Weekend thought part 2: The Stupidity of Banning VPNs So apparently, the UK government thi

Weekend thought part 2: The Stupidity of Banning VPNs

So apparently, the UK government thinks banning VPNs is the next big idea.

Of course.
Because nothing says “21st century digital leadership” like outlawing encryption tools that every company, journalist, and teenager already uses.

I mean, imagine the meeting:
“People are using VPNs to protect privacy.”
“Terrible! Let’s ban that!”
“But Prime Minister, your remote staff use them to log in to work.”
“…we’ll make an exception.”
“So the bad guys will just use foreign VPNs.”
“…well, we’ll ask them nicely not to.”

Brilliant. Peak UK.
The same logic as banning umbrellas because someone robbed a bank in the rain.

Let’s be clear: a VPN is not some dark-web voodoo stick.
It’s literally how security works.
It encrypts traffic. It hides your IP. It stops every data broker and dodgy café Wi-Fi from sniffing your credentials.
That’s good hygiene — not cybercrime.

But here we are: the Online Safety Act giving regulators powers to demand backdoors, access controls, or “anti-circumvention” features — which is just a fancy way of saying, “please make the internet less private so we can regulate it more conveniently.”

If they really go through with it, they’ll nuke remote work, journalism, whistleblowing, activism — and, ironically, security itself.

Because privacy isn’t the problem.
Incompetence is.
And you can’t patch that.