That first article is truly insane. Persecuted for using tools and applications that are commonplace, as if they automatically make you part of a terrorist cell. What is the world coming to?
this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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Yep, I live in France (and this YouTuber is French, which is why he is talking about the case). This whole story passed under the radar here because it is the type of thing that French people would be up in arms about.
I think at some point they will likely pass a law related to encryption or ban some of the alternative app stores for phones.
Also: https://cybernews.com/news/france-senate-surveillance-cameras-microphones/
Wow. France is already on fire. Do politicians really want more?
We haven't had any major protests over here for a few weeks. Things are calming down for vacation season.
But I thought protesting is the French pastime?
Just kidding, don't guillotine me.
I'm not French so I don't get a guillotine haha. I've just lived here for 16 years. They do like to have their strikes, but in their defence many of them are "declared" and "approved" by local authorities so we are warned about them weeks in advance. Like, my son's school will have a cafeteria strike soon and we were told about it in March.
That's great!
Not about you not having a guillotine, of course, but about the notifications about impending strikes. I think that's sufficiently fair giving people a head's up—even though it gives management time to prepare and fend-off the strike's effects.
Isn't the EU currently pushing to allow third party app stores on devices?
If they are pushing in that direction I wonder how that will gel with this kind of approach from France? Maybe EU law is a better place to remedy this rather than French law? Maybe an appeal after this case is settled will allow a more reasonable judge to oversee the case.
Totally unfair. Like the caring about privacy is a guilt. In case they fear this may be an issue to mantain order, they should really consider improving knowledge of these tools.
"I don't really have anything to hide, but you never know whether the government might act authoritarian at some point. So best to be safe and use privacy tools."
French police: "Hold my tear gas"
You make it sound so much funnier than it is. But thanks for the laugh! At least some positivity now came from it 🫠.
That first article, though I have read it through a translation app, is truly insane. The judge's quoted statement is just terrifying:
> « L’ensemble des membres de ce groupe se montraient particulièrement méfiants, ne communiquaient entre eux que par des applications cryptées, en particulier Signal, et procédaient au cryptage de leurs supports informatiques […]. »
Translated via DeepL: > "All the members of this group were particularly suspicious, communicating with each other only via encrypted applications, in particular Signal, and encrypting their computer media [...]".
Clandestine behavior, he says. Is the judge seriously thinking along the lines of “if you've got nothing to hide…” and associating ‘clandestine behavior’ to being a criminal? That's scary.
EDIT:
English language version of the first article (much thanks to @[email protected]): https://www.laquadrature.net/en/2023/06/05/criminalization-of-encryption-the-8-december-case/
Holy moly, that's insane!
I do all of those things too because why wouldn't I?
Is there anything as to the outcome of the arrests? Also what was the reason in the first place for the police to be interested in these people?
@CynAq @bbbhltz @megane_kun Apparently, being a leftist in France + using encryption to protect privacy = Terrorist
The charges of terrorism are strongly rejected by the defendants. They denounce a political trial, a prosecution and a lack of evidence. In particular, they point to decontextualized remarks and the use of trivial facts (sports and digital practices, reading and listening to music...)[3]. For their part, the police acknowledged that by the end of the investigation - and ten months of intensive surveillance - no "precise project" had been identified[4].
The state has just been condemned for keeping the main defendant in solitary confinement for 16 months, from which he was only released after a 37-day hunger strike. A second complaint, awaiting trial, has been lodged against the repeated illegal strip-searches to which a defendant was subjected in pre-trial detention[5].
If those translations from DeepL are sufficiently accurate, at the very least, the main defendant was arrested has been held for 16 months.
As for the rationale, I suppose it's their relationship with the ‘far-left’ that have caught the police attention. There was a link to the French Wikipedia article on the arrests and the entire incident. From there, I gleaned that the ‘far-left’ relationship is with the YPG.
According to the Wikipedia article, there's still ongoing cases against the defendants.
I hope someone else who've got a better grasp of both the French langauge and the Rovaja/YPG situation give their two cents since I've got no idea.
@megane_kun the article by La Quadrature du Net actually has an english version: https://www.laquadrature.net/en/2023/06/05/criminalization-of-encryption-the-8-december-case/
Thank you very much for that link! I didn't even realize there's an English version of the article. Again, thank you!
Yes, very bad precedent
A note here about the context from near the end of the article, which is very worth reading.
