It's now the 17th October 2019 the age verification software for online pornography websites and likely art websites in the UK has been dropped.

This likely isn't the end of this as the new minister overseeing this area of the UK has said they intend to make pornographic websites invoke a sense of 'duty of care' I suspect there's now other more complicated plans being made which could end up being worse.

Covargo said:
I sincerely hope that e621 won't take the Tumblr path and do a ban of NSFW content as that is no good at all.

Yeah, there's no chance we're doing that.

I'm pretty sure that was an early April Fools joke.

TheHuskyK9 said:
Yeah, there's no chance we're doing that.

That's nice to know.

It always tickles me a bit when people talk about the staff of the site as if we were some strange cryptids lurking off, unaware of the happenings of the world. <3

Covargo said:
So my question is will e621 set up their own system or use AgeID if either are not used by e621 this site will get blocked in the UK by The British Board of Film Classification eventually.

That said, I am not the admin who can give you an answer to this question, but I'm sure someone else who can will.

I sincerely hope that e621 won't take the Tumblr path and do a ban of NSFW content as that is no good at all.

I am pretty sure that this would be the equivalency of amazon deciding to become a free lending library and not sell anything at all -- strange, bizarre and more than a little improbable.

Tumblr's nsfw ban was monetarily motivated: Advertiser money. That's not our dealio.

If you turn off your add blocker (please do) you'll note that e6's ads are carefully tailored to our furry audience, rather than... your google search history, lol.

Corinthian said:
I'm pretty sure that was an early April Fools joke.

No this is real it's been delay for over a year now but it's dropping in April https://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/uk-porn-block-comes-force-14091429

Discord would also be on the chopping block i noticed e621's server.

SnowWolf said:
It always tickles me a bit when people talk about the staff of the site as if we were some strange cryptids lurking off, unaware of the happenings of the world. <3

That said, I am not the admin who can give you an answer to this question, but I'm sure someone else who can will.

I am pretty sure that this would be the equivalency of amazon deciding to become a free lending library and not sell anything at all -- strange, bizarre and more than a little improbable.

Tumblr's nsfw ban was monetarily motivated: Advertiser money. That's not our dealio.

If you turn off your add blocker (please do) you'll note that e6's ads are carefully tailored to our furry audience, rather than... your google search history, lol.

I wasn't poking at e621 staff in that way i am nevous that this site will be banned in the UK. The thought of renting an ageID system won't sound appealing to a website just to get access to the UK at least that's how i'm looking at it.

I have no idea if this site cares to get access to the UK or whether this has been in e621's sights for a while.

It will depend whether i must use a VPN, TOR to visit here or maybe i don't need to worry about it.

I would start with a free VPN and work your way up from there if you need to.

I will research it and see if there are other ways to break it, such as using an alternate DNS provider.

Out of curiosity, how would this work? Like, how do you check the age of an anonymous person?

MyNameIsOver20charac said:
Out of curiosity, how would this work? Like, how do you check the age of an anonymous person?

They stop being anonymous when you age verify them. Which is why this is controversial. Thankfully this doesn't apply to us, and they can block our site if they really do so deem it a requirement. We're not going to enforce age checks on UK residents through a central service.

Oh look at that, EU politicians being the thin-skinned troglodytes as usual. This will solve nothing.

Lance_Armstrong said:
I would start with a free VPN and work your way up from there if you need to.

I will research it and see if there are other ways to break it, such as using an alternate DNS provider.

Cyberghost was the only free VPN i knew of but they removed that feature of their sevice.

KiraNoot said:
They stop being anonymous when you age verify them. Which is why this is controversial. Thankfully this doesn't apply to us, and they can block our site if they really do so deem it a requirement. We're not going to enforce age checks on UK residents through a central service.

Article 13 and Article 11 look like they are making head way in the EU parliament wonder what that would mean for this site in the EU.

Covargo said:
Article 13 and Article 11 look like they are making head way in the EU parliament wonder what that would mean for this site in the EU.

From our side, it still doesn't mean anything. We're not EU/UK based, so they don't have jurisdiction over our site.

Every time these come up it's a lot of fear mongering over what it's going to do to e621, but unless it's happening in the US and applicable there, then the answer is that it doesn't impact the site.

KiraNoot said:
From our side, it still doesn't mean anything. We're not EU/UK based, so they don't have jurisdiction over our site.

Artists and fans of this site in the EU will be affected.

Covargo said:
Artists and fans of this site in the EU will be affected.

Sucks to be them, VPNs are a thing and easy to use.

