest.social
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The bill has now landed in the Senate for consideration

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[–] 13 points 11 months ago (10 children)

How would they know the person using that VPN or VPS is from Wisconsin? That's the only place this all applies to.

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  • [+] -12 points 11 months ago (9 children)

    They wouldn't, but they would know the person is hiding their true location and state back to the user as such. Some web sites will go to that level and some won't.

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  • [–] 16 points 11 months ago (8 children)

    But then Wisconsin would be obligating every website in the world to block every VPN in the world. I'm pretty sure you can see how that's not legally enforceable.

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  • [+] -13 points 11 months ago (6 children)

    But then Wisconsin would be obligating every website in the world to block every VPN in the world.

    No, just adult ones.

    I'm pretty sure you can see how that's not legally enforceable.

    Like I said, some sites will go to this level (as in they already do) and some won't. It just depends how popular and visible the site is and how likely they feel they are to be targeted by an over-zealous attorney general, and if the potential fine is larger than the lost revenue or not. And it doesn't even have to mean revenue loss. They could just say "you're connecting from a VPN so you have to provide your ID regardless" so that they're compliant.

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago (5 children)

    No, Wisconsin literally can not do this, it’s not physically or legally possible. It’s a funny idea though.

    They could try to ban every website which would require ISP’s to block the websites on the list… but again, all you would need is a VPN… and if they outlaw VPN, another user posted the solution.

    Unless they create a Wisconsin firewall there is literally nothing they can do to pass the rules they are talking about here. All a user would have to do is maybe click three extra buttons to just ignore this law and remain untraceable for the most part

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  • [+] -6 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    No, Wisconsin literally can not do this, it’s not physically or

    I'm not saying Wisconsin will legislate that all sites do it (although they can actually pass whatever stupid rules they want as long as they can convince judges not to strike them down as unconstitutional). I'm saying larger commercial sites (think Fansly and OnlyFans and sites like that, not free tube sites) can, and already do, detect if you're connecting from a VPN provider or cloud provider and then ask you for ID if you do regardless of its geographic location, in order to ensure they are compliant with all these state ID laws. Because they have too much revenue at stake to risk an AG like Ken Paxton coming after them over it.

    All a user would have to do is maybe click three extra buttons to just ignore this law and remain untraceable for the most part

    Are you under the impression that web sites can't detect when you're connecting from a VPN? Here's a site that provides information like all of Proton VPN's server IPs around the world.

    https://www.netify.ai/resources/vpns/proton-vpn

    Here's how to find Amazon Web Services public IP ranges

    https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/userguide/aws-ip-ranges.html

    It is 100% technically possible for web sites to detect that you're connecting through a VPN or from a cloud service provider network and respond accordingly.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

    No, I’m saying there are enough methods of so easily breaking through any of these protocols the legislators are even talking about that the idea itself is farcicle.

    With sites like onlyfans we are already talking about pay models.

    There are whole forums of websites that just download specific onlyfans accounts, to counterpoint your example.

    The internet is more complex than what you are suggesting… the battle against (legal of age) porn and weed has been lost.

    Face it, we are all human beings who want to have fun smoke weed and have sexy time I guess…

    I will say that I am a little concerned about underage folks being groomed possibly online or taken advantage of… but this is a joke to even consider our government is capable of handling this issue, when they are refusing to release the names of the fucking actual pedophiles they have videos and names from the damn Epstein files… right there in front of their faces. And none have been prosecuted

    But they wouldn’t even be groomed on the sites you’ve mentioned as far as I know, nor regular porno sites

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  • [–] 0 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    No, I’m saying there are enough methods of so easily breaking through any of these protocols the legislators are even talking about that the idea itself is farcicle.

    Of course there are, but I was replying to a comment that said basically well we can just VPN out of Wisconsin and so the sites won't know we're from Wisconsin so they won't enforce Wisconsin's laws! And my response was not so fast, there are sites that see you're from a VPN connection and instead say "oh we don't know where you're connecting from so we're going to collect your ID." That's it.

    The internet is more complex than what you are suggesting…

    I'm not suggesting anything technical about the internet. I'm observing what some companies are doing technically with respect to VPN usage. I have speculated, when asked, as to why these companies may be doing what they are.

    the battle against (legal of age) porn and weed has been lost. ...

    Agreed.

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