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France's Citizens Expected to Help Build Internet Blacklist

Posted by timothy on from the common-sense-being-already-anathema dept.

Corrupt links to a Sydney Morning Herald article which begins "The French state and internet service providers have struck a deal to block sites carrying child pornography or content linked to terrorism or racial hatred, Interior Minister Michel Alliot-Marie announced on Tuesday." The article is thin on details, but what it does say is bad enough: "Under the French plan, internet users, via a platform, will be able to signal inappropriate sites and the state, receiving the complaints in real time, will then decide whether the sites are to go on a so-called black list to be passed on to internet service providers to enforce site blocks." It sounds like the perfect way to organize an especially malicious DDoS attack. The French government has never been shy about wanting to "protect" French people by censoring Internet content, though.

42 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. See guys! by Sinryc · · Score: 4, Funny

    Those guys in Europe really DO have better ideas than America! They are so open and free... oh... wait.

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    Yay, I have a sig.
    1. Re:See guys! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That sounds like hate speech to me!

      The Internet should be nothing but puppies and rainbows!

    2. Re:See guys! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Why don't they just hire some experienced /. moderators to mod sites as -1, troll; -5, kiddie p0rn; +1, informative; +5, adult p0rn; etc.

      Use what already works.

    3. Re:See guys! by STrinity · · Score: 4, Funny

      I for one blame Bush.

      --
      Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
    4. Re:See guys! by cayenne8 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Seriously...how do the people in EU, like France...put up with this nonsense about censoring speech....like 'hate speech'.

      I just don't get it....that is such a large hole you can file things to censor anything. What is wrong with publishing I hate ? I mean, as long as you are not directly inciting violence against such...to where it might really happen?

      I mean...I hear in Germany...they can't publish things...even factual things or sell items that are Nazi related? It was, after all...a real part of their history. It just seems to try to stifle real history, and idea. If you can't learn from history, aren't you destined to repeat it?

      I know a lot of things suck in the US, but, you can for the most part...say or publish most any idea you wish....even if it is distasteful to many others. It won't land you in jail or anything, but, you may risk public discern and alienation. Although, I do see things like this happening here.....talk about banning the rebel flag, etc.

      Anyway...I think anyone should be able to say or display what they wish...after all they are just ideas, words and symbols....grow some thicker skin and get on with your life and feel free to promote your own ideals.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    5. Re:See guys! by AHuxley · · Score: 2, Funny

      France would have a "Maginot Line".
      All the smart bears just move in via the Ardennes Forest.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  2. First on the list: by kunkie · · Score: 5, Funny

    http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/victories.html

  3. Then it's very fortunate... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...that the current French government cares more about giving the impression they're doing something that actually improving anything. Just like 80% of what they say, that *wonderful* idea will never see the light of day. ...remember Cairo, the french-funded Google killer? Yeah. That's what I thought.

    1. Re:Then it's very fortunate... by Mornedhel · · Score: 2, Informative

      That's *Quaero*, latin for "I seek".

      The thing actually has backing from several French universities and France Télécom (and Deutsche Telekom until the German started their own project). Now, while I agree it was largely spawned out of a misplaced patriotism, it was actually started by the Chirac government, not the current one (disclaimer : I am not a fan of either). Plus, it has, since march 2008, funding from the European Commission, so it's not going nowhere, either.

      At worse, we'll get something on data mining out of this, since actual, live scientists are participating.

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  4. Peer pressure by SirLurksAlot · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Other democracies have done it. France could wait no longer.

    Gotta love that "Everyone else is doing it, so why shouldn't we?" mentality.

    Seriously though, I want to know exactly how this will work. Who gets to decide what sites go on the black-list, and how deep are they going to dig into a claim before a site gets taken down? I can see a huge potential for abuse here.

    --
    God, schmod. I want my monkey man!
    1. Re:Peer pressure by owlnation · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Seriously though, I want to know exactly how this will work. Who gets to decide what sites go on the black-list, and how deep are they going to dig into a claim before a site gets taken down? I can see a huge potential for abuse here.
      It's the wikipedia model. Which, of course, we all know to be fair, free, trustworthy, high quality, and not at all run by cabals or excons.
    2. Re:Peer pressure by Reziac · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The citizens of France should send their government's websites to the blacklist. That way they'll be sure not to be exploited by internet scammers and the like.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  5. Re:Not a problem by Jarjarthejedi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But, will it then unblacklist everything, as a result of the blacklisting software being unable to reach the blacklisting site? Oh, that would make for an interesting paradox...