And yes, I'm German, I'll just use a VPN if I have to.

fox_whisper85 said:
Oh look at that, EU politicians being the thin-skinned troglodytes as usual. This will solve nothing.

This is about the UK.

MissChu said:
This is about the UK.

Still applies, politicians only look out for no. 1 and never for others.

fox_whisper85 said:
Still applies, politicians only look out for no. 1 and never for others.

The UK is about as similar to the EU as the US is to the UK. But agreed on most politicians, the average one is happy to use the 'protect the children' excuse.

Corinthian said:
I'm pretty sure that was an early April Fools joke.

The UK has been a joke for quite some time now.

MissChu said:
The UK is about as similar to the EU as the US is to the UK. But agreed on most politicians, the average one is happy to use the 'protect the children' excuse.

And this happens because of "lazy parenting". Nothing more to say.

Covargo said:
Mindgeek the owners of Pornhub are creating AgeID which they said they will charge most sites to use and some small blogging sites free usage. This software will allow people to verify their age once and any sites that uses AgeID won't have a prompt to prove age again.

I'm honestly at a loss as to how anyone can determine a user's age with the smallest degree of certainty without having a) a comprehensive register of basic personal data, like a government's ID database, and b) a way to identify the person at the time that person is accessing their service. I doubt any government is willing to share their citizens' ID database unless you're a mega-corporation, and, to the best of my knowledge, the only way to verify one's identity at time of access would be biometrics, and current consumer-level cellphone cameras and such can't reliably do that. Most fingerprint scanners can be foiled with a simple cast of one's finger. God knows how many of them might be foiled by just a photograph of one's hand.

KiraNoot said:
Every time these come up it's a lot of fear mongering over what it's going to do to e621, but unless it's happening in the US and applicable there, then the answer is that it doesn't impact the site.

Speaking of which, hasn't SESTA/FOSTA come into effect on January 1st? From my understanding, it kills section 230 ded, so juridical responsibility for illegal material falls to the host now, not the uploader. It might not affect e621 now, but if the USA were to pass a law banning loli or somesuch, the lack of protection once provided by section 230 would mean big trouble, wouldn't it?

Covargo said:
Artists and fans of this site in the EU will be affected.

That's not our fault, they should direct their distaste towards the people who introduced and passed the law.

TheHuskyK9 said:
That's not our fault, they should direct their distaste towards the people who introduced and passed the law.

But what if the AgeID system becomes the new 'normal' and is accepted by the general populace of these countries? If this occurs, people may blame sites who do not comply with the system by making it so they are unable to use said sites via 'normal' means.

Yes, using a VPN isn't all that difficult, but people can complain over the most minor of inconveniences. Also, if VPNs are seen as a simple way to bypass the law, they themselves may be targeted by lawmakers in the future.

TheHuskyK9 said:
That's not our fault, they should direct their distaste towards the people who introduced and passed the law.

It's just a shame anyway i've messed around with Tor and i think it's in a position to bypass the block when it comes. I've tested websites blocked in the UK/EU because of GDPR that i can now get on with no trouble.

OneMoreAnonymous said:
I'm honestly at a loss as to how anyone can determine a user's age with the smallest degree of certainty without having a) a comprehensive register of basic personal data, like a government's ID database, and b) a way to identify the person at the time that person is accessing their service. I doubt any government is willing to share their citizens' ID database unless you're a mega-corporation, and, to the best of my knowledge, the only way to verify one's identity at time of access would be biometrics, and current consumer-level cellphone cameras and such can't reliably do that. Most fingerprint scanners can be foiled with a simple cast of one's finger. God knows how many of them might be foiled by just a photograph of one's hand.

There is a way in the UK to go into a shop show a drivers licence or even a passport and get a voucher code over the counter to then use once online to verfiy one's Age permanently. (Sites must be usings AgeID)

I don't like the fact that The British Board of Film Classification who will be doing the blocking can block anything deemed adult content 'without court orders' wouldn't be the first time they blocked political sites, ISPs blocked a suicide prevention site at one point.

OneMoreAnonymous said:
Speaking of which, hasn't SESTA/FOSTA come into effect on January 1st? From my understanding, it kills section 230 ded, so juridical responsibility for illegal material falls to the host now, not the uploader. It might not affect e621 now, but if the USA were to pass a law banning loli or somesuch, the lack of protection once provided by section 230 would mean big trouble, wouldn't it?

