Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

gazettengr.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 465 posts

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

#241

Post by npteljes »

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.

I like this idea, very human. Social engineering basically. And at the end, they are not required to tell you their method.

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

#242

Post by rtkwe »

logifail wrote: post #231
xnzakg wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's implying that it is actually off and not just pretending to be off, and that it requires a command to start recording instead of just constantly recording and only uploading when commanded to

If we're assuming a well-funded and motivated attacker, surely any device is fair game for being modified to record you even when it's apparently off? Of course this applies whether it appears to have a removable "battery" or not.

Far enough down the threat model rabbit hole the real solution is just ditch the phone if you're doing anything mildly antigovernment. That at least forces them to do a bit more work to spy on you.

That's always one of the big issues in opsec/security discussions, we can always imagine a more motivated or well funded attacker but the likelihood of those being deployed against you change with the difficulty of implementing those methods.

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

#243

Post by drexlspivey »

paxys wrote: post #204
neoromantique wrote: post #196

Earlier 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.

But they said themselves that they pinged his phone.

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

#244

Post by KennyBlanken »

orangepurple wrote: post #6
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?

Looks like any app can be installed silently behind your back with GTalkService that is running on your Android phone https://github.com/CellularPrivacy/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Dete... https://jon.oberheide.org/blog/2010/06/28/a-peek-inside-the-... --------------------- Google Play Services spyware discussion https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/guide-insanely-better-bat... https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/app-disable-s…

It's insecure by design because the NSA has for decades purposefully degraded the security of everything they can get their hands on to make it easier for them and law enforcement to spy on.

They don't want you listening in on John Q. Senator's phone calls, but they sure do...

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

#245

Post by Ialdaboth »

djfm wrote: post #164
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.

they have no doubt been doing it, they're just using the panic of a brainwashed population thinking they're on the brink of Islamic revolution to normalize it

At this point, they don't even need to brainwash anybody - they will just 49/3'd the law and say "xxxx it" to the parliament.

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

#246

Post by Kirby64 »

neoromantique wrote: post #196
paxys wrote: post #193

Earlier 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 much more likely that his sister knew the friend, and suggested he might be there? Or there was some relation to the friend to know the exact address. Unless he lived at a single-family house, it's unlikely a phone's GPS would be exact enough.

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

#247

Post by hackandthink »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #151
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…

Wikipedia is not very helpful. Try this one:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/04/09/bernard-henri-levy-bhl-...

I liked Lévy's insistence on human rights but he became an ideological crusader.

And though he is as bourgois as possible he advocated in his article for social reforms (but no talking about police reforms).

(and by the way: his Sartre book is great)

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

#248

Post by pessimizer »

hinata08 wrote: post #34

I 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 have been reducing the force for 15 years (especially the forces that investigated financial and workplace crimes)

They will eventually just be heavily armored SWAT teams that just go to whatever house the AI flagged and arrest everybody.

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

#249

Post by paxys »

drexlspivey wrote: post #243
paxys wrote: post #204

Earlier 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.

But they said themselves that they pinged his phone.

They may have done both. Or they may be lying. In most cases it's best to assume that the police won't give you any info unless they are compelled to do so (and sometimes not even then).

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

#250

Post by ubermonkey »

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…

Triangulation by cell tower is really, really accurate.
Post reply on HN