Slashdot Mirror
French Net Censorship Plan Moves Forward
angry tapir writes "French lawmakers have voted to approve a draft law to filter Internet traffic that Slashdot previously discussed. The government says the measure is intended to catch child pornographers. The Senate, where the government has a majority, will soon give the bill a second reading. If the Senate makes no amendments to the text, that will also be its final reading, as the government has declared the bill 'urgent,' a procedural move that reduces the usual cycle of four readings to two."
Bon chance avec ça!
P.S. Preimer!
At the bottom of the
Let's also filter the mail, cellphone conversations and text messages, walkie-talkie and other short-range radio transmission devices and fax. We should also outlaw the lending and borrowing of pendrives, memory cards and home-recorded CDs and DVDs.Those child pornographers are sneaky bastards.
Nothing lasts forever but the certainty of change.
Horst Köhler signed the "Zugangserschwerungsgesetz" yesterday. A veto from the Bundespräsident was the last thing that could have stopped the law in the normal legislative process. To stop the law now, the Bundestag would have to agree on annulling the law before it goes into effect in about three weeks when it is published in the Bundesanzeiger.
If IMMI goes ahead in Iceland, then all that censorship may turn out to be nothing more than a colossal waste of bureaucracy.
You can only attack content in the place where it is hosted - filtering the reception end just doesn't work reliably. Even China doesn't have a perfect rate, and Iran had to throttle its whole network in order to cut off communication...
I surrender!
This wouldn't affect people who run their own recursive DNS server, right? Nor would it affect any servers in data center racks, right? Failing that, even configuring 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 as resolver would do the trick, right? Not that trading one untrusted organisation for the other completely solves the problem but still.
The main consequence of these "laws" will be the development of cryptography and anonymous browsing. As a result, real criminals will have better tools to hide their activity. Normal people will just lose a part of their liberties.
Pensez aux enfants!?
Apologies if the French is totally wrong, just ran it through babelfish. :)
I don't think anyone could call this bill urgent. This is stating the obvious a bit, but I'm going to call it right now - the French government is trying to force this through as quickly as possible before anti-censorship, net neutrality, and freedom of speech groups get to mount a decent defense and inform the French people about what is happening. Although, the populace could be complicit, sort of like Italy, where Burlesconi has managed to brainwash almost everyone.
Yet Another Tech Blog
(but so much more, including game and movie reviews)
http://yanteb.peasantoid.org
Let's just outlaw sex with minors.
... oh, wait.
I, for one, will be using my "end of Cold War" era Yaesu FRG-7700 shortwave radio to search for broadcasts from the Free World. Could any of you guys tell me which direction I should be pointing my antenna, in order to get the best reception from signals bouncing over the Wall? My map isn't even clear where the border lies any more; all I know is that I'm on the wrong side.
I think in discussions like these we need a new disclaimer: IANAP (I Am Not a Paedophile). However, I doubt anything more than a minority are violent people, just like everyone else. The reality is that the non-violent ones who used child porn will either be harrassed or might be driven to the paedophile stereotype of kidnapping/abusing kids. This does nothing but escalate it, and rather than try to talk to these people and work out their problems or give them a safe way to channel it (sort of like how BDSM was originally regarded as obscene before it developed an almost-universal code of conduct), it is suppressed.
Yet Another Tech Blog
(but so much more, including game and movie reviews)
http://yanteb.peasantoid.org
after ALL, France is a "democracy" and ONLY China which is communist state supposed to be doing this things????
I got permanently modded -1 because I dared to question Israel on
Yes, but with all five political parties in the bundestag against the law, it is pretty likely that it will 1) never be enforced 2) get cancelled eventually
Ever heard of the french Google tax? French government want to tax every foreign advertizement company that display ads on websites that can be accessed from france.
This censorship law is just preparing the government to be able to censor foreign services that don't pay any tax they may invent.
"French lawmakers have voted to approve a draft law to filter Internet traffic that Slashdot previously discussed."
/. should be filtered in France...
