Tho trying to solve a social issue with technological solutions is just going to force the other side's hand more. Tor/vpn might work today, but there's no telling what new laws tomorrow will be enacted to ban vpns. And having such laws (that everyone breaks) is just a way for the gov't to selectively punish those they deem troublesome - a great chilling effect.
The way to fight these draconian laws is via democratic means - even if it takes long and arduous. For example, enshrining privacy into constitutional guarantees etc.
While I agree with your overall sentiment, I'm also always surprised by the asymmetric expectation between legislation and executive power. If the premise is "let's ensure by democratic means that the laws are such-and-such", why not equally ask for "let's ensure by democratic means that we have a government that we trust"? That is to say, if you expect to have a government that is your adversary and wants to suppress you then how come you are hoping for laws to protect you? The same process that brings those governments into power also creates the laws.
TL;DR: Too much focus on laws, too little focus on trustworthy government?
A govt is just a bunch of people. What makes people trustworty? Whatever floats your boat, pick that. And I really hope that something floats your boat. A free society is based on trust. Without that, all you get is anarchy. And no laws will save you.
no, adhering to a set of laws (such as the constitution) generates trust.
That's what i was trying to get at, rather than any vagueness that is proposed in your comment about 'something floats your boat'.
That's why term limits in constitutions are a must, for example. And rights enshrined in it are immutable and forever.
Of course, you could argue that it's just a piece of paper, and without pre-existing trust, whatever is written there is meaningless. But the bootstrap, and continuation, of this trust, needs to be there, and i argue that it is from this piece of paper that other forms of trust are built.
Then "what floats your boat" is adherence to laws. That's a reasonable take, but other people may value other things.
I'd also say that what the people want should eventually trump any written text. Society changes, the rules that are the foundation need to be able to adapt over time. To me, that serves the people better than adherence to some supposedly forever-immutable scripture which, as a concept, bears too much resemblence to regligious holy text. In my taste.
Government officials tend to rarely be strangers. They are under constant public scrutny (rightfully so) and after a decade or two of having built a track record, everybody voting for someone knows what they will be getting.
> Tho trying to solve a social issue with technological solutions is just going to force the other side's hand more.
That's the point. It's a politico-technological arms race. They make their silly laws. We make technology that works around them. With every cycle, we increase the tyranny required to maintain the same level of control over the population.
Either we win and become uncontrollable, uncensorable and free, or they win by becoming tyrannical totalitarian states nobody can escape from. Those are the only possible outcomes.
I assume there's a limit to how tyrannical the government is willing to become in order to control encryption and anonymization technologies. Governments are presumably founded on principles which serve as counterweights against boundless tyranny. It remains to be proven whether such principles will hold over time though.
It depends on the motivations of the people behind the ban, though. VPNs aren't terribly interesting to the government over a porn age verification plan, largely because subscribing to a VPN costs money and requires a debit card. Some might manage that, but most probably won't. If the motivation was to ban porn entirely and they valued that more than they valued giving business a break (banning VPNs being rather bad news for some companies) then it'd be another story.
> largely because subscribing to a VPN costs money and requires a debit card.
there are VPNs that are proxied out of local residential IP because these gateways are running off users' machines; these VPNs are "free" (they make money by making you run their gateway, and then sell your IP to botnets for example).
i would want to envision a true p2p vpn network not too dissimilar to bittorrent (but without the spyware/malware).
Has someone interested in seeing privacy secured into the future, I’ve been happy that governments are accelerating their censorship for this reason.