Keeping Your Internet Censorship Free

Big changes are happening when it comes to internet censorship. The UK's Online Safety Bill has now passed and will very soon become law and it's not the only one, similar bills are being passed in multiple states in America, and the EU are currently considering similar possibilities.

These bills aim to try and hold platforms more accountable for the harmful material they host that can be too readily accessed by minors, but what that results in is widespread censorship as the platforms crack down heavily handed on anything and everything that might put them in the "culpable" category, it squashes the independents in the adult industry and all sexual minorities, creating hoops of fire that only the largest and wealthiest of sites can jump through in order to maintain their space on the internet.

These bills, teamed with efforts by companies like Mastercard, imposing rules on what kind of content they deem worthy of processing payments for, governments efforts to take down sites like back page that sex workers relied on, and with legislation like SESTA/FOSTA that has a global impact, the internet as the adult industry knows it will be subjected to seismic change over the next couple of years and it's been going on for quite some time already.

Towards the end of last year we started to see Twitter/X make blanket changes to the sensitive media settings of swathes of adult accounts, with many reporting to have received a notification from X support informing them a shadow ban has been placed on their account as well, around the same time many of us awoke to the discovery that google have created and activated a new setting that hides all adult results in a google search if you are logged into a google account. (More on that later). The state of Oklahoma in the US is currently attempting to impose an all out porn ban, and there are rumours that here in the UK the government are considering criminalising the possession of porn, which could include just having it in your search history, never mind downloading it to your hard drive, as well as banning sex work advertising.

In light of all of this, and with many more new "rules" set to come, sex workers are understandably concerned for their futures, politically, legally, professionally and personally, it's all just so fucking daunting.

While I do totally get all that and am living it along with the rest of my colleagues, as a sex worker of 21 years who's career started on the very cusp of our transition from analogue to digital, here's what I do know: the professional life of a sex worker is never not involved in some kind of existential turmoil, someone is always coming after you, you are ALWAYS trying to stay one step ahead.

We are the lowest hanging fruit for a moralistic species not evolved enough to think for themselves, trust science over religion, or engage with reason, logic and evidence. It is a war that has waged since the beginning of time against the oldest profession in the world and it's important to remember this in the face of all this upheaval. This is an occupational hazard, it has been and will always be, but sex workers are still here. For thousands of years they have tried to squash us out of existence and yet we remain a global force, providing important and valued services, propping up our economy, becoming more adaptable with each passing year, educating and speaking out, spearheading the adoption of new technologies, supporting families. Frightening as all this may be, we are going nowhere ladies, they haven't won in thousands of years and they aren't going to win now. Sex workers are going to do what they've always done, fight, raise awareness and adapt, because we fight for our bodies, our autonomy and our livelihoods and that's not a fight we can be intimidated out of.

It is with that spirit of resilience and adaptability that I write this post, because here's the crux of what I want to address today, the internet can't be censored any more than they can stop sex workers existing.

It is all time and tax payers money wasted because it doesn't matter what kind of censorship or age verification they employ, there are a couple of very simple and easily available tools to get around all of it.

You can access anything on the internet and circumvent all kinds of censorship as long as you have the right tools.

In the millennia long saga of religious nuts trying to get rid of whores, we have reached the "attack the internet" phase of their dastardly plan, so we will adapt to this too, by educating ourselves on internet censorship, how it works and how to circumvent it, and we will pass that knowledge on to our potential clients. Just like the adult industry spearheaded the use of VHS & DVD, just like we taught the utility of the internet for adult purposes, just like we raised the profile of PayPal, and so on and so on.

This is the natural life cycle of the sex worker, so lets get ready for the next phase shall we ladies and gents, and learn how to keep our internet free and uncensored, so we can all keep wanking and cumming as we always have..

How Does Internet Censorship Actually Work?

Every internet connection comes with it's own personal identification number, called an IP address. Your home internet has it's own IP address, your next door neighbour has their own IP address, the internet café down the road has it's own IP address, as does the airport WIFI, the supermarket WIFI, the library etc. When using mobile devices on mobile data out and about in the world, every internet accessible mobile device like smart phones and tablets also have their own IP address. Your IP address contains lots of different data, including your geographical location and your browsing history. Your IP addresses are provided and the collected data about your internet usage stored by your ISP - Internet Service Provider, that could be Sky, BT, Vodafone, Three etc. Currently, while UK ISP's are legally required to store this data, they can only provide it to authorities subject to a warrant. If the UK does decide to pursue the criminalisation of the possession of porn, this access to your browser history by authorities could change too. It will be a law that's very difficult to enforce if they don't have a way to monitor and spot for themselves our infringing of it, we generally watch porn in private, there will rarely ever be someone who can grass us up to the police for it.

