6 ms·

The ruling is more complicated than that. If you can read french, I suggest you read Maitre Eolas' take on it [1]. [1] http://www.maitre-eolas.fr/post/2014/02/

• sejje 13y ago
  I can't. Mind making a brief summary?
  • a3_nm 13y ago
    The main count on which Bluetouff was found guilty is that of "maintien frauduleux dans un système de traitement automatisé de données (STAD)", namely, remaining "in" a computing system (STAD) without being allowed. The key point is that Bluetouff made an important admission, apparently during his 30 hours of "garde à vue", meaning, being under arrest at the police station, where he seemingly neglected to apply his right to remain silent: he recognized that, when going up the folder hierarchy, he landed on a username-password login page. From this, according to the court, he should have inferred that the documents were private and that he had nothing to do there. Instead, he spent several hours siphoning the documents afterwards, which established his intent to remain in the system despite having found out that he wasn't supposed to. One can then discuss whether this law is fair or not, whether things would have been different had Bluetouff not made this key admission, whether it is reasonable to consider that the login page was sufficient to indicate that the documents weren't intended to be public, and whether the 3000 EUR fine is balanced or not. Meanwhile, Bluetouff has appealed the ruling to the Cour de cassation, France's last-resort court for civil and criminal cases, whose role is to break rulings where the law was not correctly applied (without discussing the findings, only the application of the law and the adequate forms). I do not think we know yet how Bluetouff will phrase his appeal, but Eolas estimates that there would be a possible way to attack the ruling based on the court's finding that Bluetouff's retrieving the documents constitutes "vol" (theft) though it does not fall within the scope of the formal definition of theft (because the ANSES was not deprived of the files).
    • yeukhon 13y ago
      Instead, he spent several hours siphoning the documents afterwards Do we know how he accessed the documents? Did he crawl the directory with a login or without a login (meaning the directory is not protected)? And why would he share such document with his fellow writer? What for? The fact that a judge can't comprehend technical explanation according to the article seems to be the main issue here. Was he given a fair hearing?
    • jordanthoms 13y ago
      This is a good time to remind people: Don't talk to the police. Ever, under any circumstances - it can only hurt you, never help you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
      • pyre 13y ago
        This is a very US-centric view. In some places, you have a right to remain silent, but that can be used against you in a court of law...
        • nodata 13y ago
          He means don't talk to the police until your lawyer is there. Which countries will use that against you?
          • ItendToDisagree 13y ago
            UK or US, among other countries, if you are being held on 'homeland security' (read: Suspected terrorist) charges. IE: You are required by law to answer questions/turn over passwords when suspected of such things. David Miranda being a recent and well known example.
            • nodata 13y ago
              "Let's wait until my lawyer gets here" will count against me? You got a cite for that?
  • deleted 13y ago
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  • norswap 13y ago
    Basically he was charged on three count: intruding in a private computer system, maintaining himself in said computer system, and theft of private documents. The ruling said he was innocent of the first charge, since it was due to a security flaw, but guilty of the second, since he realized he was in a private system (he admitted to navigating the hierarchy and finding that the repository was "protected" by a login and password). He was also ruled guilty of the theft (the author of the blogpost, an attorney, says he should have been charged with counterfeiting instead, since that is the proper indictment for copyright violations).
  • fab13n 13y ago
    Tldr: he's not fined for entering on the website. He's fined because he kept mirroring the site after he realized it was opened by mistake (he unwisely admitted as much to the cops). It's the digital equivalent of figuring out that a house isn't locked, and concluding it's OK to loot it.
    • gislifb 13y ago
      It's the digital equivalent of figuring out that a house isn't locked, and concluding that it's OK to make a copy of the furniture. FTFY
      • Sharlin 13y ago
        Make a copy of the owner's diary and other sensitive documents, snoop through nightstand drawers... Equivalently, finding someone's personal computer unlocked and deciding it's all right to mirror the contents of its hard disk.
        • sejje 13y ago
          I don't agree with any of these assessments. I think it's the equivalent of going down a public road and passing through a gate that was left open, onto private property. While driving, off in the woods beside the road you notice a "no trespassing" sign, but it's not obvious that you're trespassing currently, even if you start to wonder. A place on the disk was accessed that was unintended.
          • fab13n 13y ago
            > it's not obvious that you're trespassing currently, even if you start to wonder. He's admitted that he kept snooping around after he fully realized that the files were online by mistake.
      • fab13n 13y ago
        My point wasn't about the theft/piracy distinction. It was that your victim being incompetent at defending themselves is not a valid excuse for committing a crime against them. Besides, counterfeiting one's furniture doesn't cause any embarrassment. I'd rather equate it to photocopying your secret business plan, or your collection of naked self-pictures.
• zz1 13y ago
  Pretty useless until Maître Éolas won't correct the few important mistakes he made in his blog post. Olivier pointed them out in his tweets. If you can read french you shouldn't be reading Maître Éolas (although he's usually great) but Bluetouff's own blog posts: http://bluetouff.com/2013/04/25/la-non-affaire-bluetouff-vs-anses/ http://bluetouff.com/2013/04/25/la-non-affaire-bluetouff-vs-... http://bluetouff.com/2014/01/10/cher-contribuable-je-te-demande-pardon/ http://bluetouff.com/2014/01/10/cher-contribuable-je-te-dema...
  • nolok 13y ago
    To be fair, one of the party's own blog is hardly the most objective on the matter.
    • zz1 13y ago
      You can get the facts right, at least ;)
  • eloisant 13y ago
    I don't get it, what are the mistakes?
• sebastianavina 13y ago
  so, when you found something like that, lease a dedicated server overseas and use it to download everything. once done, go to a cybercafe and download it to a zip file or something similar via http directly to a usb memory. they can follow your transaction with the company once they find out, but it's going to be a little more difficult.
  • bausson 13y ago
    He is a journalist, he wasn't found when he downloaded the files, but when he wrote about their content. Leasing a server wouldn't have changed a thing in that specific case. Anyway, bluetouff is well-versed in computer security and the co-founder of a VPN service, so I suspect the files weren't downloaded from a french IP adress.
    • tripzilch 13y ago
      Yes it says "Panama", right in the article.
  • deleted 13y ago
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