French Govt Wants To Inject Domain Blocking Lists Directly Into Web Browsers (torrentfreak.com) 82
Online piracy, now being linked with malware, identity theft, and banking fraud, has prompted a coordinated concerning campaign for tougher legislation beyond copyright laws. The French government, news website TorrentFreak reports, is considering an ambitious approach: integrating state-operated domain blacklists into web browsers. This step is well-intentioned, indicating an evolving strategy in battling piracy.
And you should defo trust the government (Score:3)
Doomed to Fail (Score:3)
It would actually give us more freedom (Score:4, Informative)
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What kind of userland nerd are you?
If it's depending on software you have control over it is many times easier to circumvent than anything they can do to the internet infrastructure.
In the very worst case you can hack and compile a special version of an open source browser that disables this feature.
Well, you know what they say (Score:3)
"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
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Also, if you give them a pinky, they can take the whole hand afterwards. This is just NO. Although, I'm using Linux and Firefox for it, I have no doubt I would be able to get a "clean" alternative for it. Thinking about it, everyone would be able to install a "clean" version eventually, I have no doubts.
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Until they made using your own version a felony.
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Oh yes. It wouldn't be the first time the government criminalising a piece of software. We all know how it goes in the end. ;) The only thing criminal here is their knowledge of computers and computer technologies. :)
Re: Well, you know what they say (Score:5, Informative)
France already tried to criminalize allowing French citizens to search for content banned in France no matter where they are in the world.
https://www.theatlantic.com/id... [theatlantic.com]
Not even China has tried to do this yet.
Re: Well, you know what they say (Score:2)
You realize they have hauled away many people in cuffs for various crypto related financial crimes and of course enormous numbers went to prison for CP. Using a computer to commit a crime is breaking the Stringer Bell rule.
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The big bad government isn't going to make using your own web browser a felony, champ. That's insane. This is nothing more than the same kind of misguided technical legislation we've seen countless times before. It will disappear once the people backing it realize that it was an incredibly stupid idea. Just like we've seen countless times before.
You anti-government nuts never cease to amaze me. You believe the government can do nothing right, yet believe that they are somehow capable of running a massi
Re:Well, you know what they say (Score:4, Insightful)
The big bad government isn't going to make using your own web browser a felony, champ. That's insane. This is nothing more than the same kind of misguided technical legislation we've seen countless times before. It will disappear once the people backing it realize that it was an incredibly stupid idea. Just like we've seen countless times before.
I love the "government would never do that!" folks. They are to be trusted. They are here to help you. Edward Snowden was a traitor and a criminal. Government would never spy on you like that.
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How many of your silly evil government predictions have come to pass? LOL! I know, any day now. Keep fucking that chicken...
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The government would never do something like, say, a false flag or assassinate American citizens without trial or crush whistle blowers or ship cocaine into our ghettoes or have a two tiered Justice system or ... you live under what rock?
Any American who has been alive for long enough to learn to walk has learned the government sees us as chattel not themselves as public servants. There's no conspiracy. You don't have to go to obscure websites to see it.
It's right there in our faces every god damned day.
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Why am I not surprised that you suffer from paranoid delusions?
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You are simply ignorant. Every single one of those things has happened. If you're an American then it was your government that did all those things. And a lot more. Absolutely none of it is disputable. Those are historic facts. But according to you somehow the government is magically nice now and doesn't do anything bad anymore.
There is no accounting for ignorance or stupidity.
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There's a reason you speak in vague generalities. It's because you have nothing but paranoid delusions. Seek help.
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>"I love the "government would never do that!" folks. They are to be trusted. They are here to help you. "
Probably the same people who think "if I am doing nothing wrong, I have nothing to hide"
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Yawn... Have any evidence? No? Even though they "shove it in our faces" every day? What does that tell you?
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Jfc, dude, these are historical facts. Every single of one of those things is in a history book, newspaper, congressional record, library, and so on.
