*What a fiasco. This hasn't been a great week for French authorities.
"The French government's “three strikes” approach to online copyright infringement relies on a private company (((read: "intellectual property regulatory capture"))) that scans file-sharing networks and gathers the IP addresses of alleged Gallic content pirates. But that company, TMG, suffered an embarrassing security breach last week, and the French government has “temporarily suspended” its acquisition of new TMG data while an investigation is underway.
"The embarrassing episode began last week when a French writer (((read: "pirate hacktivist"))) found a highly insecure TMG server on the Internet and managed to extract internal TMG executables and scripts, along with a cache of IP addresses. (((I'm a "writer," and, uhm, "writers" don't extract internal executables along with caches of IP addresses.))) According to the initial report, the security on the server was so bad that "one wonders if TMG recently became a Sony subsidiary"—or if the server was a honeypot. (((Read: "let's add French insult to French injury.")))
"The problems appear to be real. Eric Walter, the head of the French HADOPI antipiracy agency that administers the "three strikes" regime, took to Twitter (((read: "where else"))) to tell the world that "par mesure de précaution l' #hadopi a décidé de suspendre provisoirement son interconnexion avec #TMG."
"This temporary suspension of the interconnect agreement means that TMG—the only private firm cleared to collect the IP addresses needed for HADOPI to function—can't provide new addresses for the moment. (((Next they'll find out that TMG has some cozy arrangement with officials from the party-in-power, etc etc)))
"French tech sites like Numerama have run with the story, (((read: "Numerama got the leak from the hacktivist" ))) posting lists of questions that "need to be answered" by HADOPI and by French data security authority CNIL.
"The BBC today provided a British perspective on the news, noting that "the UK is due to introduce similar legislation"..."
