A message normally addressed to visitors to child pornography sites was broadcast.
This is a taste of the operation of the anti-scam filter that the authorities would have done without. This Saturday until midday, many Internet users clicking on links to Telegram instant messaging conversations finally saw a page from the Ministry of the Interior. With an alert message: “You have been redirected to this Home Office page because you attempted to connect to a site with images of child pornography”.
Terrorism and child pornography
On Twitter, Internet users immediately noticed the error, starting with Cécile Morange, network technician, who posted a technical explanation of the problem. A mistake made by the police that two internet service providers have confirmed au Monde.
Since 2015, the authorities have indeed been able to block sites advocating terrorism or containing elements related to child pornography. To do this, they send a request to Internet access providers, who are then responsible for applying this blocking and sending Internet users to an official warning page.
Authorities have yet to provide an official explanation. The error could come from the transmission of a generic address referring to the entire Telegram platform (de facto blocking all the links to the site), rather than to probable Telegram conversations hosting child pornography content identified by the police.
DNS blocking
This blocking is made possible thanks to the operation of the DNS (Domain Name System) file, managed by Internet service providers for their customers. This is a directory matching the address of a website (eg bfmtv.com) to the IP address (a series of numbers). In fact, it is indeed this IP address which is “requested” by a computer to display a web page.
During a blocking request, the authorities thus transmit website addresses to the main operators, so that they modify the corresponding IP address in the DNS, to replace it with that of the alert page of the Ministry of l ‘Interior. A user entering the address of a site – for example of a terrorist nature – blocked will thus be sent to this new IP address. A system also known as “lying DNS”.
It is this same operation that should allow the creation of the anti-scam filter, recently announced by the government. In the same way, the authorities will have to create lists of fraudulent sites, which the operators will have to use to block them when an Internet user tries to connect to them.
This Saturday, Internet users also noticed that the page of the Ministry of the Interior contained computer code likely to record the Internet user’s attempt to visit the Telegram conversations in question, denouncing a risk of tracking. “Not acceptable,” commented Renaissance deputy Eric Bothorel, who also called on the government to be transparent about the incident, as well as the recording of visits to the sites concerned.
