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Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens
- shmatt 5y agoOnce the method exists. i'd just assume its everywhere We know about Pegasus/NSO and its a fun subject to follow, but in all honesty, every engineer privy to the 0-day bank that powers it could build one of their own, or sell it to another group, and no one would know
- samstave 5y agoImagine some group that duplicates Pegasus/NSO -- compromises it but sells it AS Pegasus/NSO to unsuspecting, less-savvy nation-states and effectively uses /IT/ to infiltrate/backdoor the intelligence/LEO ops of said customer state... Or is that what Pegasus/NSO basically already provide, as a feature?
- beckman466 5y ago> Or is that what Pegasus/NSO basically already provide, as a feature? considering shell are mainly used for deeply corrupt ends, this isn't a far stretch. similarly, things that seem like duopolies today might well be revealed to be monopolies in reality if actual ownership records became public. i imagine the false public perception of a market that has fair competition is very valuable as it maintains the illusion of choice. similarly, regarding spying by USA; i imagine Crypto AG was/isn't the only CIA front.
- beckman466 5y agoshell companies*
- arminiusreturns 5y agoAnyone interested in this should lookup the PROMIS scandal, which involved Ghislane Maxwell's father Robert Maxwell.
- samstave 5y agoAnd dont forget to look into the Maxwell Twins - the sisters of Ghislane --> They made initial DB software for the intel community for "tracking financial fraud" and other tracking... They sold this to .gov and supposedly it was in use in the early '00s - and it provided ostensibly access to tracking financial and human trafficking data.. Think of it as a precurser to palantir and such - and there was a bunch of shady shit around this. Here is just one sketchy story about it: https://oye.news/news/world-news/epstein-the-maxwell-sisters-and-the-fbis-counter-terrorism-database/ https://oye.news/news/world-news/epstein-the-maxwell-sisters... but apparently they made counter-terrorism software and that this software was in use in the US intel comm and that it was also compromised... Regardless of the truth of how it was used - the fact that the most notorious human trafficking/blackmailing operation yet exposed was directly related to providing counter-terrorism software to the USG is.... interesting. Google the maxwell twins.
- sergers 5y agoI did google the Maxwell twins, clicking the second result. Got about halfway through before realising wrong twins.. lol
- amatecha 5y agoOnce the method is known to the public and in news articles, I assume it's been employed by govt agencies for years.
- dogma1138 5y agoMost of their Zero Days are probably short lived and in any case the challenge of running an outfit like NSO isn’t only or even primarily in finding Zero Days. This isn’t a business model you bootstrap by publishing to an appstore and paying influencer to promote - this isn’t “Raid of Warduty Call of Legends”. You need high level government contacts that can open doors as these deals don’t usually come up on public tenders, and you need people that can manage a relationship with both your host government and client governments especially if either or both are unstable and falling out of favor with a specific regime would result in high legal risk or even actual risk to the safety of you or your employees. A couple of engineers taking a bag of goodies are more likely than not to end up in prison like the former NSA folks that took up freelancing for Saudi Arabia.
- encryptluks2 5y agoThis should surprise no one since the spyware was developed by Israeli intelligence agencies.
- jrochkind1 5y agoSo it would be like domestic law enforcement (the FBI? state patrol?) using NSA-developed spyware, secretly, without court orders, against US citizens, including protestors. Whether this should surprise you I guess depends on your worldview; whether it should alarm or disturb you, especially if you are an Israeli or in Israel, I guess depends on your view of individual rights and the police.
- myth_drannon 5y agoIt's more like police using Palantir or Clearview AI
- ummonk 5y agoIt's nothing like that. Neither of those hack into people's phones. Edit: I guess you're pointing out that the spyware was developed by a private company rather than the Israeli equivalent of the NSA, which is true.
- xbar 5y agoIs it? I do not know anything about Israeli "Federal/State/County/Municipal" law enforcement jurisdictions to agree or disagree.
- wswope 5y ago> So it would be like domestic law enforcement (the FBI? state patrol?) using NSA-developed spyware, secretly, without court orders, against US citizens, including protestors. In the US, we already have police using Stingray interceptors without warrants (and in a similar vein but less problematic, sweeping dragnet warrants issued to cell providers), which are slightly less invasive, but relatively comparable in terms of abuse potential. https://www.aclu.org/issues/privacy-technology/surveillance-technologies/stingray-tracking-devices-whos-got-them https://www.aclu.org/issues/privacy-technology/surveillance-...
