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Tech Specs Leaked For French Spyware
An anonymous reader writes "With the 'three strikes' law now in effect in France, the organization tasked with implementing it, Hadopi, has been working on technology specs for making the process work — and those specs have now leaked. It appears to involve client-side monitoring and controlling software, that would try to watch what you were doing online, and even warn you before you used any P2P protocol (must make Skype phone calls fun). It's hard to believe people will accept this kind of thing being installed on their computers, so I can't wait to see how Hadopi moves forward with it. It also appears to violate EU rules on privacy."
The government pinky-promised that they won't use this for anything other than enforcing this law. And you have their *word* on that.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Oh, nice! Can I have the Linux version?
What are they going to do? Fucking outlaw Mac OS X, Linux and all the other non-Microsoft operating systems?
Funny fact: in french it's called système d'exploitation. Maybe that's why they want such software. To exploit you and your computer.
Doesn't Windows have built-in monitoring, or are non-US government entities not allowable parties to contract services for it?
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Basically, it's your everyday snooping software, that will monitor all internet traffic, including searching through files on your computer, and checking the router configuration
This is enforced by a representative government?
Seriously?
Can't wait to see the French Gov. forcing me to install this kind of software on my computer. ...
VPN is still safe for now I guess
They will have to enforce this law on any computer entering the country, I can see lines forming at the customs where a Gov official will install something on tourists computers.
The French government has better things to do than trying to regulate the internet...
Hadopi will fail because it is already obsolete, what a fucking good way to waste tax payers money...
I don't see why they don't just put in some sort of sniffer at ISP switches. Like the Carnivore/Omnivore things.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
The act of using peer to peer software isn't illegal. Downloading content with peer to peer software isn't illegal. Downloading copyrighted content with *ANY* software will infringe someones copyright. Driving cars should be as illegal as using p2p software, since both can be abused! Cars are still on the road though. Pedestrians are killed and cars are still on the road. P2P is used to distribute software (some of it legal, some of it illegal), lets quit throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
All of have to do just install anti-spyware software - no need to even run it - and the French spyware immediately uninstalls itself without me having to do anything.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Yes, I'm sure the software magically divines whether or not an arbitrary communication channel is being used for a peer-to-peer or client-server protocol. Maybe it uses an oracle to determine what protocol is being used on the channel and consults Wikipedia automatically to determine whether or not it's peer-to-peer.
Or just maybe the software detects a collection of known protocols, and Skype calls would only generate a warning if Skype was intentionally targeted by the software. In this case, you're just equivocating on the definition of "peer-to-peer".
How will this spyware-like software be disseminated? or done successfully? I see a lot of road bumps with just the pure nature of the software along this path. Let alone questioning the privacy breach and ethics of this software.
...from my cold, dead fingers.
It is so tiny that it is usually referred to as a micropenis.
Looking over the spec I can't honestly think that the French are dumb enough to think something like this could work, the scope is to broad, and software solutions are silly easy to bypass.
And we (well, the other Frenchie around here and me) (oh, come on, there has to be one) can all thanks Numerama, and their source, for the leak. The funny thing is that the document is specified to be subject to "public consultation", but the Hadopi fordade everyone to distribute it. Well, too bad for them, there are some French laws about the right to be informed, and the availability of documents.
That didn't even work in China, did it?
The whole suggestion of enforcing this client-side is so idiotic that I'm inclined to believe that there will be ISP-side enforcement and that in fact the client is only there to warn the user.
Nullius in verba
France is the only country on the planet that has actual SCUBA Police to wander around underwater and make sure you have your "Diving License".
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/basic-scuba-discussions/300289-scuba-police.html
working on all flavors of Linux, Windows, OSX, iOS, Android, etc. And of course it will not be a vector for malware. And of course it will not interfere with any operations except illicit ones, nor impact performance. Didn't China try this??
for the spec? thanks!
Godwined in two posts, within 3 minutes of submission, not too bad. Extra points for the fact that the comparison doesn't make even the slightest bit of sense.
