687
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
687 points (98.7% liked)
Technology
88303 readers
2696 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
political theater. won't happen because it's unenforceable.
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".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dt8NrWa9fI
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.