Wait,so if someone in the US uploads pics of kids masturbating on a public website that means Google is promoting child pornography?
scrap that, Google isn't US-hosted.

what if I link to kids masturbating on a US-hosted site? Would that mean they're promoting child pornography?

cerberusmod_3 said:
And this happens because of "lazy parenting". Nothing more to say.

Government has no place in raising children or dictating that they "know best" when that should be held responsible by parents. But of course, some parents are too damn lazy to care for their own kids. Government needs to stay the hell away from personal responsibility.

All the personal information will be leaked onto the dark-web within hours and this will herald a new era for blackmail.

rhyolite said:
All the personal information will be leaked onto the dark-web within hours and this will herald a new era for blackmail.

That's all this move really aims to do anyways, strip people of their anonymity, so winwin for them.

SirBrownBear said:
That's all this move really aims to do anyways, strip people of their anonymity, so winwin for them.

Well, this sucks for the U.K. I could only hope there's a protest for that, which is hardly likely since no one cares about that unfair rules.

SnowWolf said:
...
Tumblr's nsfw ban was monetarily motivated: Advertiser money. That's not our dealio.
...

That sweet, sweet dildo money.

Covargo said:
There is a way in the UK to go into a shop show a drivers licence or even a passport and get a voucher code over the counter to then use once online to verfiy one's Age permanently. (Sites must be usings AgeID)

Verifying just once makes it kinda pointless, doesn't it? Unless each person can only redeem one voucher, I suppose.

MyNameIsOver20charac said:
what if I link to kids masturbating on a US-hosted site? Would that mean they're promoting child pornography?

Good question. I only had hosts in mind when I made my first post, but the letter of the law says "publisher or speaker". Since common law is extremely open to interpretation, it can include both the host and the site, app or whatever is providing the service. We'll have to see how the first cases go, as they might restrict the law to one or the other.

So you send a website all your details by law. Your details are hacked within the hour and you then end up in a blackmail list.
Great. :-/

rhyolite said:
So you send a website all your details by law. Your details are hacked within the hour and you then end up in a blackmail list.
Great. :-/

THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN! YOUR IDENTITY IS WORTH THEIR "SAFETY"

rhyolite said:
So you send a website all your details by law. Your details are hacked within the hour and you then end up in a blackmail list.
Great. :-/

But if you haven't done anything illegal you have nothing to hide :^)

XXXFentacion said:
But if you haven't done anything illegal you have nothing to hide :^)

It's Britain. Viewing porn is illegal.

Covargo said:
It's just a shame anyway i've messed around with Tor and i think it's in a position to bypass the block when it comes. I've tested websites blocked in the UK/EU because of GDPR that i can now get on with no trouble.

For most blocked sites, you can just change your dns servers. I'd recommend Cloudflare's server, "the fastest, privacy-first consumer DNS service," according to their blog. The ip is: 1.1.1.1, so pretty easy to remember as well.

Although changing your dns doesn't encrypt your traffic, so ISPs can still see what you're connecting to, I believe it's also how most of them log what sites you visit, if you're privacy conscious.

It might help for the AgeID thing but that'll probably be based on your ip address, thus needing Tor or a VPN.

As for free VPNs, https://www.privacytools.io/ lists ProtonVPN (https://protonvpn.com/) and Hideme (https://hide.me/en/) as free, if you want to try them.

Pupslut said:
As for free VPNs, https://www.privacytools.io/ lists ProtonVPN (https://protonvpn.com/) and Hideme (https://hide.me/en/) as free, if you want to try them.

Thanks that will be useful for when i'm in the UK

Kodanis said:
Thanks that will be useful for when i'm in the UK

You're very welcome, I'm glad I could help. :)

And nice avatar by the way, just faved it.

Pupslut said:
For most blocked sites, you can just change your dns servers. I'd recommend Cloudflare's server, "the fastest, privacy-first consumer DNS service," according to their blog. The ip is: 1.1.1.1, so pretty easy to remember as well.

Although changing your dns doesn't encrypt your traffic, so ISPs can still see what you're connecting to, I believe it's also how most of them log what sites you visit, if you're privacy conscious.

It might help for the AgeID thing but that'll probably be based on your ip address, thus needing Tor or a VPN.

As for free VPNs, https://www.privacytools.io/ lists ProtonVPN (https://protonvpn.com/) and Hideme (https://hide.me/en/) as free, if you want to try them.

Sure, because people are likely going to yell at Article 13 than this, since one is worse than the other.

fox_whisper85 said:
Oh look at that, EU politicians being the thin-skinned troglodytes as usual. This will solve nothing.

