5 ms·

Police hacking with Pegasus of key Netanyahu trial witness explodes into scandal

131 points by tomohawk 5y ago

chaosite 5y ago
Note that Debkafile is biased (and usually proudly so). The article is editorialized, but not wrong. The Calcalist article says what they say it does -- that the Israeli Police hacked many phones, without oversight, and some of those phones were related to the Netanyahu trials. Also recall that most of the police personnel involved were appointed by Netanyahu's goverment, and were praised by Netanyahu himself at the time of their appointment.
- ggm 5y ago
  Could this derail the Netanyahu trial? Political comeback trail because the police used tools you empowered them to use, to spy on you in a way which undermined the integrity of the evidence used to show how corrupt you are.. a modern-day virtuous circle?
  - recuter 5y ago
    Nope. Trial will continue and simultaneously and seperatly they'll be investigating this.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    To spy on prosecution witnesses, rather. So more like the witnesses against you were spied on by the organization you controlled until recently, so the trial has to be called off as hopelessly compromised. If I'm reading correctly.
  - chaosite 5y ago
    The "Fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine is not absolute worldwide as it is in the USA. Evidence obtained illegally is not automatically disregarded in Israel, though it still might be.
- pvg 5y ago
  Is there an English version of the relevant Calcalist article? They're the original source so if that exists it would probably make a better post.
  - chaosite 5y ago
    That would be this one: https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3928830,00.html https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3928830... It's the latest in a series of articles by Tomer Ganon. (previously posted as: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30241488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30241488)
- jmspring 5y ago
  Debkafile is an interesting site to read. During (before and after) the second Iraq war there was a lot of rumor and speculation that was way outside mainstream speculation. Several ended up being wrong.
  - ars 5y ago
    I remember them from back then - they had info WAY before anyone else, but not everything turned out correct. They had some amazing sources in the military, but they published everything, without trying to verify it first (which I guess would be impossible given the nature of their sources). From what I remember they never lied or tried to spin articles, but they did not have a strong verification step.
- aaronbrethorst 5y ago
  More on this: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/debkafile/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/debkafile/
cmurf 5y ago
Well of course it takes the invasion of privacy of upper echelon for it to be taken seriously. Had they been nobodies it would not be a scandal it would be normal. This is the problem with things like EARN IT too. Only once it's used against high powered innocents will it be a scandal, ergo privacy is not a right it is a product for the rich and powerful, not everyone.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  Nobodies don't have much to fear from this kind of surveillance. Nobodies have to fear being caught up in electronic dragnets and being processed by algorithms. This kind of surveillance will only be used against important people and people who become important by being a threat to important people. The endgame of this stuff is that societies become completely controlled by nameless people; the least surveilled. edit: just like the cops begging everyone to snitch and putting snitches everywhere are the least snitching people on the planet, intelligence organizations have mysterious locations, methods, budgets, customers, allegiances, owners, and employees. The least surveilled people on the planet will be the people who own the surveillance.
- LegitShady 5y ago
  why is everyone acting like this is all new? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-usa-spying-idUSBRE99Q09F20131028 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-usa-spying-idUSBR... ten+ years ago obama knew they were spying on merkel's phone and didn't say anything. The powerful people have already been spied on, and participated in the spying. The question is how many phones germany is tapping that merkel knew and didn't say anything about. This game is not new.
anm89 5y ago
To me it's always interesting because I perceive this all as theater. Historically and statistically speaking, the weird behavior would be if these people weren't spying on each other but then when someone gets caught they all have to pretend it's a scandal because otherwise they would be saying the quiet part out loud that nobody has had any privacy for a long time and that the laws simply aren't followed once you reach a certain level of power. Not saying this justifies any of it, just that it is what I perceive as the status quo.
- smitty1e 5y ago
  So, if one is engaged in "real stuff", then one expects comms probably involve many physical couriers and in-person meetings.
- LegitShady 5y ago
  > that the laws simply aren't followed once you reach a certain level of power. That works until you're caught, and then you have to be powerful enough to get out of it, or have someone involved powerful enough to protect you from the consequences. When 'everyone' is in on it, who is going to get you in trouble? Maybe the next guy, maybe you have time to bury all the evidence before then. Obviously a risk people were willing to take to achieve their political goals.
shmatt 5y ago
The newest and weirdest twist in this story, is that some of the government officials involved (which had no open investigations against them) are now "bringing their phones to NSO" to check if they indeed had Pegasus installed on their phones[1] Now, that would mean NSO has no logs on the phone numbers used to install Pegasus. I don't see how they would allow that If that were true, any country (Saudi Arabia, UAE, for example) Who got a green light from the Israeli weapons export to purchase Pegasus, can now spy on the Israeli government, army, everyone at NSO, the Mossad, and 8200. And the Israeli's would never know? No way NSO is playing dumb by saying "we can't know if you were hacked without your physical phone in our hands" [1] https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/bjkftweyq https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/bjkftweyq (requires Google Translate)
- inglor 5y ago
  Pegasus (like all products in that space) is an on-prem product, NSO send you the system limited to a number of usages and certain phone number restrictions and then you use it. To counter: do you really think every country purchasing Pegasus would want the Israeli government and NSO to be able to access all that information on their targets?
  - yuvadam 5y ago
    Counter-argument: do you really think NSO would release their 0-click exploits to an on prem product that they have no control over? Citizen Lab reports show significant involvement of exploit delivery cloud infrastructure + plausible deniability.
    - nneonneo 5y ago
      A sufficiently determined user (and these are often national governments) could easily target a phone they control. With sufficient monitoring and logging they could grab the exploit directly. The only thing stopping them is whatever contract/“EULA” they signed agreeing not to reverse engineer the product, and I doubt the big spooks would care about such a thing.
- 5y ago
rmbyrro 5y ago
Let'em taste their own venom.
rasz 5y ago
Israel is having its little ending of "Enemy of the State" moment where untouchable people realize they could have been spied on.
nokya 5y ago
My country (Switzerland) contributes to making Pegasus a profitable business. https://www.tdg.ch/la-suisse-reste-muette-sur-le-logiciel-espion-israelien-pegasus-878148868527 https://www.tdg.ch/la-suisse-reste-muette-sur-le-logiciel-es... What about yours?

