Eyes on you: Experts Reveal Police Hacking Methods

KWWL ^ | Jun 25, 2014 | Raphael Satter

[nickcarraway]

Law enforcement agencies across the globe are taking a page out of the hacker's handbook, using targets' own phones and computers to spy on them with methods traditionally associated with cybercriminals, two computer security groups said Tuesday.

Drawing on a cache of leaked documents and months of forensic work, two reports about the private Italian firm Hacking Team expose a global network of malicious software implants operated by police and spy agencies in dozens of countries.

"This in many ways is the police surveillance of the now and the future," said Morgan Marquis-Boire, a security researcher with Citizen Lab and a lead author of one of the reports. "What we need to actually decide how we're comfortable with it being used and under what circumstances."

[gaijin]

Right, they’re just hacking the hackers.

Uh-huh.

[OneWingedShark]

CWII Spark — There’s something wrong when those tasked with upholding the law are indistinguishable from those condemned for breaking it.

[jsanders2001]

Triggerfish anyone?

[LevinFan]

“Right, they’re just hacking the hackers.

Uh-huh.”

Even if they were telling the truth, like everything else mission creep will bring it down until they are hacking your computer over suspected pot possession.

People who support all this effort by cops to monitor people and get around our rights just don’t understand how easy it is to misuse power.

Nor do they understand how much contempt LE has for our rights. To them, anyone caring about their rights must be a criminal. It isn’t possible in their minds that people care about their dignity. Why? Because cops don’t see us as deserving of personal dignity.
Tell a cop “no” when he wants to question you about where you’ve been, where you are going, and why, while at a checkpoint for license or DUI. They will easily harass the hell out of you, if you desire to maintain privacy.