Sadly this isn't anything to do with the EU, it's 100% the doing of the Conservatives and only them.

cerberusmod_3 said:
Well, this sucks for the U.K. I could only hope there's a protest for that, which is hardly likely since no one cares about that unfair rules.

Literally no one under the sun inside of the UK is talking about it.
No protests, nothing. Barely any media or news coverage, it's ridiculous.
I just hope that this doesn't affect e621. No way am I going to let the government know that I visit here...

Toothywoothy said:
Literally no one under the sun inside of the UK is talking about it.
No protests, nothing. Barely any media or news coverage, it's ridiculous.
I just hope that this doesn't affect e621. No way am I going to let the government know that I visit here...

And yeah, not even UK-based internet celebrities are aware of this issues. Only a small amount of people like us do.

Toothywoothy said:
Sadly this isn't anything to do with the EU, it's 100% the doing of the Conservatives and only them.

Thanks, Trump.

cerberusmod_3 said:
Sure, because people are likely going to yell at Article 13 than this, since one is worse than the other.

They do that a lot, like with the Net Neutrality thing, bring two laws out at once, one that they know will get a lot of attention and let the other, hopefully, pass without much notice.

Though the blocking of sites has already passed, a few years ago I think. As far as I'm aware it's now Article 13 from the EU, and the AgeID thing from the UK.

I don't like how the government's been anti-privacy in recent years, but it's still pretty easy to combat, laughably so. It's a shame that there has to be something to combat at all though. It always makes me think of less tech-savvy people making laws for the internet without having a clue how to turn a pc on.

Toothywoothy said:
I just hope that this doesn't affect e621. No way am I going to let the government know that I visit here...

Well, they probably already know, or could find out easily. The Investigatory Powers act means ISPs have to log what sites you visit for up to a year, I thought it was six years, so glad to be wrong about that.

Personally, with AgeID, it's not really the government I'm bothered about, it's the possibility for tracking you as a real person, not just an anonymous ID number, across the internet. Also, what happens if MindGeek were to get hacked and all that data gets leaked?

Like I said in an earlier post, you can get around the blocked sites, and presumably the ISP logging, by changing your dns server. Otherwise if some of your favourite sites do end up using AgeID, there's always VPNs.

Getting off topic, and more as extra info related to the tracking stuff. I can't remember the timeframe but it's at least a year, and not sure about non-UK countries, but mobile phone providers log every text you send, the duration of every call as well as who to/from, every time you turn your phone off/on/airplane mode, and each thing has gps co-ordinates of where it occurred, triangulated from the cell towers. It's amazingly useful for the police, who have to pay to access that data, but people often forget just how much information their phone sends out. But once again, it's not so much the logging that's my concern, it's what if they get hacked, it's a lot of data to be out on the internet. Despite that, I still find internet tracking to be more concerning though, but again, VPNs fix most of those concerns.

Pupslut said:
They do that a lot, like with the Net Neutrality thing, bring two laws out at once, one that they know will get a lot of attention and let the other, hopefully, pass without much notice.

Though the blocking of sites has already passed, a few years ago I think. As far as I'm aware it's now Article 13 from the EU, and the AgeID thing from the UK.

I don't like how the government's been anti-privacy in recent years, but it's still pretty easy to combat, laughably so. It's a shame that there has to be something to combat at all though. It always makes me think of less tech-savvy people making laws for the internet without having a clue how to turn a pc on.

This has being a thing in recent years. I honestly don't know why.

Pupslut said:
Well, they probably already know, or could find out easily. The Investigatory Powers act means ISPs have to log what sites you visit for up to a year, I thought it was six years, so glad to be wrong about that.

Personally, with AgeID, it's not really the government I'm bothered about, it's the possibility for tracking you as a real person, not just an anonymous ID number, across the internet. Also, what happens if MindGeek were to get hacked and all that data gets leaked?

Like I said in an earlier post, you can get around the blocked sites, and presumably the ISP logging, by changing your dns server. Otherwise if some of your favourite sites do end up using AgeID, there's always VPNs.

Getting off topic, and more as extra info related to the tracking stuff. I can't remember the timeframe but it's at least a year, and not sure about non-UK countries, but mobile phone providers log every text you send, the duration of every call as well as who to/from, every time you turn your phone off/on/airplane mode, and each thing has gps co-ordinates of where it occurred, triangulated from the cell towers. It's amazingly useful for the police, who have to pay to access that data, but people often forget just how much information their phone sends out. But once again, it's not so much the logging that's my concern, it's what if they get hacked, it's a lot of data to be out on the internet. Despite that, I still find internet tracking to be more concerning though, but again, VPNs fix most of those concerns.