131 points by tomohawk 5y ago

Note that Debkafile is biased (and usually proudly so). The article is editorialized, but not wrong. The Calcalist article says what they say it does -- that the Israeli Police hacked many phones, without oversight, and some of those phones were related to the Netanyahu trials. Also recall that most of the police personnel involved were appointed by Netanyahu's goverment, and were praised by Netanyahu himself at the time of their appointment.

ggm 5y ago
Could this derail the Netanyahu trial? Political comeback trail because the police used tools you empowered them to use, to spy on you in a way which undermined the integrity of the evidence used to show how corrupt you are.. a modern-day virtuous circle?
- recuter 5y ago
  Nope. Trial will continue and simultaneously and seperatly they'll be investigating this.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  To spy on prosecution witnesses, rather. So more like the witnesses against you were spied on by the organization you controlled until recently, so the trial has to be called off as hopelessly compromised. If I'm reading correctly.
- chaosite 5y ago
  The "Fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine is not absolute worldwide as it is in the USA. Evidence obtained illegally is not automatically disregarded in Israel, though it still might be.
pvg 5y ago
Is there an English version of the relevant Calcalist article? They're the original source so if that exists it would probably make a better post.
- chaosite 5y ago
  That would be this one: https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3928830,00.html https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3928830... It's the latest in a series of articles by Tomer Ganon. (previously posted as: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30241488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30241488)
jmspring 5y ago
Debkafile is an interesting site to read. During (before and after) the second Iraq war there was a lot of rumor and speculation that was way outside mainstream speculation. Several ended up being wrong.
- ars 5y ago
  I remember them from back then - they had info WAY before anyone else, but not everything turned out correct. They had some amazing sources in the military, but they published everything, without trying to verify it first (which I guess would be impossible given the nature of their sources). From what I remember they never lied or tried to spin articles, but they did not have a strong verification step.
aaronbrethorst 5y ago
More on this: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/debkafile/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/debkafile/

cmurf 5y ago

Well of course it takes the invasion of privacy of upper echelon for it to be taken seriously. Had they been nobodies it would not be a scandal it would be normal. This is the problem with things like EARN IT too. Only once it's used against high powered innocents will it be a scandal, ergo privacy is not a right it is a product for the rich and powerful, not everyone.

