The French government, the entertainment lobbies, and the ISPs : the end of freedom ?

[UMP]

Under the pressure of the french entertainment lobbies, the government is currently voting a law called "Loi de confiance sur l'économie numérique" (trust in digital economy law).
This law will have several points that the french ISP don't like at all :

1. ISPs would be responsible of filtering contents they host, and prevent offending contents (like racism or pedophilia) to ever be published. I mean they would have to block content even before this content is published (which in their opinion is almost impossible).

2. Any judge would be able to arbitrary order the filtering of <CITATION> "various nature contents" </CITATION>. This obviously would include any P2P network or any website.

3. Last but not least, e-Mail would no longer be considered as "private".

In answer to these measures, the main french ISPs gathering is threatening the french government to simply shut down all their communitary communication services (this includes forums, chat services, and the hosting of personal homepages).

More info here (in french, sorry) : http://www.journaldunet.com/0401/040114afalen.shtml

ump

[Sirber]

Filtering can't be done.

About mail: Use PGP :D
About P2P: Secure (using SSL or other encryption device) P2P will be created
About web: VPN is the way to go :D

There is always ways to workaround protections / filtering...

[UMP]

Originally posted by Sirber
Filtering can't be done.

(...)

There is always ways to workaround protections / filtering...

Sure :)
That exactly what the french ISPs are pointing when they ask for a revision of the law.
The interesting point about this is that only the "pure internet" medias are relaying the info. Regular medias as newspapers and television are remarquably silent about the entertainment vs providers confrontation...

ump