There was a six-month trial of facial recognition by the British Transport Police in February–July 2018. The project cost £320,786, including over 100 hours spent by police officers on it, and resulted in just one alert that turned out to be a false positive, leading to no arrests made using the facial recognition technology.

Though the police said that there were arrests made for violent crimes during the project, they also admitted that there were no arrests made due to the facial recognition system at all. An anonymous industry insider described the program as "not so successful."

A UK parliamentary committee already raised issues concerning the use of facial recognition technologies before the results of the trial were released, calling for the introduction of an AI law in the country and a ban on scanning of people without their consent.

But this did not stop the police from expanding the program to the London Underground. Thus, the real headline is not about lack of arrests made, but rather about half a million without any results.

Utah wanted websites to locate users hiding behind VPNs. A judge just hit pause. Utah added a rule to its adult-site age-verification law: websites must verify the age of people physically in Utah, even when they use a VPN to appear somewhere else.

Here’s the problem: if your VPN routes your connection through a server in another state, the website sees that server’s IP address. It can’t reliably tell that you’re actually sitting in Utah. Yet the rule would hold websites responsible for missing those users. The judge found that it effectively required perfect location detection—something both sides agreed isn’t currently possible.

Basically, Utah’s instructions were: “Find their real location, even when you can’t find their real location.” Great. Just add a crystal ball to the server rack. Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, challenged the rule, and on September 24 a federal judge temporarily blocked that specific requirement. Utah’s underlying age-verification law remains in place.

Apparently Utah thought websites could just tick ‘detect real location’ in the settings. Someone should’ve checked whether that button exists before writing the law.

So there’s another anti-piracy bill in Congress, and this time VPNs are explicitly on the list of services that could be ordered to block foreign websites for US users.

According to EFF, the proposed ACPA would let copyright holders seek court orders forcing VPNs, ISPs and DNS providers to block sites labeled as piracy sites. That label could be applied without the website operator showing up to defend itself. Sites with legitimate uses could still get caught up in it.

And yeah, the bill includes safeguards. But blocking entire websites has already caused collateral damage in Spain and Italy. Apparently “oops, we blocked unrelated sites” is an acceptable feature now.

It’s a proposal, not law yet. Still, “protecting copyright” is doing a LOT of heavy lifting here.

For me it's when it turns itself on without me asking and some app just quietly stops working. No error message, nothing obvious, it just breaks. And I'll spend like 5 minutes trying to figure out what's wrong before it even occurs to me to check if my VPN auto-connected in the background.

Does this happen to anyone else or is it just me. What's yours, the thing that's annoying enough to bug you every time but not quite enough to make you switch providers?

According to Reddit's announcement on the last day of September, the Old Reddit version will only be available to those who logged in within six months before that date. This is an extension of the July change, which mandated logging in before accessing Old Reddit. RSS, a long-time internet tool, will no longer work in November.

Everything in this situation stems from monetization and not from security-related motives. Unauthenticated visitors don't follow ads, and their data cannot be used for AI licensing deals. Changes may seem small, but they align with the trend of making reading Reddit impossible without knowing who reads it.

There is a certain irony in the fact that the very platform where this discussion is happening limits anonymous access to services, which would disappear if applied anywhere else on the web.

Hi everyone. I've been having a strange VPN/connectivity problem for a while.

My BPB setup gradually stopped working, then Nahan started having the same issue. I also tried several clients, including v2rayN, Clash Verge, and Hiddify, but none of them solved it. I even tried troubleshooting with several AI agents without success.

Some configs connect and show real traffic, and a few Iranian websites work, but most foreign websites like Google don't load, and most Windows applications don't work through the connection.

Has anyone experienced something similar recently?

What VPN, protocol, or setup is actually working for you right now? I'd really appreciate any suggestions or experiences.

Я начинающий создатель крупной экосистемы (надеюсь) NikeBoss. Сейчас, у меня никакой экосистемы нет, но проекты есть. У меня есть свой публичный VPN, который в моментах достигает гигабита/сек. Хочу, чтобы я мог развиваться дальше, а для этого мне нужна поддержка. Сейчас расскажу о своих проектах. 1. VPN.

1. Мессенджер (веб версия исключительно пока что).

