1y ago

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

gazettengr.com France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone, spy on people

A bill that would allow police in France to spy on suspects by remotely activating cameras, microphone including GPS of their phones has been passed.

114 comments

That's a good reason to riot.

The US federal government has been doing this since the 00's. Snowden exposed them and the public responded with hatred towards Snowden. Unfortunately the average citizen just doesn't seem to care.
- I don’t think the majority of people KNOW what Snowden was even trying to tell them. I remember when this came out and the news media was clutching their pearls over the act of leaking information rather than discussing the contents. I’m still learning about what was contained in those leaks to this day. It is so heavily propagandized that we need a new word for it.
  
  Now those same people are saying it's no big deal that Donnie kept all the no-no papers.
  
  Snowden Ten Years Later - by Bruce Schneier
- Mostly boomers who don't understand tech
  
  That’s an erroneous understanding of our era. The younger generations are gods at liking and commenting on social networks, but they just don’t care about privacy. They flock like birds to litteral spyware just for a quick meme fix.
  Not everything you think is wrong has to do exclusively with boomers.
- Not public, propaganda. The public result was confusion and ultimately apathy.

Guess degoogled phones with custom OSes will soon be illegal then?
- Linux and encrypted messengers too lol
  If you don't share dick pic you sent to your partner with the spooks... You go to the gulag labour camp until you redeem yourself.
- Modern hardware is likely exploitable by state actors via firmware/hardware vulnerabilities that can't be mitigated at a software level.
  
  Ya just look at the Intel management engine. Or the AMD platform security processor. Lot of spooky shit like secret op-codes.
  We need more open source HW.
- Wasn't a guy convicted on france not long ago and the deciding factor the judge used was because he used linux? WTF is going on there?

How is this even feasible on Android or iPhones? Are they going to force everyone to download Team Viewer or something?
- Everyone causally saying the government can just do it with Pegasus is ignoring the fact that Pegasus itself is an exploit. It is a hack, to breach your personal device. If I used the same methods to get into a bank’s systems it would be a violation of the law. Same if I created this software and gave it to you for the same purpose. Ask yourselves why it would be permissible to sell this software then commercially? And, why is it permissible for the government to use it to hack your own devices. Let’s not just brush over this discussion like it’s nothing.
  
  Nobody ignores the fact that government is doing something illegal when the conversation about their rampant spying happens. You may just be late to the party. We all know it's illegal, unethical, and immoral. It basically comes down to this:
  What are you going to do about it?
  We're living in objectively dystopian times. Our government does illegal shit literally all the time and gets away with it.
- While this news article is, apparently, not trustworthy, in general, France could demand every phone sold in the country include some kind of spyware. Many sellers already add a lot of programs by default anyway, so this would be how I image it might be implemented.
  Given that a 7 people were recently arrested for using privacy respecting tools like the Signal messenger and Protonmail, removing that bloatware/spyware might then be cause enough to arrest you. After all, only terrorists want to have privacy, right?
- Oh my sweet summer child

At least they have the decency to tell you they are doing it.
In the US it took Snowden to leak this to the public that the government has been doing it for ages behind their backs.

The whole world is going to shit
- This has been my view for quite a while.

The oppression will continue until revolt stops!
Things didn’t go very well for Ceaușescu, so I’m sure Macron won’t repeat any of the same screwups.
- The oppression will continue ~~until revolt stops!~~
  There. Fixed it for you.
  
  The revolt will continue.
  Here is the correct version.

There is so much news like this coming from France lately. What is going on over there?
- Huge wealth gap. Poor people are treated like shit. They're are hungry and angry. Historically, the French are quick to protest and the rich are doing what they can to stop it. I believe we're getting a glimpse of what is going to happen all over the world soon.
  
  Oh yeah, the infamous starving masses of France…
  LOL!
- Likely an overreaction to the current protests / social unrest / whatever you want to call it

France, yall okay with this?
- I'd say this is worth another riot.
- I can't even reconize my country values for the past few months and yet it's only the beginning for the current government, we still have 4 years to go with Macron. Who knows what ideas they hold for the future.
  
