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La Quadrature du Net has also affirmed that while they were demonstrating in front of the National Assembly, there were two IMSI Catchers. And the law wasn't ev
by pikzen 12y ago
La Quadrature du Net has also affirmed that while they were demonstrating in front of the National Assembly, there were two IMSI Catchers. And the law wasn't even passed yet. Great example of what will happen. (http://www.franceinfo.fr/actu/politique/article/des-appareils-pour-espionner-les-conversations-pres-d-une-manifestation-contre-la-loi-sur-le-668469 http://www.franceinfo.fr/actu/politique/article/des-appareil... link in french, can provide a translation if needed)
Bernard Cazeneuve, our ministre de l'Intérieur (Tasked with internal security, i.e. police etc.) has also declared the right to private life to not be a freedom. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WODKfxtJQbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WODKfxtJQbE)
This law was voted by 30 delegates. From a total of 577. This is what we can expect of our National Assembly. I expected a bit more of them considering they were 40 (!) to debate it. And they were granted a whole two minutes to explain themselves. To debate a law that allows bypassing judges, installing black boxes (read: DPI tools) anywhere without needing a judge, and quite a few more fun things.
To any french reader here (or any reader in a country whose laws explicitly allow this type of mass surveilance) :
* Use LetsEncrypt to get an SSL certificate for your website (or selfsign one with the proper configuration). Not that this will matter much because this law will allow them to ask you to hand over your private keys
* Use TrueCrypt v 7.1a, the latest and audited version for you hard drive, or use LUKS if you're on Linux.
* Use TextSecure and RedPhone. While I'm not aware of any recent audits, it's a hundred times better than going through regular channels.
* Use Pidgin+OffTheRecord for your private chats.
I am so fucking mad. And have no doubts, the senate will pass this. The worst (best) that could happend to this law is a few minor changes, but the key points will stay. And I doubt our constitutional council will reject it.
- Nusyne 12y agoTextSecure is either Text (SMS, which are not encrypted), OR secure (data). Not both simultaneously.
- zz1 12y agoNot Pidgin! Jitsi.
- creshal 12y agoOr Gajim.
- higherpurpose 12y ago> This law was voted by 30 delegates. From a total of 577 This is how democracy dies. Now the 95% other members of the National Assembly will say "that it's not their fault, because they didn't even vote for it!", if some major abuses happen due to this in the future. Despicable.
- easytiger 12y ago> This is how democracy dies. We need a system of government that allows scientists and thinkers to have a weighted power balancing politicians. POliticians cannot be trusted by definition
- cm2187 12y agoNo, you need direct democracy. With modern communications, there is no reason to organize frequent elections on key issues, like in Switzerland.
- Aissen 12y agoNot a silver bullet. With this we'd still have the death penalty; or voted for populists measures like banning minarets.
- cm2187 12y agoThen you don't really believe in democracy, and I have to disagree.
- mercurial 12y agoNo, you have to understand how human nature works. Unfortunately, it is much easier to get people worked up about populist issues than about something that matters. I think the record speaks for itself.
- koszik 12y agoPlease take a look at what happened in Athens a few thousand years ago. You'll see that even then people were susceptible to fear mongering and manipulation, so in effect the real power was in the hands of a few. People has always been stupid, there's no way around that, sorry.
- chinathrow 12y agoRe IMSI Catchers: tear them down when you see them.
- pikzen 12y agoExcept that you can't do that when they're in small suitcases held by security officials. Which it was, because the DGSE and CRS were in plain sight near the National Assembly, and there were no signs of IMSI catchers before this demonstration.
- chinathrow 12y agoA small suitcase might get lost...
- Fiahil 12y agoEncrypting all communications is certainly the way to go. But, I wonder if we can make these systems completely inefficient by flooding them with false positives. Assuming we can figure out the patterns they are looking for in our communications, could this be a possible solution to force them to withdraw they "black boxes"?