pessimizer 5y ago
Nobodies don't have much to fear from this kind of surveillance. Nobodies have to fear being caught up in electronic dragnets and being processed by algorithms. This kind of surveillance will only be used against important people and people who become important by being a threat to important people. The endgame of this stuff is that societies become completely controlled by nameless people; the least surveilled. edit: just like the cops begging everyone to snitch and putting snitches everywhere are the least snitching people on the planet, intelligence organizations have mysterious locations, methods, budgets, customers, allegiances, owners, and employees. The least surveilled people on the planet will be the people who own the surveillance.
LegitShady 5y ago
why is everyone acting like this is all new? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-usa-spying-idUSBRE99Q09F20131028 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-usa-spying-idUSBR... ten+ years ago obama knew they were spying on merkel's phone and didn't say anything. The powerful people have already been spied on, and participated in the spying. The question is how many phones germany is tapping that merkel knew and didn't say anything about. This game is not new.

anm89 5y ago

To me it's always interesting because I perceive this all as theater. Historically and statistically speaking, the weird behavior would be if these people weren't spying on each other but then when someone gets caught they all have to pretend it's a scandal because otherwise they would be saying the quiet part out loud that nobody has had any privacy for a long time and that the laws simply aren't followed once you reach a certain level of power. Not saying this justifies any of it, just that it is what I perceive as the status quo.

smitty1e 5y ago
So, if one is engaged in "real stuff", then one expects comms probably involve many physical couriers and in-person meetings.
LegitShady 5y ago
> that the laws simply aren't followed once you reach a certain level of power. That works until you're caught, and then you have to be powerful enough to get out of it, or have someone involved powerful enough to protect you from the consequences. When 'everyone' is in on it, who is going to get you in trouble? Maybe the next guy, maybe you have time to bury all the evidence before then. Obviously a risk people were willing to take to achieve their political goals.

shmatt 5y ago

The newest and weirdest twist in this story, is that some of the government officials involved (which had no open investigations against them) are now "bringing their phones to NSO" to check if they indeed had Pegasus installed on their phones[1] Now, that would mean NSO has no logs on the phone numbers used to install Pegasus. I don't see how they would allow that If that were true, any country (Saudi Arabia, UAE, for example) Who got a green light from the Israeli weapons export to purchase Pegasus, can now spy on the Israeli government, army, everyone at NSO, the Mossad, and 8200. And the Israeli's would never know? No way NSO is playing dumb by saying "we can't know if you were hacked without your physical phone in our hands" [1] https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/bjkftweyq https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/bjkftweyq (requires Google Translate)

inglor 5y ago
Pegasus (like all products in that space) is an on-prem product, NSO send you the system limited to a number of usages and certain phone number restrictions and then you use it. To counter: do you really think every country purchasing Pegasus would want the Israeli government and NSO to be able to access all that information on their targets?
- yuvadam 5y ago
  Counter-argument: do you really think NSO would release their 0-click exploits to an on prem product that they have no control over? Citizen Lab reports show significant involvement of exploit delivery cloud infrastructure + plausible deniability.
  - nneonneo 5y ago
    A sufficiently determined user (and these are often national governments) could easily target a phone they control. With sufficient monitoring and logging they could grab the exploit directly. The only thing stopping them is whatever contract/“EULA” they signed agreeing not to reverse engineer the product, and I doubt the big spooks would care about such a thing.
5y ago

rmbyrro 5y ago

Let'em taste their own venom.

rasz 5y ago

Israel is having its little ending of "Enemy of the State" moment where untouchable people realize they could have been spied on.

nokya 5y ago

My country (Switzerland) contributes to making Pegasus a profitable business. https://www.tdg.ch/la-suisse-reste-muette-sur-le-logiciel-espion-israelien-pegasus-878148868527 https://www.tdg.ch/la-suisse-reste-muette-sur-le-logiciel-es... What about yours?