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France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone

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Re: France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone

#151

Post by AnimalMuppet »

hackandthink wrote: post #118

Civil rights are a favor that can be revoked at any time. Ultimately, there are too few who stand up for them. Today I read an article by Bernard-Henri Lévy, a liberal intellectual. He downplays police violence, order must be restored, how is not so important.

That doesn't sound very liberal. ("Liberal" meaning "in favor of freedom for people".) It doesn't even sound very politically liberal, meaning "in favor of peoples' right to protest injustice" and "in favor of peoples' right to not be shot dead by police".

Isn't "order" the concern of the conservatives?

I've heard a number of times that politically left and right mean different things in Europe; is this one of those situations?

Re: France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone

#152

Post by realusername »

cm2187 wrote: post #105

I am confused. Are they mandating a backdoor, or is there already a backdoor, or are they allowing the police to exploit zero days? If it is the latter, it is sad that the authorities assume weak security as a given.

They don't have any backdoor and they don't mandate ones. This is meant for using zero days legally

Re: France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone

#153

Post by stavros »

mdp2021 wrote: post #84
somerandomqaguy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The bill allows the geolocation of crime suspects, covering other devices like laptops, cars and connected devices, just as it could be remotely activated to record sound and images of people suspected of terror offences, as well as delinquency and organised crime. Not just phones looks like.

> cars For the very strange who accept driving the new "smartphones with wheels". Including, note, the cars with the embedded telephone as mandated by the european union past 2018 - the e-call systems. Some articles went "there could be privacy issues, but it is a remote eventuality": now you see that someone could push as normal an eavesdropper in your car.

"A remote eventuality" my ass, I bet that's the primary reason behind the push.

Re: France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone

#155

Post by tbrock »

freedomben wrote: post #131
cm2187 wrote: post #105

I am confused. Are they mandating a backdoor, or is there already a backdoor, or are they allowing the police to exploit zero days? If it is the latter, it is sad that the authorities assume weak security as a given.

Governments regularly have a steady flow of zero days to use, but once it's used it's "burned" so it's not something they throw around willy nilly. I would guess they are going to force manufacturers to play ball, and I would gues that the manufacturers will.

Or the manufacturers will just not sell their phones in France. Ultimately it’s the French citizens that will miss out.

Re: France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone

#156

Post by jkestner »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #41
andy_ppp wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience with the police has been universally terrible. They think they are above the law and trusting them to do the right thing or “tell the truth and you’ll be fine” is extremely bad advice. Get a lawyer and be very careful around these people is my more nuanced take on them. Edit: I commented before you made your answer more nuanced so I’ve changed mine too.

> You probably don’t have much experience with the police, would be my guess It's a bad guess. EDIT: Police in America have a "thin blue line" problem of reflexively defending peers' mistakes. Their cultures look disturbingly similar to gangs, though I don't think that's intentional--they're better described as fraternities with guns. (Which also describes gangs. Convergence.) That said, new recruits aren't corrupt.…

> And most cops are trying to do the right thing.

Citation needed.

The slogan may be counterproductive to achieving its stated aim, but it's also opening the ol' Overton window to a range of possibilities beyond the usual vague but well-funded "reform". If that's what it takes to get a marketplace of ideas, I'd say it's productive.

Re: France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone

#158

Post by [deleted] »

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #136
msoad wrote: post #12

[flagged]

I've always hated the phrase 'ACAB', and I say this as someone whose username is Emma Goldman. It's the institution, and its functional role in society, that's the structural problem. There are many well-intentioned, conscientious individuals in the police force. It is somewhat similar to the question of the attribution of moral blame for unjust wars. It is almost universally recognized that unjust wars are the fault…

[deleted]

Re: France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone

#159

Post by dunham »

dathinab wrote: post #76
sixhobbits wrote: post #3

what tech does this even use? Do they mean using Pegasus or similar malware that the govt has to first get onto the suspect's devices, or is this via Google/Apple or the device manufacturers that makes 'remotely and secretly activating a microphone' even possible?

This bill AFIK only covers the "they are allowed to do it" part but not the "how do they gain the capability to do it" part. But spyware which can do so exists in endless amounts, including from companies focused on selling it to governments. Hence also why in recent years physical microphone switches, or e.g. stuff like (I think it was) Apple laptops "physically" disconnecting the microphone/camera if you close the…

Also, I recall that the green light on the apple camera is controlled by the camera's firmware, making it more difficult to turn on without the light come on. (You'd need to overwrite the camera firmware.)

Re: France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone

#160

Post by realusername »

karaterobot wrote: post #11

> But lawmakers agreed to the bill late Wednesday as Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti insisted the bill would affect only “dozens of cases a year.” Technically he is not lying or naive, because any number, including large numbers like 66 million, can be expressed in units of dozens.

I doubt he's lying, those zero days exploits are very expensive and it's not like you want to burn them for investigating some small theft
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