Websites have nothing to do with your ISPs, except that they can detect your ISP and know where you are connecting from, they are a visual representation of a collection of data - images, text etc that are stored on a server somewhere in the world, a physical computer in a physical location. Everyday we look at many websites that were created in other countries, with the data for those sites stored in those or even other countries entirely. You can create a website here in the UK, but store the actual data for the website through a company who has servers in another country, and target your content to an audience in yet another country, so even though you technically created the visual representation of the data in the UK, the data that supplies it could be stored in a different country. Technically the website has to adhere to the laws in both countries, the country where the data is stored (also known as the website host country) and the country who's audience the site is targeted at, but if the person/people/company who operates the site and the data aren't physically located in the UK, even if the target audience is the UK, the UK can't really prosecute them for an illegal website, or request that the host country removes the site because they don't have legal jurisdiction, (unless it is for something that is universally illegal, like weapons or drugs) in that case the only recourse the UK has is to require that UK based ISP's block access to that site in this country and this is where your IP address comes in. Your internet service provider instructs their system to prevent access to that site to any IP address that is geographically based in the UK. The website doesn't stop existing, you just can't access it from a UK internet connection. This is known as a geo-block.

If you're a sex worker operating in the UK with a personal website that targets a UK audience but has the website hosted in another country you are subject to UK law and any subsequent changes. Your site is also subject to your host countries law, but adhering to that law is up to the company that stores your website data on your behalf since they have taken money from you to provide that service. What that means for you, if say for example the UK government did indeed decide to make possessing pornography illegal and therefore censor porn sites, if your site contains pornographic images or clips they technically cannot have your site closed down if it is hosted in another country where porn is legal, but they can instruct IPS's to block access to it and prosecute you for operating an illegal website because you are based in the UK. So should this law come to pass it's wise for all sex work providers to clean up their non pay walled sites and ensure they and anyone else who features in the sites content are fully clothed.

Clip stores and fan sites like Clips4Sale and LoyalFans aren't run in the UK and likely don't have their data stored here either, so a UK based criminalisation of porn won't effect these sites as they aren't subject to our laws, but our ISPs will likely be instructed to block access to those sites in the UK, so it's important that both sex workers and consumers learn how to continue accessing and using them should that block happen.

How do you access a site if your country has blocked it?

In the most simplistic terms, the tools you can use to still see these sites basically disguise the location of your IP address, so it doesn't look like your trying to connect to the site from the country it's been blocked in. It does this by bouncing your connection through a private network of computers and servers all over the world, you connect to the internet from your IP address, then the tool connects you to a server on this network somewhere else in the world, and from that final IP address you will connect to your desired site as if that server location was your IP address. The process of bouncing you through this network helps the tool to find a country from which your desired site is still accessible, but it also disguises what your original IP address was to begin with, it makes tracing that final IP address back to yours extremely difficult.

The best of the tools used to achieve this will also encrypt your connection, what that means is that your Internet Service Provider CANNOT see what sites you are searching for, have connected to and what content you are looking at. No browser history, no record of you watching porn to pass on to authorities.

What are the tools to use for online anonymity?

There are a few different tools that offer varying degrees of privacy, but first we need to dispel a myth about a tool that people believe gives them anonymity but actually doesn't, and that's "incognito mode" and the built in VPN on the Opera browser, which is basically incognito mode but by another name.

Incognito Mode and the Opera Browser VPN do not give you anonymity, all they do is prevent your browsing history from being stored in your browser or on your computer, so if you share your device with your wife for example, using incognito mode to watch porn means there's no record on your computer that you ever watched porn for your wife to accidentally find, but your ISP still knows exactly what you looked at and you still won't be able to access sites that have been blocked in your country. So Opera VPN and incognito mode are NOT the tools to help keep your internet use hidden and censorship free.

So lets look at those that do and to what degree.

The Onion Router aka TOR.

TOR is a web browser that is completely free to download and use, just like Google Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge, Opera and Firefox, and is actually based on the Firefox browser design. It does not, however, have any plug ins, bookmarks, cookies or other add-ons as these tools do not give you internet privacy, the data you generate when you use add-ons is kept and used by the company that provided them, so you cannot use them with this browser.

The TOR browser operates through a network run by volunteers all around the world that offer "nodes" on their computers to bounce your connection through as previously described. Your connection is also encrypted so your ISP cannot see your internet traffic and what you're looking at, and the sites you are visiting cannot know who or where you are either.

The downside to TOR is that it is slow, it's very popular and used by many people and it's completely volunteer built and run, so there aren't any big financial investments going into it like other browsers that make it run fast and efficiently.

It's ideal for looking at text based information but not for media content like lots of photos, or for downloading or streaming video content.

It would be good for looking at some sex workers websites for text based information about how to book or researching text information about your kinks, reading articles etc, but not for watching porn.

