So the licensing idea needs refining. That's no big deal. How would he hire a car over here?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

So the licensing idea needs refining. That's no big deal.

How would you refine it?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

How would he hire a car over here?

How is that relevant to blocking VPNs?

The ISP over here needs evidence that it is a legitimate VPN, same as hiring a car here requires documentary support.

Again, I only put forward a thought about what could come to pass, not a master-plan about how it would be brought to pass. The arguments against it being feasible so far are a bit weak. Just shooting from the hip.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

The arguments against it being feasible so far are a bit weak.

I beg to differ but there you go.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

If the government were to require all ISPs to block all internet traffic other than that which they "licence" then sure, it's technically possible.

They couldn't block communications over satellite.

True, but it'll be a fair while before the WWW goes that way by any significant amount.

Merely an example to show that "technically possible" is impossible.

Once said documentary support has been provided, how do you stop my employer misusing the VPN?

I've proven that (for example) the VPN connects me to my employer in Sweden, but my employer in Sweden might see a nice sideline in offering filtering bypasses to the UK. Now you have a problem; you can block the VPN I use for work, stopping me from working, or you can leave it unblocked, and I can help UK citizens bypass your filtering block.

FWIW, the system isn't completely infeasible; North Korea manages it successfully, and both Iran and China make it work most of the time.

Note, however, that part of making it work is draconian penalties for bypassing the censorship filters, deliberately or otherwise; technically, the bypass process is simple unless you require all ISPs to filter traffic that hasn't been whitelisted, as I just find a VPN that hasn't yet had all its entry nodes blacklisted (and the VPN operator has a commercial incentive to add entry nodes that aren't blacklisted, so you have to keep playing whack-a-mole here).

Even if you permit traffic that hasn't been explicitly whitelisted, there are enough people with plausible reasons to extend the whitelist who are prepared to do things like run Tor relays to get traffic out of a censorship-heavy country - you need the threat of decades in jail for using such a bypass system to make it effective.

Thanks for a useful reply . A lot of meat for me to digest there.

In reply to a post by farnz:

FWIW, the system isn't completely infeasible; North Korea manages it successfully, and both Iran and China make it work most of the time.

In reference to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwangmyong_%28network%29:

Given that there is no direct connection to the outside Internet, unwanted information cannot enter the network. Information is filtered and processed by government agencies before being hosted on the North Korean Intranet. Cuba and Myanmar also use a similar network system that is separated from the rest of the Internet and Iran has been reported as having future plans to implement such a network.