Except my mom is more open and understanding about the porn.
Why did they develop a solution that has to be installed on the part of the infrastructure they have the least control of and that has the biggest diversity?
How will they roll this out? Forced install? For every OS? Including the OS on my media box with its crappy bittorrent client? And since the software physically runs inside the homes of people, that could open up a ton of legal troubles. What's so hard about making a law that forces ISP's to install monitoring software?
Somehow I'm happy that this seems to be a typical govenment IT-f#ckup.
Oh no, it's typical KGB of worst Soviet times. 3-rd Reich wasn't so advanced technically . In fact this is worse than KGB.
And yes, I did live in Soviet Union when it was still strong. I know about KGB.
Wow. This is just sensational. It seems unworkable and may even result in some interesting legal responses from users and businesses when that software is blamed for system instability and data loss. My guess is that this software won't be required until after the first or second strike... yeah, I can't read the full referenced links... one is slashdotted already and the other is scant on details. Otherwise, I would guess that if they hope for any of this to work, they would make a tiny router/bridge box thing that would be required in order to access the internet. Pop-up messages warning of P2P usage sounds like software on the client side though.
This is pretty far beyond ridiculous and only goes to show how incredibly influential the copyright industry is... and all this ultimately paid for by the same people who are being punished.
If it weren't for the fact that the rest of the media industry already has a strong stake in these sorts of actions going forward, we might be able to create some sort of global public awareness program.
And I sure as hell won't allow them to install any of that stuff here.
What are they going to do if I refuse? Throw me in jail? Fine me? We'll see how far this "land of the human rights" will take this farce.
To quote Mass Hysteria "Liberté, égalité, fraternité. Trois mensonges dans une phrase, ça fait quand même un peu pitié."
I get a phone from the Netherlands, where there are no problems with downloads. I connect to the internet through this phone, while in France (I assume it costs a lot, but whatever). What laws am I supposed to obey?
new sig
As always, 98% of people won't have a clue what it does or how it works, and will install it because someone tells them to.
After that, it's wide acceptance will be cited as a justification for it's existence.
Jeez. Sounds like a certain operating system I know.
Does this count as strike one because the Frogs thought they could get away with it,
or does it count as strike two because they thought they could get away with it and got caught,
or does it constitute strike three because they thought they could get away with it, got caught, and were dumb enough to think such a lame idea would work?
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
So, the whole thing depends on forcing everybody to install spyware on their machine which will monitor their activity and report on it?
From a security stand point,it's obviously going to be doing much of the same stuff as malware; and from getting people to actually install this, I just can't see this working at all, who is going to voluntarily install this crap?
What happen when someone refuses to install this, or, the operating system they run does support it? Will they outlaw Linux? This is why you can't force a solution to this kind of thing.
I don't think they have a hope in hell of making this actually work. People aren't going to voluntarily install it, and they're not going to be able to jam it into every operating system without fundamentally destroying privacy and security. This sounds like the Sony rootkit, but on a national scale.
I can see it now -- any form of general computing device not running OS designed, built, and vetted by the copyright holders will be outlawed. Good luck with that.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Like in the days of yore, you French had better consider using this against the politicians again before they trap you worse than last time. You did good last time. Time to put the fear of the people back in your leaders, they have apparently forgotten their lesson.
It's hard to believe people will accept this kind of thing being installed on their computers, so I can't wait to see how Hadopi moves forward with it.
Easy! If you don't comply, they'll pretend you're not french.
The best thing is, by the time this crap makes it to users' computers (if it ever does), most downloaders will have moved on to non-P2P systems.
So this thing will only bother legal P2P users, nice...
