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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

#221

Post by estebank »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #190
px43 wrote: post #113

Earlier 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 The most vulnerable phones are the older, cheaper phones that run outdated versions of Android.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.

Nexus/Pixel devices literally come out of the box with Verizon background crapware installed that you cannot disable or remove even if you're not a Verizon customer. Google long sold out, friend.

That hasn't been the case for any of the Nexus or Pixel devices I bought straight from Google.

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

#222

Post by flanbiscuit »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #190
px43 wrote: post #113

Earlier 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 The most vulnerable phones are the older, cheaper phones that run outdated versions of Android.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.

Nexus/Pixel devices literally come out of the box with Verizon background crapware installed that you cannot disable or remove even if you're not a Verizon customer. Google long sold out, friend.

I use T-Mobile and I bought my Pixel 5a directly through Google at an official in-person Google store. Does my phone have this Verizon bloatware? What apps should I be looking for?

I googled it and I'm only seeing people complain about this Verizon bloatware from people who bought it through Verizon.

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

#223

Post by ibejoeb »

Loughla wrote: post #200
ibejoeb wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We think they lied to the judges. Or maybe there are no judges, because the entire thing is a secret system, so we can't know who the judges are or how they've ruled on the matters brought before them. All we know is that it is only used against foreign adversaries, except in the cases when it's used on Americans.

Of all of the issues in the US, I genuinely believe FISA and FISC are the largest issues today. There can be no secret courts in a real democracy (or republic or whatever else you want to call it). The government can't be by, for, and of the people if they have a recourse to lock away people that can't have the sun shine on it. It astounds me that this is just accepted as a practice in the US. Or am I being naive?

You're not being naive. It happened in a flash, without a referendum, and nobody asked for it. It's not that we accepted it; it's that there's nothing we can do about it.

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

#225

Post by internetter »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #109
dheera wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the camera your best bet is to just put a physical cover. There are a lot of sliding adhesive ones you can buy online that are convenient. I stick them on laptops as well, especially work-issued laptops. For the microphone ... ideally build and install LineageOS yourself on an Android device. Don't trust iOS or Google's official Android builds, they have closed source software that may have France-specific backdo…

Or CalyxOS. calyxos.org

Firmware and stuff even lower level still is unchanged right?

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

#226

Post by pbhjpbhj »

dathinab wrote: post #120
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.

Linguistically dozens of cases is vague less then 200 and definitively less then 1000, because then it would be hundreds of cases. Through there is no legal requirement for the statement to be true in any form or way. Even if they would have explicitly said less then 50 cases, it's not a constraint in the law, so it's meaningless. Through see my other comment for why even if that statement is fully true in a linguist…

>"[Though] there is no legal requirement for the statement to be true [...]"

This is a major flaw in Western democracies. A person acting for the government, making a statement that the public would see as official, should be bound by law to tell the truth; or at least not lie nor commit deception.

People like UK ex-PM Johnson are effectively committing treasonous fraud, by lying to the public, and getting off scot-free.

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

#227

Post by dghlsakjg »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #198
dathinab wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

iSight cameras had an LED that was supposedly unbypassable. Turns out that was bullshit and it was trivial to rewrite the iSight module's firmware.

Could you reflash it without access to the device?

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

#229

Post by PawgerZ »

skyyler wrote: post #189
rekoil wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

no one implied that, stop being silly

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

What else would this imply?

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

#230

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

paxys wrote: post #193
donatj wrote: post #180

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”. W…

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.

No. They can locate anyone's phone on demand. The services that do this can generate a likely street address from GPS or tower triangulated location.

This is how many criminals now get caught while on the run. It isn't magic police work but rather the personal tracking device everyone carries. Likewise some spree killers have been tracked down by geofencing phones known to be around all crime scenes and zeroing in on the one that shows up at all/most of them.

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