this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 92 points 1 year ago

That's a good reason to riot.

[–] [email protected] 82 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Now those same people are saying it's no big deal that Donnie kept all the no-no papers.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Mostly boomers who don't understand tech

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Not public, propaganda. The public result was confusion and ultimately apathy.

[–] [email protected] 78 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Guess degoogled phones with custom OSes will soon be illegal then?

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago

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?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Modern hardware is likely exploitable by state actors via firmware/hardware vulnerabilities that can't be mitigated at a software level.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 77 points 1 year ago (4 children)

How is this even feasible on Android or iPhones? Are they going to force everyone to download Team Viewer or something?

[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Usually with Pegasus. And yes it works. Don't ask about it.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

[https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/18/what-is-pegasus-spyware-and-how-does-it-hack-phones](Well crap. We’re fucked then?)

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Well crap, we're fucked then?

Title then link

We are just as fucked as we’ve always been. Hackers use zero-day vulnerabilities. Can’t do too much about that. Any device is hackable. That became clear after Snowden, and the USA hacking irans centrifuge.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The US hacking Iran's centrifuges would have been preventable though with careful device management as far as I understand. The worm they used, Stuxnet, didn't come from nowhere. It either came from a USB that hadn't been properly sanitized or their systems were connected to an external, unprotected network when they definitely should have been isolated. That's a preventable virus and unrelated to conversations about backdoors being built into technology for governments to access.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (4 children)

How do you get Pegasus onto LineageOS or GrapheneOS? Especially on hardware with modem isolation?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

Linux and similar Systems are harder to hack but not impossible, i cant tell more, cause i don't know more.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (4 children)

From the Guardian article somebody else linked:

One of the most significant challenges that Pegasus presents to journalists and human rights defenders is the fact that the software exploits undiscovered vulnerabilities, meaning even the most security-conscious mobile phone user cannot prevent an attack.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wonder if Google, Apple, or SoC makera are asked or secretly mandated to leave certain backdoors in. I know mobile providers have quite a bit they can see on their end.

It's a good thing we're always presented with two choices for everything, like mobile OS's, to control our choices like we're toddlers.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

They don't really need to, the company making Pegasus is very very skilled, they however get paid for that as well, its absolutely not worth it for a normal person usually.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What are you going to do about it?

The very least people can do is talk about it and acknowledge it's bad.

Acceptance and normalization support the other side.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

My generation has talked it to death. It's pretty agreed upon that we're being fucked and have very little power to stop it. Eventually you don't have time to rehash all the heinous shit that happens because you realize there's a constant deluge of it. Has nothing to do with "supporting the other side" lol. If reality has got you feeling insane, well, you're on the right track.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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 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?

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The whole world is going to shit

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

This has been my view for quite a while.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There is so much news like this coming from France lately. What is going on over there?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The oppression will continue ~~until revolt stops!~~

There. Fixed it for you.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (2 children)

France, yall okay with this?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago

I'd say this is worth another riot.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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".

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This article doesn't link to a single primary source.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean how are they really going to stop FOSS? They'll ban linux and then nobody can use the internet.

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