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.
OK, how?
Apple has a patent that is designed to allow concerts to disable iphone cameras to I assume “avoid distractions” or whatever. That could be exploited by the police. Luckily apple never implemented that in iOS.
So its not inpossible.
A government could mandate a manufacturer to install a backdoor that disables the camera to be used (or even disable communications if they wanted) that activates when nearby police send a certain signal, then the phone receiving the signal would disable whatever fuctions it wanted. This would allow them to just kill protesters then falsely claim that the protesters were rioting and using violence.
you are basically correct, and i believe these concerns were raised when that apple patent hit the news.
essentially it boils down to the unpleasant fact that it’s simply currently not required.
recording & sharing recordings of such activities has already been outlawed in certain jurisdictions.
media & public narrative is already tightly controlled.
they already routinely get away with worse crimes against the public for the above reasons.
even if a handful of individuals face some vague justice, the public foots the bill with tax payer funded settlements.
one day something similar to that apple patent probably will happen though, especially as corporations merge further with our legal systems, and it’ll be labelled a breach of copyright because their uniforms have sony logos or some such