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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[–] cygnus_velum@lemmy.world 5 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?

[–] phoneymouse@lemmy.world 4 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.

[–] _wintermute@lemmy.world 4 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.

[–] Spzi@lemm.ee 4 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.

[–] _wintermute@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 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.

[–] wtfeweguys@lemmy.whynotdrs.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We have everything we need to stop it, we’re just spun and poorly organized (by design).

[–] _wintermute@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tangential quote: We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. -JFK

The fact that things are the way they are by design makes it harder for us to overcome them, but it should also make it abundantly clear it’s on us to do so.

I empathize with the feeling of powerlessness. And I encourage reaching past that from time to time to see where action is already taking place that only requires the slightest nudge from you to boost. Many hands make light work when those hands are pushing/pulling in the same direction.

[–] CookieJarObserver@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

[–] IAccidentallyCame@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 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.

[–] CookieJarObserver@feddit.de 2 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.

[–] eleitl@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Mobile operators have baseband which is why we have modem isolation. And some of us can see quite a bit on our end, too.

[–] eleitl@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

[–] CookieJarObserver@feddit.de 1 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.

[–] Pili@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 year ago (2 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.

[–] eleitl@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This isn't even wrong. What is the attack vector? They send a magic message that 0wns Signal, and then cleans up? At scale? With nobody noticing? This doesn't happen.

[–] randombit@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago

A few comments, they don’t need to have a Signal vulnerability, just an OS vulnerability since that would allow access to decrypted Signal messages. In the past, there have been zero click SMS and iMessage vulnerabilities. There have also been web vulnerabilities.

The attacks are not sent at scale to avoid detection. They are used on specific dissidents and journalists.

[–] dontblink@feddit.it -1 points 1 year ago

TIme to find out what the vulnerabilieties are and EXPOSE them in a OPEN repository.

[–] Spiracle@kbin.social 2 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?

[–] null_@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Oh my sweet summer child