Posted by hn_acker 1 day ago
| An individual is considered to be accessing the website from this state if the individual is actually located in the state, regardless of whether the individual is using a virtual private network, proxy server, or other means to disguise or misrepresent the individual's geographic location to make it appear that the individual is accessing a website from a location outside this state.
But how can any site check if a client is a) a VPN client (typically this can be known because VPN exit node IPs can be learned), __and__ b) in Utah?
The impossibility lies in (b). Effectively this forces any affected companies having a nexus to the state of Utah to forbid VPN clients. I think that's a bit too far-reaching. It would be much more practicable instead to ask VPNs to disallow Utah client exits to affected sites w/o age checks -- VPN services aren't free, so VPNs basically can do age checks.
Given that this could have been written to be feasibly implemented, either this text was written to cause a controversy, or this text was written by people who don't know how things work. Either way, this text cannot be enforceable as written. The Utah legislature can easily modify this to be enforceable (see above), so it's not like a court striking this down might be playing partisan games just by striking it down.
I still suspect there's some kind of solution. Like Utah could tell VPN providers that if they service a customer in Utah then the VPN provider can't route traffic to adult sites. Or put the burden on the VPN provider to do age verification if porn is gonna be available through the VPN.
Come to think of it, I'm still a bit confused as to why VPNs are even relevant because it would seem to me that age verification would be done through some kind of having-credit-card type scheme which VPNs are entirely irrelevant to. I even read the article and I'm still confused. Oh well.
It's impossible to have perfect knowledge of the entire set of VPN exit node addresses.
You need to understand that my branch considers Catholicism to be a pagan shame and the Mormons an actual sex cult. We just don't talk about our differences anymore because it always ended in death.
It's like I thought the Gospel Church in Northern Ireland would have better music. Turns out not.
The bit starts at 2:00
If you're ever in San Francisco, Grace Cathedral is worth a visit.
The gist is that LDS members believe that the Bible is true when it has been correctly translated. But that's a gap big enough to drive a truck through. There are some very real irreconcilable differences between the Bible and the Book of Mormon.
For example, Mormons believe in the practice of "sealing"[0], which is basically marriage that lasts for eternity. However, Jesus himself explicitly says in the Bible[1] that this isn't so:
> The same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, saying: “Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were with us seven brothers. The first died after he had married, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother. Likewise the second also, and the third, even to the seventh. Last of all the woman died also. Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had her.” Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven.
Personally, it seems exceedingly unlikely to me that each one of the translations on the linked page are wrong in exactly the same way.
Anyway, that's why lots of LDS will say that they're Christians. If asked, they believe that the Bible is true where correctly translated, but in my (admittedly) limited experience, not many of them as a percentage have actually read the Bible themselves to know what it actually says about this. It's also why a lot of Christians say that LDS are not: they believe in lots of things that are not in the Bible, and believe that the Bible we have today has lots of mistakes.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealing_(Mormonism)
[1]https://www.bible.com/bible/compare/MAT.22.23-30
NB: I'm not staking an opinion on any of this, or taking sides on the matter. I'm offering this in the same sense that I might share something I learned in history class about the French Revolution. It's interesting to read and learn about, but doesn't directly affect me and it's not anything I want to participate in. Especially do not take this chance to explain to me why the whole "left his wife to his brother" thing is f'ed up by modern standards.
It surprises me that Americans are so untrusting of Mormonism since it's such a quintessentially new world religion. You'd think that a ruthlessly capitalist and hierarchical brand of Christianity where the center of God's kingdom isn't someplace in the Middle East but the United States would appeal to American exceptionalism. They even banned black people and called them cursed by God until the 1970s. Mormonism embodies the American zeitgeist more fully than any old-world religion, it's a wonder it isn't more popular.
Maybe it's the magic underwear that creeps people out?
The law likely violates the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on passing laws that significantly burden businesses and people outside Utah’s borders.
SB 73 burdens the rights of all internet users outside of Utah because it requires adult websites to either know every visiting user’s physical location, and then block those in Utah, or to verify every visitor’s age just in case they might be in Utah.
It also seems to me like Utah could just demand that adult sites only accept traffic from residential ips.
Utah can't tell businesses that service the country (or the world) how to do anything in this regard. You can't demand a list of the VPN exit nodes, because no VPN would ever give you that, and if they're outside of your jurisdiction, how could you possibly enforce it (assuming you got the Feds to agree with your law regulating interstate/international commerce now). You can't tell websites to only accept residential traffic, for the same reasons.
The internet sorta fucks states rights (in a good way).
Besides, there's no such thing as "residential" IPs. If I set a VPN gate at my mum's house, how would the porn company know?
The "impossibility" is in them saying "we cannot guarantee with 100% certainty that the user isn't using a VPN" and that's correct, they can't - but the law has no provision for that, they are risking fines over something they cannot control.