French Govt. Wants to Inject Domain Blocking Lists Directly Into Web Browsers

[THX-1139]

https://torrentfreak.com/french-govt-wants-to-inject-domain-blocking-lists-directly-into-web-browsers-230630/

[RealityRipple]

Love how dot-ONION addresses provides a pre-existing, blocker immune loophole.

[vannilla]

This will never work anyway, the real danger is that it can set a precedent for things coming from the wrong direction.

[Pentium4User]

This will never work anyway, the real danger is that it can set a precedent for things coming from the wrong direction.

This already happened in the European Union.
DNS censorship started in 2022 because the EU commission wanted to block certain Russian websites.

I don't think that browsers will implement such lists. I remember that in Kazachstan the government wanted browsers to include government certificates in the browsers to make it possible to break TLS without the user knowing and getting a warning.
Mozilla and Google refused, but I assume because of the country that wanted it.

[Moonchild]

I don't think that browsers will implement such lists.

They already have except a few (us included). All it needs is for Google SafeBrowsing to be manhandled into including these lists. All "major" browsers are using this technology (including Brave and Firefox). A minor tweak to that tech to include a non-bypassable component is all that stands in the way of global censorship.

DNS censorship started in 2022 because the EU commission wanted to block certain Russian websites.

I actually worked around that by installing my own recursive DNS on localhost. It's not that hard, even on Windows ;P

[Pentium4User]

I don't think that browsers will implement such lists.

They already have except a few (us included). All it needs is for Google SafeBrowsing to be manhandled into including these lists. All "major" browsers are using this technology (including Brave and Firefox). A minor tweak to that tech to include a non-bypassable component is all that stands in the way of global censorship.

Oh, I missed that. But do you think Google will implement that?

DNS censorship started in 2022 because the EU commission wanted to block certain Russian websites.

I actually worked around that by installing my own recursive DNS on localhost. It's not that hard, even on Windows ;P

I also run my own BIND9, so no problem.

[Moonchild]

Oh, I missed that. But do you think Google will implement that?

Of course they will if EU regulations mandate it. They don't want to lose out on a user data stream giving them a record of site visits in a central location.

[vannilla]

This already happened in the European Union.
DNS censorship started in 2022 because the EU commission wanted to block certain Russian websites.

DNS blocking is different though.
Unless a web browser forces every DNS request through a static set of resolvers, which is something that can't be done e.g. in corporate settings, one can just use OpenNIC or something to get around it.

[Pentium4User]

This already happened in the European Union.
DNS censorship started in 2022 because the EU commission wanted to block certain Russian websites.

DNS blocking is different though.
Unless a web browser forces every DNS request through a static set of resolvers, which is something that can't be done e.g. in corporate settings, one can just use OpenNIC or something to get around it.

True, but most people don't know how to change their DNS resolver. This is why the censorship is effective for ~85% of the people.

[vannilla]

True, but most people don't know how to change their DNS resolver. This is why the censorship is effective for ~85% of the people.

The point is not how many people can bypass it, the point is that:

1. people can bypass it;
2. regardless of the effectiveness of the law, can governments double down on censorship by leveraging the existance of this law.

(Of course second point can't be predicted, but reading the proposal can often enlighten in possible implications.)

How many people are affected is irrelevant.

[Moonchild]

How many people are affected is irrelevant.

Actually, that's not true. In practice most blocking rules are about quantity. You also won't discard a spamblock rule just because a few e-mails still bypass it. The same logic (although enforcement is by a different entity) applies to host/domain blocking.
From a regulatory perspective covering most of the population is what matters -- there are always going to be some that slip by the intended net, but that is the thing that's irrelevant there.