That’s a bit lot of forum embeds not accessible to the UK now. Are the billionaires manipulating this **** just so everyone has to use a VPN service, and MITM all our data?! Strongly considering setting up my own headscale exit node on Oracle Cloud Always Free tier in Frankfurt or Amsterdam and routing imgur and a few others down it. What next?
I’m just learning about this. The UK hasn’t blocked Imgur, Imgur has blocked the UK. I’ve had my Imgur account since somewhere around 2011ish, and I used it anonymously long before I had an account (back when you could actually do that). I have hundreds, if not thousands, of images stored there. I use it for forum hosting, quick access to memes, gifs, etc. It’s been going down the shitter for a while, but it’s been my “go-to” for image hosting since it started. No email, no announcement I can find, and the subreddit is private. Just a “please piss off” JSON response when trying to load the site or log in to the app. What. The. ****. I am ****ing livid.
Yep, I assume they have decided that complying with the 18+ verification regulations isn't going to work for them because they have poor content controls and don't have a reliable way to enforce it. So they just opt to not.
Content controls have been in place for a long time, but they barely work because MediaLab fired the human moderators and instead rely on “AI”. In 2021 imgur was acquired from the original founders by MediaLab and since then it’s really been going down the toilet. It’s finally time to flush. I can still access it with a VPN, but it’s going to be days of work to pull all my images off, upload them elsewhere, and map the URLs from imgur to whatever the new host is. I don’t even know where I’d start trying to find all my posts here that have imgur URLs in bbcode tags… Repeating the sentiment expressed by countless imgur community members last month… **** you, business daddy.
Given how relatively few images I share and how little reliability I need from publicly shared images I might just pop a selfhosting docker on my server and share it via my cloudflare tunnel. Slink seems to be the most updated https://github.com/andrii-kryvoviaz/slink
Just closed my Imgur account, as it now has no purpose. Anyone got any suggestions for a good free alternative, just for hosting pictures to post on forums?
The ICO has just issued a statement. Basically it says “yeah, block the UK all you want, but it doesn’t get you off the hook for the fines we said we might slap you with”. For context: the ICO had been conducting an investigation into MediaLab AI Inc., Imgur’s owner (aka business daddy), over their handling of personal information of 13-17 year olds and its use of age verification. Detail here. Full text of today’s statement:
I am sure the company will say ‘**** you’ and move on. The ICO can issue whatever they want under UK jurisdiction but if they have no UK assets that can be seized I would see it difficult to enforce/collect.
Trying to access imgur in the UK now gives a more meaningful message and directs people to the following page: https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/41592665292443-Imgur-access-in-the-United-Kingdom Yeah, basically: “Oh, you’re in the UK? Well **** you then.” I’m still pissed it was done without warning. I have more thoughts, but those are for when I’m not at work.
We don't realise we're here during the wild west beginnings, regulation and control is inevitable. We'll all have one ID and content will get tightened up. VPNs will be massively illegal like identity fraud. The days of watching a game on YouTube or sophisticated mature content for free will be the past. The early 20th Century internet will be spoken of like we're cavemen. 22nd Century kids will mock our simpleminded ways (for that or using paper to clean our buttholes).
I'm sure they'll find a way to distinguish private VPNs and public VPNs, it's not that difficult. One is provided by your employer, the other is sold as a product to the general public.
It's not just working from home, or use by an employer. I require a 'VPN' for work. Not to work remotely, because when I'm working remotely a fair chunk of my 'work' traffic actually goes over my home internet connection instead of the VPN. But I require a VPN even when I'm at the office, because it's how we access our AWS & Azure assets. We require a private encrypted 'tunnel' connection because we've designed the cloud infrastructure to accessible only via those private encrypted 'tunnels'. In principle, that is no different to a 'VPN'. "But," I hear you (not) crying, "that's a 'private' VPN, so that'll still be allowed under our Glorious New Firewall!" But... is it really? I, as a private individual, have an Azure account that I use for overnight NAS backups. I pay for it myself and it's utterly unconnected to work in any way shape or form. I could, if I chose, create the same 'private endpoint' network infrastructure on my own Azure account and require a private encrypted 'tunnel' connection to access the storage account where my backups are. I don't do that because it's a total ballache to work with and software-defined networking is akin to black magic sorcery. But I could if I wanted to. If the government wanted to "ban" VPNs, they would have to regulate cloud services from Microsoft, or Amazon, or Google. It would have to dictate to these absolutely gargantuan tech corporations what they are or are not allowed to provide in the UK and which people in the UK they are or are not allowed to provide specific services to. I do not see that conversation going very well. Not when at least one other gargantuan tech corporation has already told the UK government to go f' itself. "Advanced Data Protection" is an end-to-end encryption service where the keys are stored on the device itself. The UK government tried to force Apple to provide a 'back door' for this encryption and give the UK government the ability to decrypt the data on any Apple device owned by any person in any country. Apple told the UK government to go f' itself, withdrew the Advanced Data Protection feature from the UK, started a legal challenge, and ultimately the UK government reportedly "backed down" on its demands.
I'm sure they'll try for a blanket ban and much excrement will hit the fan bc no-one in the govt knows how anything actually works nor do they care to learn.
That conversation would unfortunately probably go better than you think. These businesses probably already have these possibilities built-in. The UK would not be the first country to do so. Nothing more than a flag in a database somewhere.
I doubt it. Private endpoints/routes are a fairly critical security feature; they're the single most 'bullet-proof' way of ensuring that your critical cloud resources & data are absolutely not available to the 'public' internet. If services like that were to be restricted to 'business customers only', what's to stop me registering my own business and setting up a 'business' Azure account? My 'business' doesn't have to do squat, just file whatever paperwork is necessary and submit 'nil return' account statements. In fact I already did that years ago when I planned to do a lot more streaming; I converted my PayPal account to a 'business' account and registered for tax self-assessment. I still have a 'business' PayPal account, I can't change it back.
I mean, if the reason you're using a VPN is "so I can bypass regional restrictions," you don't even need a VPN provider: rent a cheap VPS in the target region of your choice and install your own VPN server on it. Doesn't mix your traffic in with a bunch of other people's like a "real" commercial VPN, doesn't come with a no-logging guarantee, and the VPS provider'll roll on you if anyone comes knocking - but it'll get you round region locks nae bother. So now the government has to ban VPNs-but-not-*those*-VPNs-only-the-bad-ones and all offshore server hosting...
Precisely. I wouldn’t put it past them to try - after all, the government did try to force Apple to intentionally break end-to-end encryption for any Apple device in any country… But it wouldn’t be just the “big tech” firms pushing back on it any more. It would affect any company of any size who has any kind of need to store data on a remote service and lock it down to specific users/groups on a trusted network. If VPNs were banned, and it actually went ahead in the ham-fisted way it was intended, the only way you could guarantee that data is secured against outside access would be to airgap it on private infrastructure. (Even then that’s not a cast-iron guarantee because of insider threats - but we’re talking digital security, not physical.) The concept of a “virtual private network” has existed for far far longer than “VPN” products that are available to all and sundry. It’s not an exaggeration to say that it’s a cornerstone of secure modern computing & communications.
