“Phones are being blocked from taking videos or pictures” | Hacker News Reader

“Phones are being blocked from taking videos or pictures”

twitter.com

9 pointstwic7 comments

Could it just be they can't post pics/videos because either the cell tower is jammed with too many signals (possible) or that the authorities have disabled the cell tower (also possible I'd think)

I posted this mostly in case anyone could corroborate it! Either the report that cameras on the bridge are being disabled, or that phone manufacturers have actually implemented a technology like this.

This doesn't pass the sniff test.

- Apple doesn't volunteer device unlocking to the government. Why would they help them reach into random people's phones to disable their cameras? This sounds like a pizzagate conspiracy theory.

- Apple patents everything they possibly can, even if they never intend to use it and for a variety of reasons.

- Cell phone jamming would be unsafe.

- Phones with cameras will still take pictures with cell, wifi, and bluetooth turned off.

- There's nothing preventing people from taking pictures using the previous method of whatever was happening, or supposedly happening, and then posting them later.

Something else happened like a stinger MITM blocking certain sites, cell tower issues/overload, or it's a fabrication.

I'd like to see some evidence of this, it seems surprising that a company like Apple or Google would do this for the government without some fight back.

I'd also like to see some evidence of this. But my understanding is that the purported mechanism is some sort of infrared beacon shone into the camera (like the eurion constellation, but live); it's something that could be activated without Apple or Google's involvement in the moment.

My point is more that this seems like a feature that no phone company would install without a law requiring it, if it's really in there, this feature would be really, really dangerous because any criminal could then just use the same equipment to disable cameras. It's also pretty bad to be depriving people of the use of their property against the 4th amendment and probably the 1st as well considering it's limiting photography and free expression as such.

Perfect advertisement for Librem 5 and PinePhone.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com