Well, in the future, VPNs and Tor are the only choice for people who want privacy, if protesting don't work, or if they ever protest at all.

I hate using these tools, honestly. VPNs are just pain to get since almost all of them needs to be paid, and Tor is just too slow for me.

cerberusmod_3 said:
This has being a thing in recent years. I honestly don't know why.

I think, like I said earlier, that it's older politicians thinking, "we need to do something about x" and then getting a bad solution.

For example, there's a lot of copyrighted material on YouTube and it's easy to avoid takedowns, either flipping the video or slowing down the audio and watching it on 2x speed. I've seen full movies on there a week after they were released. And despite uploading a full movie, the worst that happens to the uploader is that they get their video taken down or demonetised.

You can see the EUs logic in a way, adding fines to website owners puts extra pressure on them to make sure their site's free of copyrighted material, and it might even work in terms of achieving that, but it fixes one issue and causes ten more.

Then AgeID, for good or bad, kids have easy access to porn, so then they think of something like that, track everyone and make the site responsible, and if sites don't check the age of their users they get banned in the EU. It's more non-tech-savvy people demanding something to be done, despite not knowing what.

But say AgeID becomes a thing, the website has to pay for the service, and users get tracked and have to go through whatever measures to prove they're of age. If that happens you can use a VPN. But if websites decide not implement it, and get blocked, users just need to set their dns servers to one that isn't their ISP's. It's so trivial to bypass being blocked that it makes the whole thing useless. Well, to be fair, most people don't know anything about dns servers and VPNs and it's those that it's aimed at.

cerberusmod_3 said:
Well, in the future, VPNs and Tor are the only choice for people who want privacy, if protesting don't work, or if they ever protest at all.

I hate using these tools, honestly. VPNs are just pain to get since almost all of them needs to be paid, and Tor is just too slow for me.

I'd say they have been for a while. And although I use a paid VPN, the two free ones I linked are probably ok as well. Just don't search "free vpn" as you'll likely get a lot that sell your data.

With you saying that they're a pain, you could try a free one, that you feel is trustworthy, and have it auto-start on boot. You can also use a UK server if you wanted, as VPNs in the UK don't need to block things, just ISPs.

Aside from auto-starting one, the only other thing you can do is try and find a router that lets you put in OpenVPN credentials. That way you can have every device go through a VPN and not really need to think about it. The downside being that you'll need to disable it for any tv catch-up services.

In general, it's a case of privacy vs ease of use. How much privacy do you want, and what are you willing to put up with.

It took me a while to figure out what actually bothered me, and that's that I don't like having a lot of data about me in one place. So ISPs logging every site you visit, and Google logging as much as they can, that kind of thing. A VPN stops ISP logging, and I don't have a Google account.

A few years ago I was bored enough to try degooglifying my phone. Using LineageOS without the GApps stuff. Honestly I haven't noticed a difference. You can get the Yalp store, or Aurora, from F-Droid to still get apps from the play store without a google account.

Aside from the vpn most things I'd have done anyway, the privacy stuff just gave me a reason to do it. Like swapping my pc to Linux, Microsoft sending telemetry every 15 seconds and receiving "typing data," whatever that entails, was the extra push I needed to actually take the leap. And I learnt a lot, passing my graphics card directly to a Win10 virtual machine so I can still play games.

Aaand finally, I'd say the reason there aren't any protests is that nobody really cares. A lot aren't aware of the logging, but most wouldn't care if they knew about it either. There's also the flip side, it's really easy to get too paranoid with this kind of stuff.

Ok, one last thing, as an example of something I'm not bothered about. VPNs don't actually help to stop tracking. This site gets information from your browser, that any site can get, to show you how unique your browser "fingerprint" is:

https://panopticlick.eff.org/

After it's finished, click "show full results for fingerprinting" to get an idea of how unique your browser is, if a site wanted to track you by using this stuff. Currently I'm on an Android phone with all the Windows fonts copied onto it, so it's pretty damn unique.

Pupslut said:
Ok, one last thing, as an example of something I'm not bothered about. VPNs don't actually help to stop tracking. This site gets information from your browser, that any site can get, to show you how unique your browser "fingerprint" is:

https://panopticlick.eff.org/

After it's finished, click "show full results for fingerprinting" to get an idea of how unique your browser is, if a site wanted to track you by using this stuff. Currently I'm on an Android phone with all the Windows fonts copied onto it, so it's pretty damn unique.

