Slashdot Mirror
France to reconsider its cryptography laws
Liberation is reporting that the French Finance minister,
Dominique Strauss-Khan,
wants to allow anybody in France to use strong encryption.
The official french assizes journal states that this liberalisation
of France's currently very strict law should occur in the next
few days. Until 1996 one had to ask permission to use any form
of encryption, or pay a 6000-500000 FF fine with 2-6 months
of prison if found out. Currently encryption that the french
authorities can break is legal, but this is not secure enough
to encourage e-commerce. (translation)
Currently encryption that the french authorities can break is legal
Like it more or less is in the US. Don't underestimate the NSA.
At last ! Hallelujah !
(anyway, everyone could download & compile GPG, and a lot of people did. However, it has always been a problem for me to be forced to use plain telnet or ssf (40-bit crippled) (which is about the same) to log on the univ's systems -- and there, no way to break the law.
Privately, everyone did anyway.
c'est le meilleur pays du monde, bonne bouffe, bon vin, on picole on rigole!
un p'tit pastis avec ça?
I love babelfish.
restrict strong encryption so criminals can't use it... same thing as restrict guns so criminals can't use them...
all these restrictions do is take the power (and security) out of the people's hands and hand it over to the government and criminals (one in the same?)
just because something is banned doesn't mean it won't be available in the grey & black markets where criminals purchase their weapons of choice in the first place!
J'espere que je ne dois pas obliterer Communicator 4 de mon "laptop", quand je visite la France.
... I wonder what babel fish makes of that lot - as you can see, French is not my mother tongue.
Puis-je uiliser le "steup-up encryption" pour communiquer avec ma banque anglais quand je suis en France?
Felicitations, AC anglais.
A few legal facts: the finance minister is an official of the executive branch. Making law is the job of the legislative branch. I have yet not heard about any bill proposal by the cabinet to parliament; thus it's impossible that the law could be changed in a matter of days.
However, what the cabinet could change quickly is the list of approved encryption systems, which is a matter of regulation. For instance, the government could simply say that any system is allowed. It could also allow 56-bit DES.
I'd therefore advise everyone to wait for hard news.
According to the the article in Liberation referred to by Slashdot, the french finance minister says only that the current (and in my opinion draconian) law is going to be liberalized.
No details were given as to in what way they are going to be liberalized.
Posted by Ed Carter:
:)
How hard is French to learn?
Damn. I no longer have any reason to boycott France. I guass I'll have to resume drinking French wine even.
Now, all the French have to do is give up that silly accent and funny language they insist on speaking.
Seriously, this is great news. I fully expect european countries that adopt such e-commerce friendly laws to dwarf the US in the productive use and development of internet technologies in the not so distant future. Acutally, maybe they already do....
All of them, shortly. The EU is pushing through a new law requiring all encryption to be easily broken by law enforcement authorities - national governments have "hardly been involved" according to the Daily Telegraph.
The UK also wants key escrow - I can't comment on other countries, but the EU seems to manage to do that OK...
Liked this comment? Why not buy me something nice
Fast fix of http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/tra nslate?lp=fr_en&urltext=http://liberatio n.com/multi/actu/semaine990111/art990114d.html
Gouvernenment wants to free cryptology
With the end of the e-comerce meeting, the Minister for the
economy and finances announced a lightening of the French
law on cryptology.
By Cecile Plet
January 14, 1999
I wish to allow use of cryptology accessible to the greatest
number. france have been late on the subject for a long time and wants now, trough the voice of its Minister for the economy
and finances, Domenica Strauss-Khan, to lighten the law about crypted communications. With the end of the ecomerce meeting, the minister
announced that the government was going to ease "in the few next days" the use of crypted communication. Indeed, nowadays, any unauthorized use
of a crypting system to protect its communications is prohibited by the law, except a few cases. This prohibition limits the e-commerce fields,
including as well the purchases via Internet as the electronic relations between companies. Hard to send an cost estimation by email when it is known
that its direct competitor can possibly intercept it and propose a less expensive estimation. With softening its regulation, France should cancel the
delay it has in this field on many countries. None of its European neighbors is concerned with this type of prohibition. Liberalization? Until today, the
police forces and especially the army slowed down by any means in order to avoid this authorization. Until 1996, any person crypting documents or
phone commications had first to obtain an authorization ( for being allowed to use crypting software) from the Central Service for the Secure
Information Systems. Any people or companies coding documents without authorization were liable to a fine from 6000 to 500 000 FF (1 buck is
about 5FF) and to a prison sentence from 2 months and up to 6. Today, some crypting software are authorized in France, assuming that that they use
a key the authorities can easily break, and that scandalizes many Net surfers: we are at the mercy of the " large ears ", told one of them. This breaks
private life rights and respect. And then we step on the largest debate set by the rise of the Internet. How to make the protection of private life and
security coexist ? If one wants to encrypt an email for his/her grandmother in a "breakproof" way, or more seriously if a company want to exchange
confidential datas with another, nothing prevents a terrorist organization to make the same thing. The militants for the cryptology reply that anyway,
such organization surely did not wait to be certified to encrypt their documents to bypass the security controls. On the other hand, the transparency
pro reply that this is not a reason to ease their task... But when the two sides are to buy on the Internet, they both require their credit card number to
be crypted.
I love Babelfish. Quite the most endearing patter on the 'net (excepting exceptions, of course).
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
No, the French restrictions on crypto are much more draconian than the US restrictions.
The US restricts export of crypto, but currently places no restrictions on domestic use. France forbids domestic use as well without a license, and the penalty is jail.
There are no other democratic countries I know of with a policy anything like that (well, there are some semi-democracies like Iran that ban crypto: I use "semi-democracy" for countries where people vote but power is in the hands of non-elected officials, like kings or mullahs).
6000-500000 FF --> What's that in Euros? ;-)
Have a nice day everyone!
I welcome this change in French policy regarding crypto. Now, I'll just cross my fingers and hope for a 'french wave' to other countries in the EU.
Fast, Soon, Correct. Pick 2.