  Preach. The shitshow is only getting started.

A Google search for "France phone camera" only gives this posted link and dailymail.co.uk article, both of which are not really trustworthy sources, IMO.
So I'm gonna go with "this is very possibly fake news".
- Not fake. Just not really talked about in English, but it was mentioned in most French newspapers.
  https://www.leparisien.fr/high-tech/loi-justice-lactivation-des-telephones-a-distance-approuvee-par-lassemblee-nationale-05-07-2023-SY5B2JW7H5FYRAD2RVMNZ3KMSQ.php
  https://www.la-croix.com/France/Justice-feu-vert-lAssemblee-lactivation-distance-telephones-mouchards-2023-07-05-1201274354
- https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/07/06/france-set-to-allow-police-to-spy-through-phones60442697.html
  
  And sensitive professions including doctors, journalists, lawyers, judges and MPs would not be legitimate targets.
  Rules for thee and not for me, unsurprisingly.
- You got a lot of faith in google search engine chief ...
  Any specific reason for this?

This article doesn't link to a single primary source.
- https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/07/06/france-set-to-allow-police-to-spy-through-phones60442697.html

"Liberal left" - suuuuure
- Macron isn't left wing, even by international standards. He was an investment banker at Rothschild. La Republique En Marche is a centre or centre right party.

Nice society we live in. All those sci fi movies was just giving ideas for the people who wants everyone to be under their boot.
- We're heading towards cyberpunk without the cool implants lmao

I mean how are they really going to stop FOSS? They'll ban linux and then nobody can use the internet.
- They don’t care about us. We sometimes forget we techies are a tiny fraction of the people they want under their boot.
  If they can’t hack you they’ll get you other ways, if they want you.
  Take solace that people in France and the USA aren’t falling out of windows every other day. Yet.

The road to fascist hell is paved with liberal good intentions

Deploy the 3300s. Excellent brick for throwing too

So if you dont use free software and live in France, bye bye any and all digital privacy?
- that will calm the protests for sure 🤣
  what is he doing? he's just making it worse smh

at least they're honest about it
i'd imagine they have the same ability here in the states they're just gonna advertise the fact
- Patriot act + 2008 FISA Amendments Act.
  See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
  It's not exactly a secret anymore, it's just that no one seems to care.
  
  nearly half of computer-related engineers/developers/technicians/analyst who refuse to believe that this and other similar programs that snowden revealed on purely ideological grounds is a huge source of fuel for my misanthropy; the fact that they tend to be the most successful and/or well paid in my field (software development) is a several fold bigger source.
  we're so fucked
  
  Media and normie stream are cool with it since they got nothing to hide.
  Rest of us just pretend that using encrypted messengers do something which they do against bulk data collection but once they want your shit, they just compromise you device. So it is really more of a political statement at this point rather than real tool.
  
  from what i understand, this gives the power to monitor communications like emails / text messages. which in my opinion is fundamentally different from turning on your camera or microphone.
  having said that, I haven't read into this in depth so perhaps that was outlined previously

Ok what the fuck? New protests this weekend I guess?

Better to not bring your phone during protests anyways.
- There is something to be said for bringing your phone to protests so you can livestream them to the world when the authorities use heavy-handed, violent tactics to stop them.
  
  In all honesty, it would probably be best to have a dedicated device for that situation as well so that if they choose to search it then all they will get is the footage from the event.
  Edut: Didn't scroll down to see you suggested the same thing!
  
  While I agree that filming is important, it’s also important to remember that between the J6ers being dumb fucksticks and their social media site being absolute dogshit, a lot of them were caught because EXIF data wasn’t scrubbed. Having one’s phone with you could end up being the thing that gets you prosecuted.
- I would suggest getting one of those faraday bags that block the signals to/from the phone. Then, if you really need it, you can still use it.
  
  If you get arrested during a protest, they can force you to unlock the phone (it can be a felony to refuse) , so better not to bring it at all.
- Time to dig up the old digital camera!!

France deserve as much shit as Hungary and Poland get within the EU tbh

114 comments