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What the French 'Civilised Internet' Looks Like

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Re: What the French 'Civilised Internet' Looks Like

#21

Post by JonnieCache »

csomar wrote: post #10

Am I missing some point here? When Internet was censored in Tunisia, we would use proxies, https, sites like vtunnels... This became casual stuff even for the non-techie. So what's the point of censorship? Making access to the web a little bit harder? If you censor a video on Youtube, someone else can upload it to Facebook and watch it through HTTPS and diffuse it to many people. Aren't (the French Gov. and other Gov…

>Aren't (the French Gov. and other Govs.) aware of that? If so, what's the point of censorship?

To win votes by making the population feel safe, and to funnel taxpayers' money into the pockets of dubious whitehat contractors.

Re: What the French 'Civilised Internet' Looks Like

#22

Post by Wilya »

(I'm French)

As explained in the source article on PCInpact, the proposed project has been assessed by the CNN, which is a (relatively new) consultative committee whose members include representatives from ISPs, high traffic French websites (dailymotion, meetic and deezer are on the list), a few software editors, representatives from ecommerce sellers, etc (and no music/film industry representative, for once).

Unsurprisingly, they argued against it (one of arguments is 'the EU has to be informed', which is an interesting trick to gain a few months, imo). (Can't find any non-French source for that, but it has been officially done).

What's more surprising is that they were officially asked what they thought about it in the first place. I don't think the government had any incentive to do so. What were they thinking ?

If they have any respect for the CNN (which the president created just two months ago), they will forget the law. Otherwise, they will have explicitly ignored the opinion of the ISPs. Which isn't very wise when you want to enforce filtering and blocking of websites.

This doesn't makes sense to me.

Re: What the French 'Civilised Internet' Looks Like

#24

Post by pnathan »

So this is what the West is tottering towards.

What can be done about it? Does an alternative internetwork need to be formed? What will it look like? How will we pay for an alternative network? Who will use it?

For those of us who really, honestly, no-kidding want free speech: what can be done from a technical angle? Thoughts?

Re: What the French 'Civilised Internet' Looks Like

#25

Post by danielharan »

Wilya wrote: post #22

(I'm French) As explained in the source article on PCInpact, the proposed project has been assessed by the CNN, which is a (relatively new) consultative committee whose members include representatives from ISPs, high traffic French websites (dailymotion, meetic and deezer are on the list), a few software editors, representatives from ecommerce sellers, etc (and no music/film industry representative, for once). Unsurp…

Maybe they look like tough protectors and win with their core constituency even if the CNN tells them it's impossible to enforce or implement.

Sarko is a cagey motherfucker.

Re: What the French 'Civilised Internet' Looks Like

#26

Post by atakan_gurkan »

This sounds similar to the recently proposed measures by the Turkish government. Perhaps French will develop and vulgarize some tools that would also be useful in Turkey and vice versa. I think the first is more likely since the Turkish population is less tech-savvy and more importantly a lot less sensitive to the erosion of democratic rights.

For the record, I am Turkish but has been living abroad for 12 of the last 13 years (planning to go back next month!). Ironically, even though I think this is a terrible law, I hope it passes and adequate countermeasures get developed.

Re: What the French 'Civilised Internet' Looks Like

#28

Post by bh42222 »

pnathan wrote: post #24

So this is what the West is tottering towards. What can be done about it? Does an alternative internetwork need to be formed? What will it look like? How will we pay for an alternative network? Who will use it? For those of us who really, honestly, no-kidding want free speech: what can be done from a technical angle? Thoughts?

Tor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_%28anonymity_network%29

Obviously you will be intimidated by the government if you run an exit node, or perhaps any tor node at all. If you're an academic with tenure, or independently wealthy go for it.

If you need to work for a living and do not have tenure, well perhaps consider helping others run tor. Or start a non-profit with the goal to promote freedom, and raise funds, and pay to install public tor terminals anywhere that's willing to host them.

Re: What the French 'Civilised Internet' Looks Like

#29

Post by strictfp »

gorog wrote: post #5

VPN will become the norm. Internet access will be 30€ for the ISP + 5 € for the VPN. Not that much of a big deal for the citizen, more worrying for Paris as a tech scene.

This might work temporarily, but I argue that it is still very important to protest against this type of development, because in the long run the law will win. I for one do not want to see international communication criminalized. I still remember how out of touch my country was back in the 90s before sattelite TV and the internet. Problem is that its very profitable to create submarkets, so the pressure from the industry to implement restrictions will always be on. To break the pattern, we must fight back and try to make international communication a human right.

Re: What the French 'Civilised Internet' Looks Like

#30

Post by atakan_gurkan »

csomar wrote: post #10

Am I missing some point here? When Internet was censored in Tunisia, we would use proxies, https, sites like vtunnels... This became casual stuff even for the non-techie. So what's the point of censorship? Making access to the web a little bit harder? If you censor a video on Youtube, someone else can upload it to Facebook and watch it through HTTPS and diffuse it to many people. Aren't (the French Gov. and other Gov…

They can make it a crime to access or allowing others to access censored material. Then once they have a search warrant or similar and can prove you accessed this material or helped others, you are in deep shit.

Imagine, they illegally search your friend's home, find that they accessed the material, coerce them into saying that you helped them with this and they can prosecute you. The search may not be used against your friend, but it may be used against you (IANAL). This would be very useful for suppressing opposition.

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