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French republic's regime is reportedly considering a prepare of proposals that would give it unprecedented authorization to control network communications. These new proposals are a response to the terrorist attacks in Paris terminal month that killed 130 people. In the wake of such events, the public oft pressures politicians to "do something," but it's not clear that these proposals are the right thing to do.

The French newspaper Le Monde reports that the Wi-Fi restrictions would requite the French government the say-so to outlaw gratis or shared Wi-Fi connections during a state of emergency. Such connections tin can theoretically be used anonymously, which makes it more difficult for security forces to runway suspects. The French security forces have as well requested the ability to search vehicles and luggage without consent and to comport identification checks without justification. All of these changes would apply to French republic'south land of emergency powers, and would presumably not be in outcome for an indefinite period of fourth dimension.

The proposal to ban Tor, however, is a not-emergency ability act that would "prevent and block" the service from operating within French republic. VPN providers in the country would also exist required to plow over encryption keys to the French regime upon request.

The Paris encryption myth

Most as shortly as the Paris attacks began, a rumor began to circulate that the terrorists had planned their attacks using non-standard modes of advice, like the PS4, or via encrypted services that government agencies couldn't penetrate. Pundits speculated that the attacks must have been the work of sleeper agents embedded in Syrian refugee populations, feeding the idea that mass clearing to Europe was the problem.

These various narratives accept since been proven fake, but that hasn't stopped the security state from chasing their implications. The fact that the terrorists were European union citizens rather than refugees is relevant — information technology means that these individuals were already known to the EU. The European Union has its ain monitoring and analysis programs in place; France is a member of a wider security network referred to as "Ix Eyes."

Tor-Encryption

Tor isn't perfectly secure, merely it can make surveillance significantly more than difficult.

The mastermind of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was located cheers to a plaintext message sent via SMS on a discarded cell phone. Thus far, no evidence has been plant to suggest that the terrorists relied on encryption or made use of it to plan the attacks.

National security agencies have a 2-pronged approach to terrorist attacks and other threats. If an attack succeeds, information technology's touted as proof that the agencies in question demand more power and less oversight to defend the civilian population. If an attack is thwarted, it's proof that the sweeping powers and minimal oversight previously granted to the organization are absolutely necessary to forestall terrorism. The fact that these powers are almost never responsible for breakthroughs in terrorism investigations is quietly swept under the table. Post-Snowden, the NSA has been forced to admit that its surveillance of Americans and foreign persons of interest has notwithstanding to prevent a single attack.

Blocking Tor might soothe the knee-jerk "do something" mentality, but it's not going to assistance French republic fight terrorism in the long term. The United States' comprehensive monitoring programs have not been shown to help in our own anti-terrorism investigations. Banning or blocking encryption, or the entire Tor network, simply will non solve this problem.