I mean, I see “leaked” videos of protests in authoritarian countries like China and just wonder why they dont just like make a backdoor that disables videos from being recorded. Or use some sort of 0-day exploit that installs malware on their phones and disable cameras.
I mean, I can’t be the only one that thought of it, right? Surely someone in the government would’ve thought of it.
Wonder why such tactic isn’t being used.
I mean you’re kinda getting into “Stallman was right” territory here. Obviously computers (including smartphones) should not be disabling any functionality without the owner’s consent, but we do not live in a free software utopia.
How would that backdoor be activated? If over the Internet, it can be trivially avoided by not connecting the phone to the Internet.
And in the end someone is going to bring a standalone camera that can’t even be connected to the Internet.
See, phones could be preloaded with a malware that make it so that it doesn’t actually turn off radios (like wifi bluetooth or celluar) when you change the settings, and only stops transmitting and goes to passive listening only. Once they detect a certain signal, like when police activates it in a protest, the phone then activates and disables recording, and maybe also disable trasmission of data.
I mean this is just hypothetical. I don’t know if they are doing this, or if they can. But like when you think about it, its quite possible.
There are already reports of malware that fakes a shut down animation and silently records in the background, and execute remote commands.
Fair point, but it still wouldn’t stop standalone compact or interchangeable lens cameras or camcorders, those don’t even have a cell modem built in. Most people don’t carry one of these around, so it would reduce the number of cameras, but not to zero. People carrying cameras around wherever they go is a recent phenomenon anyway, it would take us back to around 2000.