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Israeli Spyware Maker Is in Spotlight Amid Reports of Wide Abuses
Data leaked to a consortium of news organizations suggests that several countries use Pegasus, a powerful cyberespionage tool, to spy on rights activists, dissidents and journalists.
A major Israeli cyber-surveillance company, NSO Group, came under heightened scrutiny Sunday after an international alliance of news outlets reported that governments used its software to target journalists, dissidents and opposition politicians.
The Israeli government also faced renewed international pressure for allowing the company to do business with authoritarian regimes that use the spyware for purposes that go far afield of the company's stated aim: targeting terrorists and criminals.
[...] The allegations may escalate concerns that the Israeli government has abetted government abuses by granting NSO an export license to sell software to countries that use it to suppress dissent.
The accounts, published by The Washington Post and an alliance of 16 other international news outlets, follow recent reporting by The [New York] Times that Israel permitted NSO to do business with Saudi Arabia, and encouraged it to keep doing so even after the Saudi government was implicated in the 2018 assassination of a Saudi journalist and dissident, Jamal Khashoggi.
Pegasus: The new global weapon for silencing journalists
Also at Business Insider, The Hill, The Verge, and Al Jazeera.
Related: Israeli Firm NSO Linked to WhatsApp Hack, Faces Lawsuit Backed by Amnesty International
Saudi Crown Prince's WhatsApp Account Reportedly Used to Hack Jeff Bezos
The Great iPwn -- Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage 'Zero-Click' Exploit
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by HammeredGlass on Tuesday July 20 2021, @12:40AM (5 children)
Nothing to see here.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday July 20 2021, @01:28AM (3 children)
Care to explain that subject line? I come from NYC and there's only one hand gesture in common use there, which looks a little something a-like-a-this: t("t)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 20 2021, @02:27AM
Around here, we haven't quite got the hang of it, and it looks to me kinda like a "::!:,"
(Score: 1) by HammeredGlass on Tuesday July 20 2021, @01:31PM (1 child)
Handwaves = a la Ben Kenobi
The rest = various "chosen" power centers, whom you are mistaken for ever having done anything wrong
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday July 20 2021, @04:58PM
Sorry, I'm not getting this. "Chosen" in what regard, by whom, and what does that last malformed clause in there even mean? Smaller, more direct words, for the people in the back.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 20 2021, @01:29AM
The Gestapo would be proud.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday July 20 2021, @12:53AM (6 children)
"Just because we make the tools criminals need, doesn't make us criminal. Nope, it doesn't even make us complicit in the criminal's crimes! If we don't provide the criminals with their tools, somebody else will!"
And, it's not even that simple, really. To make things worse, they will only sell to criminals. If an honest researcher wants to buy their products and services? "Nope, you can't have this stuff! Only bona fide human rights violators need apply!"
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 20 2021, @03:19AM (5 children)
FTFY.
Now, let me watch you rushing to explain how gun makers are different.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Tuesday July 20 2021, @11:00AM
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday July 20 2021, @03:22PM (3 children)
Ahhhhh, but guns have thousands of legitimate uses, none of which involves killing people. Informal anecdotal evidence says that Suzy Q. Homemaker bought a lot of guns in the last 2 years.
Lockpicks, on the other hand, are most commonly used by criminals, or locksmiths. I just don't see lockpicks being picked up in Walmart, Dick's Sporting goods, or Home Depot by Suzy Q. Homemaker.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 20 2021, @05:40PM (2 children)
https://covertinstruments.com/ [covertinstruments.com]
Lockpicking tools help you get good.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday July 20 2021, @06:32PM (1 child)
FWIW, I don't like those all-in-one kits that all fit into the same handle. I want a pack of individual picks easily separated, same as I want my allen wrenches, Torx wrenches, etc.