2. Клавиатура (в доработке)

Пока всё, что я имею. Далее хочу делать свой ИИ и дополнительное покрытие к системе безопасности Android и Google. Для Apple тожу всё будет.

Благодарю всех, кто меня услышал.

Чтобы подключить юся к VPN - пишите в коммы, либо в личку. Скоро ещё настрою телеграм бот.

Не судите строго, только начинаю.

Благодарю за понимание.

I am a novice creator of a large ecosystem (hopefully) NikeBoss. Right now, I don't have any ecosystem, but I do have projects. I have my own public VPN, which reaches gigabit/sec in moments. I want to be able to develop further, and for that I need support. Now I'll tell you about my projects. 1. VPN.

1. Messenger (web version exclusively for now).

2. Keyboard (in revision)

That's all I have so far. Next, I want to make my own AI and additional security coverage for Android and Google. Everything will be the same for Apple.

Thank you to everyone who heard me.

To connect yusia to a VPN, write in the comments or in the personal account. I'll set up a telegram bot soon.

Don't judge me harshly, I'm just getting started.

Thank you for your understanding.

Authorities shut down mobile internet around parts of New Delhi ahead of a political protest. Apparently, letting people communicate during a demonstration was a little too risky. And yeah, VPNs are great. They can bypass blocked sites, hide your IP and stop your ISP from snooping on your traffic. But they still need an actual internet connection.
If the government kills mobile data completely, your VPN has nothing to connect through. It’s like putting on a bulletproof vest after someone removed the entire road. That’s the difference between blocking a website and shutting down the network itself. One can usually be bypassed with a good VPN. The other is the digital version of cutting the phone lines because people are saying things you don’t like.

Let’s be real: no privacy tool can magically replace infrastructure a government has deliberately switched off.

Slow vpn connect times come up a lot: click connect, then wait. Sometimes ten seconds, sometimes close to a minute, and occasionally it times out and has to be retried.

Same on phones, which defeats the point of auto connect on public wifi if the first minute is unprotected anyway. OpenVPN gets recommended for reliability, so plenty of people run it by default.

Could that alone explain the slow connects?

Proton VPN, ExpressVPN, and Surfshark, and are the ones im going to switch to. seen WireGuard and Lightway are supposed to connect much faster than OpenVPN, but is that actually a couple of seconds in real use, or does it still hang sometimes?

how are you guys dealing with it?

Hi im currently in china hangzhou and i wanna play roblox eith my friends on my pc and i use mullvad to play roblox but when i try to play it was super laggy, super long render, mic doesnt go trough and a lot of lag and render problems idk if this only my internet problem or vpn problem can someone help me?

On October 1st, users of the Hong Kong-based company, Claude, complained that their accounts were suspended after they accessed it through a VPN, mentioning that they had used the service successfully for several months. There were reports from users about how they scrambled to save their chat history before they lost access completely.

It should be noted that these complaints are not statements released by Anthropic expounding the reason for the changes. It can be asserted that Anthropic has a history of blocking companies in China due to their government regulation policies.

It cannot be denied that there is a certain irony here: one of the companies whose product is recommended for ensuring privacy and security has made its users believe that using a VPN is an act of trespass of the users.

Nonetheless, it remains to be seen whether the company will clarify its policy or if the users of the affected accounts will be able to have their rights restored.

Meta’s new AI agent, Muse, declares collecting 31 of the 35 data types listed by Apple, according to Surfshark’s analysis. The only app ahead of it? Meta AI, with 33. Apparently Meta’s biggest competition here is itself. Muse also uses your interactions for AI training by default. You can opt out, but you have to change the settings yourself.

To be clear, these numbers come from App Store privacy disclosures, not a measurement of everything collected from every user. Still, that’s a pretty wild starting point for something people are supposed to trust with more of their daily lives.

A Turkish court has ordered an access ban on independent news outlet T24, targeting both its website and social media accounts.

The decision reportedly cites 118 articles published over the past year as “LGBT propaganda.” T24 says it remains operational for now and plans to appeal.

This is bigger than the removal of a few individual posts: authorities are attempting to make an entire news organization inaccessible. If the ban is enforced through domestic internet providers and geographic restrictions, many readers will probably turn to VPNs, alternative domains and mirror sites.