You're just ignorant. It's so sad an American citizen wouldn't know a damned thing about his own government's evil activities.
And that was just the short list. I can add things like radiation experiments, the blacks who were intentionally infected with diseases the same way the Nazis experimented on Jews, the wars of aggression, the legitimate protestors who
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Yet you can't produce a single link...
I'm not even a little bit surprised. Try believing true things instead of nonsense you read on 8chan.
Re:Well, you know what they say (Score:5, Insightful)
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It is certainly the road to hell, but I am more and more doubting the good intentions.
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I've driven in France. I'm doubting the pavement.
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True...
Heh. (Score:4, Insightful)
This step is well-intentioned.
Only if you consider corporate interests well-intentioned. Also, how do they propose to enforce that?
Re:Heh. (Score:5, Interesting)
This step is well-intentioned.
Only if you consider corporate interests well-intentioned.
Corporate interests, hell. Once this is in place, anything that is politically inconvenient to the people in charge becomes piracy (or they'll stop pretending and add "terrorism" to the list of things blocked by it, and they are, indeed, terrified of any form of dissent).
Also, how do they propose to enforce that?
Same way they enforce everything else: fine the software companies that create browsers until they comply or leave the EU (at considerable cost in revenue) and get their domains completely blocked by the Great Wall of France.
They're taking lessons on totalitarianism from China, and soon, they'll be teaching the teacher.
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Most modern states operate under some form of rule of law as their ultimate authority - I don't think having free speech just baldly declared piracy is likely, or even possible in any functioning democracy.
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And what color is the sky on your planet?
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It's what ever color Donald Trump says it is today.
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(or they'll stop pretending and add "terrorism" to the list of things blocked by it,
Terrorism is specifically defined in law, for France they are defined at L421-1 CP https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr... [legifrance.gouv.fr] . It necessarily has to be either of: murder, destruction, damage caused by hacking a computer system, manufacture of explosives, certain kinds of wire fraud; but in all cases it must include a premise that is "to be intentionally linked to an enterprise to cause serious trouble to the public order by causing intimidation and fear". There were multiple cases where a Muslim person takes a knif
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....damage caused by hacking a computer system....
It would be trivially easy to shovel "evading domain restrictions" into that clause if someone does something to disable the domain blocking integrated into a browser. That particular definition of terrorism is so broad that any activity that involves a computer anywhere within a trillion light years of anything can fit it.
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It would be trivially easy
France has known a large number of acts that the justice system characterized as terrorist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] . Among the hundred of cases, can you provide an example of France exaggerating in the application of this definition, or evidence of a trend where France slowly slides into exaggeration?
"Attempted murder" is also broadly defined, and according to a similar argument, law enforcement could send anyone for life in jail for minor acts like a slap on the face. Reality check is that in the
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Terrorism is specifically defined in law
Since we are - specifically - talking about changing the law, so what?
Never trust the well intentioned. (Score:2)
Good luck enforcing that (Score:2)
The first thing pirates will do is turn off the blacklist in their browser.
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Have any evidence to support your paranoid delusions? No?
There are real things to be outraged about. Some misguided legislation that has no hope of going anywhere isn't one of them.
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Hey how's that encryption export business going? You know the one where an algorithm was classified as a weapon and an American citizen could get serious jail time shipping software using a publicly known algorithm?
Yeah that would never happen! Except it did.
You're any or all of: government shill, paid propagandist, ignorant fool, dumb as rocks.
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That's the best you can do? Pathetic.
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Lmao, idiot. You've been crying lies for 2 days how I'm full of shit and there's no evidence of anything. I give you multiple examples across several posts of real world things that have happened and are carved in the history books, Can not be disputed events.