- ogogmad 5y agoCan Israelis take the matter to court?
- compsciphd 5y agohttps://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-693834 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-693834
- Synaesthesia 5y agoThey don't really have a lot of civil rights or even a constitution.
- teluride5 5y ago[flagged]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dang 5y agoPlease don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar. Last thing we need here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- teluride5 5y agoSure, though can you explain how pointing out hypocrisy is nationalistic? Nobody is saying either country is better or worse.
- dang 5y agoPeople almost always make such points as part of an agenda against of the sides. If you insist you didn't mean it way, ok, I believe you (though that would be highly unusual)—in that case, though, your comment would have needed to come with enough information to make that clear. Otherwise the default interpretation kicks in anyway.
- JumpCrisscross 5y agoThe “here” matters, here. If it’s America or Europe, then yes, Poland is part of NATO and the EU. Its decisions impact its partners. And if it’s invaded, coalition blood will be spilled. Mutual defence means a common interest in being worth fighting for. Add to that Warsaw’s belligerence on multiple political fronts, and the criticism is unsurprising. More pointedly, this is current news. How are you already judging reactions?
- sebow 5y agoCan we stop pretending like Pegasus is not virtually everywhere?If it's not Pegasus is another tool, worse or better, foreign or domestic, from NSA,CIA,etc.Who exactly cares which entity does it as long as it's happening and laws & principles are being broken? Vault7 was the first leak de facto proving these things existed, why the f#ck are we still surprised now, almost 5 years later, that these things are being used and there is a market here opened for politicians,private individuals, governments, etc.? Awareness is good, but who(or better said: what institutions, what parties, etc) are you seeing advocating for more privacy, security, transparency in software and hardware, etc? I will go one step further here beyond the simple "more privacy, security,etc." rhetoric, which i'm sure every HN user has heard to the point of ears bleeding, and I hate to say this but one cannot fully understand something until either s/he makes it, he hacks it(for the purpose of at least understanding) or becomes subject to the tool's effects.Far too many times people use something without even reading the TOS, let alone understanding the mechanisms behind the technology.At this point i have little sympathy for people who do not take the time and putting in the work of understanding a technology >for their own benefit<. Because nobody who is at least semi-literate in this field was born with the knowledge, and while arguably it's our duty to point less knowledgeable people to inform themselves, we cannot tire ourselves to death by promoting (or allowing others who promote) this "usable-first, hussle-free, happy jolly" tech ecosystem and then also act surprised when the masses don't have a f*cking clue what's going on, because effectively we trained humans to become dumb monkeys with a smartphone, arguably worse.
- 87er43 5y agoIt's nice to see the rare comment I can relate to. I hardly know anyone IRL who sees the horrorshow for what it is. Snowden was 9 years ago and for that we now get "privacy advocates sounding the alarm". The surveillance complex waited for the waters to clear and doubled down, with spy devices dripping off of every pole, 12 cameras staring down at every city intersection, blank-faced electronic boxes pointed down at the phone, car, watch, and whatever ridiculous consumer gadget du jour takes us one step closer to Total Information Awareness. How much hype has 5G gotten, and for what? So you can download movies fast. So you can plug into the metaverse and pay even less mind to your surroundings. There will come a time in the near future when privacy is effectively outlawed. Radio signals watching you move about your home. Facial recognition fridge (to keep kids out of that chocolate!). Smart technology keeping us safe. Drone swarms patrolling the neighborhood. The anxiety and paranoia will drive people even further into their clutches, into the virtual world where the surveillance is baked in from the ground up, and not affixed to existing physical infrastructure. Still we act like our words can foment change. Woke children change their facebook profile pic in "support". Nobody's listening but to hyperbole and disinformation, as if that's a new concept. Since the dawn of civilization there has been a war on information. The only difference is that each of us now holds our own dazzling propaganda machine in the palm of our hand. Cheers friend.
- throwaw10293847 5y agoComment from duplicate submission: Some of the companies in the field, in contrast to NSO, do have ethics committees to filter out obviously bad clients. Once when guidelines were described to engineers a question was asked: Would Israel itself pass the ethics committee check? The answer was "No. But..."
- james-redwood 5y agoCould you source that anecdote?
- throwaw10293847 5y agoI was working at one of the cybersecurity companies and "not being another NSO" was part of internal discussion. I won't name the company and use temp account deliberately for this comment.
- Sahbak 5y agoYou can argue about it's effectiveness, but NSO does have an ethics committee.
- Barrin92 5y agoPeople used to quip that Prussia is an army with a country rather than the other way around, it seems like if you add the modern intelligence sector that describes Israel. With all the concerns about 'Military-civil fusion ' as it's called in China or Russia I always found it funny that Israel might as well be the country that has merged both spheres most successfully but nobody really seems to care at all.
- samstave 5y agoThe venn diag of israel seems to be: Military -- Government -- Corporate/tech -- Religions <-- All encapsulated under the intel umbrella. All seem to be seamlessly aligned within Israel.. -- I mean this is basically what all governments strive for, just that Israel has turned it into an art+science. The amount of amazing technical innovation that comes from israel is quite stunning.
- eli_gottlieb 5y agoNah, you need to modify the diagram to take Religions out. The religious establishment considers the military, corporate sector, and non-parliamentary government agencies to be captive to "the seculars", which they basically consider to be evil and devoted to destroying religion. We seculars, in contrast, think we mostly just don't want to give the religious big heaps of free money.
- mateo1 5y agoA lot of people voice their concerns, including a lot of Israelis, but what can you do? Israel is a democracy and the majority votes for far right militaristic candidates and parties. Whether or not you hear about these concerns in public discourse in your country's media depends on your current foreign policy.
- saiya-jin 5y agoIts a bit easier for Israel - if you are an outsider (99.9% of mankind) and dare criticize it anyhow, you are quickly marked either a) antisemitic or b) supporting islamic terrorism, or some mix of those. Nobody wants to touch that with 10 foot pole in woke era.
- golemiprague 5y ago
- excuses_ 5y agoIn Poland there was a sort of similar story. Politicians from the opposition, lawyers, “difficult” prosecutors have been spied. A few days ago a special commission started investigation but it consists only from opposition politicians. The ruling far-right party pretends this topic does not exist. It’s a farce.
- michalf6 5y agoI don't like them as much as you do, but they are not far-right. Throwing terms like this around only makes them devoid of meaning.
- chews 5y ago"In other cases, NSO’s spyware was installed in the phone of citizens to try to find and collect data and information that isn’t necessarily connected to an investigation or suspicions but simply for investigators to use this data later on as a means of pressure on people being interrogated." aka Blackmail
- Terry_Roll 5y agoAnd anyone who thinks their own country isnt doing the same is deluded! The Security Services has to protect a country which means getting involved in everything, organised crime as well as business, and then when they feel things need to change direction, the security services have the tools aka blackmail information to make that change happen... in most cases!
- IAmEveryone 5y agoYeah, no, this is bullshit. People don’t just have agencies (Mossad, CIA), they also have agency as in: the power to change reality. And the vast majority of democratic countries are run by people who have a decent appreciation of the rule of law, which is what stands between your actual freedom and your gloomy fantasies. Then, there’s also a group of countries that simply cannot afford / don’t have the people to do these things. How do I know? Consider the usual suspects for these operations: the US, Israel, Russia, and China. For every single one of them, we also have examples of their work that got leaked or otherwise exposed. What are the chances that Belgium happens to be the country that manages to run such a program and keep it secret? Or Equatorial Guinea? Then, there’s also the growing list of known customers of NSO: if two dozens of them decided to buy this software, chances are they do not have homegrown solutions with similar capabilities. Nor does it seem as if there were any other sellers at NSO’s scale. Meaning: if we successively learn about all of NSO’s business, we might be getting close to knowing everything there is to know about the sector, with the exception of the large countries mentioned above.
- vore 5y agoI don't understand your argument: if the shady things they're doing have gotten leaked, isn't this because they were doing those shady things in the first place? Can you conclude one way or the other that the net is so loose that bad things will always see the light of day? Don't forget that with PRISM taking 6 years to be disclosed and MKUltra having taken 22, a lot of people rightly don't have such idealized views anymore.
- _bfhp 5y agoThe Israeli government and former government ministers also fund propaganda orgs on American soil, CAMERA and Hasbara Fellowships to name two. You could even say that every US election has been compromised by well-funded, successful foreign propaganda operations since at least 1982!
- gerash 5y agoCan voters do anything to reduce the influence of foreign governments like Israel and Saudi Arabia in the US government?
- dragonwriter 5y ago> Can voters do anything to reduce the influence of foreign governments like Israel and Saudi Arabia in the US government? Citizens can, but it may require action beyond that as voters, and more especially beyond that as voters in general elections.