I didn't read the article. I didn't even read the rest of the text beyond that sentence. Any traffic related to something which has previously been discussed on
Commencer l'opération tempête de le téton !
Hey mate, spare a sig?
Why hello there, angry crowd of a million men who has just burnt down a thousand city blocks, I happen to have in my hand a button which when pressed would fulfil your desire of removing the webpage that has motivated you to these acts from the internet, but you see, I promised that I would only press if it the web page contained child pornography. I very much sympathise with your cause and it is certainly understandable that you are so angry, however I promised really much and I think I even wrote a law about it so my hands are totally tied, sorry.
- The French president in a universe very much removed from ours, 2015
If the French legislature -- or, for that matter, ours, the British, or the Australians -- were genuinely concerned about child pornography, there are any number of productive, real-world efforts they could pursue. On the technical side, they could fund research into automated image analysis, so computers could look for the stuff specifically instead of having uniformed thugs, er, gendarmes pawing through everyone's data manually. That, obviously, is not going to produce overnight results, so maybe the kiddie porn-obsessed countries of the world could take concrete action against the human trafficking that fuels so much of the child porn business. Of course, that would end up hurting business interests, whereas violating everyone's rights in a largely fruitless pursuit for evidence of crimes after the fact -- cast in the appropriate light, of course -- generates some free publicity prior to elections, without the unintended side effect of actually doing something to reduce a very valuable hot button issue.
We have the same kind of politics here with respect to abortion. Both sides fear a final resolution to the issue because it's such a huge source of votes. Consequently, the pro-life faction always stops just a little bit short of overturning Roe v. Wade, and the pro-choice faction never actually gets around to even discussing a constitutional amendment. The politicians (and professional pressure groups) involved want an unresolved controversy, lest the issue be reduced to driving as many people to the polls as the Runaway Slave Act does nowadays. The voters on both sides are quite sincere and feel strongly about their respective positions, but their elected representatives? Not so much.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
The "urgent" status is actually because this censorship bill is part of a larger law, named LOPPSI 2, that addresses several "security" matters : more jail for everyone, Internet filtering, trojans for cops in "organized crime" investigation, and so on.
There are regional elections in France in about one month. The government tries to scare people on security matters — the good old "I want *everyone* to *remember* _why_they_need_us_ !". They want to pass the law before the elections, and gave it an "urgent" status that of course isn't justified in any other way.
Horst Köhler signed the "Zugangserschwerungsgesetz" yesterday. A veto from the Bundespräsident was the last thing that could have stopped the law in the normal legislative process.
Yes, but he only signed after the government answered to his request for more information. In this answer, the government assured that they will order the "Bundeskriminalamt" (something like the FBI) to not produce any lists of addresses to be blocked.
The situation is rather absurd now: the (previous) government passed the law last autumn, then the coalition government changed (conservatives with liberals instead of conservatives with social democrats), and by now no party is in support of the law anymore. By signing the law, the President put the politicians under pressure to find a way out of this mess they got themselves in, so I'm actually not unhappy that he did it. :) The left parties in the parliament want to start a motion to abolish the law completely. Normally, the conservatives and liberals would not support something coming from that corner of the political spectrum, but it's something that eg the liberals were demanding before the election. So it's going to be interesting how they handle the situation. I kind of enjoy the mess they got themselves in with their short-sighted actions... ;)
Ok, anon, now is the time. Let's begin planning operation titstorm, part II.
Let the message be loud and clear: "Don't fuck with us. We do not accept censorship in our network".
...and your father smelt of elderberry!
SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
To see who steps up to provide tools to circumvent this filter and how much media attention is given to the "righteous computer geeks" who are saving the French from the evils of repressive net censorship, like in China, Iran,etc.
The legislative can say about enforcement what they want. It's neither their job nor in their realm of authority. If you are a network provider, you have to have the censorship infrastructure ready when the law demands it and there are enough zealots who will force the executive to enforce the law.
...think of the fucking children.
Oh wait, fucking children are the problem...