The other down side to TOR is that while your ISP might not be able to monitor your browsing and know what your are looking at, it will still be able to detect that you are using TOR. This could potentially draw attention to you as TOR is frequently used by criminals, activists, journalists and whistle blowers.

That being said, it's not like your ISP is constantly monitoring you, they have millions of customers and have neither the resources nor the inclination to be actually "watching" everybody, they are a private company who's priority is profit, they are not the American NSA or UK GCHQ. For the most part your user data is just stored should it ever be needed and likely anonymised and sold to advertisers.

As mentioned earlier, legally your ISP can only hand over your data to authorities with a warrant and the police have to be able to prove they have a reasonable suspicion of you committing a crime to be able to obtain a warrant in the first place. So unless you're already on a watch list because you've already been engaging in shady shit on the internet, using TOR is unlikely to attract any attention in reality.

There are plenty of forums online full of suspicious and paranoid conspiracy theorists who insist that if you use TOR the police can just storm your house for no reason and take all your devices for inspection, but let's be real for a moment, after 14 years of Tory rule the police service has been decimated just like every other public service in the UK, they don't have the staff or the resources to be performing dawn raids on the hundreds of thousands of UK based TOR users that just don't want their data sold or are trying to watch a bit of consensual adult porn.

Sure, there are authoritarian nations who's power depends on surveillance and control, places like Russia, China and Iran (which shouldn't surprise anyone) for whom TOR poses a threat so have blocked access to it (of course, it's only blocked for those who don't know how to get around a block, but I would argue anyone who knows about TOR in the first place already knows how to circumvent a block, so it's a pretty futile endeavour really), but for the time being, TOR remains a legal and legal to use site in the UK, so using TOR on it's own is not reason enough to dedicate those sparse police resources to making arrests without reasonable suspicion of a serious crime.

Even if we assume that our government go ahead with the hair brained scheme to criminalise the possession of digital porn and the law changes so that ISP's are legally required to flag TOR users and porn watchers to the police without a warrant, it's still going to be incredibly difficult to enforce that law without dedicating enormous amounts of funding to the police, the court system and the prisons to make prosecution actually possible. Can we see our government ploughing those kind of resources into making it happen? I certainly can't, the Tories are more interested in putting that money in their own pocket and even if Labour take over, they will have inherited an enormous mess and will have bigger priorities than catching innocent TOR users and porn watchers!

Downloading films and music from file sharing sites has been illegal in this country for several years now and I still do it, without even trying to disguise that I'm doing it. Nobody has come for me yet, this activity is just too wide spread and the law surrounding it too expensive to enforce, criminalising digital porn won't be any different, it's as simple as that. This is worth keeping in mind when we succumb to the fear mongering of all these anti adult internet policies, sure they can change the law, but do they have / will they invest in the resources required to actually enforce it?

I think it's safe to say that as long you're not already engaging in seriously criminal offences, you can use TOR and you'll be absolutely fine, but it is also possible to use TOR without it being detected by your ISP at all, there's more info on that below, so if you'd like to try using TOR you can download it through this link, but please finish reading this blog BEFORE you download it if you'd like to use it undetected. https://www.torproject.org/download/

Proxy Sites

You can find a whole bunch of proxy sites just by googling "proxy sites". They are very simple tools that provide a search bar for you to type in the address of the site that you actually want to see, and then will bounce your IP address all over the world to get you to your desired site. They are useful for accessing sites that have been geo-blocked by your ISP, but don't offer much in actually giving you privacy. There are 2 types of proxy sites, HTTP and HTTPS. A HTTP proxy offers you hardly any privacy at all, you can access a blocked site sure, but your ISP will still know that you visited that site, even if it can't see exactly what you looked at while on that site. A HTTPS proxy site offers a little more privacy and makes it more difficult for your ISP to see what site you visited and what you looked at, but if for example, you accessed google through a proxy site so that you could do an anonymous search for your favourite porn on multiple sites, your ISP may have difficulty finding the sites and content you looked at but it still has tools to find out what you SEARCHED FOR if they really wanted to know.

In the context of the UK Online safety bills age verification aims, a proxy site would be good if you just wanted to get on a porn site that has implemented an age verification system in your country that requires ID to access the site, you would still be able to see the site without doing the age verification as long as the site hasn't implemented age verification for every country, and even though your ISP can see that you visited the site, you're not going to get into trouble because the legal onus for age verification is on the website owner not the user, so you wouldn't actually be breaking the law by using a proxy to circumnavigate an ID age verification check in your country.

If however, we where to base the use of a proxy site in the context of criminalisation of porn possession, including just having it in your browser history, then a proxy site would be useless as your ISP will still know that you visited a porn site and have therefore, by the governments definition, "possessed" it.