So much for liberté... we still have egalité and fraternité (until further notice)
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
In France your ISP (well 99% of them) provide you with a preconfigured modem/routeur that they call a "box". This box handles IPTV and VoIP too. IPTV and VoIP depends on specs often known only to the ISP and therefore it is hard to find a compatible modem/routeur of your own, forcing you to use the ISP's if you want to use VoIP and IPTV (which is actually forced upon you as part of most ISP's basic package, it is difficult to get a truly IP-only connection here for a reasonable price, IP+VoIP+IPTV is actually cheaper than just IP) The long term plan is for all ISPs to agree on some basic standards for their "box" and the filtering software/spyware would be implemented on the "box" thus making it "unavoidable". Most people won't notice (don't get me started on how completely technically illiterate people are even allowed to connect to the network) the firmware update (they already don't as it is and most rely on basic out of the box settings) and blacklist updates and so on. Thank you ISPs who catter to technical morons and thanks to the french government for basically planning to introduce a mandatory in-your-home wiretap for everyone, guilty or not.
Forgive my ignorance (hey, I'm not French), but can someone explain how this works? If it's client-side monitoring software then it means users have to install it themselves, the government cannot force people to use this. Is it just a utility program that companies can deploy on to their own computers as a means of auditing their own computers? If so, that's perfectly fine and no different to software from the BSA and others that audits product keys. We need more information.
Does this count as strike one because the French (I fart in your general direction) thought they could get away with it,
or does this count as strike two because they thought they could get away with it and got caught,
or does it count as strike three because they thought they could nget away with it, got caught, and were lame enough to think that it would work?
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Just me or did the specs get slashdotted already?
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:t0jSKjZTm2wJ:www.iptegrity.com/index.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D552%26Itemid%3D9
Google being useful.
Just mail Andrew
Looks like Green Dam found another source of funding!
It's getting slashdot'd so here's the Google cache: link
Here: http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2010/Jun/346
A group reversed engineered the software and wrote up a small review/paper on it. Apparently, it's easily hacked, buggy and has one hell of a weak link for being a botnet.
It surrenders itself immediately!
It's hard to believe people will accept this kind of thing being installed on their computers, so I can't wait to see how Hadopi moves forward with it.
Easy: when HADOPI detects the first P2P usage via their network sniffing, they don't just send a letter, but also mandate that the user installs said spyware.
Of course hilarity ensues if the user uses Linux or OSX or Android or whatever.
Typical method from the current french government : make a lot of noise about some new superlaw, make the law a few month mater, get blocked because it's against the constitution, well everybody forgot about it already.
Carambar (I'm too lazy to create an account right now)
Malware is malware, no matter who wrote it or what they name it.
Will this run on an iPhone or will they have to jailbreak it for me to run it?
How do you know? Did you look?
You know, with all of this filtering and monitoring and restricting going on that those in charge seem to want, I've got a better idea: Just outlaw and unplug the entire freaking Internet. That's the way things seem to be going anyway.
[Ploinks cable from the wall]
NO CARRIER
Would this software run on the computers of convicted file sharers? Chez ISPs? On everyone's computers?!
Is there an iPhone version and/or will they jailbreak it for me to get it running?
Joking aside, why not just make a federal sysadmin to block users from doing anything useful with their computers?
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
fight back.
setup Tor Relays (http://torproject.org) and Freenet nodes (http://freenetproject.org). Now, if someone would only write a worm that auto-created Tor Exit Nodes....
Joking aside, why not just make a federal sysadmin to prevent people from doing anything useful with their computers?
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D552%26Itemid%3D9&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Since FreeBSD is my desktop, I'll have no problems
Spoof this thing so that it only reports what you want it to report, and you'll have deniability in case they ever come after you for something. If it goes to court the prosecution will look like clueless idiots as they try to reconcile mismatched data.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
You know we around /. like to joke about things like encryption and the year of the linux desktop, but the more intrusive governments get, the more I see the internet as a whole routing around this damage and increasing both the use of *nix based systems and encryption. Imagine facebook levels of popularity but with encryption, privacy, and control as primary factors of computing for the masses. Because, in the end, its either that or we might as well just start walking around naked because we have "nothing to hide".
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
how many people will pirate windows just to run this?