- ElDji 5y ago
- throwaway829 5y agoThey're also our greatest ally (tm). So great Congress must pledge allegiance to them: https://youtu.be/AC8pJvY8Wdo?t=170 https://youtu.be/AC8pJvY8Wdo?t=170
- friendlydog 5y agoIsrael is its own nation and it isn't America's business what it does to its own citizens. However, their tools are used on American without warrants. It would be in our interests as citizens to flag all employees of NSO as spies and try them.
- cwkoss 5y agoI wish America was the sort of nation that would sanction them for using draconian surveillance of their own citizens. Unfortunately Israel is effectively politically sanction-proof - even for much more abhorrent policies and actions.
- friendlydog 5y agoIsrael is the 3rd largest recipient of US foreign aid receiving 3.2 Billion in US tax dollars in 2017 with only Iraq and Afghanistan receiving more. Reducing foreign aid while America is floundering would be a small step to the road of recovery.
- Calvin02 5y agoFirst, putting aside Israel for a second. I understand the urge to reduce foreign aid while we're running deficits (I assume is what you mean by "floundering"), but think of foreign aid as diplomacy. We need both hard (military) and soft (aid, donations, etc.) diplomacy. If any thing, the bang for buck is higher with soft diplomacy. Hard diplomacy is very expensive. Second, Israel is a shining example of a robust democracy in a part of the world that is more or less run by kleptomaniacs and dictators. Israel's politics -- especially with the coalition government -- serves as a role model for citizens of other countries. I think it seems reasonable that we extend foreign aid to them. It pays off in the long run.
- pthread_t 5y ago"a 2013 National Intelligence Estimate on cyber threats “ranked Israel the third most aggressive intelligence service against the US” behind only China and Russia" [1] "Israel among the U.S.’s most threatening cyber-adversaries and as a “hostile” foreign intelligence service." [2] "Israel’s snooping upset White House because information was used to lobby Congress to try to sink a deal" [3] [1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/new-nsa-document-highlights-israeli-espionage-in-us/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/new-nsa-document-highlights-is... [2] https://theintercept.com/2015/03/25/netanyahus-spying-denial-directly-contradicted-secret-nsa-documents/ https://theintercept.com/2015/03/25/netanyahus-spying-denial... [3] https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-spied-on-iran-talks-1427164201 https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-spied-on-iran-talks-1427...
- TeeMassive 5y ago
- anm89 5y agoIt's interesting to me why spying on citizens is like this foundational goal of all modern nation states. I get why a state might want to do this but its not clear to me why it seems to be the only stable path for modern democracies.
- matheusmoreira 5y agoGovernments enjoy having power and control over their subjects. The only reason they didn't do this before is the technology didn't exist in previous centuries. The use of spies was more or less limited to high value targets in times of war. It's not like they could have assigned a spy to every citizen in the country. Things are different now. Espionage is now automatic and large scale, there's no longer any practical limit on the number of people they can spy on. This is alluring to all kinds of people, from the well-intentioned to the malicious. To them, total surveillance is simply an efficient way to accomplish some goal such as catching some heinous criminal or figuring out what your political opposition is planning. They generally couldn't care less that global surveillance destroys freedom and enables apalling abuses of power at unprecedented scales. The truth is they would very much enjoy the ability to manage "their" citizens the same way we manage running processes in our computers: total visibility at all times into everything they're doing and the ability to kill them if they become problematic. Traditional police investigations are too hard and time consuming, they want the ability to push a button to reveal the entire life of a suspect.
- octoberfranklin 5y ago> It's not like they could have assigned a spy to every citizen in the country. The East German Stasi came pretty close.
- FpUser 5y ago>"Israel is its own nation and it isn't America's business what it does to its own citizens." Syria is its own nation and it isn't America's business what it does to its own citizens.
- someguybehindme 5y agonow now now, let's not question anything here shall we?
- brightball 5y agoThe Darknet Diaries podcast episode about NSO was eye opening.
- buzzwords 5y agoWhenever Israel is involved in anything unfortunately the discussion becomes about anti semitism (sometimes rightly and sometimes wrongly). Maybe it helps if we imagined it was another nation and then see what we think about it. If it was Russia/china or UK/France/Germany would you still think or feel the same?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- _HMCB_ 5y agoOf cooouuurrrssse.
- mrtri 5y ago
- bharat9848 5y agoIn India it has been used extensively against social activist, victims of court cases, journalists etc. List goes on and on. It is prime example of how power and money corrupts a system. Shame on the engineers who developed it.