Among the more amusing reactions of managers and supervisors, is when you're asked to "cut a lock" somewhere, but you just whip out a set of picks. Eyes bug out, and the dumber ones ask, "Are those legal?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 21 2021, @04:52AM
Do you donate it to Wigs For Kids [wigsforkids.org] or Locks of Love? [locksoflove.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Tuesday July 20 2021, @01:42AM (3 children)
One can only assume that in the eyes of an authoritarian regime said people/groups are criminals. Problem, if there even was one, solved as far as they and NOS are concerned.
Will be interesting to see if they can whip up a shit-storm about it or if it will fall flat.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 20 2021, @04:27AM (2 children)
What if the authoritarian regimes are criminal? A Mexican journalist was just assassinated as a result of Pegasus, and the people who gunned him down conveniently took his phone right before they split.
Everybody and their fucking mom knows that the cartels run the Mexican Government. Those who doubt it can look up the Culiacan incident in which the Government had El Chapo's son, but had to release him because the cartels were too strong and violent militarily. Political theory is full of examples of what happens when the state loses their monopoly on violence. Israeli companies who enable this shit, in Mexico, cannot possibly hide behind the, "B-b-but we vet all of our customers" bullshit.
Now I'll explain where the Jews fit into this. El Chapo's wife is publicly Jewish, [nypost.com] and the greater symbolism here is that Mexican Cartels, like the state of Israel, are international crime syndicates...perhaps even cooperating and operating under the same umbrella. Mexican commandos, who work for the government, a government run by cartels, are trained by Israelis. [mintpressnews.com] One might suggest that the CIA is the primary driver of cartel training and violence, but the CIA might as well be considered Mossad just as the Mexican government might as well be considered the cartels. It is estimated that 25% of Mexicans are Jewish, [timesofisrael.com] converso Jews who fled Europe during the inquisition. By my estimate, the rate of Jewish ancestry in Mexico is a much higher figure, as evidenced by their "gimme gimme" attitudes and lack of foresight in how they piss off everybody around them just to get their gimmies.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Opportunist on Tuesday July 20 2021, @06:40AM
No government in the history of mankind labeled itself criminal. And since they're the ones making the laws...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 20 2021, @11:06AM
How about in a world where we don't conflate different organizations like you just did?
You do realize that every human has problems with that? Your post is an example of the absurdity of shoehorning human dysfunctionality into one frivolous metric.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 20 2021, @02:40AM (1 child)
Schlomo and Chaim get jobs in Apple, Broadcom, or Qualcomm through nepotism. Schlomo and Chaim also have cousins in Israel who are current security entrepreneurs and former intelligence operatives. All mentioned so far have connections to unit 8200. Schlomo and Chaim discover existing zero-days or insert them in solidarity of global Jewry. Schlomo and Chaim's entrepreneurial cousins in Israel somehow "discover" said zero-days. Schlomo's cousin's startup makes money from exploring said zero-days (e.g. PEGASUS), Chaim's cousin's startup makes money from "discovering" the zero-days after a set period of time and certain conditions met, then uses the discovery to sell his security business. Schlomo's cousin and Chaim's cousin are both good buddies, by the way.
One would assume that business is lucrative, but not lucrative enough for Jews. Which is why Schlomo and Chaim also have side-hustles exfiltrating their employers' drawings, schematics, and specifications; then selling them to China.
I know, I know, it's kind of confusing, it makes my poor little head spin! But after you grok it a few times, you too will want in on the action!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 20 2021, @03:41AM
And then when Shoa 2.0 comes, 'they' will all scream and complain. But now 'they' are sowing seeds and watering them copiously. Harvest day will be a mess.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 20 2021, @05:58AM
It's hard to be a Jew, eh? No better than the "good ol' days," eh?
I would rather be an impoverished Somalian fisherman.
Well, almost, but not quite, but almost.
(Score: 2) by rigrig on Tuesday July 20 2021, @08:16AM
At best we will get a bit of obligatory outrage from governments (because you're not supposed to get caught).
Whoever leaked this list should have added a few "important" people, I bet you'd get an actual reaction if it looked like OPEC countries were spying on Big Oil CEOs.
No one remembers the singer.