And you come back with "well uh duh that's not good enough!1 u r pathetic!111"
You're a fucking clown and either know nothing about history or you're a paid troll/shill. No one is as stupid as you behave without getting paid to be that dumb or doin
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... Some misguided legislation that has no hope of going anywhere
There is no such thing, unfortunately. Any legislation, no matter how stupid or prima-facia illegal, can be passed. It's happened many times, and will continue to happen until legislators face real penalties for passing illegal laws.
As we speak, several U.S. states are passing age-verification requirements for social media. This is the poster-child for prima-facia unconstitutional laws (a 1st Amendment violation at the very least), yet that's rarely an impediment.
While I would love to share your faith in g
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As we speak, several U.S. states are passing age-verification requirements for social media.
Utah, Arkansas, Ohio... Aren't those red states?
Remember when you were saying all the same nonsense about COPPA 20+ years ago? "It's going to force us to use a credit card on every site we visit!" and "It's going to destroy privacy and anonymity!" Did any of that happen? Can you figure out why?
It's all just silly nonsense to get you all worked up over nothing, distracting you issues that matter, so that you keep voting against your own interests.
While I would love to share your faith in government
If you don't like how your government operates, run for off
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Sounds like they're trying to integrate it into the same blocklists that are used for malware and fraud.
Piracy is a common vector for malware, I'll grant, but so are ads. Corporate interests will not allow them to even consider blocking ad networks.
They wish they had that right now (Score:2)
I'm not surprised at this... (Score:2)
If one can make antivirus software that blocks things, ad blockers, and firewalling software that blocks attacks, then a government can force software that would scan for suspected piracy tools (could even be something like SoftICE), and block or redirect stuff that the state doesn't want you to see (could be IP violations one day, could be Le Pen's opponents the next, could be any sites debunking propaganda the third day). Add to this something like a NAC where the router or upstream checks signatures on
Impossible (Score:5, Insightful)
It says, "...the administrative authority notifies the electronic address of the service concerned to the providers of internet browsers..."
The EU regulations do have a definition of "web browser", but no defintion of "provider" of a browser.
Whom do they envision notifying, and how?
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It is disconnected from reality anyways. Anybody can build a simple browser themselves these days, there are enough libraries out there for that.
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Google and Microsoft and Mozilla already have such mechanisms in place for malware sites, and by default enable them to protect users.
That's generally a good thing, but the problem is that once the technology exists other people want access to it.
This has happened before. BT developed a system called CleanFeed that was used to block child porn. Later private companies trying to stop people putting their IP used the courts to force BT to add their "bad" URLs to it.
It's effectiveness has been greatly reduced
Better idea: drone strikes (Score:1)
After the first few drone strikes hit malware guys homes the rest will find other jobs.
The blame game. (Score:2)
How nice (Score:2)
Not only the French government wants to force browsers to have built-in ad blocking capabilities, they also intend to provide us an up to date list list of where we can download stuff for free.
Ok, I know about signatures and hashes, and also, considering it is the French government, the list won't be up to date, and it won't be done anyways.
As for blocking malware, all majors browsers do it, to varying degrees.
Oui! (Score:2)
They are morons, aren't they? (Score:2)
This would be the most easily circumvented anti-piracy "feature" ever conceived.
Thank you for the propaganda (Score:2)
Well-intentioned my ass. Fuck you.
Ok... let's start with... (Score:2)
...all French government & intelligence websites, as I find those unsafe and delivering spam... right?
so repos will to have builds for each jurisdiction (Score:2)
so repos will to have builds for each jurisdiction?
also the apple app store will be forced to allow non apple webkit use if needed to pull this off?
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also the apple app store will be forced to allow non apple webkit use if needed to pull this off?
No, that isn't how France works.
They will have one law making it illegal for Apple to force apps to use webkit, because freedom.
They will also have another law making it illegal for Apple to allow apps to use anything except webkit, because enforcement.
Finally they will make a law that it is illegal for Apple to not provide services to France.
Once every possible option is illegal they will start issuing fines for wealth extraction.