Wouldn't they have better luck getting the french ISPs to roll over for them instead of deploying known snoopware client-side?
Reply to That ||
To point out the obvious flaw here:
If it's client side how are they going to get it installed? Keep it installed?
Even if they mandate that all computers sold must have it preinstalled it won't matter. It's trivial to remove.; just reinstall the OS. What about people who build their own? People who buy in other countries? People who run other operating systems?
This is just nonsensical. It can't possibly work. I can't believe no one pointed out that the emperor has no clothes.
I find being offended by me offensive.
There are two outcomes (long term) that I see for the internet and computing for the masses. Those are, wither we basically give up all control, and walk around figuratively naked, or we, the geeks, must actively start promoting things such as encryption and OSS (*nix) as a standard for even non geeks. Imagine facebook level popularity of encryption, privacy, and control of computing systems. The catch is that as the geeks started the internet, politicians like to think they own it (or their portions of it). We must fight back! The internet will route around any damage.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
Exactly. It's got to be much less of a PITA to get the ISPs to roll over for them instead of deploying known snoopware client-side.
Reply to That ||
Uh, I thought they'd given up on that idea when it turned out to be absurdly impractical? (Their idea was that you could opt to install some magic software, whose purpose would be to 'prove' your innocence if wrongly accused of piracy. How that was supposed to work out was never clarified.)
Did they change their minds again? Just how old are the specs in question? Anyone?
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
It'd be fun to see the hacked version of this that you can program it to "surf" for you and report that back to Hadopi while you freely download all your warez and mp3's and movies to your heart's desire.
Yes. I see him at the local glory hole at least 4 nights a week.
Should work REAL well with LiveCD OSes.
that you can run when you are not downloading or surfing
Port it to your favourite shell/userland
while (true) {
wget --mirror ${HADOPI-SERVER}
rm -rf www/*
};
How? Is it a closed system?
Reply to That ||
Hmm...requiring client side monitoring software to be installed on your computer, or else!
Sounds a whole lot like the IT security policies many of the universities here in the US try to mandate. They 'require' you to have some sort of client protection and auditing software installed on your computer if you want to bring it within anywhere near the university's network, and they'll...do something...if you don't have that software.
Problem is, about 80% of the students install the software to get themselves connected to the network, then immediately uninstall it. If you want some sort of auditing and monitoring software, it needs to be at the infrastructure level, where you have the most control. You can't trust that a piece of software that you put on a piece of hardware that was paid for and belongs to a private citizen is gonna stay there for very long untampered.
Just another politician pretending that they know how this whole inner-net thing works.
> So much for liberté... we still have egalité and fraternité (until further notice)
Unless you are Roma.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Instead of assuming those who are doing this are idiots; why not consider they might have put this up as a distraction while they try to sneak the real measures under your nose?
Nowhere do they mention they aren't also monitoring your internet through the ISPs. This might just be a smokescreen.
Page 15, under "key objectives": "integration in any environment, including free software".
I'm curious to see how they intend to make that work out. :P
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
Don't be naive. If encryption approached "Facebook levels of popularity", governments who want to monitor your traffic will simply make encryption illegal. Look at what's happening right now with Blackberry in the U.A.E.
The major issue is that the politics have no idea what this is about, what they're talking about and have no will to figure it out.
The people behind the 3 strikes law stated publicly that they don't know what P2P is and that they don't care, they can "still do their work properly without knowing".
They also said that "when you have openoffice, you have a firewall" and a few other things of the same level.
The problem is that they push such stuff blindly trusting the lobbies and a few powerful people (who know what they're doing) and who have very clear goals.