"This case is a trial for the Ministry of Interior, which aims to normalise this framing for repressive purposes. During a Senate hearing that followed the violent repression of protests in Sainte-Soline [environmental protests severely repressed that happened in France in 2023], Gérald Darmanin, the French Minister of Interior, implored the legislature to change the law so that it would be possible to hack into demonstrators’ mobile phones, especially those using “Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram”: “Give us the same means for extreme violence as for terrorism”. His justification was that “there is a very strong, advanced paranoia in ultra-left circles […] who use encrypted messaging”, which can be explained by a “clandestine culture”. In an attempt to demonstrate the supposed violence of Sainte-Soline activists, he also cited the 8 December affair as an example of a “foiled attack” by the “ultra-left”, in defiance of any presumption of innocence23."
This is not just about use of technology signalling terrorism, it is about repression of dissent from the current government. Environmental protests, protests against the changes to pensions, and really any other protests are a target. This is antidemocratic at it's core and will be expanded unless resisted. This kind of authoritarian behaviour clearly shows the need for the very thing they are repressing, technology to maintain privacy and security for those the state disagrees with.
It is being resisted. But...
Telegram and WhatsApp groups over here, like in many countries, are echo chambers for certain ideologies. I am a professor, graduate school, and some of my students talk about "the great replacement". I ask them what it is and they tell me, straight-faced in front of their peers, what it is and how it is a real thing because they saw it shared on a group chat. With the very recent knife attack and the fact that this was not a French citizen, I would imagine the loonies are out full swing on their group chats.
The "nothing to hide" argument is used a lot here and (this is my personal opinion) I real feel like many French people are poorly informed about the tech world. I still hear people refer to Gates as the boss of MS. My MIL still thinks that Zuckerberg made Signal so she refuses to use it (but spends 14 hours a day on FB). Musk is viewed by many as a benevolent Tony Stark. And once I presented Mastodon to my students and when I explained the content warnings and some of the rules, they all burst out laughing and called it "stoopid".
Now, in reality we have some great stuff going on over here: La Quadrature du Net, Framasoft, Les Chatons, FDN, etc. and the tech community is loud and likes to resist, but getting GenZ and the Boomers and everyone in between to listen for a minute is hard work. I spend a lot of time looking in to this sort of stuff, and I am subscribed to the LQDN newsletters and donate to different similar organisations... This entire story was completely under the radar for me. I heard nothing about it until I looked at that video.
Anyway, it was fun to rant for a bit.
French people, this isn't French-bashing: I know there are lots of overly tech-savvy people here in this beautiful country.
I have had similar experiences here in Australia. People seem to be very distracted and stressed to the point where they have no time to consider ideas like privacy, security, and societal improvement. Maybe I am an idealist but I would hope to leave a better world for those that will follow us and allowing another rise of authoritarianism seems like it is a very bad idea.
The list in the first one is so hilariously ridiculous that I have to remind myself how grave the accusations are.
- the use of applications such as Signal, WhatsApp, Wire, Silence or ProtonMail to encrypt communications;
- the use of tools to protect your privacy on the Internet such as a VPN, Tor or Tails;
- protecting ourselves against the exploitation of our personal data by GAFAM via services such as /e/OS, LineageOS, F-Droid;
- encryption of digital media;
- organization and participation in digital hygiene training sessions;
- the mere possession of technical documentation.
I have ticked almost all of these boxes at some point as a privacy conscious software developer. I wonder what I'm plotting?
The reality is, sometimes it's not even about the state. I'm well aware that they are such an adversary that, if I were specifically targeted for something I would want to hide, I'm in for a really bad time.
Sometimes, it's about the data advertisers collect and use to sell me more crap. Sometimes, it's about disagreeing with dragnet surveillance. Sometimes, it's about refusing to have these very valuable services be associated only with criminal intent.
Journalists, victims of abuse, whistleblowers and every day people just trying to have private lives have a use for some or all of these tools.
Also, WhatsApp and ProtonMail have access to metadata about who you are contacting as well as subject lines and, in the case of WhatsApp, images. They might avoid some ad targeting but both are pretty stupid tools to use if you're trying to hide something from the government. They both only scratch the surface of what we really need to avoid dragnet surveillance and yet are still better than many alternatives.
All of the people involved in the procecution of the first case should be disbarred and jailed. I can't believe the poor man endured more than a year of solitary confinement for the crime of being responsible on the Internet. I hope his persecuters choke and die. Disgusting. Human trash.
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