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France legalizes remote camera and microphone activation in smartphones

francetvinfo.fr

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Re: France legalizes remote camera and microphone activation in smartphones

#41

Post by sebstefan »

rjzzleep wrote: post #21
sebstefan wrote: post #10

As far as I know, the title is wrong, only the senate approved the bill. That's not enough for France to legalize anything The way it works in France is there's two chambers of parliament, the senate and the Assemblée nationale (that I translate to "the parliament"). Unless the law changes something in the constitution, the senate is just there to advise the parliament. If they'd voted no, it wouldn't have mattered.…

Parliament certainly didn't stop Macron from pushing threw the pension reform against the will of virtually everyone. It's a pity that most of the media doesn't cover the legitimate concerns of the french population.

Yep even if it goes through the parliament they can avoid a vote

Then the parliament can whip out a motion of non-confidence, which, if signed by 50% of the parliament, removes the law and fires the government.

Stress on the "signed by 50% of the parliament" => If a congressman doesn't sign it, it's counted as a no. They almost never go through. Not to mention that a fair number of congressmen can be against a law, but also against firing the government. So by definition they always have that advantage on these votes too

Re: France legalizes remote camera and microphone activation in smartphones

#42

Post by palunon »

disposition2 wrote: post #15
sebstefan wrote: post #10

As far as I know, the title is wrong, only the senate approved the bill. That's not enough for France to legalize anything The way it works in France is there's two chambers of parliament, the senate and the Assemblée nationale (that I translate to "the parliament"). Unless the law changes something in the constitution, the senate is just there to advise the parliament. If they'd voted no, it wouldn't have mattered.…

For someone who is unfamiliar with French law, is the parliament able to propose legislature (either by advocating in the senate or by pushing up to the senate)? Or do they only determine / vote on what becomes law?

The national assembly (our House) is usually the one with the last say.

Bills are either "law proposals", meaning they are introduced by parliament members, or "law project", introduced by the government.

Re: France legalizes remote camera and microphone activation in smartphones

#44

Post by kwyjibo_hunter »

donkeyd wrote: post #30
gonzo41 wrote: post #6

All that will happen is criminals will just get good at opsec. This is downward selective pressure. Nature will respond.

No, they won't. Also, define criminals. Plenty of crimes are done by people who are not professional criminals who spend money and time on opsec.

We’re talking classic bandits that wear eye masks and striped shirts. REAL professionals who’ll stuff all their treasures into a big burlap sack with a dollar sign on it.

Re: France legalizes remote camera and microphone activation in smartphones

#45

Post by donkeyd »

krzys wrote: post #24
y-curious wrote: post #12

There's a reason criminal rings buy crime-suited phones. Buying a cheapo android with the camera removed/disconnected is going to increase in Europe. Once again, I doubt this security measure will make anyone truly safer.

Those privacy-breaching bills are for the safety of the government, not citizens.

Having worked in law enforcement, seeing sentiment like this is just so depressing. On one side it's people saying things like this, while on the other side a large part is complaining about law enforcement not doing enough to combat cyber crime. These things go hand in hand.

If criminals can have limitless access to new technologies, but LE gets no new ways of finding criminals using new technologies, we might as well stop with LE all together. Just let criminals do whatever they want without anyone trying to stop them. That's going to be awesome!

Edit: The down votes were expected, but next to clicking that button I'd love an actual response of how people think things will turn out of criminals get the power of technology and LE gets nothing.

Re: France legalizes remote camera and microphone activation in smartphones

#47

Post by stef25 »

gonzo41 wrote: post #6

All that will happen is criminals will just get good at opsec. This is downward selective pressure. Nature will respond.

They're not that smart. There's been several cases of "secure phone systems" getting breached by the govt who then got access the entire underworld's communications.

Why don't they just use Telegram / Whatsapp / Signal? Sure maybe the NSA can get in but afaik they don't bother with mid scale European cocaine importers.

Re: France legalizes remote camera and microphone activation in smartphones

#48

Post by activiation »

Strongbad536 wrote: post #2

Do current smart phones support this? I can't imagine Apple being too keen on allowing this sort of thing. No idea about Android

Apple and Google can do remote updates to your device, so they could be forced to implement it if it's not already possible

Re: France legalizes remote camera and microphone activation in smartphones

#49

Post by donkeyd »

EduardoBautista wrote: post #39
donkeyd wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you heard of hacking? Most police forces have offensive hacking teams by now, it's not much of a secret. Also there are some quite famous tools that aid in this.

The camera and microphone of a modern smartphone are not trivial to hack. I highly doubt a local government would have the resources to even consider having such teams.

There's a Dutch TV show that regularly catches African fraudsters by literally using their camera's to take pictures of the fraudsters. Sure, they trick them into installing an app, but that's something LE can do as well.

Also, there are tools like Pegasus that pretty much do all the heavy lifting in hacking.

Re: France legalizes remote camera and microphone activation in smartphones

#50

Post by concinds »

xen2xen1 wrote: post #23
unsupp0rted wrote: post #9

> "[...] which would be reserved for cases of terrorism, delinquency and organized crime." Because of course it will

Delinquency? As in schoolchildren? Or is that a translation thing?

I checked a translation dictonary. Apparently it means crimes in general. I found a French government website that defines it as all crimes[0]. In their annual crime statistics they use it to refer to violence, thefts, robberies, property damage, scams, and drug use[1].

[0]: https://www.cipdr.gouv.fr/prevenir-la-delinquance/

[1]: https://www.interieur.gouv.fr/actualites/communiques/insecur...

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