    --
    There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
  6. Re:DDoS? by gutnor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Post some kiddie porn on a forum and report.

    But well that all depends on the sophistication of the system. The real time part is probably a key element. Defacement followed by report could put a site off-line for a few hours/days or maybe months since getting removed from a blacklist is always much harder.

  7. If the French people are on board... good by Excelcia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the French people are on board with this, and they find a way to make it work, then who are we to say it's censorship and bad? Why is incest illegal? Why don't we introduce children to sexuality? In the strictest sense, these things are malum prohibitum, not malum in se. If sexuality is good, then why forbid it between family members or children? We do that because these are things that, as a society, we believe to be wrong. And because we feel that allowing them would open the door to abuse, making the dangers of those behaviours outweigh their potential good.

    If the people of France feel that the dangers inherent in certain pornography outweigh their good, then who are we to say out of hand this is a bad thing? I don't know how popular this law is in France, but it seems to me that if it's unpopular by the majority of people, it simply won't work. If the majority want it, they'll make it (for the most part) work. Sure you'll have people who will be able to circumvent it, but I don't see this as a system they are intending to be safe from circumvention. Just a national net-nanny system. If that's what they want, then I say we apply the live and let live to them as a group and say great - more power to you.

    1. Re:If the French people are on board... good by mrbluze · · Score: 2, Informative

      If sexuality is good, then why forbid it between family members or children?

      This would appear to apply to a society that had absolutely no religious basis. A truly atheist society, perhaps.

      But on the contrary, even an atheist society is likely to ban things which threaten the species. Incest / inbreeding causes serious genetic problems. Pregnancy in prematurity causes serious physical problems. Sexual experience in the emotionally inexperienced causes serious psychosocial problems.

      So, as such, they are just as likely to be banned in an atheist society than in any other.

      It's not just that we, as a society, believe them to be wrong, but we as a civilization have proof that these behaviours cause problems that we, as a society, just don't want to have.

      --
      Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
    2. Re:If the French people are on board... good by erlehmann · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why is incest illegal?
      Most certainly because many people fear that the risk of disabled children is higher in incest pairings. Few, of course, want to continue this thought and forbid haemophiliacs to procreate. It's an irrational, inconsequent thing, you know.

      If the people of France feel that the dangers inherent in certain pornography outweigh their good, then who are we to say out of hand this is a bad thing?
      Libertarians. Making victimless actions crimes is an authoritarian thing, where you pass on your morals on others without any connection. Your rhetoric is flawed, btw: You seem to be advocating absolute moral relativism on libertarian grounds - but that leads into a inherent chaotic system without any moral directives at all. Finally, let me be the first to ask: If the people of Yemen feel that the dangers inherent in homosexuality justify the death penalty, then who are we to say out of hand, this is a bad thing ?
    3. Re:If the French people are on board... good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Child pornography is illegal in most countries, so I don't think blocking access to those sites is particularly controversial. What might be controversial is the idea of giving a government agency a broad charter to block access to any site that might be considered dangerous to the public welfare. This is exactly what the Chinese government has been doing, and they use their authority to censor sites that are even mildly critical of the government, as well as those that might be promoting "dangerous ideas" that conflict with the mores of society.

      It's a slippery slope. It's not unlike the path that the Bush administration went on after 9/11 to monitor the communication of suspected terrorists, which sounds rather reasonable, only it came to be interpreted as a charter to monitor practically any electronic communication sent or received by anyone in the US, without a court order.

    4. Re:If the French people are on board... good by weorthe · · Score: 2

      Freedom isn't the right of the majority to suppress minority opinion, that's why.

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      cat * >> sig
    5. Re:If the French people are on board... good by epee1221 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Just a national net-nanny system. If that's what they want, then I say we apply the live and let live to them as a group and say great - more power to you.
      You mean, "if that's what they _all_ want," yes? Otherwise, a policy like this runs counter to the "live and let live" idea.
      --
      "The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."
    6. Re:If the French people are on board... good by mrbluze · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Few, of course, want to continue this thought and forbid haemophiliacs [wikipedia.org] to procreate. It's an irrational, inconsequent thing, you know.

      It's why society will continue to oscillate between eugenics/interventionism/social conservatism and hurt-no-one/social liberalism.

      So often I hear staff in my department say "these imbeciles shouldn't have a license to have babies", out of sheer frustration at.. well.. imbeciles. But it could just as well be any group. It's just one logical (and not irrational) 'solution' to disease and perceived inferiority. Compassion is its antithesis, whose logic is a little more subtle I would say.

