Today I read an article on a French newspaper that our government listens to us when we use our cell phones. I wonder what type of programming methodoly or technology that allows this espionnage ?
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It is possible that some kind of spyware is used in cases like these.
But generally, activity like this is considered legal (or at least somewhat legal/not totally illegal). The keyword here is lawful interception, and the attack point - so to speak - is generally the service provider (click for a nice diagram). So spyware is not actually needed.
It is hard to find information for this specific case. Here is an article saying the nsa spied on french phone calls describing the process like this:
According to Le Monde, this is how the system worked: "When a telephone number is used in France, it activates a signal which automatically triggers the recording of the call. Apparently this surveillance system also picks up SMS (text) messages and their content using key words. Finally, the NSA apparently stores the history of the connections of each target -- or the meta-data."
This does not sound like spyware, it sounds as if the data was intercepted from the service providers. This also makes more sense: Spyware is better at attacking individuals, intercepting is better for mass surveillance.
It now seems that France actually collected this data, so maybe this is the case you mean?
tim
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