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You know if you are such a grown up adult you don't need to attack the character of people like me and could instead respond to the argument you quoted lol. But in that you think anonymous VPS are the reasons for shootings in the US? You know that 4chan, reddit, YouTube, Discord, vast majority of online forums, - places that do the overwhelming majority of any radicalization do not run on anonymous VPSes lol. Like as the person you replied to said those alt right forums are already hosted on big name providers that already kyc. This is because requiring KYC does not prevent a host from allowing a radical or hate speech filled site. Those are clearly protected by the first amendment in the overwhelming vast majority of cases. Sure im sure there are so no name forums that barely anyone uses that may not do KYC inside the US and also not switch out from a US host to a foreign host and just instead shut down. Although I bet that number is very few. Nothing what you said about mass shootings or whatever would be prevented from getting rid of US based providers not requiring KYC. It seems towards the end of your argument you acknowledge these are ethical choices instead of legal so what's the point of even bringing up mass shootings in the US as far as anonymous hosting goes?
"If I do KYC, I can prevent the next school shooting" is some pretty catastrophic logic. I'm not sure you'd feel the same way about your willingness to hand over an ID if you were an Iranian trying to host an anti-IRGC website in Iran. Americans really are privileged in not understanding that their government and society are not immune to sliding into the same totalitarian decay as countries elsewhere.
To your point on radicalism, more surveillance that leads to more censorship and control isn't the answer. Unless you believe that total crackdown on freedom of expression and subsequent manhandling of any dissenters is the way to deal with polarization, in which case, America would have totally given up on its founding principles, and I have more faith in America than that.
To your point on identifying criminals, I don't disagree that making them easier to identify will make them more hesitant to commit crimes. But I said it simply wouldn't stop them. I also never said that criminals are the main benefactors of anonymous hosting. Free speech, and the simple right to privacy and anonymity are the selling points that we as a community should care most about.
I'm also not buying your logic re: Francisco and Curtis/MannDude, because 1) hate speech is again an ambiguous term, in a more "polite" society, anything, even our civil disagreement here could be regarded as unacceptable speech, and 2) I am not convinced that BuyVM etc or IncogNET constitute even a splash in the pond of hateful and radical content online, most of which is, as I said before, concentrated on mainstream providers, DMs and discord servers, or other centralized platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
Except it won't stop the next school shooting from happening.
KYC doesn't prevent anything. I've had just as many terrible people paying with a verified paypal/cc as I have in crypto/alipay. This law is just trying to name $COUNTRY as the current boogie man.
On a per capita basis, Alipay's been the cleanest for us.
Francisco
You'll notice that our foxy friend didn't bother to consider what I said in accordance with @servers_guru, either (that data leaks and the selling of personal info is another problem that avoiding KYC would snuff out).
And to the point of what you said, yeah, pretty much. By calling upon school shootings, Foxy is just drawing upon one of the four horsemen of the infopocalypse--in this case, combatting (domestic) terrorism. (For anyone wondering, the four horsemen are child abuse, money laundering, terrorism, and drug dealing. They're boogeymen called upon by corrupt legislators and executives to justify taking away your fundamental rights to freedom of speech, privacy, and anonymity, especially online. That's why bills like the Kids Online Safety Act are named as such; there's little within them that would actually protect kids, but the name tugs at the heartstrings so people support it anyways.)
Not everyone who invokes the four horsemen has nefarious intentions. I think Foxy is just among the millions of people duped by their invocation, to a point that they themselves resort to that defense.
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While I decry the US government's increasing overreach into their citizens' online activity, as well as the perpetuation of the idea that the USA is the only country with "freedom" or whatever, I also warn against upholding foreign actors as bastions of freedom from what the US is declining into. Sure, Russia and China do not demand KYC for you, because you are not a Russian or a Chinese citizen. But if you were from China, KYC would be built into the very means through which you pay for hosting--they don't need to ask for your phone number, address, or anything else when you pay because they already have that info when you sign up to pay online, which requires routing through centralized platforms like WeChat.
And for what it's worth, I have considered Russian hosting before, and some of them have started demanding a phone number, maybe in preparation for the laws in process. To my earlier point about hosting an anti-IRGC website in Iran, I know for sure that I would not be allowed to host Kremlin-critical stuff on a Russian VPS, and even that aside, I ultimately didn't sign up.
They say this every year.
I get why they want to do this - in theory, knowing who is paying for a service could assist law enforcement types with investigations. In practice, given how much straw buyer type stuff happens in every other industry that has some kind of buyer verification, I'm not sure why they think it will be any different in hosting.
Theoretically, if this became law, how would hosting companies be forced to verify identities?
The requirement to force ID validation will just cause providers to register in other countries and operate elsewhere, perhaps even take advantage of systems like the KY's SEZC structures. It won't do anything to stop crime in any event if that's the goal of it. The cost to maintain a SEZC structure is so inexpensive plus you get residency in KY for 5 year visas, which you can end up naturalizing if you elect to live in KY as well. KY also not being listed on the FATF and EU blacklists have even removed KY from their lists (https://www.ifcreview.com/news/2024/february/cayman-islands-cayman-islands-removed-from-fatf-and-eu-high-risk-lists/), so it's treated with equal respect of other countries and given that most large banks in US/CA/EU have correspondence banks in KY, you don't even have to travel down to the KY to open a corporate bank account or even a personal one. I'm frankly surprised more hosts don't run structures like that already, but oh well.
I'm positive Francisco pays all the necessary tax, given the fact he's even married and has lived in the US for many years... so how is he taking advantage of the US laws to fatten his pocket? I'd say quite the opposite, he's respecting the US law and he's paying what he owes to the IRS.
There is a real market for people who just want to be private, and in most circumstances those who want to remain private don't have an agenda except not wanting their information to keep flowing to HIBP & others when their data is breached. You can't fault someone for taking that market and providing a quality service while not wanting to be invasive. That said, I know @MannDude runs a clean shop and does respect the laws of the land.
Again, very very untrue. Do you realize how many "real businesses" like Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, etc. host significant amounts of phishing, malware, even botnets? It's unavoidable due to the nature of the internet, and their abuse queues are far far higher than a host you'd find here to tackle, so wouldn't your logic be reversed that the "real businesses" are actually supporting cybercrime by taking longer to nip the malicious actors?
Please ELI5. Do we have to give ID to all US hosting companies like Buyvm, reliabliesite, etc? Does it apply to only VPS/servers hosted inside the US or even to US companies reselling services in foreign lands?
It depends.
Privacy focused providers would take some measures to avoid being affected. It could be things like moving offices, etc.
lmao