Likewise if you're looking at a website that has been blocked on the basis it has been deemed "illegal" in the UK. If the UK were to introduce the Nordic Model of sex work in the UK, whereby the sex worker is not a criminal but the client is, then a proxy would also be unsuitable for searching sex work providers.

Keep in mind that if you do choose to use a proxy site for circumnavigating age verification checks or geo-blocks, free proxy sites can be slow for streaming content and the proxy site itself may store, use and sell your user data.

Virtual Private Networks or VPN's

VPN's are considered the gold standard of internet privacy, though it's important to note that there are many options and not all are built with the same level of privacy, for the truly gold standard you need a paid premium service with a reputable VPN.

The difference between a VPN and the other tools described here, is that you can install a VPN to a single device, like your computer or phone, or you can install it to your internet router to anonymise your entire internet connection like your home internet connection for example (as long as your router is compatible, it must be an OpenVPN router), so you can use it to disguise yourself while using any internet accessible device that is connected to your home WIFI router. It doesn't just disguise what you're looking at on a web browser on your computer, it disguises everything that requires an internet connection to work, such as gaming, phone apps or your TV streaming device. If you pay for a premium service you can get a version to install on your mobile device too, so when you're out and about away from your home connection, using mobile data or connected to someone else's WIFI, you can still use the internet anonymously from your mobile device.

Like the TOR network, a good VPN service will have it's own private network of servers all around the globe to bounce your IP through, it will route your connection through a server in a location of your choosing, so if for example, you wanted to be able to access the US based Netflix service for more program options, you could select a US based server to make it look like you're an American customer rather than a British one and you can change the location of your chosen server whenever you want, to fit your access needs.

A VPN network is also completely encrypted, so when it is activated your Internet Service Provider cannot see your internet searches, what sites you visit or what content you look at. Likewise they will not be able to record or see any data from your app usage, gaming, or TV streaming services if you have the VPN installed on your home router. Your ISP will still be able to detect that you are using a VPN, but again that is not illegal in the UK (it is in China, surprise surprise), and unlike TOR is not a reason to have suspicion about your activity. VPN's are widely used by companies, military, banks, health services and government to protect sensitive data. Some VPN services have tools that make it impossible for the site you are visiting to know that you are using a VPN (which would be useful for things like accessing American Netflix, bypassing a geo-block or getting around country based age verification) but your ISP will still detect that you are using a VPN.

A VPN make's it much more difficult for your devices and connections to be hacked, for the layman that means more security for your online profiles and when you make online payments, but it's important to keep in mind that many VPNs do NOT protect you from malware and computer viruses, if you visit a site or download something that contains a virus, it can still be installed to your device, so you should still use a malware protector (firewall) like AVG or Avast on your devices even if you use a VPN, unless you're paying for a premium VPN that specifically offers malware protection.

Many people use TOR in conjunction with a VPN. If you activate your VPN before you download and install TOR and always make sure your VPN is activated when you use TOR, then your ISP will not be able to detect anymore that you have and are using TOR at all. By using the TOR web browser at the same time as a VPN you are creating multiple layers of encryption thereby making your web browsing experience even more secure.

The single most important thing to look for in a reputable VPN service is a strict NO LOGS POLICY. This means that the VPN service itself does not keep a record of what you looked at while you were using it.

Remember that these networks are routed through servers that are actual physical computers placed around the world, if there were ever a raid performed on the location of those computers, (which has happened before) they could be seized and inspected by the local authorities. If that country had a surveillance alliance deal with the UK and the VPN service had been logging your web usage, that data could then be passed onto your government, they could still find out what you were looking at even though your UK based ISP has been kept in the dark. If there aren't any logs of your web usage on the VPNs server to begin with, there is nothing the authorities can use even if they come into possession of the server.

It's also important to keep in mind when looking for a service with a no log policy, that marketing is not the same as reality, many VPN services tout themselves as no log services, but in fact have been proven not only to be keeping a log of your activity, but to be passing that data onto governments too, so it's important to have a look at some reviews of each service through a google search and multiple reviews too so you get a clearer picture of the service as a whole.

Other things to look out for when choosing a decent VPN service are services that own their own server network to bounce your connection through (known as tunnelling DNS requests through company owned servers), that the service uses uncrackable encryption and that it doesn't limit bandwidth or data transfers.

There are a lot of "free" VPN services to be found online, but many of them contain malware, don't have no log policies, will likely mine and use/sell your web activity data and often inject advertisements onto your web browser. They also usually cap your data, (the amount of content you can see) and limit your bandwidth making it too slow to stream videos or download large files.