They are basically paid by lobbies to enforce such laws, being successful or not, it generate money for the political movement, people associated (websites etc.. usually cost hundred thousands for 1 day of work on these things) and of course the lobbies getting deeper in the government:
- most of the people named are also affiliated to music companies or other media distributors
- this law has created a private police that also has the right to judge (private judge+executioner), no doubt they plan to extend it to more than just P2P but to be some global internet police
- implementing such software directly in the modem could be made mandatory and used to control the people - they are very angry about the internet that they cannot control like the traditional media. you see, in france, the president and other politics happen to just say "internet is bad because the news sources are unverifiable (even when it comes from AFP.. funny that it actually means Agence France Presse), and the news comes too quickly to be regulated by the government - yay)
We all know how well that went... this doesn't sound too different. Basically same purpose, client-side, government initiated. Just the exact focus is different. What a waste of money and effort.
I'll agree to record everything everyone does. As long as it monitors _everything_ that _everyone_ does. Especially corporations and governments.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
> who is going to voluntarily install this crap?
You vastly overestimate human intelligence. People voluntarily install shitware all the time.
> What happen when someone refuses to install this
Your network connection will be cut off.
What are you planning to do, educate the masses as to the danger? They will respond to the latest fear cycle and the people with the money will do whatever they can get away with during that cycle. Just wait until the ipv6 rollout. Where most ISPs will require you to use their tunnel broker to run ipv6 on their crufty old hardware (and yours). You can bet that tunnel broker will have some interesting features that will make P2P, gaming, and most of the things you love impossible. In essence, you will have a TV with an extended function set that can make it easy to purchase stuff and track your every thought and interest.
This fight was over before it began. Just enjoy your life right now. It may get better, it may get worse. But it probably will not be something you can control either way.
I wonder what happens when you install this program on a bunch of computers in other countries just to annoy them. Then they must be annoyed and stop using it.
How hard would it be to create software that acts like it's the government spyware but "translates" all traffic reports into something innocent. For instance; you download the latest movie, the fake spyware reports you downloaded yet another Linux distro.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Those guys are probably going to cash in big.
After all if you use VMWare (for example) to mount an innocent WinXP image under Linux, and install the spyware there, no one is going to know what stuff you download with your other Operating system.
Depends what kind of porn we're talking about....
Would she be "understanding" of your incest fetish?
Because that would be hot.
I'm only 23 and it's already been several years since I reached the fringe of extreme fetishes. My mother would disown me if she knew what it takes to get me off anymore.
They're not even going to try to make this mandatory.
This software offers a "warranty" of sorts: it will be the only way to prove your innocence if/when you are accused of copyright infringement. You read that right: the burden of proof in on the downloader and the ONLY receivable proof is having this POS on your computer.
I'm not entirely sure what they are trying to accomplish. They must be aware of how trivially easy this will be to bypass.
Which is moot anyway: I don't think the French will want to install this, if only because of their strong dislike of any kind of snitch (remains from the occupation in WW2).
(sorry for the English - IAAFP)
This as yet non-existent, and obviously impossible piece of software will merely be the only way to disculpate oneself from accusations illegal warezing. Since it obviously reverses the burden of proof, it's unlikely to stand up to legal scrutiny whem it reaches a high court.
Note that, not only are the technical specs moronic, but they also are self defeating. For instance they want a FLOSS compatible version. Well, guess what, my Linux kernel license allows me to change it so that it will hide whatever I want from a given process. This is typically done by rootkits that hide their processes/files/modules from the rest of the system, but it should be quite easy to implement for the good guys.
In any case, as had been pointed out during the debates in parliament, you just need to do your downloading on a separate box, and not tell anyone about it. Sarkonazy's lapdog's response? "people onlh have one computer" - I shit. You. Not.
I keep a very expensive bottle of Champagne at all times in my fridge, just in case something humiliating and/or painful happens to the diminutive fascist son of a bitch. And if the fucker dies before the next election, I swear I'm ordering 12 case of Dom Pe to give away in the street.
Or black or Arabic
In the first elections after the damn law was passed (regionales), they got disastrous results for the below 30 demo. Sarkonazy met with UMP MPs to discuss the bad results, and according to insiders they were freaked out and complained that his pet project had cost them the young vote for good. In an unpublished poll they found out that they had lost something close to half the young voters. Now those are not the most reliable voters, but Naboléon's core demographics of Alzheimer patients, racist deranged grannies and Vichy nostalgists has one redeeming quality: they're more likely to be rotting in hell than to be getting a hard on at the fucker's newest racist gimmick while dropping their bulletin in the ballot box.
