Big Brother IS watching you
 

and if he doesn't like what your doing... he is gonna cut your internet connection!..... but only if your in France.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7110024.stm

This really drives me mad... its not that I am doing anything illegal.... but I dont like the thought that someone is monitoring what I am looking at... and could potentially give me a slap on the wrists, cut my connection or presumably target me for marketing...

grrr

I hope that this doesn't spread over here, It's like someone reading all my families post, people can look at bank statements and God knows what else. Well at least its better than whats going on in China, over there you cant search for anything to do with anything that the government dont like.

Well, I do recall a legal limit to the complexity of encryption...
To make sure that the NSA can check if there is anything interesting or suspect in your electronic communications.

What I find interesting about that is that the people of France aren't outraged.

If the government announced that they were going to listen in on every phone call and you were going to lose your phone service if you blasphemed, for example, folks would be up in arms.

What makes the internet a different form of communication from a phone?

yeh.... good point....

usually.... any wiff of news like this and they would start torching cars and going on strike :D

That doesn’t seem like a very sensible practice.

Far better to run every phone call (and email) through complex filtering software -- and let people stay connected even if they’re guilty of transgressions. After all, cutting the phone line merely shuts off the flow of intelligence data. ;)

Which part of this story did you think was sensible?

I’m trying to see this from Big Brother’s point of view.
In which case pulling the plug makes no sense...

We can point the finger at France and China all we want, but what does that mean when you can implement something like warrantless telecom wiretapping in the United States and the general population will just ignore it in favor of more important things, like getting in line for 4 a.m. mall openings.
The Ultimate Big Brother

@ Styrafome-- Yeah, I saw that a while ago. My only thought was, "That sucks, but what am I supposed to do?" Complacency is the only real enemy I have...

It seems to me that the only thing that really gets people mad is when you are stopped from doing something. We don't mind the wire tapping because we don't even realize it's going on, it never crosses our minds mid-phone call. On the other hand, if we turned on our cell phones and received a message that said "Your cell service has been suspended due to suspicions of illegal activity", we'd all be up in arms in about 5 minutes. I don't know any American in my age group (18-25) who wouldn't try to tear down the capitol building until they gave us our blessed text messaging back.

Hyperbole aside. I think this will be a mistake by French telecom. Sure no one is complaining now, but as soon as the plugs start being pulled, and as soon as, inevitably, people start getting booted when they've done nothing wrong, heads will start rolling.

I think Zalister's points are the key
-- nobody cares until it affects them,
-- whatever they do, they'll do it wrong and cut off the wrong people.

Oh, and someone will figure out that this is racist.

To give a bit of background:
The government asked a guy named Denis Olivennes to study ways to stop illegal downloading in France. Denis Olivennes happens to be the CEO of La FNAC, the major brand selling technical and cultural stuffs (books, computers, video games, dvds and cds).
Notice a conflict of interests?

Such futility, though. To date, I have not noticed any decline in the stats for downloading no matter what has been done where to prevent it. Because at 70 my musical tastes run to oldies but goodies that I own, downloading is not an issue for me, but if ever a group of industries failed to "get it", the entertainment media certainly take the gold medal.

I do have to wonder. Government asked or Denis asked?

Racist? Hmm...I know that France seems to be having trouble with it's Muslim minorities...I wonder if this could be shaped that way?

I wasn't serious -- it just seems that when any draconian measure (and this has to qualify) is undertaken virtually anywhere, the PolCorrect crowd examine it minutely for undertones and soon declare that there's a conspiracy against them. :rolleyes:

At least they just start with a warning. Although I wonder if this is just to avoid testing the legality before a court.

Nearly every phone call in the world is already scanned for key words in most languages. Start talking about explosives and someone might start getting interested in you....;)

The official version was: Denis Ollivennes was asked to work on this matter by the government.
The study is now called the Ollivennes report.

In France, we pay a tax on recordable media (hard drive, empty cds...). This tax is used to compensate the loss of profit due to illegal downloading. A part of this deal is we are allowed to share music and movies freely between family. You can then buy a cd, rip it, and upload it for your brother or a close friend. The question is then how will they know that you are using this right, or not.

Canada has the same attitude -- pay a tax on CD and DVD blanks, fair use applies.

Encryption in the United States is as perfect as the security of the end hosts when using ssl. If you're viewing a bank statement, or checking your email, you're probably using ssl. The only way the NSA could break the encryption would be to access your computer or the server, or build 256 quantum bits without anyone noticing. If someone is sending emails about terrorist activities, there is little chance of the NSA catching them. I don't know much about the encryption laws in other countries, but it is illegal to use ssl in some.

i know exactly what i would do, use my neighbors WI-FI, and then when that gets blocked, and I am extremely desperate, go to a starbucks, or drive around town, or maybe even McDonalds...

When you give government the power to do whatever it wants in the name of "the public good," eventually something you do will be considered "bad" or at least suspect. This is why socialism never works; eventually those in power will attempt to control absolutely everything.

I think that to say "socialism never works" is overstating it a bit. Totalitarian socialism never does, but countries like Sweden, which is miles to the left of the USA, manage to flourish -- they are democracies with a socialist bent.