But of course dear reader, this wouldn't be much of a blog post if I hadn't already done that leg work for you, so here are My recommendations for free and paid VPN services. 😉

THE BEST FREE VPN SERVICE: WINDSCRIBE

So before I go on to describe the features of Windscribe's free VPN, (It has both a free and premium paid service but if you're going to actually pay for it, there are better VPN services for your money detailed below) I need to start with a little disclaimer.

Windscribe did in fact suffer a security breach a few years back, when Ukraine authorities seized 2 servers they had there as part of a criminal investigation. The Ukrainian authorities were able to get there hands on a decryption key to access the servers logs, but it remains unclear how they got that key and what information on the users had actually been logged. Windscribe have since undergone a security overhaul and according to their website, a security audit of their newly overhauled service (which should confirm their NO LOG policy) has been underway since 2022. The final report of that security audit was supposed to be published last year, but apparently the audit still isn't finished, so there's no sign of the report just yet. For the moment, Windscribe claim that the only information they currently log about their users activity, is the last date they connected and the amount of bandwidth they use in a month, but only the publishing of the security audit report can confirm that.

Windscribe is also based in Canada, which is a "5 Eye Country". 5 Eyes refers to a security surveillance alliance between 5 countries, the commonwealth countries - UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, as well as the US. (There are also 9 Eye Countries and 14 Eye countries, which involve the aforementioned 5 nations with the addition of other European nations, but it's not widely understood to what extent their surveillance alliance goes.) These 5 countries all share data with each other for "security purposes" and are widely acknowledged as offering the least digital privacy protections for their citizens among global democratic nations.

As it currently stands, that doesn't mean much for your current usage of Windscribe, your data is still encrypted and the governments of those nations can't get to it with a no log policy. But there has been a push by all of these nations recently, to bring about a new law that allows these governments "back door access" to all encrypted services, again under the guise of "security purposes". There is huge objection to this push globally, a back door for them means a back door for anyone, it creates a weakness in the system and leaves everyone's data more vulnerable to hacking, defying the entire purpose of encryption. It's likely a long way off, if indeed it happens at all, but should it come to pass, that would be the moment to drop Windscribe, and indeed any other VPN service based in a 5 Eye country, and drop it sharpish.

All that being said, Windscribe is still hugely popular with it's free VPN service offering much more in the way of security and usage than any other free service. It stands to reason being as popular as they are, that lying about their no log policy and faking a security audit would damage their company reputation and bottom line considerably, so I'm fairly confident we will see that report sooner or later, that's an incredible act of self harm they've committed if we don't.

So, while I might not be able to continue recommending the use of Windscribe should these draconian anti porn laws come to pass in the UK, or if we get lumped with the Nordic Model (assuming their audit report confirming their no log policy still hasn't been published by then), or the 5 Eyes introduce their back door loop holes, I can still recommend it as things stand right now, as a cost effective way to learn about and get used to the features of a VPN, before deciding to invest in a premium service. I do also currently use Windscribe Myself.

So what do you get with the free Windscribe VPN?

You can download and use it without registering and get 2gb of free data every month, if you register with and verify your email address it goes up to 10gb a month, if you post a tweet about them it goes up to 15gb a month. That is a fairly reasonable chunk of data allowance if you're just using it to hide your porn watching.

It has pretty good speeds allowing you to stream video content and download large files, but keep in mind that when you select the country of the server you want to be bounced through, the further away that country is from your location, the slower the connection becomes.

Connection speed tests performed from the UK through various different countries, showed that using a server in north America or a western European country barely made a difference to your original connection speed at all, but going as far as Hong Kong or Australia reduced the speed significantly. There are servers in 10 different countries available to free users, 63 countries for premium users. The Windscribe system has apps for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS and Huawei devices, as well as extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Opera web browsers. It can also be set up on routers, Kodi, Amazon Fire Stick, Nvidia Shield and any OpenVPN-compatible software or device​. The desktop and mobile apps are nearly identical and very easy to use, even for beginners. They've got decent customer service, with a chat bot that can answer a ton of operating questions, and a support team that usually responds to email enquiries within 24 hours.

Windscribe has a feature called ROBERT, which is a tool for blocking ads and malware, and you can enable it to block other sites like porn (though I suspect My readers won't be utilising it for that) and gambling websites, fake news, crypto sites, social networks and even other VPNs. No other free VPN service offers a similar tool.

It also has a feature called split tunnelling. This is a selective routing feature, which means that you can select which applications, browsers, addresses or devices will utilise the VPN connection and which will use your normal internet service provider (ISP) connection. This is useful for 2 reasons, firstly because there are certain sites and apps that you just won't be able to access with a VPN, like your banking app for example (the security of a banking app comes from knowing who you are when you access it!), and secondly, because you can use your free VPN data allowance for the things you really want to hide and not accidentally waste it on the things that don't matter. So, for example, you could select the Opera browser to connect to the VPN, and only watch porn exclusively on that browser, while having another browser open, like Chrome, that is connected to your normal ISP connection for your Facebook and other wholesome activities.

