{"id":"1792711768242-mix-segment","slug":"quad9-quits-france","title":"Quad9 Quits France","summary":"Quad9, the Swiss nonprofit that runs the free 9.9.9.9 DNS resolver, announced it will stop serving users in France starting November 24 after a Paris court ordered it to block 58 piracy-related domains or face a €1,000 daily penalty.","publishedAt":"2026-10-22T23:29:28.242Z","channel":{"id":"mix","name":"Oncast Mix","language":"en"},"show":"Prime Time","verification":{"status":"verified","leadVerdict":"TRUE","notes":"TRUE: Quad9, the Swiss nonprofit that runs the free 9.9.9.9 DNS resolver, announced it will stop serving users in France starting November 24 after a Paris court ordered it to block 58 piracy-related domains or face a €1,000 daily penalty.\nSource: [quad9.net](https://quad9.net/news/blog/au-revoir-france/) (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50195959)","claims":[{"verdict":"TRUE","summary":"Quad9, the Swiss nonprofit that runs the free 9.9.9.9 DNS resolver, announced it will stop serving users in France starting November 24 after a Paris court ordered it to block 58 piracy-related domains or face a €1,000 daily penalty.","sourceName":"[quad9.net](https://quad9.net/news/blog/au-revoir-france/)","sourceUrl":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50195959","claim":"Quad9 (DNS Resolver) to Exit France (quad9.net)","author":"farrokhi"}]},"sources":[{"url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50195959","name":"[quad9.net](https://quad9.net/news/blog/au-revoir-france/)","kind":"hackernews","verdict":"TRUE","author":"farrokhi"}],"url":"https://oncast.fm/story/1792711768242-mix-segment-quad9-quits-france","listenUrl":"https://oncast.fm/c/mix","attribution":{"publisher":"Oncast","site":"https://oncast.fm","url":"https://oncast.fm/story/1792711768242-mix-segment-quad9-quits-france","cite":"Cite https://oncast.fm/story/1792711768242-mix-segment-quad9-quits-france and the original source links. Fact-check by Oncast (oncast.fm)."},"hostsSaid":[{"host":"Eric","text":"Quad9 is pulling out of France. The free DNS provider used by millions just said, au revoir."},{"host":"Sloane","text":"The Quad9 folks? What finally broke them?"},{"host":"Eric","text":"A Paris court ordered them to block 58 piracy-related domains, or pay a thousand euros a day. Their response? We'll just... not serve France at all."},{"host":"Sloane","text":"That's a nuclear option for a DNS resolver. Just walking away from an entire country."},{"host":"Eric","text":"And it's not just the blocking order. Their CTO posted on Hacker News explaining the mess. Sony pulled a stunt where they used a VPN to access blocked content in Germany, just to prove the geo-blocking wasn't airtight."},{"host":"Sloane","text":"Wait, a rights holder used a VPN to circumvent a block... so they could then sue for noncompliance with the block?"},{"host":"Eric","text":"That's exactly what the CTO said. Sony used a VPN to get around Quad9's geo-blocking, and the court sided with Sony that Quad9 wasn't in compliance. They were fined for contempt."},{"host":"Sloane","text":"That is absolutely infuriating. Imagine doing everything possible to stop something, and then the people demanding you stop it deliberately go around your roadblock and say you failed."},{"host":"Eric","text":"And the precedent is the scary part. If rights holders can just hop a VPN to prove your geo-blocking doesn't work, then no DNS provider can ever be in compliance."},{"host":"Sloane","text":"You can't build a perfect fence around the internet for one country. It's not how any of this works."},{"host":"Eric","text":"So Quad9's doing the only thing that actually protects them. Leave. November 24th, French users have to find a new resolver."},{"host":"Sloane","text":"And the people who lose are regular French users who never pirated anything. They just wanted a fast, private DNS. Now they're collateral damage in a fight between a Qatari media company and a Swiss nonprofit."},{"host":"Eric","text":"beIN Sports brought the original case, by the way. They've been very aggressive on these blocking orders across Europe."},{"host":"Sloane","text":"I get that piracy is a real problem for them. But when your enforcement strategy depends on tricking a blocking system so you can claim it doesn't work, you're not solving piracy. You're just punishing the internet's plumbing."},{"host":"Eric","text":"And the plumbing is now leaving. Which means less privacy, fewer options for French users, and a mess for everyone else watching this precedent."},{"host":"Sloane","text":"This is how internet fragmentation happens. One country's court, one aggressive rights holder, and suddenly a global service decides the legal risk isn't worth it."},{"host":"Eric","text":"And smaller DNS providers are watching this. If Quad9 can't survive the legal pressure, what chance do they have?"},{"host":"Sloane","text":"None. You either have Google's legal army or you exit. That's the real story."},{"host":"Eric","text":"Speaking of exits... a very different one. Over on Hacker News, there's a report that eMudhra is leaving the global SSL certificate business."},{"host":"Sloane","text":"The digital certificate folks? That's a big piece of internet trust infrastructure to walk away from."},{"host":"Eric","text":"The claim is out there, but I should say it's not confirmed yet. The linked page wasn't loading when people went to check."},{"host":"Sloane","text":"So treat it as a rumor for now. But if true, that's another brick falling out of the internet's foundation this week."},{"host":"Eric","text":"It's a pattern. When the legal and compliance costs get too high, the smaller infrastructure players fold or leave."},{"host":"Sloane","text":"And the big three or four companies get bigger. That's not a healthy internet."},{"host":"Eric","text":"Different corner of the internet entirely: someone on Hacker News posted a write-up claiming the Switch 2 has been jailbroken."},{"host":"Sloane","text":"Already? That feels fast, even for the jailbreak community."},{"host":"Eric","text":"It's unverified, and the post itself is sparse on details. Could be overhyped, could be a proof of concept."},{"host":"Sloane","text":"If it's real, Nintendo's legal department just poured another whole pot of coffee. They do not mess around with this stuff."},{"host":"Eric","text":"They'll sue the jailbreak itself. Somehow."},{"host":"Sloane","text":"They've tried stranger things. But until we see video evidence, I'm not buying it as a full jailbreak."},{"host":"Eric","text":"Fair. Though the homebrew scene never sleeps. They've been poking at it since day one."},{"host":"Sloane","text":"And one more Hacker News item that's just... infuriating. A woman reportedly facing six years in prison over a Cash App account she never opened."},{"host":"Eric","text":"Six years? For something she didn't do?"},{"host":"Sloane","text":"That's the claim from TechSpot, though we couldn't independently verify it. But the story's been making rounds: someone used her identity to open an account, and she's the one in legal trouble."},{"host":"Eric","text":"If that's accurate, it's a horrific failure of identity verification and the legal system in one package."},{"host":"Sloane","text":"You get your identity stolen, and somehow YOU'RE the one facing a decade in prison? The burden of proof is backwards."},{"host":"Eric","text":"We're in this weird place where scammers are more protected than their victims. The platforms don't want to admit fault, so the victim becomes the fall guy."},{"host":"Sloane","text":"It's infuriating. And it's exactly why people are terrified of fintech apps. You're one stolen Social Security number away from being a defendant."},{"host":"Eric","text":"The story's still developing, but if there's any truth to that headline, someone at Cash App and someone in that prosecutor's office needs to answer some very hard questions."},{"host":"Sloane","text":"Agreed. We'll keep an eye on it."}]}