In France, a law allowing law enforcement agencies to remotely access and activate cameras, microphones and the location of telephones and other connected objects (TVs, alarms, etc.) has been passed and validated.
Officially, this will only concern people facing more than 6 months’ imprisonment to gather evidence, but in reality, we’re no fools and we know there will be abuses.
My question is, how can this be implemented technically, by exploiting security loopholes, with the complicity of companies or even with Pegasus-type software, a bit of everything in fact?
Then, above all, how can we protect ourselves from this mass surveillance, and how should we behave?
There’s definitely precedent for governments hacking into devices, particularly less secure devices like smart TVs, for surveillance. Your best bet is going to be to minimize the amount of internet-connected devices you own i.e. smart TVs, IOT devices, etc and choose the devices you do have very carefully. If you even decide to take your phone around with you, you might keep airplane mode on and disable bluetooth and wifi unless you’re currently using them. And of course, keep everything up-to-date. Also, turn things fully off when you’re not using them.
I wouldn’t trust those mic blockers. There’s nothing really forcing the microphone to not work, it’s just tricking your phone into thinking you have an external mic connected.
I wonder how effective the microphone/camera stuff would be against a modern pixel with GrapheneOS or iPhone. I really think there is only really room to exploit pretty old crappy devices.
I imagine the tracking would somehow be through ELS. In any case none of it will be effective if you have something like this.
Librems are overpriced and don’t come without hardware overheating issues and many, many others. The biggest issue is that charging can completely fail. It also has issues with flashing (as in image, not light).
