Using VPN in UAE Could Cost You $545,000 (businessinsider.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The President of the United Arab Emirates has issued a series of new federal laws relating to IT crimes, including a regulation that forbids anyone in the UAE from making use of virtual private networks to secure their web traffic from prying eyes. The new law states that anyone who uses a VPN or proxy server can be imprisoned and fined between $136,000-$545,000 if they are found to use VPNs fraudulently. Previously, the law was restricted to prosecuting people who used VPNs as part of an internet crime, but UK-based VPN and privacy advocate Private Internet Access says that the law has now changed to enable police in the UAE to go after anyone who uses VPNs to access blocked services, which is considered to be fraudulent use of an IP address.

Comments

that's

[Anonymous Coward]

freaking scary. Of course, the good ol' U.S.A. will never get that scary. Not ever. Not even in the next 5 years or so. Never.

Re:that's

[Grishnakh]

You don't think the RNC is doing the same stuff? They're both corrupt, don't delude yourself.

No, actually, I don't. Or if they are, they're not very effective at it, because if they were, Trump wouldn't be the nominee now. It's been no secret at all that the RNC does not like Trump, and never wanted him to be their nominee. They wanted Jeb! or Little Marco or Lyin' Ted. Blowhard Trump was not at all what they wanted, but because they weren't remotely as effective in rigging things as the DNC, that's what they got.

Trump even used their new winner-takes-all primaries rules against them, which is how he got so many delegates. They only enacted those new rules recently so they could avoid brokered conventions, but it blew up in their faces, with Trump winning the nomination with a minority of votes. It probably didn't help that the media gave so much free air-time to Trump just because he was such a spectacle, and perhaps also because they (correctly) reasoned that with Hillary to be coronated by the DNC, that her only chance of winning the general election was if Trump was the nominee.

So sure, the RNC may be "corrupt" too, but completely inept corruption just isn't a problem the way competent corruption is.

Coming to your country too

[110010001000]

If you don't think this will come to YOUR country, you are mistaken. Eventually everyone will need to connect to the Internet using only approved devices and software. You don't think this is possible? It is technically possible to do. It will be done in the name of piracy/terrorism/children/et al.

Re:Corporate VPNs too?

[bev_tech_rob]

...and how does one define the use of VPNs fraudulently? Not very enlightened or informed.

According to the article (which I assume you read), use of a VPN fraudulently would be connecting to blocked services in the country in question, like Snapchat, WhatsApp, etc. that have VOIP capabilities.

The government is basically protecting the revenues of the state telecoms that are threatened by this technology...and oh yeah, 'security'.

Re:Free Markets

[Opportunist]

Care to inform us what genuinely free countries remain? My bags are packed, I'm just looking for a destination.

Airports? Dubai? Abu Dhabi?

[NotAPK]

Does anyone know if this will apply to use of VPNs while at the Dubai or Abu Dhabi airports?

I fly through there regularly and as part of my standard policy I always use a VPN on unknown networks.

It would really suck to be laying over for a couple of hours and being picked up by the cops while surfing the net.

I also wonder how this will impact the many foreign contractors who must visit regularly and need VPN access back to head office.

Any thoughts? Or is this just another pointless unenforceable law?