France Passes Harsh Three-Strikes Legislation, Again 207
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.'"
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder if there's a provision (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if they included a provision that excludes French National Assembly members from the three strikes.
Given enough time any connection can be compromised and if France's script kiddies are like all the others I wouldn't put it past them to pwn a couple of assembly member's connections. Since you are responsible for what happens on your connection...
Re:Merde! (Score:2, Insightful)
While i agree that this is bad, you are talking shit, "free speech" doesn't guarantee you an internet connection any more than it guarantees you a phone.
3 strikes on 3 strikes (Score:5, Insightful)
All countries should have a law that prevents their governments from being allowed to repeatedly reattempt to pass a law the got turned down once already. Especially when the law has already been found to be unconstitutional.
I know that sounds appealing (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
That sounds great, especially to those of us who have to deal with the Great Unwashed Masses PC problems, but most users are doing good to find the power switch. Making them responsible for what happens to the internals of their PC without their knowledge in a rapidly evolving threat landscape that even security professionals struggle with at times is blaming the victim. It's not their fault Windows is a highly porkable product.
They're teaching young people how to use computers in school but, with few exceptions, they're not teaching them how to use them safely. In many schools it would be the blind leading the blind in security education. Most teachers don't know enough about PC security to make any relevant contribution to solving the bigger problem. Ultimately, it's like trying to fight a fully involved house fire with a garden hose.
I'm not sure what the answer is, but I am glad that it's someone else being heavy-handed and dickish for a change.
Secure? (Score:5, Insightful)
So saying that a connection must be secure immediately raises the question: how secure?
Are they responsible if a neighbor guesses a WEP password and downloads kiddie porn?
Are they responsible if they have a fully patched Windows box, with virus checking, but get compromised by a virus missed by those safeguards and become part of a botnet?
If a criminal breaks into the house while they're on vacation and makes a bunch of purchases with fraudulent credit card numbers, are they still responsible?
We all have broken the law (Score:5, Insightful)
My analogy... (Score:5, Insightful)
So the copyright industry wants you kicked off the net for three mere accusations of copyright infringement. That could be as little as three songs. The songs sell for a buck on Amazon and iTunes. So for a mere three bucks the copyright industry wants you banned from the net for eternity.
Let's imagine a different law. Let's imagine that the banking industry gets fed up with people stealing pens out of their lobbies. These pens are expensive, a buck each. Imagine that a law is enacted stating that any person merely accused by a bank of stealing three pens is banned from the entire banking industry for the rest of his or her life.
Does anyone think such a law has any chance to be passed? Does anyone seriously think that such a law makes sense? Of course it would not and of course it does not. But in the crazy world of copyrights, people actually take the proposed three strikes law seriously.
Re:Secure? (Score:3, Insightful)
Correction. I read the Ars article, and the trouble you can get into is regarding copyright violations that occur on your connection.
So all of my examples in the parent post should be modified to talk about copyright infringement as the illegal activity.
Conservatives never learn (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't treat the symptom, you treat the cause. Otherwise you may as well be jerking off. What causes crime? Poverty, lack of prospects for a future, and ignorance. You may deter one individual from committing more crimes by putting him in jail for life but that does nothing to dissuade the one after him and the one after that. Yes, there will always be the bad seeds, the one no amount of opportunity and guidance will help. But there will be fewer of them than what we have now if we address the causes.
Want to know how to set the drug problems straight in this country? Legalize and regulate the shit. Those who are hooked on the hard shit like heroin will get their maintenance dose from a government clinic for free. Those who aren't yet hooked will find it harder to score in the first place as the street supply dries up. And pot? For fuck's sake, give the growers licenses and let them operate like micro-breweries. Keep big business out of it, don't let their marketing departments start trying to manipulate public demand. Can you imagine how much peace would be had in Mexico if illicit drug money from the US dried up? Hell, just imagine knowing your flat won't get broken into by a junkie looking for shit to fence.
Politicians don't have the fucking stones to put forward this kind of legislation.
Re:3 strikes on 3 strikes (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sad trend (Score:3, Insightful)
Capitalism works very well on small individual items but clearly cannot deal with massive projects.
What does this have to do with capitalism? It's a government action not something having to deal with private ownership of capital. It just bugs me how so many government actions are blamed on private entities. Especially when the solution to the alleged "capitalist" or "corporatist" harm is more government action or regulation. That's fighting fire by throwing some gasoline on.
Re:I wonder if there's a provision (Score:3, Insightful)
And the what will happen, indeed... Script kiddie will be found and prosecuted, politician unharmed (on contrary, getting easy sympathy/hero points for being insidiously attacked by some basement dweller that is pissed off because he can not get his dose of hentai. Word terrorist will be passed along and will not be off mark - point of terrorism is to inspire 'terror' to pressure opposition to change their politics. And this would fit perfectly, now wouldn't it.). Lets face it, for doing something as dumb as malicious and ultimately pointless, he would well deserve some rl implications. What about voting? Entering politics? Where is France Pirate Party when you need one? Where is population support against this law?
Most parliament implementations have politicians immune to prosecution so that they are harder to blackmail or persecution. It also helps with driving drunk and surely will help with someone tries to frame them of some crime because they do not like law that got passed. Basically, it will be serving its purpose.
Re:Conservatives never learn (Score:4, Insightful)
What causes crime? Poverty, lack of prospects for a future, and ignorance.
Setting aside for now the issue of whether downloading copyrighted material is a crime, etc. etc., do you really think that *poverty, lack of prospects for a future, and ignorance* is what drives leechers to download bluray rips ?!
"Troll", but quite right (Score:4, Insightful)
You've been marked troll, but you're quite right. The idea that the an average windows user can keep a PC secure, keep their wireless network secure, etc. is right up there with expecting the poor to get a fair trial in court. Admin is a day-in-day-out job of constant vigilence and few missteps -- by a professional-level definition of misstep. The average user probably makes their PC vulnerable in about 5 different ways for every new day they use it.
Re:Oh no! (Score:3, Insightful)
At what age do you suggest the law should no longer apply?
A few decades after you're dead, perhaps. Just like copyrights.
Short answer: yes (Score:3, Insightful)
Long answer: this is the death of non-corporate backed hotspots.
Thankfully this piece of shit is 99% guaranteed to be blocked by the Constitutional Council.
But it's typical of Sarkoleon's governance. The media coverage of this whole thing has been almost as sickening as that of Fox wrt Obama's health care plan: unashamedly ignorant propaganda, ridiculous talking points, and Godwin galore. Did you know that opponents of the law were Nazi collaborators? That's what the head of a local Mafiaa repeated on the media, without being challenged much. That's particularly offensive considering that the most prominent opponents have names such as Bloche or Zimmerman.
Re:3 strikes on 3 strikes (Score:4, Insightful)
well have a time limit. So you can only submit a law for (re)consideration say once every 3 years.