I don't find any of this persuasive because nowhere does it articulate who or how the defendants came to be accused of anything in the first place. I can not make my mind about how to feel when the context is removed, even if I think the state's argument is entirely specious.
I think La Quadrature du Net don't consider it relevant whether the accused are guilty or not; they don't want encrypted communication to ever be included in the evidence against someone.
I agree that that's a bit too much binary thinking, and a collection of separate actions that would be legal on their own can nonetheless add up to evidence of a crime when taken together.
Because political advocacy is a passionate business, people sometimes forget basic tents of communication and end up publishing jeremiads that are only comprehensible to people who already agree with them, while failing to convert anyone else to their cause. I quite agree about the overreach of the French state here, but on first encounter I couldn't make head or tail of what their passionate opponents were arguing about.
Was contracted to a New Zealand government department and all the Edge browsers had AdBlock installed by default. I guess the New Zealand government that I worked for is a terrorist organisation. The department that I worked for did take other peoples money though. (Won't give any more information than that).
This is the kind of stories where I would like another angle.
First, to make things straight, neither Signal nor AdBlock are illegal in France, they are used by many without any problem. As in some other countries E2E encryption is sometimes attacked, and usually, it makes the news, but for now there is no problem using any privacy-focused app in France.
But, and I think it is what happened here, there is nothing stopping a prosecutor mentioning the use of such apps when making an argument in combination with other facts. It is like the use of cash. It is not illegal to use cash and possess large amounts of it (there are limits for large transactions though), but a prosecutor will certainly mention it if they can and it makes you more suspicious to justify an arrest. Not a conviction though, for a conviction, you need actual proof.
And of course, the defense attorney will point out the many legitimate uses of Signal as a way to discredit the accusation, this is the side we have here. A judge will hear both sides and settle the case in the end.
Not to say that there are not deeper political motivations, or that justice can't be corrupted, but I prefer not to make an opinion without hearing both sides.
Not only France. As was always predicted to happen, governments are finding the allure of classifying undesirable organisations as terrorists too hard to resist. The UK with Palestine Action, the USA with the Muslim Brotherhood [0].
We need to repeal the War Against Terror acts that allow this to happen.
Statements like this are always funny to me. So I'm a terrorist/extremist for not wanting ads to be pushed in my face. I guess I am then. I'd rather adopt a label like that than give up what uBlock and the like have given me.
But what are then the people making the ads? In my head they are litterers, as they fill the public space with unwanted rubbish. But if I'm a terrorist, then these guys have to be on a whole other level. I sometimes think maybe 'rapists' is a suitable word, since they sure as fuck don't care about my consent when they push their rubbish on me. But in the worldview of the people who think I'm a terrorist for using uBlock, things are probably just all back to front.
You see, you are an economic terrorist in a way. By not watching ads, you do not want to consume more, and thus you are hurting economic growth!! Think of the shareholders!!!
Incidentally, Youtube does not work for me any more with uBlock Origin and whatever the strict privacy settings do in Firefox. It loads the UI but doesn't play the video or run searches, at least.
Doesn't seem to work for me. At least until I got tired of refreshing.
A few times i did see a still from the video for a fraction of a second, but then it got overwritten by nothingness.
Well, I wasn't much of a fan of watching videos when the same info can be conveyed in writing in 1/20 of the time. Now I just have more incentive not to bother.
When blocking scripts. I get this issue when signed in, but a refresh fixes it. If I allow google.com, then it doesn't happen at all. When not signed in, I do often get issues or a captcha (that sometimes doesn't work), then I just switch to invidious usually.
I am signed in, because I use the google container extension so in theory only google sites know that I'm signed in.
Anyway, I won't investigate further. If there's a video i really really want/need to watch I can open it in Chrome, which sends all my data to Google anyway.
I wonder what danger there is in over-classifying terrorism.
If someone, as a purely theoretical example, feels as if they fall under various 'modern' classifications of terrorist, then it could break down certain walls of reasoning preventing them from participating in activities that would fall under the 'historic' classification of terrorist.
What I'm saying is: Any government that's over-using the term is (potentially) actively participating in the radicalisation of a portion of their constituency.
And that is a dead-fucking-wrong approach; 180 degrees away from the correct heading. Gross negligence.
