French Police Want To Block Tor And Forbid Free Wi-fi

December 7th, 2015

Awake Goy

In the wake of the Paris attacks, French police are proposing that new laws ban the use of free WiFi services and anonymous browsers such as Tor.

The French government is considering extending internet powers in a way that is done in China, according to a Ministry of Interior document seen by a French newspaper.

The proposals, which are part of an internal document seen by the newspaper Le Monde, could be enacted in two proposed bills, one on the State of Emergency and the other on combating counter-terrorism.

Motherboard reports:

Regarding the former, French law enforcement wish to “Forbid free and shared wi-fi connections” during a state of emergency. This comes from a police opinion included in the document: the reason being that it is apparently difficult to track individuals who use public wi-fi networks.

The latter piece of legislation, meanwhile, says the government is considering “to block or forbid communications of the Tor network.” The legislation, according to Le Monde, could be presented as early as January 2016.

Tor is a network of servers maintained by volunteers, which route a user’s traffic through several different points, obfuscating their original, and perhaps identifying, IP address. At first a project from the US Navy, and now attempting to diversify its funding, Tor has become more popular recently, especially after the 2013 Snowden revelations around various mass surveillance programs.

It is used by journalists, whistleblowers and people who just want to protect their privacy online, as well as terrorists, pedophiles, and cybercriminals.

The internal document reviewed by Le Monde suggests that the French government may propose legislative measures as well as technological ones against Tor.

The Tor Project, the non-profit that maintains the Tor network, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Even if it was the French government’s intention to block the use of Tor within its borders, it is not totally clear how this would be done, but other countries have attempted to do so.

China actively blocks connections to known Tor entry nodes. These are the first relays that a Tor user’s computer connects to, and are publicly listed. Tor can also use non-public entry nodes, called “bridges,” and these are typically effective at allowing someone to connect to Tor from a country that blacklists the network. (China’s firewall can sometimes detect these as well, by analyzing the internet traffic flowing through the country.)

So, if the French really wanted to block Tor, they might have to consider a model similar to the Chinese regime’s. Naturally, that might be worrying for anyone that cares about free-speech, increasing surveillance, or, say, democracy.

Indeed, in the document the French Directorate of Civil Liberties and Legal Affairs (DLPAJ) questions whether some of the moves in the proposed legislation, including the attempt to block or forbid Tor, could be unconstitutional.