For reference, in the 2007 election, the son of a bitch got 53% of the votes; but his opponent got 53% of the below 65 demo, he just got 65% of the geriatrics! Thankfully, many of those scumbags will have expired next time.
You assume it's the copyright industry. For years, any form of encryption was illegal in France and that had much more to do with government paranoia than anything else.
Heck, at one point my employer had a VPN tunnel to a subsidiary in France and I established beyond any doubt that the encrypted (no I am not losing my mind, I asked a respected colleague) traffic was being eavesdropped as a very select subset of this traffic was not making it across the tunnel - yet made it quite happily across another tunnel based on the same software.
That was the big driver that proved to me that not only was CIPE not hugely secure (which I already knew - it had been demonstrated a couple of months previously and the recommendation was to abandon in favour of IPSec), but it was being actively eavesdropped and censored (which I did not know).
I suggest "barrage vert" instead.
No, I don't speak French. If it's not grammatical, idiomatic, or otherwise genuinely French, blame Google Translate.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
> I'm curious to see how they intend to make that work out.
By making it not incompatible with Firefox.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Those radical leftists were in the street.
A little later De Gaulle is reelected.
Kernel module?
... because it's the only way to "prove" that your 'net connection is "secured".
Let me explain: with Hadopi, they also created a new felony title "Internet connection securing fault" ("Défaut de sécurisation de connexion" in french) which means that if your IP is marked by Hadopi as copying illicit files, then your only mean of defence will be that this software was running at the time of the marking on your computer. Usually, in France, you're innocent until proven guilty. So usually when you're sued, it's the other party that have to bring proofs of what you're accused. They added an exception for this for speed tickets on road when they deployed automatic speed cameras. And they've used this loophole to do the same with Hadopi.
Net result: if you don't run the software and somehow you're IP ends in Hadopi lists, you're automatically ticketed for 1500€ and your only defence is this frickin' spyware.
And the most beautiful of all this: Hadopi is already active and they're just working on the specs of the spyware. Draw the conclusion yourself.
--
Arkan, fed-up with the way France is going those days
How do you prove you were running the software?
The idea is not to force everybody to install it, but only propose it to users who have been spotted "illegally sharing protected content".
Users are supposed to install this software suite after the first or second "strike", so that they can't claim their internet access has been used by someone else for illegal purposes without their knowledge. If they don't, they're liable to be prosecuted for negligence in securing their internet access and computer.
On top of the classic spam control, anti-virus, parental control and firewall, the system is meant to warn users if they perform "suspicious actions", and generate an encrypted log of warnings and whereas they stopped after the warning or ignored them.
I for one would welcome such a (very stupid) scheme, as it shouldn't be too difficult to bypass, providing a "good faith certificate" for cheap. But for many users, it is very probably going to prove extremely annoying (remember Windows User Account Control), if not dangerous.
The French track record for making software and/or websites that actually function is so dire none of this will work. The worst thing is that this will nail your Internet connection and PC...
So I can install this software on one PC, then hack into my own wifi using another, download from that one, store it secretly in the attic and do what I want with it - my back is covered by the logs from the first PC? Am I missing something?
or now as it is known:
Bureaucratie, bureaucratie, bureaucratie
You know, if someone (not just black hat, can be anyone) manages to tap into that Govt. enforced system and did some cool tricks, the economy of France and effectively, all large economies of World could collapse in Domino logic.
Think about it, a backdoor installed to every single machine on an established economy like that. Obviously, it is not detected or forgiven by security software. Not to sound like a lunatic, it would be WTC of the digital economy.
What we need is to setup the p2p internet *hardware*. Cables, mesh networks, wifi. Bypassing several ISP altogether.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/