Which French government? Borne, Attal, Barnier, Bayrou, Lecornu I, II? Because they seem to all get a vote of no confidence lately. They're all on their way out.
Worldwide Occupied Government consider's free thinking human beings as threats. Why? Because free thinking human beings are against wholesale mass holocaust of babies (for example in Gaza and Sudan) and Worldwide Occupied Government cannot allow mass-baby-sacrifice induced hysteria to cause destabilisation in the rigged markets they serve. Which is why they have anointed Larry Ellison as Worldwide MegaPanopticus as promised to him 3000000 years ago while using crackdowns on CSAM spreaders as a convenient excuse. The CSAM spreaders, of course, being allowed to evade prosecution by fleeing back to the promise land.
Do you get extra EU-social credits for accusing someone linking Israel's livestreamed holocaust of Gaza and the Western Occupied Government's parallel crackdowns on fundamental freedoms, a "conspiracy theorist"? If so, how much does it pay to be on the fight against freedom?
FBI recommends using an ad blocker (2022) (ic3.gov) posted Sept 8, 2024, 230 comments [1]
Another fun one: Signal is the No. 1 downloaded app in the Netherlands. But why? | TechCrunch, from March 2 2025
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41483581
[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/1j38sgw/signal_is_t...
> FBI recommends using an ad blocker (2022) (ic3.gov) posted Sept 8, 2024, 230 comments [1]
Apparently not anymore. Unless there's a different, working URL.
Skip the video and read the source: https://www.laquadrature.net/2023/06/05/affaire-du-8-decembr...
that would make DRMed games qualify under their definition of terrorism, because it's also using encryption and obfuscation
I wonder what the "s" stands for in https...
sexy
HTTPS stands for “Hostile Terrorist Transfer Packets Secured”…
But in French it would be different, as NATO is OTAN in French or AIDS is SIDA.
In French, it would be Transfert de paquets terroristes hostiles sécurisé - TPTHS :) /s
Btw I like France and French people, I have relatives there.
English version https://www.laquadrature.net/en/2023/06/05/criminalization-o...
I don't find any of this persuasive because nowhere does it articulate who or how the defendants came to be accused of anything in the first place. I can not make my mind about how to feel when the context is removed, even if I think the state's argument is entirely specious.
I think La Quadrature du Net don't consider it relevant whether the accused are guilty or not; they don't want encrypted communication to ever be included in the evidence against someone.
I agree that that's a bit too much binary thinking, and a collection of separate actions that would be legal on their own can nonetheless add up to evidence of a crime when taken together.
Another pov: https://soutienauxinculpeesdu8decembre.noblogs.org/post/2021...
Thank you, this was far more informative.
Because political advocacy is a passionate business, people sometimes forget basic tents of communication and end up publishing jeremiads that are only comprehensible to people who already agree with them, while failing to convert anyone else to their cause. I quite agree about the overreach of the French state here, but on first encounter I couldn't make head or tail of what their passionate opponents were arguing about.
Was contracted to a New Zealand government department and all the Edge browsers had AdBlock installed by default. I guess the New Zealand government that I worked for is a terrorist organisation. The department that I worked for did take other peoples money though. (Won't give any more information than that).
They're terrorists for not having uBlock Origin instead
This is the kind of stories where I would like another angle.
First, to make things straight, neither Signal nor AdBlock are illegal in France, they are used by many without any problem. As in some other countries E2E encryption is sometimes attacked, and usually, it makes the news, but for now there is no problem using any privacy-focused app in France.
But, and I think it is what happened here, there is nothing stopping a prosecutor mentioning the use of such apps when making an argument in combination with other facts. It is like the use of cash. It is not illegal to use cash and possess large amounts of it (there are limits for large transactions though), but a prosecutor will certainly mention it if they can and it makes you more suspicious to justify an arrest. Not a conviction though, for a conviction, you need actual proof.
And of course, the defense attorney will point out the many legitimate uses of Signal as a way to discredit the accusation, this is the side we have here. A judge will hear both sides and settle the case in the end.
Not to say that there are not deeper political motivations, or that justice can't be corrupted, but I prefer not to make an opinion without hearing both sides.
I'm a 3x terrorist because I also use GrapheneOS.
Seems a modern problem is the significant watering down of what "terrorist" means. If blocking ads has become three measure of a terrorist:
If everyone's a terrorist... No one is.
