Tech Specs Leaked For French Spyware 212
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."
Modem/routeurs deathtrap in France (Score:4, Informative)
Group reversed engineered HADOPI software (Score:1, Informative)
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.
As long as it works on FreeBSD... (Score:1, Informative)
Since FreeBSD is my desktop, I'll have no problems
Re:Of course they will, they're *French* (Score:3, Informative)
France was also the country where scuba diving took off first in the general public (it used to be strictly military). The patent for the demand regulator was from Cousteau (ze one ;) & Gagnan, the World Underwater Federation (http://www.cmas.org/) has a French acronym because it was founded by the same gang that made scuba diving popular in France.
And at the time, the equipment was nowhere near as good as today. And the experience was lacking, or limited to very fit young military guys... so not immediately applicable to some less fit people. Diving was also not a commercial activity (where the business have a vested interest in making sure there's no problem), it was and still is in France largely handled by non-profit clubs. Who attracted adventurers at the time, less concerned about risk. So all this led to accident, who got the attention of authorities, who legislated to limit the worst abuse and make sure people had a proper training. All that scuba club do today in other countries.
As for what this scuba police is... I guess a cop fond of scuba diving found a trick to be paid to do what he liked ;)
Re:Well, I live here (Score:4, Informative)
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? "
No, just disable your internet connection until you do. What's the problem?
Re:So how Naive are the French? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Encryption is not the answer (Score:3, Informative)
If encryption approached "Facebook levels of popularity", governments who want to monitor your traffic will simply make encryption illegal.
At one point, encryption used to be illegal in France: http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/01/15/france_to_end_severe_encryption/ [theregister.co.uk]
Actually no (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:They'll be prying my pristine Linux install... (Score:3, Informative)
Not to worry, once you install anything else, it won't be a pristine Linux install anyway.
pristine/pristn/Adjective
1. In its original condition; unspoiled.
2. Clean and fresh as if new; spotless.
Re:Hey, the specs actually bring up free software. (Score:3, Informative)
> I'm curious to see how they intend to make that work out.
By making it not incompatible with Firefox.