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.
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.
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.
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
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
The NSA has a ‘product’ catalog called ANT:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANT_catalog
One example is DROPOUTJEEP, which allows near complete control over iphones, including their camera’s.
France isn’t part of FIve Eyes, but do have a secret deal with the US anyway:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lustre_(treaty)
(This is all decade old Snowden stuff, so I suspect their capabilities have expanded since then).
This being said, I assume much of what they do isn’t exactly legal, so who knows. Given some of these treaties are secret, maybe they also have secret laws.
