6 ms·

"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 inv

by 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 ago
And 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 ago
  Yeah, 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 ago
    I 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.
  - tehwebguy 5y ago
    I mean the NSA literally admitted in 2013[0] that the NSA had employees doing stuff like this just for personal reasons. The only real difference is where the data was gathered from and I'm not even sure it's worth differentiating: > At least a dozen U.S. National Security Agency employees have been caught using secret government surveillance tools to spy on the emails or phone calls of their current or former spouses and lovers in the past decade, according to the intelligence agency’s internal watchdog. > The practice [...] was disclosed by the NSA Office of the Inspector General [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog/nsa-staff-used-spy-tools-on-spouses-ex-lovers-watchdog-idUSBRE98Q14G20130927 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog...
    - rtpg 5y ago
      I feel like the distinction between "employees at the NSA using tools to look up stuff for personal issues" and things like "the FBI actively looking up dirt on civil rights leaders to try and blackmail them" like with MLK is extremely important! One is a case of employees abusing a system for personal gain. Another is establishing a system of abuse in service of the security service. Absolutely night and day in terms of the implications, even if in both you have people with access to private information. The NSA employees weren't trying to advance the goals of the State by stalking their exes.
      - pydry 5y ago
        Hoover wasnt trying to advance the goals of the state either. For him, destroying MLK was about a struggle for power over the state.
- staticassertion 5y ago
  I'm only aware of one case where the US government, without warrant, actively hacked its own citizens using a 0day, which was when the FBI exploited a 0day to compromise users of TOR who, as I recall, were looking to access CSAM. Even when going after a bunch of pedophiles I think there was a good bit of controversy there. I think there may actually have been a warrant for some part of the access, idk. I'm not saying it doesn't happen but it would be quite a scandal to find that the government was performing warrantless exploitation of citizen's personal devices. Maybe someone can correct me here and show that this has been the case.
  - dilap 5y ago
    If the ability exists, what's to stop them from using it? Good manners? And what's the incentive for someone to tell us, if they are? Become another Snowden or Assange or Manning? Not a very compelling outcome...
    - PeterisP 5y ago
      The adversarial judicial system is supposed to restrict that by having the defendant's lawyers challenge the evidence and how it was obtained. The prosecution and police can't simply use inappropriate evidence. In some cases it's possible (and worth the effort) to do 'parallel construction' by getting a warrant for some other evidence confirming the same thing, but it's not something that can be done at scale without it being obvious.
      - nerdponx 5y ago
        It's more than some cases, and yes it can be done at scale, to some extent: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R2013...
      - ILMostro7 5y ago
        In the name of national security, often behind closed doors. Even if the funds are there to hire competent defense, which most of the time they're not, you're fighting an uphill battle.
- buzzwords 5y ago
- etripe 5y ago
  > The Security Services has to protect a country Implied is the statement that the end justifies the means. But how do you weigh the proportionality of measures taken? Do you adopt a utilitarian point of view, looking at, say, deaths prevented? Is anything game, or should agencies be expected to uphold a code of conduct, bill of rights or exclude entire categories of information? How do you assess what is or isn't a threat to a country and thereby something it needs to be protected from? What is a country - the president, the party, the government, its citizenry, businesses? Second, with the popularity of invoking "national security" as an authority argument, how can these agencies ever be accountable? Who watches the watchmen? Are we to trust agencies reporting on the number of e.g. terrorist incidents prevented, especially if the information sources are opaque and there's an obvious conflict of interest? Third, given the existence of programs like MK Ultra and Cointelpro, is it really safe to say agencies won't try to overreach? With examples like the Stargate program ("Men Who Stare At Goats"), should we have faith they know what they're doing?
  - boston_clone 5y ago
    Of the roughly dozen questions, I'll try and hit a few points directly to sum up where I believe we ought to be, based on my relatively narrow understanding of US political sciences - please note that many answers to your questions will vary by country and their own democratic maturity. While I don't agree that there was an implication of the end justifying any type of means, it seems we have already taken a utilitarian point of view. In short, the intelligence community is not allowed to circumvent the constitution and relevant laws (i.e. deprive citizens of their established rights); this is largely in part from the Fourth Amendment (unlawful search or seizure). As legal precedent is an inherently moving goalpost vis-a-vis judicial interpretation, this is a continuous battle in which citizens are aided by transparency and scrutiny of ongoing government programs. One need not look any farther than the Snowden cases to realize that there is still a strong clinging to this ideal of public transparency, as well as the mountain of evidence that the government ought to be audited to prevent, or at least cease, illegal operations such as PRISM. Judges watch the watchmen - largely in closed-door FISA court hearings, it seems. This bothers me. However, to think that there is zero benefit to these programs is parallel to naively thinking they are wholly good. I'm willing to wager that there are physical / kinetic and digital events that occur every week which would terrify the average citizen. Transparency is good, don't get me wrong - but there is only so much that some can stomach before feeling ill. Stay involved in local / state / federal politics. Make noise about things you feel are unjust. Asking good questions is a good thing, but action is what makes the gears turn.
- user-the-name 5y ago
  "But everyone does it!" is absolute intellectual laziness at best and outright dishonesty at worst. No, everybody does most definitely not do this! That is just not true.
emsy 5y ago
This sounds like the purported Epstein scheme on a smaller scale.

