Court agrees with EFF: Utah's VPN law demands a technical impossibility (eff.org)

Article summary

A federal court has blocked Utah's law requiring adult websites to block VPN users or identify their physical location, ruling that the law likely violates the US Constitution. The law was deemed to be a technical impossibility, as it would require websites to know every visiting user's physical location and block those in Utah. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) had submitted comments to the Utah Department of Commerce, detailing how the law would undermine user privacy and security worldwide. The court's decision sets an important precedent for state lawmakers not to weaponize age verification to force dragnet tracking or undermine essential security tools.

Main themes

• VPN regulation
• age verification
• user privacy
• state legislation
• technical impossibility
• Christian nationalism

What commenters say

• Some argue that the law is an attempt to apply moral standards to all people, regardless of their beliefs, and that it is a form of Christian nationalism seeking to subjugate everyone to its ways.
• Others believe that the inability to immediately and perfectly eliminate a behavior is not a good enough reason to be against any attempt to eliminate that behavior.
• It is argued that blocking all VPN traffic is not a reliable or feasible solution, as it would require a 'great firewall of Utah' and a legislative mandate that all ISPs route through it.
• Some commenters think that the law is an overreach and that it would lead to a slippery slope, where access to other types of content would also be restricted.
• There is a concern that the law would require invasive data collection and surveillance, which would undermine user privacy and security.
• Others argue that the law is necessary to protect minors from accessing adult content, and that it is a matter of public safety.
• Some believe that the use of VPNs and other anonymizing tools is a threat to public safety and that it should be restricted or banned.
• It is suggested that the law is technically impossible to enforce, as it would require the identification of all VPN users and the blocking of their traffic, which is a complex and difficult task.