Brian May writes:

Part of the problem here is how poor the security is on Internet credit card transactions. All you have to do is place a transaction, and after the goods have been shipped dispute it with the credit card company (I lost my card!). Then the retailer has to try and prove that the transaction was genuine (they can't).

Agreed. What concerns me is the *additional* implied claim: that connections over a VPN will be so much more difficult to authenticate, that the “financial partner” must exclude them.

I am not sure if there is any truth in the claim that VPNs attract fraudulent credit card. Just as easy to get away with credit card fraud without a VPN I think.

I agree, and that was the position I pressed: that this was needlessly discriminatory to people using a VPN connection, and that the justification of “maybe fraud” does not justify that specific discrimination. I'm open to evidence that does support that claim. My knowledge, of how credit cards fraud varies in different scenarios, is quite lacking. -- \ “The entertainment industry calls DRM "security" software, | `\ because it makes them secure from their customers.” —Cory | _o__) Doctorow, 2014-02-05 | Ben Finney

If you think this is bad, wait until you won't be able to buy anything from outside Australia *without VPN* http://www.zdnet.com/article/ato-fails-to-rule-out-website-blocking-to-enfor... On Fri, Apr 21, 2017 at 11:02 AM, wrote:

Although I agree that being rejected service due to VPN usage is both sad and problematic, they are probably correct that more fraud happens via VPNs. It is the same with TOR. Although there are a multitude of reasons for regular citizens to use TOR or VPNs to protect their privacy, it is also true that these technologies make it safer for people to conduct criminal activity.

To me, the situation we are in as users-of-VPNs-for-privacy-reasons is similar to that of an insurance company telling me that when I was a 25yo male, my car insurance was much more expensive. I could talk to them as much as I want about my personal driving record, or about other aspects of my demographic which would indicate I may be a safe driver. In the end, I believe them when they have the aggregate statistics to say that _on average_ 25yo males are worse than most other drivers.

Unfortunately I don't think that the banking institution is doing anything unreasonable _from the perspective of a business trying to maximize profit_, even though it is unreasonable from a privacy/ethical perspective.

I hope that as more people move onto VPNs and TOR, that the loss of business from excluding those users outnumbers the loss in money from fraudulent transactions. Then it becomes good business to allow VPN and TOR users to access financial services.

On 2017-04-21 10:29, Ben Finney wrote:

...

Brian May writes:

Part of the problem here is how poor the security is on Internet

...

credit card transactions. All you have to do is place a transaction, and after the goods have been shipped dispute it with the credit card company (I lost my card!). Then the retailer has to try and prove that the transaction was genuine (they can't).

Agreed. What concerns me is the *additional* implied claim: that connections over a VPN will be so much more difficult to authenticate, that the “financial partner” must exclude them.

I am not sure if there is any truth in the claim that VPNs attract

...

fraudulent credit card. Just as easy to get away with credit card fraud without a VPN I think.

I agree, and that was the position I pressed: that this was needlessly discriminatory to people using a VPN connection, and that the justification of “maybe fraud” does not justify that specific discrimination.

I'm open to evidence that does support that claim. My knowledge, of how credit cards fraud varies in different scenarios, is quite lacking.

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On Sun, Apr 23, 2017 at 04:08:03AM +1000, Andrew McGlashan wrote:

On 21/04/17 21:25, Adrian Colomitchi wrote:

...

If you think this is bad, wait until you won't be able to buy anything from outside Australia *without VPN*

http://www.zdnet.com/article/ato-fails-to-rule-out-website-blocking-to-enfor...

Yes, it's a great government we have now, NOT!

I tried to download gnu bash from ftp.gnu.org using wget over the tor network.., that wouldn't work either "bad ip" in browser and "ERROR 400: Invalid request received from client." in bash.

With "--no-proxy" it was fine, but we shouldn't have to do that either.

Cheers A.

Most FTP servers block Tor, but they also usually have a HTTP mirror so try using that.