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> Within the Israeli cyberweapons industry, the totemic name is NSO Group. Its Pegasus technology can purportedly hack a phone without the target even clicking
by andrepd 6y ago
> Within the Israeli cyberweapons industry, the totemic name is NSO Group. Its Pegasus technology can purportedly hack a phone without the target even clicking a link. It’s been used to track dissidents, activists, and journalists from Mexico to Morocco. Most infamously, according to a 2018 lawsuit, the Saudi government is alleged to have used Pegasus to hack the phone of a friend of Jamal Khashoggi’s in order to monitor the journalist before his murder.
> Behind NSO Group, there are many more. Cellebrite offers services to reconstruct data deleted from devices. NSO’s sister company Circles sells the ability to locate a person’s physical location using only their phone number.
Terrifying stuff. All this makes me wonder: nowadays, how are citizens living under oppressive governments ever to conceivably organise any kind of resistance? Such pervasive and all-encompassing surveillance makes it impossible that any kind of opposition can ever be mounted, if citizens can be monitored everywhere at all times. Absolutely depressing stuff.
- mensetmanusman 6y agoThis is why I have recently thought that part of the US national labs’s mission should be to create secure communications software in the event of an authoritarian government takeover. Such software could also be shared with other country’s citizens.
- ENOTTY 6y agoCheck out the Open Technology Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Technology_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Technology_Fund
- spaetzleesser 6y agoOnce they have drones with weapons then even gun rights like the second amendment won't help. I feel people like Stalin or Hitler were born just a little too early. Today's tech would make their job much easier.
- jollofricepeas 6y agoOr let’s even pick much more recent figures... “I feel people like J. Edgar Hoover and Joseph McCarthy were born just a little too early.” For non-Americans: - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
- nickfromseattle 6y agoIt's also suspected the Saudi gov / monarch used Pegasus to hack Jeff Bezos phone and steal his and his mistresses nudes [0] in response to Washington Post's coverage of the Khashoggi murder. https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-phone-hacked-saudi-crown-prince-mbs-report-explained-2020-1#:~:text=A%20UN%20report%20published%20Wednesday,as%20a%20leader%20in%20cyberwarfare https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-phone-hacked-saud....
- PoignardAzur 6y agoI think the latest theory is someone close to him peeked at his unlocked phone? Like, I think there was something about the journal threatening to release the photos and being able to describe the photos, but they never followed through or sent a proof that they did have the photos, which suggests someone looked at Bezos' phone but didn't actually download the data.