I just used it and yeah, I'm not protected and my fingerprint is unique. Thanks, now am I in trouble?

cerberusmod_3 said:
I just used it and yeah, I'm not protected and my fingerprint is unique. Thanks, now am I in trouble?

Sorry for that massive reply earlier, I'd had three hours sleep and, for some reason, thought it'd be a good time to reply. (edit: this one's just as long)

As for being in trouble, it's more if you're ok with any website being able to uniquely identify you, if they wanted to. Then also remember that if you log into a website, they've already identified you. Also, there's a big difference between knowing you as an id number, and knowing who you are IRL.

It's easier on Firefox as Mozilla added more privacy features so that Tor could use their browser. I'm not sure how you'd go about it on chrome, but with Firefox you can enter "about:config" in the url bar, click "accept the risk," then search for "privacy.resistFingerprinting" and double click it to set it to "true." You might also want to set "geo.enabled" to false, to disable geo-location, and "media.peerconnection.enabled" to false to disable an IP address leak when using a VPN.

Addons for Firefox, and maybe Chrome, that also help are:
Privacy badger (helps block trackers)
uBlock Origin (Ad-blocker, also blocks some tracking stuff)
HTTPS Everywhere (Checks if a site has an encrypted version and redirects you)
Decentraleyes (locally stores library files like jQuery, so some Content Delivery Networks can't track you as much)
Google Search Link Fix (Changes links on google to go directly to the site's URL, rather than googles redirect, so google can't tell which link you clicked)

Despite that, the only real way to stop fingerprinting is to disable Javascript, but nearly every site uses it or requires it to work properly. Plus disabling javascript would then also be pretty unique as well, as most have it enabled.

Again, it's important to define what you're trying to defend against, otherwise it'll drive you mad. Defend against everything and you'll end up wearing a tinfoil hat in the middle of a forest. Again, for me, it's big companies holding lots of data about me in one place. ISPs logging every site you visit, google's ridiculous tracking and then Win10, I thought, went a bit too far. I'm not really bothered about fingerprinting as much. But, again, it's what you're comfortable with personally.

I didn't realise until recently that google tracks what you buy on other websites to see if it's advertising was successful. It does that by scanning your gmail for receipts. If you want to know what data they have on you, you can ask for a "google takeout" and download it all. If you google that then it's one of the first links.

With Win10, your pc gets a unique "advertising id," so no matter what you do you can still be tracked. They say they collect "typing data" and their privacy policy allows them to collect most things, including but not limited to your calendar, contacts, email, usage data, browsing history and location. And they say they can share any of your data with any third parties without needing consent, apart from agreeing to the privacy policy. Yeah, no thanks. I should say that some of the things there can be turned off, but others can't.

So yeah, it depends on what you're trying to defend against. Personally I wouldn't worry about fingerprinting. I'd worry about minimising the things that can uniquly identify you IRL, like an ISP's able to link what sites you visit directly to you. Whereas fingerprinting is more linking an id number, it's still you, but they can't link that number to you.

This one ended up massive as well..
It's times like this where I'd like a voting thing for forum comments, to know if people found any of this interesting or helpful, or if I'm being more annoying with the long posts.
I guess even if it helps one or two people be a bit more private, or be more aware of how much tracking goes on, then it's probably worth it.

cerberusmod_3 said:
Well, this sucks for the U.K. I could only hope there's a protest for that, which is hardly likely since no one cares about that unfair rules.

Lol @ the idea of people in the UK protesting. Judging by the state of their fascist nanny state, that's the government they want.

Pupslut said:
Sorry for that massive reply earlier, I'd had three hours sleep and, for some reason, thought it'd be a good time to reply. (edit: this one's just as long)

As for being in trouble, it's more if you're ok with any website being able to uniquely identify you, if they wanted to. Then also remember that if you log into a website, they've already identified you. Also, there's a big difference between knowing you as an id number, and knowing who you are IRL.

It's easier on Firefox as Mozilla added more privacy features so that Tor could use their browser. I'm not sure how you'd go about it on chrome, but with Firefox you can enter "about:config" in the url bar, click "accept the risk," then search for "privacy.resistFingerprinting" and double click it to set it to "true." You might also want to set "geo.enabled" to false, to disable geo-location, and "media.peerconnection.enabled" to false to disable an IP address leak when using a VPN.

