Slashdot Mirror
France Passes Harsh Three-Strikes Legislation, Again
shrik writes "After having it struck down as 'unconstitutional' by the Conseil Constitutionnel once, Sarkozy's controversial 'three-strikes' law (known as HADOPI) was once again passed by the French National Assembly, this time allowing for a judge to order the disconnection (without requiring the presence of the accused party!), thus placating some of the administrative concerns. Opponents say they will 'challenge the law again in front of the Constitutional Council because it deprives the accused of being able to defend themselves properly.' Coverage at Ars also points out a provision that says, 'all Internet users must keep their connections 'secure' and are responsible for what happens on them.'"
I LIKE leaving my wrouter unpassworded. I have a resource that costs me nothing it makes good sense to share. My neighbours do the same and are on a different ISP. The result? Near 0 downtime. But it seems this will be legislated away. It depresses me that since I got cable almost 10years ago my speed and capacity has dropped, reliability has dropped massively and is going to take another hit. Capitalism works very well on small individual items but clearly cannot deal with massive projects. Oh well at least its not as bad as cellphones...
It also raises the question of whether an organisation becomes responsible for any piracy which occurs as a result of a thirdparty sneaking onto their network. Say, the French government being responsible if a bunch of hackers start downloading pirated material using their network. Wouldn't a judge be obliged to cut that network off immediately?