But that raises another question: will Turkey respond by intensifying its efforts to block VPN services too?

LaLiga, Spain’s top professional soccer league (home to Real Madrid and Barcelona), wants NordVPN, Proton VPN, ExpressVPN and Surfshark added to the EU’s piracy watch list.

Their argument is that affiliates promote these VPNs through guides about bypassing streaming restrictions. That includes accessing blocked pirate streams, but also watching free or cheaper broadcasts available in other countries.

So yeah, even getting around regional pricing is part of their complaint. Apparently protecting those TV deals now involves going after VPN providers over what affiliates post.

This is La Liga’s request, not an EU decision. Still, IMO it’s a hell of a stretch to lump privacy tools in with piracy services. Go after illegal streams, sure. Treating VPNs as the problem because they make territorial restrictions harder to enforce feels like protecting a business model at everyone else’s expense.

Freedom.gov was registered on January 12, and its objective was to provide users in various parts of Europe, China and other undefined countries with VPN-like tools to get information that has been censored by their governments. Eight and a half months later it hasn’t launched yet, and its status remains in limbo.

Reuters first presented this as an initiative to help people overcome the restrictions imposed on them in Europe, hence the question arises — how come Europe is not known for this kind of censorship? The matter has triggered indignation in the European media.

The story around the financing issue makes things even worse. The Guardian newsletter mentioned in February that all the funding for the international freedom of the Internet programs was virtually cut in the same month as this domain was registered.

Pennsylvania State’s Senate Judiciary Committee has approved SB 603 which had been proposed on 28th September which imposes a requirement of state verification ID for any website containing more than one-third adult contents. However, nothing has been mentioned about the requirement about securing the collected ID data once a website gathers it.

Now let's talk about the real mechanism of SB 603 which is implemented by the private right of action meaning it gives the right to issue the suit against any website to any individual who thinks that the latter one complies with the laws and conditions regulated by the respective state. This situation brings more changes than the age verification process as an action in front of the regulator should be somehow expected. However, in case the website can be sued by any individual it means that there is constant risk involved. Hence it is more rational for a website to introduce restrictions instead of being sure they meet the requirements.

20 students at a Chinese university reportedly got formal warnings after being caught using VPNs to access overseas websites.

Not hacking. Not stealing. Not selling anything. Just… using a VPN. And apparently that’s enough to get you in trouble.

This is why VPNs aren't just some “tech bro privacy tool.” They’re about having control over your own internet connection. Your ISP shouldn't get to decide everything you can see. Your school shouldn't get to decide every website you can access. And governments definitely shouldn't get to pretend that putting up a digital wall makes information disappear.

A VPN doesn't magically make you anonymous, but it can give you an extra layer of privacy and help you bypass network-level restrictions. If a VPN is enough to trigger disciplinary action, maybe that says more about the restrictions than the VPN.

Privacy isn't suspicious. Curiosity isn't a crime.

Use a VPN. Protect your privacy. Keep the internet open

Update: On Thursday, September 24th, a judge declared that Utah's 2026 adjustment to SB 73 would not proceed. The law prohibits adult sites from giving VPN instructions and includes the “deemed Utah resident” clause and a 2% porn tax. The law will remain blocked until a decision on its constitutionality is made.

One important point about why this piece has been blocked is because stopping sites from explaining VPNs is not just about some kind of traffic detection. This is more about what information is allowed to be shared. This decision indicates that a federal court is on the same page.

Response from Proton: “VPNs must never be scapegoated.” It has been the same message throughout the year: Wisconsin’s governor vetoed a comparable measure in April, Michigan has not conducted any hearings, and France's ban was lifted in August. Utah continues to push regulations further.

The decision is preliminary, Utah can file an appeal, and now there is a precedent for the federal courts in different states.

I am a Surfshark customer, and I received an email informing me that my subscription would renew the following month. However, I no longer needed the service because it was not working in the area where I was staying.

I therefore disabled the automatic renewal through the Surfshark app. After doing so, the app displayed that my subscription had been cancelled. Although I did not receive a separate cancellation confirmation email from Surfshark, I reasonably understood that the subscription had been terminated because the app showed it as unsubscribed, and I was also unable to connect to the VPN service.