      Finally, let me be the first to ask: If the people of Yemen feel that the dangers inherent in homosexuality justify the death penalty, then who are we to say out of hand, this is a bad thing ?

      Not wanting to defend the grandparent poster too much, but 'who are we' is 'a powerful nation with nukes'. But we are not more intelligent than those in Yemen and believing ourselves to be morally superior to them is based mostly on arbitrary measures.

      My approach is to ask 'is banning access to child pornography going to prevent harm to children'? We don't really know, actually, because it may well push the crime further underground and make the creators of the pornography harder to catch.

      I think the flaw in the thinking (in France and elsewhere) is the assumption that 'thinking bad is equal to doing bad', which has Christian origins. This is what is behind the basis of criminalizing activity which is materially victimless. There is the argument that if you kill off the market, there won't be incentive to produce the pornography, but this has been proven wrong before.

      --
      Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
    7. Re:If the French people are on board... good by MSZ · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't know how popular this law is in France, but it seems to me that if it's unpopular by the majority of people, it simply won't work. If the majority want it, they'll make it (for the most part) work.

      That would be fine, anyone not wanting to see something should be free to not look at it. Or free to get some pussified internet feed instead of the real thing.

      However, if I understand this correctly, the system will not work this way. No majority opinion, no vote - just some little bureaucrat reviewing anonymous(?) tips and putting whatever he feels nasty on the black list. I bet there will be a small group of self-righteous people with a mission to find, report and demand any site they find objectionable be blacklisted, closed or otherwise destroyed. Problably we'll find there "think of the children" crowd together with "destroy non-PC views" hatemongers with some religious nuts sprinkled on top (lots of islamic fanatics immigrating).
      --
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    8. Re:If the French people are on board... good by mrbluze · · Score: 2, Insightful

      First, deliver the proofs. Scientific, not anecdotal. Not all the proof can be equally 'scientific' because the ideal scientific process itself would have to be 'unethical' in many of these circumstances (unless you could do a computer simulation of reality). But, for example, underaged sex does have a correlation with increased sexually transmitted infection with increased incidence of infertility, etc. etc. Eg: this recent abstract and MANY others. It's unlikely to change, either, because compliance with medication and condoms is poor already, and poorer still with decreasing age.

      All of the things I mentioned have scientific evidence to support them. But no, not all of the evidence is a randomized double blinded case-control trial! Most of it is epidemiological.

      I am only this short of invoking Godwin's.

      I know full well that this process of reasoning can lead to full blown Nazism/eugenics/badness. I am just arguing that, without moderation, society gravitates towards this kind of stuff, because superficially it makes sense.

      I know everyone shuns religion nowadays (often for good reason), but people are deceiving themselves (and doomed to relive the past) if they think society will be any more enlightened or less brutal without it, or without some kind of replacement to promote compassion and moderation.

      --
      Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
    9. Re:If the French people are on board... good by Excelcia · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Most certainly because many people fear that the risk of disabled children is higher in incest pairings. Few, of course, want to continue this thought and forbid haemophiliacs to procreate. It's an irrational, inconsequent thing, you know.
      As I pointed out in another post, there are many many forms of sexuality that don't involve any risk of pregnancy. The word incest implies intercourse, so let's drop that and go with sexual contact. I am prohibited from engaging in any sort of sexual behaviour with my children. I find that idea repugnant (the sexual contact, not the prohibition of it) - but why do I find it so?

      Libertarians. Making victimless actions crimes is an authoritarian thing, where you pass on your morals on others without any connection.
      Is child pornography victimless? This is something I have a hard time accepting. Which likely stems from my belief that sexual contact with children is wrong. And there are some who might consider there to always be at least one victim of child pornography, just as there is always at least one with drug abuse. Many psychological addictions are accepted behavioural disorders. I for one am not going to wave my arms in the air and tell another country they are wrong to want to protect their citizens from that - as long as a significant enough majority go along with it.

      I don't think it's flawed idea on its face that a society would want to censor child pornography. Our own society has many many forms of censorship which are well accepted. Censorship of libellous writing and hate speech. Censorship due to copyright and patent law. Censorship due to privacy constraints and censorship incidental to legal actions. Most people believe censorship in general to be wrong, but believe that there are times when it's necessary. When the harm inherent in the content spreading outweighs the harm of censorship. Censorship is dangerous, but I really hate it when that word shows up here and everyone jumps on it like its a plague. Oh my heavens - they're trying to censor us, break out the pitchforks. What I'm trying to do, clumsily perhaps, is point out that maybe the method they are using in France is actually a good way to implement it. A method of censorship that varies in effectiveness with the amount of support it has from the population involved. If the people don't want it, I think it just won't work. If they really all do get on board with it, then as far as I'm concerned, good for them for finding a community solution and working together.
  8. Wait.. What? by Cathoderoytube · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Does this mean the French government is encouraging people to search for child pornography? Because really, you have to go looking for that stuff specifically if you want to find it to report it.

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    I have nothing compelling to say
  9. translation by owlnation · · Score: 2, Funny

    What's French for "whatcouldpossiblygowrong?"

    1. Re:translation by Aardpig · · Score: 4, Funny

      Maginot?

      --
      Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
  10. Michèle by Mornedhel · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's Michèle, not Michel. Wrong gender. (And damn you /. ! I shouldn't have to know HTML entities to type simple accents !)

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  11. French internet will become high school! YAY! by plasmacutter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So now anyone who doesn't like what another person says on the internet can spread ugly rumors about them to the "gub'mint" and destroy them.

    I'm sure everyone will applaud france's introduction of the ever so just "high school system" of internet enforcement.

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  12. Re:DDoS? by nfk · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That may be a valid point, depending, as you say, on the sophistication of the system, but it is still not a distributed attack. The only way I can imagine a distributed attack is if the system is automatic and there is a threshold above which a site is flagged, but that is not the impression I got from reading the article.

  13. Racial hatred:europe::gun control:us by R2.0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I keep on seeing regulations on "hate speech" and "racial hatred" referenced in Europe, an dwas just struck by the similarity to gun control efforts in the US. Specifically, there is a problem (violent crime/racial tension) with a root cause (poverty and historical discrimination/current discrimination and a history of sectarianism and ethnic pogroms), and the leaders are chasing after the tools (guns/speech) instead of the actors or the causes.

    AND NEITHER ARE WORKING! The locations with the highest levels of gun control in the US also have the highest level of violent crime(NYC, DC, Chicago), and the places in Europe with the strictest speech laws have the most trouble with their minorities (Turks in Germany, N. Africans in France). Does anyone who is intellectually honest believe that the problem is that the laws are not strict enough?

    And for those who will say that the situations are totally different, because guns kill and words don't, remember that the next time France lets its southern region burn, and this time there are French citizens in the cars. For that matter, talk to the Jews - there are six million fewer of them and I don't think Hitler ever lifted a finger against one. He just spoke and wrote.

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    "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
    1. Re:Racial hatred:europe::gun control:us by no1home · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Somebody mod the parent up! R2.0 really nailed the issue on the head. As I commented here on /. for the story about the ISPs agreeing to filter based on the blacklist provided by the non-governmental group with no community oversight, it isn't going to work! If you want to protect the kids (like most of us do), then quit wasting time, money, and energy on garbage like this and go after the pervs and the server hosts.

      What makes this interesting is the difference in implementation and how it's wrong. The U.S. version is derided because there is no oversight, no accountability. This French version, which seems so open and democratic will most likely end up being yet another implementation of McCarthyism.

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    2. Re:Racial hatred:europe::gun control:us by R2.0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      On the French side: cheap labor and noblesse oblige (the bad kind)- you know, helping those poor dark people out despite their ungratefulness.

      On the Algerian side: jobs and being treated better than in Algeria - independence from France doesn't mean the new Algerian government was any better.

      --
      "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
    3. Re:Racial hatred:europe::gun control:us by Mr2001 · · Score: 3, Informative

      But the laws have not had that effect; crime has only gotten worse. Not so. Crime rates in NYC are far lower today than they were 20 years ago - the crime rate there is comparable to Boise, Idaho.

      New gun control laws were passed in 2006; in 2007, the homicide rate was 20% lower than it had been in 2006 (although one can't be sure that's a direct result of the gun laws). It hadn't been that low since the 60's.
      --
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    4. Re:Racial hatred:europe::gun control:us by R2.0 · · Score: 2, Informative

      While I agree with the basics of your argument, I believe you are still missing my fundamental point - It is not MY assumption that other things are not factors; rather it is the assumption of those pushing gun control laws to begin with. There are obviously many factors involved in crime and violence, and while I would argue that the availability of guns is not a major contributor, gun control advocated want to argue that firearms are the ONLY contributor. When faced with documented evidence that crime rates have NOT gone down with increased gun control, the only solution that gun control advocates see is MORE gun control.