AFAIK strong cryptography is already forbidden in France.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
These "for the children" net censoring countries sure have a lot of child porn in their country. So much so that they're willing to spend a few hundred million dollars to just build some giant blindfolds to ignore it. Do they really not have any more pressing concerns? I'd be willing to wager they have more unemployed people than pedophiles and molested children combined.
Last I checked, there were plenty of other 'issues' that could use the attention: poverty, cancer research, alternative energies, food production, etc. I understand that raping children is a very bad behavior. But hopefully it's already illegal
So France wants to stop people from looking at child porn on the internet cos it's such a BAD THING... but they complain about Roman Polanski being arrested and they want him freed?
He didn't merely look at child porn, he drugged and raped a 13 year old for fuck's sake.
Yes, but he only signed after the government answered to his request for more information.
Not relevant to the problem. Fact is still: He signed something, whose only known effect is the protection (trough concealment) of child abuse, and which is unconstitutional. Making him de-facto punishable for treason (usually at least 10 years jail) and aiding of child abuse (also not a small thing). And he is fully aware of this.
In this answer, the government assured that they will order the "Bundeskriminalamt" (something like the FBI) to not produce any lists of addresses to be blocked.
Yeah because the BKA is oh such a trustworthy source when it comes to “assuring” something. This is more a guarantee that they will produce those lists, but want to keep the fact secret.
Oh wait... They already have a list, and it leaked already too.
So what does Köhler want? Go to PMITA prison over some stupid politic circus? Not such a wise move.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
ORLY, the government only has a majority in the senate. Who is in the Senate without being in the government? Or did the French invent a branch of government that is not controlled by the government?
or whatever its properly spelled
its too bad
now we can ban all french websites form the net
A NET EMBARGO FOR FRANCE
and to users in france just cancel and have a few months off
let your economy take a hit and shove that communist sarkozy out
Fact is still: He signed something, whose only known effect is the protection (trough concealment) of child abuse, and which is unconstitutional. Making him de-facto punishable for treason (usually at least 10 years jail)
He has to check whether laws are formally correct. How far his *rights* go to check for the law being "correct" (meaning constitutional) in the matter is apparently a matter of debate. Decisions about the constitutionality of a law are usually the task of the constitutional court.
Yeah because the BKA is oh such a trustworthy source when it comes to “assuring” something.
The BKA is not the source, the government is. If they still move forward with producing lists *and* requiring ISPs to filter the addresses included, it would be difficult to keep secret.
This is more a guarantee that they will produce those lists, but want to keep the fact secret. Oh wait... They already have a list, and it leaked already too.
I would be quite surprised if the BKA would not have a list of addresses where child pornography is distributed. It's basically part of their job, which includes trying to get to the people who distribute such stuff.
If they use those lists to order ISPs to block the respective addresses (and this is what we are talking about), I don't see how you can keep that secret. People at the ISPs will know, and inevitably people will notice that certain addresses are not reachable from Germany, while they are reachable from outside. If you block something, you shouldn't expect no one ever notices...
Hey, it's a better acronym than "I ANAL"!
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Actually - I talked with a guy who's part of the Danish police computer crimes division (the guys that among other things investigate CP), and he told me that they've processed just under a thousand computers for CP and only ONE used any kind of cryptography to hide his CP. Didn't work either as the moron used a common password which was broken in hours... go figure.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Child abuse for the purpose of child pornography happens IN THE REAL WORLD, not in cyberspace! - No law acting on the Internet only will ever do the slightest bit to PREVENT the actual child abuse which must be the primary purpose of any child pornography law!
Don't they get it? - The abuse will happen and the materials will be produced. Once they exist they will be disseminated one way or the other. Making distribution harder will make them more valuable thus more attractive to produce. It is likely it'll actually increase the amount of abuse and the number of children affected.
Filtering the Internet will only force the users to move to encrypted channels that can bypass the filters. This will also make investigations much harder which is not a good thing. And it will do absolutely nothing to prevent children from being abused.
This is a textbook Bad Idea (tm)... They need to fire their technical advisers asap!
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --