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Pegasus and it's capabilities have been publicly known for several years. Pegasus recently appeared in connection with hack that stole Jeff Bezos' nude selfies.

Pegasus and it's capabilities have been publicly known for several years. Pegasus recently appeared in connection with hack that stole Jeff Bezos' nude selfies. It sounds like the new info putting them back in the new cycle is related to this sentence: "The Guardian and its media partners will be revealing the identities of people whose number appeared on the list in the coming days. They include hundreds of business executives, religious figures, academics, NGO employees, union officials and government officials, including cabinet ministers, presidents and prime ministers." Should be a very interesting release.

dannyw 5y ago
This sounds absolutely huge. It feels like a Snowden lite.
- camjohnson26 5y ago
  Snowden says: “Stop what you're doing and read this. This leak is going to be the story of the year” https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1416797153524174854?s=20 https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1416797153524174854?s=20
  - slg 5y ago
    I'm not judging the importance of the story, but based off past reception of these stories it is wildly naïve to believe this will be the story of the year. That is especially true in a year in which the globe is still not through a global pandemic that has killed millions. Most people simply don't care that much about digital privacy. Lots of people believe Facebook is spying on them constantly including recording everything said in the presence of their phone and many of those people go right on continuing to use those apps.
    - clairity 5y ago
      > "...wildly naïve to believe this will be the story of the year. That is especially true in a year in which the globe is still not through a global pandemic that has killed millions." if this were true, cardiovascular disease and cancer would be the top stories everyday, as they combine for tens of millions of deaths per year. the media focuses on novel fear because it's attention-getting, not rationally dire.
      - slg 5y ago
        You phrased that like a disagreement, but I think it actually goes to support by point. A pandemic that has shutdown much of the planet for going on a year and a half seems like a much more novel fear than someone's phone spying on them. And you can't just blame this on the generic "media". They sell what the people want to buy. They report on novel fears because that is what attracts more attention from readers/viewers. The story about a murder is always going to get more attention than a dozen people dying of heart disease. It isn't that the media doesn't care about these privacy issues. It is that people generally don't care about these privacy issues.
        djmips 5y ago
        You've underestimated how quickly people normalize things. The pandemic and the shutdown isn't big news anymore.
        slg 5y ago
        And digital surveillance is still big news 8 years after Snowden's leaks? It has also been normalized. There is little chance that the average person would rate this a bigger story than the pandemic.
        clairity 5y ago
        ah, the apologist argument. might as well throw up our hands and do nothing then. sheep are easier to tend when subdued and mollified anyway. the point is that the pandemic isn't a bigger threat to our daily lives than common diseases for most people, yet we've blathered on about it like it's an imminent threat to everyone for over a year and a half. we don't do that for (other) respiratory infections or tuberculosis, for instance, which affect the same order of magnitude of people worldwide every year. this misfocus is acutely irrational (an availability/recency bias). the novelty only exacerbates the misfocus, it doesn't justify it in any way. the pandemic isn't even a long-term threat in the way that concentration of power, as manifested by this privacy/surveillance issue, is for every person on earth (and the way climate change is for humankind on a multigenerational scale). it's just that the change is so relatively slow and incremental that we don't understand the severity of the threat until it's overwhelming. it's how we boil frogs so easily.
grugq 5y ago
Bezos nudes weren’t stolen by a hack, but by physical access to his mistress’s device. Her brother. At least, that’s what I recall. The forensic investigation showed that bezos’ device was clean. From what I saw.
- Natsu 5y ago
  The analysis claimed that some video sent by MBS might be malware, but then claimed to be unable to decrypt it and prove that or analyze it in any way. HN called them out on failing to decrypt and properly analyze the file when that came up: https://github.com/ddz/whatsapp-media-decrypt https://github.com/ddz/whatsapp-media-decrypt
- commoner 5y ago
  Here's the forensic report from FTI Consulting: https://www.vice.com/en/article/v74v34/saudi-arabia-hacked-jeff-bezos-phone-technical-report https://www.vice.com/en/article/v74v34/saudi-arabia-hacked-j... Reviews of the report suggest that it contains circumstantial evidence, but lacks conclusive evidence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos_phone_hacking#Analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos_phone_hacking#Analy...
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  What adult, a tech executive no less, is dumb enough to send nude selfies in 2021?
  - webnrrd2k 5y ago
    All of them? I mean, they're still human and get just as horny (and irrational because of it) an any other sex-osessed monkey.
    - jjeaff 5y ago
      No, not all of them. Most people have the sense to never even take nude photos with a connected device.
iforgetti 5y ago
This does prove or disprove any other Pegasus related claims but regarding the Bezos “hack”, Brad Stone who is a Bezos biographer says in this interview (https://twitter.com/profgalloway/status/1400539983333793792?s=21 https://twitter.com/profgalloway/status/1400539983333793792?...) that all the evidence about the nude photos leak point to Bezos’ girlfriend’s brother actually just taking the photos from her phone through physical access and leaking them.
- jjeaff 5y ago
  I don't think all the evidence points to the brother in law. https://www.vice.com/en/article/v74v34/saudi-arabia-hacked-jeff-bezos-phone-technical-report https://www.vice.com/en/article/v74v34/saudi-arabia-hacked-j...
  - tedunangst 5y ago
    Let's just ignore what all the people who would know have to say. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-05-05/how-jeff-bezos-beat-the-tabloids-the-untold-story-of-money-sex-and-power https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-05-05/how-jeff-...
    - dannyw 5y ago
      Please note: This is the same institution that published outrageous claims of multiple tech companies detecting backdoored Supermicro motherboards, which everyone denied and no one claims to have know anything about.
- amsau 5y ago
  >brother actually just taking the photos Bezos asked his security consultant Gavin De Becker, to conduct the investigation he did and published his oped in a month. The brother bla bla bla is just a distraction deployed by those who want you to believe NSO wasn’t used on to hack the phone of an American citizen. https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeff-bezos-investigation-finds-the-saudis-obtained-his-private-information https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeff-bezos-investigation-finds... We discussed it here as well https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19532185 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19532185
A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
The technology is there. It is obvious that if it is being sold, it will be used. And like most things that do give people power, it is likely to be abused. At least in some sectors there is a strict regulation of what can be used and why ( and there is a cost associated with it so companies tend to scrutinize for unnecessary searches ), but an individual with too much money and time on their hands? The only limit is that person. I will admit I am tantalized.
- JohnDeHope 5y ago
  And like [all] things that [] give people power, it is [guaranteed] to be abused.
erostrate 5y ago
The most positive thing about this leak is that it includes government officials. The more they realize that the mass surveillance they are pushing on us will also apply to them, the more chances we'll have that they push back against it.
- Leparamour 5y ago
  The problem is that politicians often seem to view themselves as an exalted caste. Targeting individuals is only problematic insofar politicians from the ruling parties are targeted. If the Spyware companies promise to exclude them from being targets, all is fine.

dannyw 5y ago

This sounds absolutely huge. It feels like a Snowden lite.

camjohnson26 5y ago
Snowden says: “Stop what you're doing and read this. This leak is going to be the story of the year” https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1416797153524174854?s=20 https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1416797153524174854?s=20
- slg 5y ago
  I'm not judging the importance of the story, but based off past reception of these stories it is wildly naïve to believe this will be the story of the year. That is especially true in a year in which the globe is still not through a global pandemic that has killed millions. Most people simply don't care that much about digital privacy. Lots of people believe Facebook is spying on them constantly including recording everything said in the presence of their phone and many of those people go right on continuing to use those apps.
  - clairity 5y ago
    > "...wildly naïve to believe this will be the story of the year. That is especially true in a year in which the globe is still not through a global pandemic that has killed millions." if this were true, cardiovascular disease and cancer would be the top stories everyday, as they combine for tens of millions of deaths per year. the media focuses on novel fear because it's attention-getting, not rationally dire.
    - slg 5y ago
      You phrased that like a disagreement, but I think it actually goes to support by point. A pandemic that has shutdown much of the planet for going on a year and a half seems like a much more novel fear than someone's phone spying on them. And you can't just blame this on the generic "media". They sell what the people want to buy. They report on novel fears because that is what attracts more attention from readers/viewers. The story about a murder is always going to get more attention than a dozen people dying of heart disease. It isn't that the media doesn't care about these privacy issues. It is that people generally don't care about these privacy issues.
      - djmips 5y ago
        You've underestimated how quickly people normalize things. The pandemic and the shutdown isn't big news anymore.
        slg 5y ago
        And digital surveillance is still big news 8 years after Snowden's leaks? It has also been normalized. There is little chance that the average person would rate this a bigger story than the pandemic.
      - clairity 5y ago
        ah, the apologist argument. might as well throw up our hands and do nothing then. sheep are easier to tend when subdued and mollified anyway. the point is that the pandemic isn't a bigger threat to our daily lives than common diseases for most people, yet we've blathered on about it like it's an imminent threat to everyone for over a year and a half. we don't do that for (other) respiratory infections or tuberculosis, for instance, which affect the same order of magnitude of people worldwide every year. this misfocus is acutely irrational (an availability/recency bias). the novelty only exacerbates the misfocus, it doesn't justify it in any way. the pandemic isn't even a long-term threat in the way that concentration of power, as manifested by this privacy/surveillance issue, is for every person on earth (and the way climate change is for humankind on a multigenerational scale). it's just that the change is so relatively slow and incremental that we don't understand the severity of the threat until it's overwhelming. it's how we boil frogs so easily.

grugq 5y ago

Bezos nudes weren’t stolen by a hack, but by physical access to his mistress’s device. Her brother. At least, that’s what I recall. The forensic investigation showed that bezos’ device was clean. From what I saw.

Natsu 5y ago
The analysis claimed that some video sent by MBS might be malware, but then claimed to be unable to decrypt it and prove that or analyze it in any way. HN called them out on failing to decrypt and properly analyze the file when that came up: https://github.com/ddz/whatsapp-media-decrypt https://github.com/ddz/whatsapp-media-decrypt
commoner 5y ago
Here's the forensic report from FTI Consulting: https://www.vice.com/en/article/v74v34/saudi-arabia-hacked-jeff-bezos-phone-technical-report https://www.vice.com/en/article/v74v34/saudi-arabia-hacked-j... Reviews of the report suggest that it contains circumstantial evidence, but lacks conclusive evidence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos_phone_hacking#Analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos_phone_hacking#Analy...
TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
What adult, a tech executive no less, is dumb enough to send nude selfies in 2021?
- webnrrd2k 5y ago
  All of them? I mean, they're still human and get just as horny (and irrational because of it) an any other sex-osessed monkey.
  - jjeaff 5y ago
    No, not all of them. Most people have the sense to never even take nude photos with a connected device.

iforgetti 5y ago

This does prove or disprove any other Pegasus related claims but regarding the Bezos “hack”, Brad Stone who is a Bezos biographer says in this interview (https://twitter.com/profgalloway/status/1400539983333793792?s=21 https://twitter.com/profgalloway/status/1400539983333793792?...) that all the evidence about the nude photos leak point to Bezos’ girlfriend’s brother actually just taking the photos from her phone through physical access and leaking them.

jjeaff 5y ago
I don't think all the evidence points to the brother in law. https://www.vice.com/en/article/v74v34/saudi-arabia-hacked-jeff-bezos-phone-technical-report https://www.vice.com/en/article/v74v34/saudi-arabia-hacked-j...
- tedunangst 5y ago
  Let's just ignore what all the people who would know have to say. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-05-05/how-jeff-bezos-beat-the-tabloids-the-untold-story-of-money-sex-and-power https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-05-05/how-jeff-...
  - dannyw 5y ago
    Please note: This is the same institution that published outrageous claims of multiple tech companies detecting backdoored Supermicro motherboards, which everyone denied and no one claims to have know anything about.
amsau 5y ago
>brother actually just taking the photos Bezos asked his security consultant Gavin De Becker, to conduct the investigation he did and published his oped in a month. The brother bla bla bla is just a distraction deployed by those who want you to believe NSO wasn’t used on to hack the phone of an American citizen. https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeff-bezos-investigation-finds-the-saudis-obtained-his-private-information https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeff-bezos-investigation-finds... We discussed it here as well https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19532185 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19532185

A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago

The technology is there. It is obvious that if it is being sold, it will be used. And like most things that do give people power, it is likely to be abused. At least in some sectors there is a strict regulation of what can be used and why ( and there is a cost associated with it so companies tend to scrutinize for unnecessary searches ), but an individual with too much money and time on their hands? The only limit is that person. I will admit I am tantalized.

JohnDeHope 5y ago
And like [all] things that [] give people power, it is [guaranteed] to be abused.

erostrate 5y ago

The most positive thing about this leak is that it includes government officials. The more they realize that the mass surveillance they are pushing on us will also apply to them, the more chances we'll have that they push back against it.

Leparamour 5y ago
The problem is that politicians often seem to view themselves as an exalted caste. Targeting individuals is only problematic insofar politicians from the ruling parties are targeted. If the Spyware companies promise to exclude them from being targets, all is fine.