Most browsers already do such lists (Score:2)
To block malware domains (Google SafeBrowsing, Firefox Phishing Protection). The reasoning of bureaucrats is along the lines "well, the feature is already there, might as well use it for whatever we consider malicious".
State Operated Blacklist? (Score:2)
Unless there's a country wide proxy with mandatory browser certificates to function, there is no chance this can work. Even with it, it just ups the bar a bit to bypass.
Some legislators learned buzz words like domain and blacklist with no understandng of reality.
French government can go fuck itself (Score:3)
At least that is my stance here. I am sure many will agree.
Also, what the hell is "well intentioned" here?
Unenforcable nonsense (Score:2)
Large companies with full control over their firewalls, internet lines and workstations already are in a constant battle to keep up with these types of actions, the idea of doing it on a national scale and at the browser level no less is not just technologically and culturally infeasible but speaks of assinine misunderstanding of how the internet works.
China is doing it the actual "right way" in that they have control over the border devices in and out of the country and even they barely seem to have contro
You can inject it in any browser you want (Score:3)
I'll just use a different one, ok?
What's a browser? (Score:2)
OK, Firefox and Chrome are probably browsers. Is curl? Or wget? How about if I hack something together in Perl using LWP? Will the LWP libraries need to include the blocklist? And a way to prevent me from disabling it?
Typical out-of-touch politicians. If they really wanted to do this, they'd mandate state-controlled DNS servers and block DNS traffic except from those servers... I'm sure that's how their fellow authoritarians like China, Cuba, etc. do it.
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Which would inevitably make encrypted DNS traffic incredibly popular.
The only way to truly control the flow of information over the Internet is to block anything you can't inspect, which means zero encryption... and we're too dependent on that because bad actors will exploit systems that aren't protected.
In a way, we should actually be thanking that hackers and thieves and corporate espionage specialists, because without them everything would run just fine without encryption, and governments could successfu
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Or build up massive infrastructure like the Great Firewall of China. Doesn't block everything, but certainly blocks enough to tamp down on meaningful dissent.
This is why secure boot was made (Score:2)
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DO IT (Score:2)
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:2)
what I see is a bunch of complainers. (Score:1)
well-intentioned... yeah, right (Score:3)
>"This step is well-intentioned"
Oh what a statement. It can be applied to just about every insane, unfair, nasty, ineffective policy. It really doesn't matter all that much about the motivation or intention. What ACTUALLY matters is what happens when such a policy is enacted. Who loses freedom? What will it cost? What are the unintended side-effects? Who will control it? How long will it last? How is it overseen?
Good intent in public policy doesn't excuse bad outcomes, especially when honest, good debate isn't exercised or opposing information is ignored, discarded, banned, whatever. I am sure some really fat lobbying is happening there.
So in this case, the INTENT is good to: let the government bureaucrats, typically unelected, and sometimes corrupt, decide which sites we are all allowed to visit or not. And to somehow FORCE browser makers to comply with that. And to somehow FORCE users of open-source to not remove said restrictions. And to somehow keep it secure so it can't be manipulated or hijacked or used as a weapon or a denial of service. And enforce it how- by criminalizing behavior of software writers? Web browser users? "Distributors" of web browsers?
It is truly frightening how much power we ALLOW politicians and bureaucrats, who are often complete tech idiots, to have over our lives.
How do they plan to stop open source? (Score:2)
What would stop someone from taking, say, Chromium and building it without any of this crap in there?
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Someone (who isn't subject to French laws) will no doubt do the hard work and distribute the results (on servers that aren't subject to French laws)
Troll Summary? (Score:2)
The article certainly does not say This step is well intentioned. Not sure how Slashdot has gone downhill like this â¦
Quoting:
It's a well-intentioned move but will not stop there.
For responsible adults with decades of experience from which to draw their own conclusions, the idea that adults we have never met have the power to govern our online activities is a borderline insult.