Privacy and anonymity is an illusion...
France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone
201–210 of 465 posts
Re: France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
Despite all the technology in the world the majority of police work is still plain old-fashioned knocking on doors and making phone calls. People will always voluntarily give up all the information in the world to be seen as good citizens. In your friend's case I'm willing to bet that they asked the sister for the names of his close friends and acquaintances and yours matched up.
or they just triangulated using his cell phone, it can be very accurate in urban settings
Seems like much more work. Based on the stories I've seen about these operations to track down phones over the years, it's a little more complicated
Re: France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
A Pixel phone probably gives you the best chance of resisting this sort of attack. The most vulnerable phones are the older, cheaper phones that run outdated versions of Android. Pixel phones are generally the first to get security updates, and so the quickest to get patches when spyware companies start using new bugs.
Wouldn't a Pixel phone be vulnerable to USA giving Google a 'national security letter' saying to make your phone remotely accessible with a personalised update, say? Google seem like they could - and if paid, would - readily do that whilst other companies could hide behind lack of resources or whatever. I just assumed that USA three letter agencies paid larger companies upfront to implement back doors; seems to fit w…
Google could likely refuse this on the basis that rolling a personalized update for a single user would be an undue burden on them.
The particulars and thus validity would be for a court to hash out.
Re: France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
Despite all the technology in the world the majority of police work is still plain old-fashioned knocking on doors and making phone calls. People will always voluntarily give up all the information in the world to be seen as good citizens. In your friend's case I'm willing to bet that they asked the sister for the names of his close friends and acquaintances and yours matched up.
or they just triangulated using his cell phone, it can be very accurate in urban settings
Police need a warrant to get location data from your cell phone provider. No department is bothering with that for a welfare check unless the situation is really dire, and the process still takes a while to carry out. "Where do you think your brother is?" "Oh probably at XYZ's place" is a much more straightforward and common process.
Re: France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
>ACAB I think my biggest pet peeve with this line of thinking is that it's not a reform slogan and it's not productive. If someone actually thinks that, then where do you go from there.
> If someone actually thinks that, then where do you go from there. People who believe in ACAB for the most part do not believe the current system can be reformed and are police abolitionists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_abolition_movement
I don't think that's true at all, most people I've come across use it in an off-handed way to express solidarity with victims of police violence, or their general distaste for racialised and/or militarised policing. Full-fledged abolitionism is rare.
Re: France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
or they just triangulated using his cell phone, it can be very accurate in urban settings
Police need a warrant to get location data from your cell phone provider. No department is bothering with that for a welfare check unless the situation is really dire, and the process still takes a while to carry out. "Where do you think your brother is?" "Oh probably at XYZ's place" is a much more straightforward and common process.
I don't know the processes in US, but in Europe I saw this in action first hand done in minutes, so I don't know.
edit: Over a stolen phone, no less, not even a person being in danger.
Re: France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone
#207I regret getting a pixel, and not a fairphone with a removable battery With the current level of oversight on the police (police of police is a meme by now), and the level of cybersecurity at the government, everyone's phones will be activated within a few months. At least some government agent will have fun watching what ppl visit on the internet during their spare time, and can enable the camera to watch what they'…
They're already allowed to shoot you if you don't stop your car, all in the name fo fighting terrorism , so I'm not surprised they can snnop at your camera and microphone. I'm quite sure this is linked to the recent protests. Je suis Charlie > je suis la gendarmerie > l'etat, c'est moi. Back to 1655 in three easy steps.
and ban 'noisy devices' at protests in the name of fighting terrorism, as well as categorizing a kitchen pan in that category.
Re: France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Sometimes, Stavros, it is a painful choice to decide in assessment between malice and the various shades of stupidity - the perspective of the latter can be a tad more difficult to digest.
But the last time I read reported unhandable blabbering devoid of awareness and mental competence, attributed to a "minister of the republic", was just minutes ago. When you hear utterings like "it will save lives" - completely alien to conscience of quality of life, good reason, cleanness and propriety, rejection of absurdity, collaterals etc. - I am afraid they may actually "believe" that (or, better, just "sit on that", "hold on that", "cling to that" in some internal economy).
Re: France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
Police need a warrant to get location data from your cell phone provider. No department is bothering with that for a welfare check unless the situation is really dire, and the process still takes a while to carry out. "Where do you think your brother is?" "Oh probably at XYZ's place" is a much more straightforward and common process.
I don't know the processes in US, but in Europe I saw this in action first hand done in minutes, so I don't know. edit: Over a stolen phone, no less, not even a person being in danger.
In the US the process is you go to the police to report a stolen phone and they say "tough luck, hope you had insurance".
Re: France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone
#210Can we get the European Union to mandate physical toggles and shutters for mic and camera, now that they're also pushing for user-replaceable batteries?
Are you talking about the European Union that wants to permanently dismantle end to end encryption and full access to any and all texts sent between any number parties?
Exactly. Don't count on the next-gen mega-state to have a long-term positive effect on your life.