In its March 13 edition, French-speaking newspaper Le Soir ran a whole page survey about the fact that a 21 December, 1994 law requires the telecom state-own company Belgacom that any wiretap be possible for law enforcement purposes. But little-known sections of the law state that no cryptographic systems aimed at protecting privacy must block these wiretaps. Crypto systems have to be "agreed" by the government's Institut Belge des postes et telecommunications (IBPT). The author of Le Soir article, Alain Guillaume, speculates that this "agreement" means that encryption keys must be kept by IBPT.
"The idea is neither new nor surprising," Guillaume writes. "To stop criminals from hiding. (...) But does anyone believe that mafia gangs, crooks or terrorists will leave their keys into IBPT hands?"
France enthrone key escrow
At the same time, France is keen to give up its isolationist position. French telecom Minister François Fillon has prepared a sort of Telco Act "à la francaise" -- new regulations to prepare the end of France Telecom monopoly in 1998 -- in which encryption would be freed to allow the emergence of "efficient electronic commerce". Under the new rules, special "authorization" will no more be needed to use PGP-like tools, but every user would be obliged to leave their keys in custody of so-called "trusted third parties" (TTPs) agencies, a sort of "electronic locksmith", or sollicitor, alternative. The option smells quite the same as Sen. Leahy bill (Encrypted Communications Privacy Act of 1996), in which escrow agents would hold keys.
In France no one knows who will play the role of "key escrow agent", but sources said it may be some independent agencies. Independent? The governement will anyway have to approve them, and Mr Fillon said France will enthrone its first TTP "before the end of this year".
This bulletin and the British weekly Nature discovered last November that a group of 18 European nations were soon to adopt this alternative. The UK and Germany have declared themselves ready for such an alternative (see lambda bulletin 1.06). Belgium, with its new iron bullet, would be keen to follow.
This was the first time a French Judge had to face the Internet content. The UEJF didn't seem to know a lot about what they were trying to block, but their lawyer argued that" the IAP are responsible for what's happening behind the door of which they give the key". "The Internet must not become the Latin america for neo-nazis", he said during the audience.
For additionnal news, see the report of the Lettre de l'Internet Juridique, by Valérie Sedaillan, a French lawyer who was there during the trial.
Excerpts :
"The plaintiff asked the judge to give the defendants an injunction with penalties in order to prevent their clients from connecting to services that violate french law by allowing access to revisionist information. Under French law revisionist speech is a criminal offense (loi Gayssot).
"The law provides that those who contest publicly the existence of various crimes against humanity ... will be punished by imprisonment of up to one year or/and a fine of 300.000FF.
"The Defendants have explained that they were providers of access, not of content, and that the plaintiff's demand would force them to control all messages content, information and access on all services, in real time - which would be impossible to implement. They underlined the discriminatory character of the proceedings since not all French Internet Providers had been sued and [provided] the vague nature of the demand, with no precise specifications about what messages and services were considered unlawful.
"Issues of International law and the fact that negationist messages often come from persons located in the USA where they are protected by the 1st amendment of the American constitution have also been discussed.
"Internet providers have pointed out that they were neither administrators or managers of the Internet, which is a network built by the users themselves.
"A decision should be reached on April 12th 1996".
You can find it now at www.argia.fr/adminet -- there is an English version. It's still alive, but the site has been partially purged of excerpts of Le Journal Officiel, the 200-year old register which publishes every law, decree or administrative document of the French Republic. But the "JO", as we call it in France, has already its online release service : the Minitel. People must pay around FFr1,20 per minute to find JO references; other similar services cost even FFr9 per minute, around US$2.
The minitel content provider, OR Telematique, is the only provider the JO can afford for online communication, officials said. Even if there is no copyright duty of any kind. Adminet is also providing a number of French government official communiqués, and the "Marianne" logotype on the home page was considered offensing by government officials, because this is not an "official site" of the French Republic. But it succeeded to attract a lot of foreign readers, even officials in French Ambassies abroad (from the US, Canada, Japan, and also from African countries like Algeria, Zaire and South Africa).