692
Federal bill would force VPN providers, ISPs, and DNS services to block foreign piracy sites
(www.tomshardware.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2026
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Sounds like another assault on freedom of speech.
political theater. won't happen because it's unenforceable.
- VPNs operate outside of federal control
- ISPs leverage DNS blocking to censor which is laughable
- DNS exists outside of the US
if this does happen, IF, it has nothing to do with IP rights or protecting Americans. it has everything to do with censoring what the majority of common Americans read online. this is the first step towards blocking news outlets that won't regurgitate whitehouse directives.
I'm a bit surprised they've gone with piracy as an excuse - usually it's "Think of the children!" Maybe they've finally figured out that we already know that republicans are thinking of (molesting) the children so they've fallen back on "You wouldn't download a car".
- ISPs leverage DNS blocking to censor
And blocking the IP address of the site in question, as well. That’s why so many “illegal” sites jump around IP addresses like a flea on a hot griddle. They’re trying to remain accessible whenever the ISP prevents direct access.
Because if you block the IP address, blocking DNS is superfluous and performative -- it’s just window dressing for better optics towards politicians who don’t understand tech. DNS censorship trivially bypassible by using custom DNS servers that aren’t affected by the censorship, while IP blocking hits everyone who is under that ISP regardless of their DNS settings - they need a VPN to bypass IP blocking.
all that's going to do is give them an excuse to block IPs outside the US by the block.
keep an eye on the FCC and any legislation they take against HAM or SDR. without that it would be difficult to have any comms outside the US.
No, IP blocking is widespread in most places, it’s just that “rights holder” lawsuits go after the domain name, first, both in terms of the registrar and DNS. They also force ISPs to block IP addresses, but this is more of a whack-a-mole prospect so it’s usually a second-order method.
And wouldn't you know it, anything that disagrees with the current regime is piracy.
Not just piracy. Woke piracy.
Woke piracy is the best piracy!!
Ban the RIAA and MPAA.
My ISP wondering why I only ever access 5 servers in Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and Finland
But surely the whole point of using the VPN is to use one that's outside of U.S authority?
Not if you want low lacency.
IMO your main concern should be about what country the VPN is based out of (and their privacy policy) more than where the servers are located. But then again I suppose it all depends on what kind of activity you're using your VPN for.
When I was messing around with my VPN, I was looking at translated news from Germany, France and Spain and they all have more or less different data usage policies. It's interesting but at the same time, you can just go on a news website that a country mainly uses and translate it.
Interstingly though, when I used a VPN, it changes all the typical homepage shortcuts on Google chrome to what Germany, France and Spain uses for the main shortcuts.
Sounds like they want people board and mad, a historically winning combination.
Hungry soon too
Aggressively stupid bullshit, fuck these clowns.
The Corrupt Empire of America at it again.
I think they are copying what France and Germany are trying to do and make it worse.
I think i2p may see a big uptick in usage then.
There is a surprisingly good amount of free games and movies, it would actually save me time if they were to "ban vpns"
host your own recursive DNS like technitium or unbound then you remain in control they can't deny root DNS
DNS only handles the initial domain-to-IP translation.
What the article is (mostly) talking about is the second step - blocking access to the destination IP/site entirely.
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