The word no longer has any meaning. Eventually there will be two labels to apply to everyone: "corporate sheep" and "terrorist".
In which case I will always strive towards terrorist.
WTF is going on with France?
Not only France. As was always predicted to happen, governments are finding the allure of classifying undesirable organisations as terrorists too hard to resist. The UK with Palestine Action, the USA with the Muslim Brotherhood [0].
We need to repeal the War Against Terror acts that allow this to happen.
[0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/11/desi...
The US has even moved on to "narcoterrorists", you can just blow those ones up whenever
And France is following that path too.
GrapheneOS is moving their servers out of France if you weren't aware
Ah, just when I thought I was saving the world with these tools.
One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.
If we cannot decide, we call them guerrillas - Ellie (fictional)/Carl Sagan
Statements like this are always funny to me. So I'm a terrorist/extremist for not wanting ads to be pushed in my face. I guess I am then. I'd rather adopt a label like that than give up what uBlock and the like have given me.
But what are then the people making the ads? In my head they are litterers, as they fill the public space with unwanted rubbish. But if I'm a terrorist, then these guys have to be on a whole other level. I sometimes think maybe 'rapists' is a suitable word, since they sure as fuck don't care about my consent when they push their rubbish on me. But in the worldview of the people who think I'm a terrorist for using uBlock, things are probably just all back to front.
Up is down, left is right.
You see, you are an economic terrorist in a way. By not watching ads, you do not want to consume more, and thus you are hurting economic growth!! Think of the shareholders!!!
Incidentally, Youtube does not work for me any more with uBlock Origin and whatever the strict privacy settings do in Firefox. It loads the UI but doesn't play the video or run searches, at least.
Refresh the page a couple times to fix
Doesn't seem to work for me. At least until I got tired of refreshing.
A few times i did see a still from the video for a fraction of a second, but then it got overwritten by nothingness.
Well, I wasn't much of a fan of watching videos when the same info can be conveyed in writing in 1/20 of the time. Now I just have more incentive not to bother.
When blocking scripts. I get this issue when signed in, but a refresh fixes it. If I allow google.com, then it doesn't happen at all. When not signed in, I do often get issues or a captcha (that sometimes doesn't work), then I just switch to invidious usually.
I am signed in, because I use the google container extension so in theory only google sites know that I'm signed in.
Anyway, I won't investigate further. If there's a video i really really want/need to watch I can open it in Chrome, which sends all my data to Google anyway.
I wonder what danger there is in over-classifying terrorism.
If someone, as a purely theoretical example, feels as if they fall under various 'modern' classifications of terrorist, then it could break down certain walls of reasoning preventing them from participating in activities that would fall under the 'historic' classification of terrorist.
What I'm saying is: Any government that's over-using the term is (potentially) actively participating in the radicalisation of a portion of their constituency.
And that is a dead-fucking-wrong approach; 180 degrees away from the correct heading. Gross negligence.
> Any government that's over-using the term is (potentially) actively participating in the radicalisation of a portion of their constituency.
That'll be almost all ruling parties, in almost all governments, in almost all countries. Especially since 2001.
Yep. It bodes poorly!
Guess I’m a terrorist.
we all are, anyone not in goverment is a terrorist.
Increasingly seems like the French government are the real terrorists.
Which French government? Borne, Attal, Barnier, Bayrou, Lecornu I, II? Because they seem to all get a vote of no confidence lately. They're all on their way out.
Some reference for those wondering "why?":
Worldwide Occupied Government consider's free thinking human beings as threats. Why? Because free thinking human beings are against wholesale mass holocaust of babies (for example in Gaza and Sudan) and Worldwide Occupied Government cannot allow mass-baby-sacrifice induced hysteria to cause destabilisation in the rigged markets they serve. Which is why they have anointed Larry Ellison as Worldwide MegaPanopticus as promised to him 3000000 years ago while using crackdowns on CSAM spreaders as a convenient excuse. The CSAM spreaders, of course, being allowed to evade prosecution by fleeing back to the promise land.
Go away. Nobody wants to hear your moronic conspiracy theories.
Do you get extra EU-social credits for accusing someone linking Israel's livestreamed holocaust of Gaza and the Western Occupied Government's parallel crackdowns on fundamental freedoms, a "conspiracy theorist"? If so, how much does it pay to be on the fight against freedom?