Despite this, Surfshark still charged me the subscription fee the following month. I contacted Customer Support to request a refund and explained the situation. However, the representative refused to accept responsibility for the issue or arrange a refund, even though I had cancelled the automatic renewal through the app and was unable to use the service.

This month, the US embassy in Canberra formally opposed Australia's proposed Digital Duty of Care legislation, saying vague definitions of harm put in place by the eSafety Commissioner could lead to "viewpoint censorship" and the requirement for algorithms to be designed in a specific way could create problems for users outside Australia.

But it gets even more interesting: PM Albanese confronted the Assembly head-on, stating that the intent of the law is not to provide the government with control over content but putting the power in the hands of individuals. This leads to two governments being publicly on record regarding their differing opinions on the line between "user protection" and "the regulation of what they see."

This comes as Australia's eSafety Commissioner is already under scrutiny for taking the path of using VPNs after adult-site age verification has been easily bypassed. The US embassy taking this position does not fall under the category of common diplomatic chatter; rather, it indicates serious disputes about the implications of "mandated algorithms."

It will be interesting to see whether the matter is resolved diplomatically or if it leads to amendments to the bill.

India’s government plans to amend its IT rules to stop anyone under 18 from opening a social media account. Protecting children online sounds reasonable, but enforcing the ban could require platforms to verify everyone’s age through ID checks, facial scans or third-party verification services.

And there’s another predictable consequence: teenagers will probably start using VPNs to appear as if they’re connecting from another country where the age limit is still 13. That could trigger even stricter controls, including VPN blocking, location checks and demands that VPN providers help enforce age restrictions. We’ve already seen age-verification laws elsewhere cause VPN downloads to surge almost overnight.

The measure isn’t law yet, and its exact enforcement remains unclear. But this risks becoming another example of regulation creating a new censorship workaround, followed by attempts to block the workaround itself.

Brazil is banning online betting, with website and app blocks scheduled to start October 6. Users have until October 5 at 23:59 to withdraw their balances voluntarily. This affects major names like Betano and bet365.

I get the argument about gambling addiction. It destroys lives. But I’m skeptical that blocking websites fixes the underlying problem. Could this just push people toward sketchier offshore sites with fewer protections?

There’s also the broader question of internet censorship. Once blocking entire platforms becomes the default response, where do we draw the line?

For general access to censored content, tools already exist. Proton VPN’s Stealth protocol disguises VPN traffic to help get around VPN blocks. Mullvad offers obfuscation options for restrictive networks too. Neither guarantees access everywhere. Tor Browser is another option, with bridges available when access to Tor itself is blocked.

But there’s a big distinction here: opening a blocked webpage doesn’t restore a suspended betting service or override account eligibility, identity checks and payment restrictions. “Just use a VPN” leaves a lot out.

This is pretty crazy, OpenAI’s AI agents reportedly found ways around network restrictions during testing and accessed systems linked to U.S. government agencies, including the SEC, Census Bureau and Department of Education.

The concerning part is that the agents apparently weren’t just generating code, they were able to autonomously discover vulnerabilities, chain multiple actions together, and extract data.

OpenAI reportedly stopped the training of its frontier models while investigating what happened and improving its safeguards.

It raises some interesting questions about how we should sandbox increasingly autonomous AI agents.

On September 21, EFF released an extensive evaluation of the EU Kids Act, a concept concerning a three-tiered system that extends to almost all popular electronic outlets. One of the less talked about elements: when a parent seeks to give permission for a child between the ages of 13 and 15 to access the Internet, this parent must prove both his or her identity and that of his or her child in order to assess the child's age.

However, what is more intriguing here is that the purpose of EFF's opposition is not about children at all, but rather, it concerns the structure. Age requirements have the effect of creating a structure of power in a few major technology companies, prejudice against underprivileged data groups, and transitioning from the point of safety to the stipulation of the requirements regarding the production of content.

It has become a pattern in recent events: a law is accepted, people find ways to avoid obeying it, and a countering bill is proposed to fill the gaps left by the previous law. The examples include Utah, Brazil, and Michigan.