France to intall spyware on all users pc to catch pirates

[link to newteevee.com]

French Internet users could soon be asked to install spyware on their PCs that tracks their surfing habits and analyzes the applications installed on their machines in order to prevent file sharing piracy. Plans for this type of surveillance surfaced this week when a paper authored by the French Hadopi agency, which was put in place to police the French Internet and prevent copyright infringement as part of the country’s three strikes legislation, leaked online.
The paper is part of an ongoing consultation process about the implementation of the French three strikes law, which is supposed to punish repeat infringers with the termination of their Internet access. The law came into effect this June, but many technical details are still up in the air, including the question of how to make sure that a certain Internet account was actually used by its owner, and not by a neighbor piggybacking on an insecure WiFi connection. Hadopi apparently wants to enlist users to secure evidence through spyware installed on their machines. The authenticity of the paper has been confirmed by French media, according to heise.de.


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