Windscribe also has a Time Warp feature, which changes the location of your devices time zone to the country of the server you're connected to so you really look like a user based in that country, another tool called a Cookie Monster, which keeps a tab on any cookies that are set while you're browsing and then deletes them as soon as you close the browser, and you can connect an unlimited number of devices to your free VPN too.

AS far as security goes there's quite a few features too. It uses AES-256 cipher encryption, which has never been cracked and is widely considered as one of the strongest forms of encryption. It has something called Split Personality which gives you a different identity every time you use a browser making you even harder to identify, and a feature called Firewall (not the same thing as a device firewall) which prevents data leaks should your VPN temporarily lose connection, and you can fiddle with the settings on that to decide if you want to use it manually, automatically or always on, though that feature is not currently available for Android. Since the security overhaul their servers now use Ram disk internal server memory rather than hard disk memory, this means that data can't be stored for long periods of time and is deleted every time the system reboots. It also passed multiple tests for Web RTC leaks, RTC means real time communication and it's the technology that allows a browser to communicate with another browser and is used for voice and video chat features. These features are at risk of data leaks when using a VPN but no leaks where detected when a test of Windscribe's WebRTC feature was conducted by independent reviewers. There's a couple of other security features, authentication systems, RSA keys and stuff that's just too complicated to even bother getting into, but all in all Windscribe offers a lot for a free service.

The one thing I can't do is teach you is how to use it, I'm afraid you're just gonna have to figure that out for yourself, but the Windscribe website has a wealth of support documents to help you through the installation and set up, if you can't make head nor tail of them, there's a ton of tutorials on Youtube that show you what to do. It will take a little investment of time to get your head around it and learn how to use the features, but it is worth it to make sure you can always enjoy your internet as you see fit, regardless of what the government does or says.

If you want to have a go with Windscribe, visit their site here: https://windscribe.com/

THE BEST PAID VPN SERVICE

I'm not gonna get too into the nitty gritty of what these premium services offer, suffice to say they are premium paid services so they come with all the same security features, if not better, than what I've already described above. There are other obvious improvements, like higher connection speeds, more choice of servers in more countries, more compatibility with devices and operational systems, but apart from that the differences aren't going to be astounding. What I'd prefer to get into at this point are the cons of each of these top rated premium services.

NordVPN

To be honest I don't know that I recommend Nord VPN as best paid service, but do a google search for top rated VPN services and Nord is gonna come out on top from a whole bunch of review sites, dig a little deeper and you will uncover a couple of questionable issues, so I feel should mention it anyway. While they are rated highly for security, features, usability etc, there are questions over their business structure and transparency.

Nord are based in Panama, it isn't a 5 eye nation, they have no data retention laws, they're not gonna succumb to any other nation bullying them to hand over data or close down servers, they have little desire to pursue tech based crime themselves, that combined with Nords no log policy, confirmed through various published security audits over the years, makes them seem like a pretty secure bet.

The problem lies firstly in the ownership of their server network, some of their servers aren't owned by Nord, but are rented from other tech companies (known as virtual servers) with less than stellar reputations. The second issue comes from their business structure and transparency. Investigations have revealed that they are under an umbrella of different tech companies, some of which are data mining companies, clear conflict of interest there, and it's also been found that while technically based in Panama, they process payments from the US and have branches and subsidiaries in the UK and other European nations. So they say they are not based in a 5 Eye nation, but a lot of elements of their operation are, which means they could still be subject to 5 Eye nation data laws and subsequent changes. The fact they haven't been transparent about this and it had to be uncovered through investigation makes those for whom internet security is priority extremely suspicious.

They say if you just want to watch a bit of porn in peace then Nord is absolutely fine, but if you're a journalist or a whistle blower you shouldn't trust it.

I say that it might be fine for us and our purposes right now, but just as I suggested with Windscribe, if the UK introduces porn bans, the Nordic Model, or back door access encryption, it's connection with our 5 eye nation means it won't be fine anymore. So if you do decide to use it, you need to keep your eye on that legislative news and be ready to switch your provider.

CyberGhost VPN

Personally CyberGhost would be My first choice for a paid premium VPN. It's just as highly rated as Nord for it's features and security and it's really reasonably priced for a premium service, just a little lesser known, and it doesn't come with the shady questions that are hanging over Nord. It has also the second largest selection of servers (in 100 countries) of any VPN service, and it's transparent about the fact that it does use some virtual servers (not owned by the company itself) but only in order to be able to provide the service in remote areas with more limited internet access, which shouldn't affect UK users at all. It also organises it's servers into categories and has specialist servers, so you can select the best one for your needs, whether it's downloading content or hiding your whistle blowing activities from your government.

