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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

#171

Post by gumballindie »

estebank wrote: post #148
gumballindie wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How far the mighty have fallen. Not just France, continental Western Europe is gradually becoming more authoritarian and corrupt.

Looking at European history, I don't think that we can claim that the continent is today more authoritatian than it has been in the past.

Long term that is correct, but compared to a few years back it is. Snooping on people's phone conversations is a thing of the STASI, Securitate and NKVD era. Having everything you do monitored by the government through casual on street surveillance, and then introducing that to phones is not particularly flattering.

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

#172

Post by whywhywhywhy »

tbrock wrote: post #155
freedomben wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Manufacturers already throw their principles out of the window to sell in China, Russia and UAE so I don't think they'll have a problem selling in France after this either.

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

#173

Post by rekoil »

Ycdr4thfdd wrote: post #169
jb1991 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what is "our" government? this site is worldwide..

Y Combinator is an American company and the website is hosted in the US.

Personally I think that "X is an American site" is over-used and doesn't actually make all that much sense when applied to things that cover general world-spanning issues.

But that's my opinion.

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

#176

Post by drannex »

jb1991 wrote: post #162
Awelton wrote: post #126

They could at least have the decency to just secretly do it and then pretend like they aren't, like our government does. This is why physical switches and removable batteries are the only way forward.

what is "our" government? this site is worldwide..

Fairly certain you can apply this to nearly any government.

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

#177

Post by taoufix »

taoufix wrote: post #166

Don't forget the call to block social media sites during riots by the Frnace's president [1] [0]: https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230705-macron-s-call-to...

Submitted this story [1] earlier but didn't get traction.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36615378

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

#178

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jkestner wrote: post #156
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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.

Slogans like #ACAB and "defund the police" shut down debate on reform. They're most successful at consolidating the pro-police position with moderates by presenting the entire police-reform spectrum as anti-cop radicals.

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

#179

Post by ragnese »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #157
throwaway1777 wrote: post #140

Is it time to flat out abandon smartphones?

A dumb phone might not be much better. There wouldn't be a camera for them to get, but they might still be able to get the microphone.

Maybe fewer avenues for them to activate the microphone, though.

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

#180

Post by donatj »

United States, couple years ago my friend in his mid-thirties was feeling depressed after his mom died. Came over to hang out, and wasn’t responding to his sisters calls.

His sister called in a welfare check on him and suddenly I have three cops knocking at my front door. They ask for him by name, say he isn’t in trouble. I go get him; he asks “how did you know where I was?” and the cops say “we pinged your phone”. What that entails exactly I have no clue.

Later I pulled up the video of them arriving on my cameras, they didn’t approach any of my neighbors houses first. It was just right to my front door like they knew exactly where he was. Kinda spooky.

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