Addons for Firefox, and maybe Chrome, that also help are:
Privacy badger (helps block trackers)
uBlock Origin (Ad-blocker, also blocks some tracking stuff)
HTTPS Everywhere (Checks if a site has an encrypted version and redirects you)
Decentraleyes (locally stores library files like jQuery, so some Content Delivery Networks can't track you as much)
Google Search Link Fix (Changes links on google to go directly to the site's URL, rather than googles redirect, so google can't tell which link you clicked)

Despite that, the only real way to stop fingerprinting is to disable Javascript, but nearly every site uses it or requires it to work properly. Plus disabling javascript would then also be pretty unique as well, as most have it enabled.

Again, it's important to define what you're trying to defend against, otherwise it'll drive you mad. Defend against everything and you'll end up wearing a tinfoil hat in the middle of a forest. Again, for me, it's big companies holding lots of data about me in one place. ISPs logging every site you visit, google's ridiculous tracking and then Win10, I thought, went a bit too far. I'm not really bothered about fingerprinting as much. But, again, it's what you're comfortable with personally.

I didn't realise until recently that google tracks what you buy on other websites to see if it's advertising was successful. It does that by scanning your gmail for receipts. If you want to know what data they have on you, you can ask for a "google takeout" and download it all. If you google that then it's one of the first links.

With Win10, your pc gets a unique "advertising id," so no matter what you do you can still be tracked. They say they collect "typing data" and their privacy policy allows them to collect most things, including but not limited to your calendar, contacts, email, usage data, browsing history and location. And they say they can share any of your data with any third parties without needing consent, apart from agreeing to the privacy policy. Yeah, no thanks. I should say that some of the things there can be turned off, but others can't.

So yeah, it depends on what you're trying to defend against. Personally I wouldn't worry about fingerprinting. I'd worry about minimising the things that can uniquly identify you IRL, like an ISP's able to link what sites you visit directly to you. Whereas fingerprinting is more linking an id number, it's still you, but they can't link that number to you.

This one ended up massive as well..
It's times like this where I'd like a voting thing for forum comments, to know if people found any of this interesting or helpful, or if I'm being more annoying with the long posts.
I guess even if it helps one or two people be a bit more private, or be more aware of how much tracking goes on, then it's probably worth it.

No you're doing fine. A lot of the stuff you said i had no idea about. In fact all the useful stuff to know that people said on this thread has made me really think about how i use the internet in general.

ScourgeOfIron said:
Lol @ the idea of people in the UK protesting. Judging by the state of their fascist nanny state, that's the government they want.

ScourgeOfIron my family had zero idea that this law was a thing until i explained it to them and boy they said this was oppression the country wouldn't stand for. Yeah sure most people don't care or will never even notice so yeah we've been tiptoeing around fascism for many years now. (maybe a decade) Tho fascism from a left wing perspective?

The UK government delayed the rollout with 3 days to go they said it would be enforceable by the end of the year how very vague.

Covargo said:
The UK government delayed the rollout with 3 days to go they said it would be enforceable by the end of the year how very vague.

I don't know as to why but I kinda saw this coming was there a reason for the delay?

No one has mentioned the other side of this. If Pornhub (AgeID) doesn't like your competing site, they can refuse to sell you their software. If the other couple verification companies don't like furry porn, suddenly you can't get age verification software and nobody can use your site. This is an excellent way to push unwanted sites offline. USA does something similar by asking payment processors to refuse services to sites it doesn't like. Those sites die quickly.

mrox said:
USA does something similar by asking payment processors to refuse services to sites it doesn't like. Those sites die quickly.

\[citation needed]

Speedrn1 said:
I don't know as to why but I kinda saw this coming was there a reason for the delay?

They said they needed more time to get it right but it sounds like court cases didn't go well.

I like how they say we're setting a new standard to the world when it comes to protecting children but setting the worst example of communication.

mrox said:
No one has mentioned the other side of this. If Pornhub (AgeID) doesn't like your competing site, they can refuse to sell you their software. If the other couple verification companies don't like furry porn, suddenly you can't get age verification software and nobody can use your site. This is an excellent way to push unwanted sites offline. USA does something similar by asking payment processors to refuse services to sites it doesn't like. Those sites die quickly.

There are a few other age verification sofewares in the mix now from what i've read not sure who the companies are but AgeID is by far the biggest and most reaching.

AVSecure is an phone app i think which offers an age pass card that viewers can buy in a shop. Showing ID at the point of purchase which they say doesn't connect the purchase to the porn they watch. However this requires people to go into a shop.

Seems like good option than giving pornhub you're credit card info.