The major downside to CyberGhost is that nobody can get it to work in China, Saudi Arabia or United Arab Emirates, under their extreme anti internet freedom climate. That's not really an issue for UK users, even the changes in internet legislation that we're expecting here are minor compared to the methods these countries employ. Sure, you won't be able to use it if you visit China for work or pleasure, but I would argue that if you're trying to view shit that is illegal in China while in China, then you're a dumbass.🤷‍♀️

(If accessing the internet privately in these countries is really necessary for you, then Express VPN would be a better choice as it works well in these places.)

The minor downsides to CyberGhost is that it only offers split tunnelling (deciding which devices, apps or browsers to connect to a VPN and which to connect to your normal connection) on Windows and Android, but this is a premium service, so you don't need to use your data allowance sparingly and you can just turn it off to use your banking app, and there are a few other user features (not security based) that aren't on their mobile version.

CyberGhost is located in Romania, which is not a part of the 5, 9 or 14 Eye Alliance, where they don't have data retention laws. It is owned by a cyber security firm with head quarters in the Isle Of Man, which contrary to popular belief, isn’t under the jurisdiction of the UK, EU, or any of the 5/9/14 Eyes countries. It is a self-governing region with its own legal system and data protection laws that make it a popular location for cyber security firms.

It also has a no logs policy, and by no logs it really means it, it doesn't even log your connection date and bandwidth use like Windscribe. While Cyberghost has been audited by an industry security audit, it hasn't had an independent audit and so there are no published reports that confirm their no log policy, BUT, there are 2 things that go someway to confirm the no log policy. Firstly, they post transparency reports every 3 months showing exactly what info authorities have requested from them and what they were actually able to provide, which isn't a lot because no logs, but also, in 2019 they were actually subjected to a data breach, but the only information that was leaked were the email addresses and usernames that people registered to the service with. (VPNs won't log your internet usage, but they have to log your registration and payment info to be able to provide the service to you.) The fact that no other data could be found in that leak demonstrates that there weren't any logs to leak. Events like these are acknowledged by the cyber security industry as legitimate tests of a no log policy.

If your are concerned about even your email address, username or payment details being leaked, you can make up a new email with fake info to register and pay for your subscription with bitcoin so there is no payment info about you on record either. (Though it's worth noting only 114 email addresses out of hundreds of thousands of users were leaked during the 2019 breach, so the risk is still low.)

If you want to try CyberGhost you can get it here: https://www.cyberghostvpn.com/

Of course if you would like to research some VPNs for yourself you absolutely should, some offer different features that might be better suited to your overall purposes and not just being a kinky bastard in private. But remember the info I provided here about what makes a good VPN, and make sure you read multiple reviews and news articles too.

THE NEW GOOGLE PRIVACY SETTING

Now that I'm done providing all the information about tools to help you avoid internet censorship generally, I'd like to finish up by explaining a new Google privacy setting that could be affecting your google search results, as mentioned at the beginning of this post.

Towards the end of last year they activated this new setting and many women in the industry discovered that their websites weren't coming up in google search results anymore, in fact, no adult sites were showing up at all.

I did some investigating to find out what was going on and discovered the new privacy setting, it works as follows.

Most people have a google account, particularly Android users who use googles back up service for their phones. The settings works differently though, depending on if you are using your phone or tablet, or if you are using a browser on your PC or laptop.

You only need to deactivate the setting on your google account on one device, so if you deactivate it on your account using your mobile, you don't need to do it again for the same account on a laptop or PC, and vice versa.

On a mobile device, the setting that hides adult results from your google search only applies if you are logged into your google account (most android users who use google are logged in permanently) and it will apply to any any app you use to make a google search, even it's the Samsung internet app, or the IOS Safari app. So while ever you are logged into a google account on your phone and this setting is active, you will not get any adult results in a google search on your mobile device, no matter which internet access app you use to do the google search. You have to deactivate the setting to get the adult search results again.

To deactivate the setting, you need to open an internet browser on your mobile device and go to google.com or type anything into the home screen google search bar widget if you have one.

Once you are on the google search page, you will see in the top right hand corner of the screen a coloured circle with the initial of your google username on it.

You need to click that circle and it will bring up a drop down menu, where you need to select "settings", and then from the settings menu you select "Personal Results". At the top of the personal results page there will be a toggle button to turn this setting on and off. You must turn it off to get adult results in your google searches, the button is blue if it is on and grey when it is off.

And that's it, you can just keep clicking back until you get back to the google search page and you should start getting results for searches of adult sites again.

On a PC or laptop, it works a little differently, in that unlike the mobile it is browser, specific, but it will only affect affect any browser that has an open tab that is logged into a google account.