- adventured 12y agoThis was a premise considered a very long time ago when it came to the NSA's snooping. People were (still are?) putting keywords in every email, etc. It didn't make any difference, and inherently can't. Here's why. Scenario 1) It works. You get arrested on some arbitrary basis for impeding their system. Or they otherwise make it illegal to do so, and begin cracking down on that. Scenario 2) You throw a vast amount of interference at their system, and it has an effect. They spend more of your money to constantly stay head of the collective efforts. Most likely a relatively small number of people will never be able to overwhelm it long-term. Scenario 3) It doesn't work in any meaningful way at all. Focus on strong encryption.
- venomsnake 12y ago>Scenario 1) It works. You get arrested on some arbitrary basis for impeding their system. Or they otherwise make it illegal to do so, and begin cracking down on that. That will be hard first amendment case in US ... very hard.
- jamiek88 12y agoSecret courts care little for the constitution.
- vidarh 12y agoFlooding the system can only work if the group that floods the system is large enough that it isn't simply expedient for the surveillance organisations to decide you're a potential risk and put you under additional surveillance. Encryption is in a similar position, but it is a far easier sell to business and the general public, and so the chances of reaching critical mass of communications is much greater.
- sheensleeves 12y agoJust a word of caution. Sometimes I read "OffTheRecord" chatlogs that have been posted on Cryptome. A false sense of security can be more risky business than weak security, as pertains to what gets exposed.
- vidarh 12y agoObviously no tool like that can prevent the exposure of the contents of the chat, and hopefully nobody believes that. It does have the very useful property of granting plausible deniability, though, by making it possible to forge messages after the fact.
- belorn 12y agoLooks to be a very similar law as the one created in Sweden, and I suspect the arguments will be quite similar too. Publicly, its to hunt terrorists. Internally, its to give police and tax departments more power. Secretly, it is so spies has something to trade with other spies on the international level. Since neither of those 3 things is something they want to discuss openly, no debate will happen between those who decide and the public.
- ryanlol 12y agoWhy would you recommend TrueCrypt? That's a terrible suggestion.
- veeti 12y agoThanks for the insightful comment explaining why.
- mikefonseca 12y agoWhy?
- vacri 12y agoI don't know the full story, but word 'round the campfire is that it's been compromised by a certain TLA. In any case, there's huge red letters saying "TrueCrypt is not secure" right next to their download links: http://truecrypt.sourceforge.net/ http://truecrypt.sourceforge.net/
- fweespeech 12y agohttp://istruecryptauditedyet.com/ http://istruecryptauditedyet.com/ > The TL;DR is that based on this audit, Truecrypt appears to be a relatively well-designed piece of crypto software. The NCC audit found no evidence of deliberate backdoors, or any severe design flaws that will make the software insecure in most instances. Your argument is just so wrong :/
- ryanlol 12y agoAre you seriously implying that there's never any security issues discovered after audits?
- fabulist 12y agoA lot of people seem who recommend TC seem to think the same about BitLocker. To be fair, TrueCrypt has been audited and the code is freely available; BitLocker is proprietary, and the code is only available to a select few under NDA.
- fixxer 12y ago30 out of 577?! Is there no limit on a quorum in the Assembly? Might as well have a king.
- talideon 12y agoApparently, you have to request a quorum, and even then the quorum has to be assembled in 15mins, or else it's ignored and the vote goes ahead anyway to prevent 'obstruction': http://www2.assemblee-nationale.fr/decouvrir-l-assemblee/role-et-pouvoirs-de-l-assemblee-nationale/les-fonctions-de-l-assemblee-nationale/les-fonctions-legislatives/les-votes-a-l-assemblee-nationale http://www2.assemblee-nationale.fr/decouvrir-l-assemblee/rol... It's insane!
- pikzen 12y agoTo be fair, we DID have a huge problem with obstruction. The laws regarding quorum were so large that even if very few people were missing, you could delay the law once again. The 2009 reform was passed while Nicolas Sarkozy was still president, and he took great care of consolidating the power of the president while lowering the National Assembly's.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- LBarret 12y agoSame here. I have written to my MP, try to call a few others. This is a sad show of incompetence and political irresponsibility.
- nota_bene 12y agoIf you want to use encrypted communication tools, but don't know if you can convince enough people in your network to join you, use this tool to activate your friends & family (to build critical mass): https://www.iWouldDo.it https://www.iWouldDo.it