The UK Government is a mess. With the whole Brexit debacle, it's clear that they can't figure out jack shit. If i was to guess, It's all because they want censorship of everything they deem out of their interests. They don't give a shit about what kids see anymore, they just want money. It's bullshit. TBH, We're living more or less under a fascist dictatorship, with the government taking little to no notice of what WE the public want. This AgeID bollocks is just another way to make a quick few quid from people who don't know what they're doing. It's not going to do anything. Fake IDs are piss easy to make, making it easy to bypass, not to mention VPNs. I guess that more or less everyone will be using a VPN at that point.

jojo935 said:
The UK Government is a mess. With the whole Brexit debacle, it's clear that they can't figure out jack shit. If i was to guess, It's all because they want censorship of everything they deem out of their interests. They don't give a shit about what kids see anymore, they just want money. It's bullshit. TBH, We're living more or less under a fascist dictatorship, with the government taking little to no notice of what WE the public want. This AgeID bollocks is just another way to make a quick few quid from people who don't know what they're doing. It's not going to do anything. Fake IDs are piss easy to make, making it easy to bypass, not to mention VPNs. I guess that more or less everyone will be using a VPN at that point.

I agree this government is a clusterfuck, but claiming we're living in a "facist dictatorship" is a bit much.

Covargo said:
So as the title says this is a push on age verification software to stop children from stumbling across porn or NSFW art in the UK it's not going to work but i can understand the want for it.

Mindgeek the owners of Pornhub are creating AgeID which they said they will charge most sites to use and some small blogging sites free usage. This software will allow people to verify their age once and any sites that uses AgeID won't have a prompt to prove age again.

This is only for UK citizens. So no one outside the UK will see a difference unless other countries follow suit.

So my question is will e621 set up their own system or use AgeID if either are not used by e621 this site will get blocked in the UK by The British Board of Film Classification eventually.

I don't want that to happen and any artists in the UK won't want that to happen either. I sincerely hope that e621 won't take the Tumblr path and do a ban of NSFW content as that is no good at all.

If anyone knows some inner workings of this site or is an admin that is aware of the UK situation please reply to this some peace of mind goes along way.

Man, the UK sure wants sites to just not bother to care about them

TwistedLogik said:
I agree this government is a clusterfuck, but claiming we're living in a "facist dictatorship" is a bit much.

Bit much, huh? I've seen worse.

It's a shame that I wanted to go to the UK sometimes, but this whole thing about the debacle sucks. I don't care about what will happened to the UK, as long as their government doing some idiotic motivations they wanted. Maybe an attack could teach them a lesson.

And by the way, most VPNs costs money, and that's bad for people who doesn't have a lot of money.

cerberusmod_3 said:
Maybe an attack could teach them a lesson.

No. Just no.
That's way more than a "bit much".

cerberusmod_3 said:
Bit much, huh? I've seen worse.

It's a shame that I wanted to go to the UK sometimes, but this whole thing about the debacle sucks. I don't care about what will happened to the UK, as long as their government doing some idiotic motivations they wanted. Maybe an attack could teach them a lesson.

And by the way, most VPNs costs money, and that's bad for people who doesn't have a lot of money.

It's not that they cost money it's that the methods of payment aren't super doable not everyone can get hold of a credit card like me or have no clue when it comes to bitcoins. The other options for payment seem to only be helpful if you live in an asian country or the US.

There are some really good deals out there, the best i've seen is £98 for 3 years from NordVPN but no way to pay for it.

Apologies for resurrecting this thread but the government has just abandoned the project as unworkable.

rhyolite said:
Apologies for resurrecting this thread but the government has just abandoned the project as unworkable.

Are we talking about Brexit?

Munkelzahn said:
Are we talking about Brexit?

That as well. :-)

Munkelzahn said:
Are we talking about Brexit?

If only. It's just as unworkable! 😅

rhyolite said:
Apologies for resurrecting this thread but the government has just abandoned the project as unworkable.

They realized a tiny country poking U.S. service providers wasn't going to work, and instead just make everyone in the UK would lose access to U.S. services. :P

rhyolite said:
Apologies for resurrecting this thread but the government has just abandoned the project as unworkable.

Just read the news on it.

Thank fuck for that but the new minister Nicky Morgan insists its objectives can still be achieved via the new regulator envisaged by the Online Harms White Paper.

What ever they mean by 'duty of care' and how the watchdog will punish pornography websites/art sites for any failings makes me very suspicious of their alternative to this plans.

The war isn't over sadly, just this battle..

https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/08/uk-sets-out-safety-focused-plan-to-regulate-internet-firms/

https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/16/uk-quietly-ditches-porn-age-checks-in-favor-of-wider-online-harms-rules/

:/