So, if I use a non google browser on my laptop or PC, like Opera or Firefox, when I do a google search I should still get adult results, BUT, if on that non google browser I have a tab open to a google account that is logged in, like a g-mail account, a google calendar, YouTube or any other google service, then being logged into google on that tab will affect the results of your google search on any other tab in that browser if you haven't deactivated the setting. If you have deactivated the setting on your google account, or you aren't logged into a google account on any tab, then you should still still get adult search results.

It works exactly the same on the google chrome browser, if you aren't logged into a google account, you will get adult search results, but if you are logged into a google account (which most people are on google chrome because you log into the whole browser, rather than just a google service on an individual tab) then you won't get adult results until you deactivate the personal results setting or log out of your google account on the browser.

If you're anything like me you might have multiple google accounts linked to multiple google browsers. I have a few, one is my personal account, a couple are for vanilla businesses I run, and each account has it's own dedicated google browser, so my personal internet activities stays in my browser connected to my personal email account, and my vanilla business internet activities stay in my business email account browsers. If that's the case, you'll have to deactivate the setting for every individual account to see adult results when you google search in the browsers those accounts are logged in on.

To deactivate the setting in a google chrome browser, open the browser and in the top right hand corner of the browser you will see a coloured circle with the initial of your username in it, to the right of that coloured circle are three dots in a vertical line, you need to click on those dots and at the bottom of the menu that comes up, select settings. This will open a new tab on your browser with 2 menus, a menu to the left of the page, and a menu in the centre of the page, you need the one in the centre, select the option that says "manage your google account", selecting this will open yet another tab on your browser.

In this new tab, look at the menu to the left of the page and select "data and privacy". This page will show you the "personal results" options, you will have to scroll down a little to find it, it is just under the history settings section, in a box to the right of the screen, click the box, and it will take you to a page where at the top centre right there is a toggle button to turn this setting on and off. You must turn it off to get adult results in your google searches, the button is blue when it is on and grey when it is off.

Once you have deactivated this setting, you can then close these tabs and should get adult results in your google search again.

If you need to change your settings from a different browser that isn't google chrome, then open your browser, whichever it is and go to google.com.

If you are not already logged into your account, there will be a sign in button in the top right hand corner of your browser, if you are already logged in it will be a coloured circle with the initial of your username in it instead.

If you need to sign in first, once you have done so you'll be sent to a page informing you that you are now signed in, there will be a couple of options in little square boxes, and below those boxes it says "You can always manage this information in your google account", click on the words "google account". Selecting this will take you to a new page with a the menu to the left of the page, follow the instructions highlighted above in blue.

If you are already logged into your google account, click the coloured circle with the initial, this opens a menu, select the option "manage your google account" right under where it says "Hi username", then follow the instructions highlighted above in blue.

I appreciate that it's tempting to just abandon google as a search engine all together, there are more private options like duckduckgo for example, but these search engines just don't cast their indexing net as far and wide as google, and small independent sites like those belonging to your favourite sex work providers rarely ever show up on them. So if you're looking for providers and not just porn, stick to google, just employ some of the privacy tools I've outlined in this post.

If I come across any more little censorship tricks like this latest stunt from google, I will update this post with info about how to get around those too!

PHEW! This has been a very long post hey? I appreciate you taking the time to read it, but it is important, I cannot stress just how important it is considering all the new internet censorship that will be coming our way over the next few months and years. All kinds of legislation that pushes out the little man from internet viewership will crop up, IT IS VITAL that the sex work industry gets on board with this technology if it wants to survive what's headed our way, and it's vital that we teach our clients, fans and customers as much as we learn so they can still continue to be our clients, fans and customers!

It's no good the sex workers being all informed on how to keep making porn, if the consumers don't know how to find it! Emphasis should be as much on spreading this information as learning it for oneself.

I seriously advise all sex workers to post something similar to their own sites and make sure we reach our fan bases as much as possible, but PLEASE don't just copy and paste this blog post. It took 3 months of what little spare time I have researching cyber security and took nearly a week just to write it, copying it is just plain rude and it will negatively impact the google search ranking for both our sites if we have exact duplicated content. If you aren't going to do the research yourself and write a lengthy post about it in your own words, then just post a little blog briefly explaining why it's important and then provide a link to this post for them to do the learning. I don't mind you linking to it, just please don't replicate it.

Right I'm done, 3 months of My time on this subject is quite enough, and it fucks me off that I have to write it at all, so I'll be glad to finally close this chapter so I can get to just spreading the word. I will of course try to answer any questions if you have any, and perform corrections if someone with more knowledge than me on the subject spots an error, just let me know.

I sincerely hope that you find this helpful, heed it's important message, learn this technology and spread it far and wide, for the sake of all of us. Over and out.

Domina Jemma xxx