by chews 5y ago

Terry_Roll 5y ago

And 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 ago
Yeah, 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 ago
  I 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.
- tehwebguy 5y ago
  I mean the NSA literally admitted in 2013[0] that the NSA had employees doing stuff like this just for personal reasons. The only real difference is where the data was gathered from and I'm not even sure it's worth differentiating: > At least a dozen U.S. National Security Agency employees have been caught using secret government surveillance tools to spy on the emails or phone calls of their current or former spouses and lovers in the past decade, according to the intelligence agency’s internal watchdog. > The practice [...] was disclosed by the NSA Office of the Inspector General [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog/nsa-staff-used-spy-tools-on-spouses-ex-lovers-watchdog-idUSBRE98Q14G20130927 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog...
  - rtpg 5y ago
    I feel like the distinction between "employees at the NSA using tools to look up stuff for personal issues" and things like "the FBI actively looking up dirt on civil rights leaders to try and blackmail them" like with MLK is extremely important! One is a case of employees abusing a system for personal gain. Another is establishing a system of abuse in service of the security service. Absolutely night and day in terms of the implications, even if in both you have people with access to private information. The NSA employees weren't trying to advance the goals of the State by stalking their exes.
    - pydry 5y ago
      Hoover wasnt trying to advance the goals of the state either. For him, destroying MLK was about a struggle for power over the state.
staticassertion 5y ago
I'm only aware of one case where the US government, without warrant, actively hacked its own citizens using a 0day, which was when the FBI exploited a 0day to compromise users of TOR who, as I recall, were looking to access CSAM. Even when going after a bunch of pedophiles I think there was a good bit of controversy there. I think there may actually have been a warrant for some part of the access, idk. I'm not saying it doesn't happen but it would be quite a scandal to find that the government was performing warrantless exploitation of citizen's personal devices. Maybe someone can correct me here and show that this has been the case.
- dilap 5y ago
  If the ability exists, what's to stop them from using it? Good manners? And what's the incentive for someone to tell us, if they are? Become another Snowden or Assange or Manning? Not a very compelling outcome...
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    The adversarial judicial system is supposed to restrict that by having the defendant's lawyers challenge the evidence and how it was obtained. The prosecution and police can't simply use inappropriate evidence. In some cases it's possible (and worth the effort) to do 'parallel construction' by getting a warrant for some other evidence confirming the same thing, but it's not something that can be done at scale without it being obvious.
    - nerdponx 5y ago
      It's more than some cases, and yes it can be done at scale, to some extent: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R2013...
    - ILMostro7 5y ago
      In the name of national security, often behind closed doors. Even if the funds are there to hire competent defense, which most of the time they're not, you're fighting an uphill battle.
buzzwords 5y ago
etripe 5y ago
> The Security Services has to protect a country Implied is the statement that the end justifies the means. But how do you weigh the proportionality of measures taken? Do you adopt a utilitarian point of view, looking at, say, deaths prevented? Is anything game, or should agencies be expected to uphold a code of conduct, bill of rights or exclude entire categories of information? How do you assess what is or isn't a threat to a country and thereby something it needs to be protected from? What is a country - the president, the party, the government, its citizenry, businesses? Second, with the popularity of invoking "national security" as an authority argument, how can these agencies ever be accountable? Who watches the watchmen? Are we to trust agencies reporting on the number of e.g. terrorist incidents prevented, especially if the information sources are opaque and there's an obvious conflict of interest? Third, given the existence of programs like MK Ultra and Cointelpro, is it really safe to say agencies won't try to overreach? With examples like the Stargate program ("Men Who Stare At Goats"), should we have faith they know what they're doing?
- boston_clone 5y ago
  Of the roughly dozen questions, I'll try and hit a few points directly to sum up where I believe we ought to be, based on my relatively narrow understanding of US political sciences - please note that many answers to your questions will vary by country and their own democratic maturity. While I don't agree that there was an implication of the end justifying any type of means, it seems we have already taken a utilitarian point of view. In short, the intelligence community is not allowed to circumvent the constitution and relevant laws (i.e. deprive citizens of their established rights); this is largely in part from the Fourth Amendment (unlawful search or seizure). As legal precedent is an inherently moving goalpost vis-a-vis judicial interpretation, this is a continuous battle in which citizens are aided by transparency and scrutiny of ongoing government programs. One need not look any farther than the Snowden cases to realize that there is still a strong clinging to this ideal of public transparency, as well as the mountain of evidence that the government ought to be audited to prevent, or at least cease, illegal operations such as PRISM. Judges watch the watchmen - largely in closed-door FISA court hearings, it seems. This bothers me. However, to think that there is zero benefit to these programs is parallel to naively thinking they are wholly good. I'm willing to wager that there are physical / kinetic and digital events that occur every week which would terrify the average citizen. Transparency is good, don't get me wrong - but there is only so much that some can stomach before feeling ill. Stay involved in local / state / federal politics. Make noise about things you feel are unjust. Asking good questions is a good thing, but action is what makes the gears turn.
user-the-name 5y ago
"But everyone does it!" is absolute intellectual laziness at best and outright dishonesty at worst. No, everybody does most definitely not do this! That is just not true.

emsy 5y ago

This sounds like the purported Epstein scheme on a smaller scale.