      Here's an example. The State of Maryland passed a law requiring "ballistic imaging" of all new handguns sold in the state. Each gun would be supplied with a fired cartridge casing, which would be scanned into a State Police database so that they could be matched against future crime scenes where brass is recovered. It was hailed as a model for other stares and a breakthrough in law enforcement, despite some obvious flaws (revolvers don't leave spent brass, and it is trivially easy to deface the chamber of a firearm so the pattern on the brass is different).

      Fast forward. The law has been in place for years, and $2.5 million has been spent on it, and not a single crime has been solved using the data. Not.A.Single.One. The State police even issued a recommendation that the program be terminated because the money could be better spent elsewhere in the criminal forensics devision. But just recently, a prominent politician introduced a bill to INCREASE the scope of the program, supported by the the state police commissioner. Their theory is that, since the program isn't getting the results they expected, they need to expand it. This would in turn take away funds from other programs that have been proven to work (like basic police investigation), but the only thing they can see is that the current program MUST be effective - they just aren't trying hard enough. It's like a battered spouse not moving out because she believes she just isn't trying hard enough to be a good wife.

      --
      "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
  14. 4chan by matchbookandfire · · Score: 3, Funny

    This just in - 4chan unavailable in France.

  15. Pedophilia is just a pretext by WizHard · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Frenchfag here. What I think is that pedophilia is just a pretext to this governement. It have beens years a lot of laws have been tried to be applied against illegal downloads, all of them worse than the others. They give up on Oliviennes idea of law (head of a music seller in france), and like magic Odapi appears, for the good of all the people, against child pornography. Of course it sounds good, everyone is ok with a law like this, and no one will go further to understand the real goal. I mean when politics are putting in the same sentence "child pornography" and "illegal downloads" to make a justice-independant organisation that fill up filters, I am fraking scared.

  16. Oblig Slipper Slope by iamhigh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Anytime you start to filter and suppress speech, you are well on your way to a troubling situation. Even if you allow majority rule, you can potential be blocking very important minority opinions/info.

    --
    No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
  17. Will the list be public? by thesaurus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    And if so, isn't France just creating a "Get Yer Child Porn Here!" list?

  18. Re:As in "protecting children from sexual predator by dasmoo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have no problem with someone stopping child porn. It's a terrible thing that needs to be stopped. But I have a problem with filtering child porn. You see, today it's child porn and everyone gets on board because it's child porn and everyone can understand it. But tomorrow it's dissent, things the government finds objectionable, until the internet that was free turns into the internet that sucks because of all the false positives. This is not a good thing. You need to increase the penalties for being caught with child porn to a level that scares people, not filter the shit. Filtering leads to filtering of other things, if it's easy the govenment will do it. If I were french I'd be calling for lifetime jail sentences for having child porn and no filtering.

  19. Never Underestimate Stupid People in Large Groups by thomasinx · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well, putting aside the problems with having a small group of people censor the internet, tasking this to a large group of people brings in other problems that didn't even exist with small groups. Here's a cute example:
    Take a group of religions with websites. Each one considers all the others 'offensive', so they try to make an effort to have all of the other religions' websites censored.(the rationale may be "so what if its not child porn, it's still offensive") As a result, every single site has a large number of votes to be taken down. While it's somewhat karmic (I'd laugh), does the government plan on preventing this by having individuals go through and check every site that gets taken down? That's a lot of manpower necessary.
    While this is a bit of a stretch, if you multiply this by all the groups in france for various organizations, beliefs, etc, something stupid is bound to happen. (ie. Banning wikipedia for having an entry on pedophilia?) There's too many people that disagree with each other that there are gonna be problems.

    Well, at least there's still Peacefire.

  20. Read the Article Anyone? by qazwart · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The article begins talking about how the State of New York (Hey! That's not France!) made a deal with the three big ISPs to block child porn. The article also stated:

    Among other countries that have already implemented similar measures include Britain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Canada and New Zealand.


    What is different is that the French have created an actual mechanism to report such sites:

    Under the French plan, internet users, via a platform, will be able to signal inappropriate sites and the state, receiving the complaints in real time, will then decide whether the sites are to go on a so-called black list to be passed on to internet service providers to enforce site blocks.


    This strikes me as maybe a slightly better way sites are blacklisted in the United States: Individual ISPs just block the site at random, or someone sues someone else in court. By having an official list, ISPs can't ban a site for possible political or competition reasons and claim they're trying to stop something else. There have been several cases where birth control or pro-choice sites have become unavailable and the ISP claims it was merely attempting to shield the eyes of poor innocent children from non-friendly material.

    I am not sure of the best way to handle this situation, but since the French government is attempting to do what other Western democracies are attempting to do, I can't quite call this exactly the rise of fascism.