Re:France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phon...
by hammock on Thursday July 06, 2023 @10:45AM
(#36616758)
So, on the order of a dollar per person, assuming a town/municipality of a couple million people?
Is that a lot?
In the US the major cities have police budgets of between $200 million and $5 billion
Re:France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phon...
by _kbh_ on Friday July 07, 2023 @07:24AM
(#36630087)
> In the US the major cities have police budgets of between $200 million and $5 billion
Yeah and most have this capability generally considering both the costs and the little amount of use you'd have for it.
You'd expect something more federal like the NSA, CIA or the FBI to have this kind of capability which is why its kinda a big deal when normal cops get it.
Re:France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phon...
by hammock on Friday July 07, 2023 @01:40PM
(#36635393)
>Yeah and most didn’t have this capability generally considering both the costs and the little amount of use you'd have for it.
I would say most didn't have this capability because it's illegal. In France it is now legal
2-2.5+ million USD depending for a full chain with persistence (lower end of range is for iOS higher end is for Android).
That is probably the lower end of the rough cost to buy that capability which you can use as many times as you want.
https://zerodium.com/images/zerodium_prices_mobiles.png
> Is it sensitive to compromise a phone, now that there is a national law allowing it, passed through a democratic process?
The technology itself is sensitive, when you buy a full chain exploit like the ones that have the public bounty price above, if it gets burnt it's useless for everyone else who bought it after its patched.
Generally exploit brokers don't like it when you burn their exploits.