51
top 31 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] henfredemars@infosec.pub 18 points 1 week ago

Reminds me of a professor who linked a pirate copy of the text book in his syllabus and warned several times do not attempt to use these sources because doing so is a violation of copyright law! Please purchase the book!

[-] philpo@feddit.org 6 points 1 week ago

I know someone who did that with his own book. Why? The publisher fucked him over in terms of pay. He even corrected a mistake in the original one.

[-] logicbomb@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

As a counter to your story, I had one professor who required his students to purchase his own locally produced textbook, which had a new version with different exercises every semester or year, and I guess he made good money off of that because everybody thought he was an asshole for doing it, but he did it anyways.

[-] philpo@feddit.org 3 points 1 week ago

Yeah, happily enough that wouldn't fly here and is actually considered a felony and surely cost someone tenure.

Not that they won't try to find ways around it (and surely some do), but if it's too obvious it lands them in hot water fast.

There was a law professor who lost both his tenure and law licence for it at the other university in the town I studied while I was there.

[-] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

I had a professor do this too but the book only cost like $5 so it seemed fine compared to the loose-leaf math book I had to buy for $300

I fear that calling them out so obviously it will just push them to target vpns next.

[-] lena@gregtech.eu 10 points 1 week ago

Then Brits can use TOR 😎

If they block the publicly-accessible nodes too, they can use bridges.

Hell yeah.

It's very hard to block TOR, because it's an hydra. Block one method, multiple other methods take its place.

[-] NikolaTeslasPigeon@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I use TOR because over on Reddit I got unjustly permabanned. It works great! I rarely use reddit but there just happens to be one community that has some helpful information that I'll likely need to follow for the next few months. So TOR has been great for that!

[-] Buelldozer@lemmy.today 8 points 1 week ago

Blocking vpns is tricky in a western society because so many companies cannot function without them.

[-] herrvogel@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

They wouldn't block the protocol, just the most common commercial providers. That's very easily doable.

[-] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

hey Alexa, deploy an ec2 instance of openvpn with a socks proxy and email me the connection info.

[-] abs_mess@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 week ago

what is "dumb club" ? will vmess prevent authoritarians from packet sniffing?

[-] rikudou@lemmings.world 5 points 1 week ago

Many have tried that, IMO getting the word out about VPNs even to non-technical users is important because most people still don't know what that is. If they ever try to ban VPNs, even non-technical people will know how to use them and how to avoid the bans.

[-] LilB0kChoy@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago

That’d quickly become a game of whac-a-mole.

[-] artyom@piefed.social 0 points 1 week ago
[-] rikudou@lemmings.world 2 points 1 week ago

Source? Cause mine (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50 aka the fucking law) doesn't say anything like that.

[-] flamingos@feddit.uk 1 points 1 week ago

Section 4.37 of Ofcom's Guidance on Highly Effective Age Assurance for Part 3 Services:

In addition, service providers should not publish content on their service that directs or encourages UK users to circumvent the age assurance process or the access controls, for example by providing information about or links to a virtual private network (VPN) which may be used by children to circumvent the relevant processes.

[-] then_three_more@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Should, not must. Like the highway code should rules and must rules.

[-] rikudou@lemmings.world 2 points 1 week ago
[-] flamingos@feddit.uk 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Ofcom is the designated regulator and has the power of enforcement. The law doesn't define what age verification means, only that it much be 'highly effective' (Section 12 (6)). It is therefore left to Ofcom to set out in its Code of Practices (Section 41 (3)) what 'highly effective age verification' means, which is what this guidance is. This isn't Ofcom being nice, this is them telling you how they're going to enforce the law.

[-] tyler@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Not who you’re responding to but techlinked called out that it’s illegal as well and showed the legislation text in their video. But if you’re not implementing the ID check in the first place then mentioning vpns doesn’t matter at all. I can’t even get your link to load.

Edit: timestamp 1:50 https://youtu.be/uGJHzPHOFXM

[-] rikudou@lemmings.world 2 points 1 week ago

I don't believe guidelines are above the actual law.

[-] tyler@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1k81lj8nvpo

According to Ofcom, platforms must not host, share or permit content encouraging use of VPNs to get around age checks.

The government told the BBC under the Online Safety Act, it will be illegal for platforms to do this.

Ofcom is the regulator so I’m guessing they read the law a little more closely than you. And BBC states that the government explicitly told them it would be illegal.

[-] rikudou@lemmings.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yeah, that would be the first time enforcement didn't really bother to read the law they should be enforcing.

So they might add it later when stuff like this becomes more common, but right now it's not illegal, according to the law and disregarding everything else that doesn't really have any legal hold and is really just a guideline.

[-] Skavau@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago

Reddit is super-screwed then because its full of users doing exactly that anywhere this topic comes up.

[-] tyler@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago

I very much doubt it has anything to do with being a citizen. The law would apply to the company making the statements itself.

[-] Skavau@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago

"platforms must not host, share or permit content encouraging use of VPNs to get around age checks."

I'll also note that this doesn't seem to even be in the official documentation.

[-] Rhaedas@fedia.io 1 points 1 week ago

Simple defense: "I wasn't encouraging anything, I was just informing them."

[-] artyom@piefed.social 0 points 1 week ago
[-] rikudou@lemmings.world 1 points 1 week ago

Well, nope.

this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2025
51 points (100.0% liked)

Malicious Compliance

20 readers
56 users here now

People conforming to the letter, but not the spirit, of a request. For now, this includes text posts, images, videos and links. Please ensure that the “malicious compliance” aspect is apparent - if you’re making a text post, be sure to explain this part; if it’s an image/video/link, use the “Body” field to elaborate.

======

======

Also check out the following communities:

!fakehistoryporn@lemmy.world !unethicallifeprotips@lemmy.world

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS