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Seems random developers were targeted as well as European Parliament members (and more): > Jordi Baylina is the technology lead at Polygon, a popular decentral

Seems random developers were targeted as well as European Parliament members (and more): > Jordi Baylina is the technology lead at Polygon, a popular decentralised Ethereum scaling platform. He is also an advisor on projects related to digital voting and decentralisation, and has built a widely-used privacy toolkit. He was extensively targeted with Pegasus, receiving at least 26 infection attempts. Ultimately, he was infected at least eight times between October 2019 and July 2020. > Baylina received a text message masquerading as a boarding pass link for a Swiss International Air Lines flight he had purchased. Targeting in this case indicates that the Pegasus operator may have had access to Baylina’s Passenger Name Record (PNR) or other information collected from the carrier. Scare stuff that not just random text messages can infect you (we knew this) but combined with harvesting other data (like PNR), they can time to exploit messages with other actions you do (like buying an flight ticket) and get you that way. I was scared of receiving random text messages already, but easy to just ignore them as they have nothing to do with me. But if I buy a flight ticket and receive a text message that looks relevant to me, I'm not sure I'd be able to guess it was actually malicious. Scary stuff. Edit: The more I read, the worse it gets: > Another common mode of targeting was to masquerade as official notifications from Spanish government entities, including the Tax and Social Security authorities.The messages also used SMS Sender IDs to masquerade as official agency accounts. > Notably, fake official messages were sometimes highly personalized. For example, a message sent to Jordi Baylina included a portion of his actual official tax identification number, suggesting that the Pegasus operator had access to this information. Seems clear at this point that the official Spanish government was behind these attacks, or the official registries got hacked (together with various delivery companies). Both are bad, but that signs are pointing to the earlier makes it even worse. It seems that the Spanish government can't help itself to give more fuel to the fire that is the fight for Catalan independence. Who'd want to belong to a state that constantly suppresses and surveillance you?

ricardobayes 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- capableweb 5y ago
  I don't know him myself, and after a quick search he seems to be another blockchain developer involved in bunch of project, I have no idea about his ties to any "freedom fighting" organizations. If what he is doing is illegal, does that mean there is a warrant out for his arrest? He seems to be doing talks, presentations and other things out in public, wouldn't he be arrested by now if he's doing something illegal?
  - ricardobayes 5y ago
    https://twitter.com/jbaylina https://twitter.com/jbaylina
    - capableweb 5y ago
      That seems to be his Twitter indeed. What about the warrant and that he should have been arrested already if he's doing something illegal?
      - ricardobayes 5y ago
        iso1210 5y ago
        UK? The SNP constantly champions for Scottish independence, plenty of people agree, plenty disagree, I don't recall any suggestion from either side it's illegal. There are also independence movements of varying sizes in Wales, Cornwall, "The North", and London. The Texas Nationalist Movement may be funded and driven by Russia, but I don't believe Daniel Miller has been arrested or indeed broken any laws. Corsican nationalists likewise seem fine. Corsica Libera for example got 8 seats in the 2021 regional elections in France The general view of the world is that people have a right to self determination. Some governments trample on that - Spain and Argentina for example do not like the right to self-determination, but the UN GA agrees it's a universal right.
sneak 5y ago
Yet another data point supporting the fact that the phone number people have for you should never be that of the sim card actually inside your phone.
- wswope 5y ago
  Not sure how relevant that is against a nation state actor that’s willing to pull from airline passenger records. All they’d have have to do is get a few timed hits for your location and then look for a common IMEI at nearby towers.
  - smilespray 5y ago
    And if you have a burner phone, they can just track which IMEIs tend to travel together.
  - Symbiote 5y ago
    > a nation state actor I am a bit of a broken record on this point, but it's a state actor. Spain comprises multiple nations, Catalonia being one of them.
    - nudpiedo 5y ago
      Nowhere in its constitution is defined like that, it’s not a confederation of nations but a parliamentarian monarchy that respects regional cultural differences.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - ikurei 5y ago
        No official document, not even the Constitution, can be a final authority on what a nation is. That's just the official definition. Many scholars, politicians, and citizens, even excluding people outside of the Overton window, describe Spain as containing several nations. At the very least Catalonia, the Basque Country / Euskal Herria, and Galicia are widely (but not unanimously) considered to have the historic, cultural, social characteristics that would make them nations. The spanish constitution is a document of compromise, born of a very special time in history; whatever it says about what Spain is, we don't have to accept it. (Biases disclaimer: I'm Spanish, specifically castilian; I don't support Catalonian independence, and I dislike all nationalisms; all nations are more like big balls of wibbly wobbly... nation-y wimey... stuff) This piece of news doesn't yet show up on the spanish newspapers I trust; I'm really curious to see if it makes the news. I'll be extremely concern if, as I fear, if doesn't.
im3w1l 5y ago
> Seems clear at this point that the official Spanish government was behind these attacks, or the official registries got hacked There is a third alternative. An insider leaked it.
- LeifCarrotson 5y ago
  That's similar to the Spanish government being behind the attacks... Effectively, a member of the Spanish government used (misused) their official capacity to take action against Catalan officials. Perhaps that's not the official stance of the government, but an organization is only a monolith with a single public position to the extent that they're able to enforce proper actions. The official Spanish government being publicly neutral but actually unable to ensure that their own members act in accord with this position and instead instigating extensive attacks is not that different from the official Spanish government being behind the attacks. Will the insider be punished sufficiently to deter others from following in their footsteps?
  - azernik 5y ago
    "Insiders" are a very broad set of people, including low-level bureaucrats and motivations can include profit. To pick one of the more likely scenarios: if a government worker sold a database on the open (criminal) market, there's no meaningful sense in which "the Spanish government is behind this".
    - permalac 5y ago
      They could be using such database, in that case they would be involved.
- FerociousTimes 5y ago
  You mean a whistleblower?
- pvaldes 5y ago
  Update: After a few days, is clear now that it was the intelligence agency (CNI) of the Spanish Government.
dgut 5y ago
> Seems clear at this point that the official Spanish government was behind these attacks, or the official registries got hacked (together with various delivery companies). Both are bad, but that signs are pointing to the earlier makes it even worse. Not arguing again't your claim either way, but SMS sender can be set to anything, it's a feature of the system for it to work. The "DNI" (Spanish identification number) can't be considered private information and isn't difficult to find.
- capableweb 5y ago
  The mix of having access to Pegasus, PNR database, records from delivery services and more makes it clear that it's not a solo/individual hacker/group doing all of this, it would require extensive compromise of multiple organizations to get access to those kind of things.

ricardobayes 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
capableweb 5y ago
I don't know him myself, and after a quick search he seems to be another blockchain developer involved in bunch of project, I have no idea about his ties to any "freedom fighting" organizations. If what he is doing is illegal, does that mean there is a warrant out for his arrest? He seems to be doing talks, presentations and other things out in public, wouldn't he be arrested by now if he's doing something illegal?
- ricardobayes 5y ago
  https://twitter.com/jbaylina https://twitter.com/jbaylina
  - capableweb 5y ago
    That seems to be his Twitter indeed. What about the warrant and that he should have been arrested already if he's doing something illegal?
    - ricardobayes 5y ago
      - iso1210 5y ago
        UK? The SNP constantly champions for Scottish independence, plenty of people agree, plenty disagree, I don't recall any suggestion from either side it's illegal. There are also independence movements of varying sizes in Wales, Cornwall, "The North", and London. The Texas Nationalist Movement may be funded and driven by Russia, but I don't believe Daniel Miller has been arrested or indeed broken any laws. Corsican nationalists likewise seem fine. Corsica Libera for example got 8 seats in the 2021 regional elections in France The general view of the world is that people have a right to self determination. Some governments trample on that - Spain and Argentina for example do not like the right to self-determination, but the UN GA agrees it's a universal right.

sneak 5y ago

Yet another data point supporting the fact that the phone number people have for you should never be that of the sim card actually inside your phone.

wswope 5y ago
Not sure how relevant that is against a nation state actor that’s willing to pull from airline passenger records. All they’d have have to do is get a few timed hits for your location and then look for a common IMEI at nearby towers.
- smilespray 5y ago
  And if you have a burner phone, they can just track which IMEIs tend to travel together.
- Symbiote 5y ago
  > a nation state actor I am a bit of a broken record on this point, but it's a state actor. Spain comprises multiple nations, Catalonia being one of them.
  - nudpiedo 5y ago
    Nowhere in its constitution is defined like that, it’s not a confederation of nations but a parliamentarian monarchy that respects regional cultural differences.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - ikurei 5y ago
      No official document, not even the Constitution, can be a final authority on what a nation is. That's just the official definition. Many scholars, politicians, and citizens, even excluding people outside of the Overton window, describe Spain as containing several nations. At the very least Catalonia, the Basque Country / Euskal Herria, and Galicia are widely (but not unanimously) considered to have the historic, cultural, social characteristics that would make them nations. The spanish constitution is a document of compromise, born of a very special time in history; whatever it says about what Spain is, we don't have to accept it. (Biases disclaimer: I'm Spanish, specifically castilian; I don't support Catalonian independence, and I dislike all nationalisms; all nations are more like big balls of wibbly wobbly... nation-y wimey... stuff) This piece of news doesn't yet show up on the spanish newspapers I trust; I'm really curious to see if it makes the news. I'll be extremely concern if, as I fear, if doesn't.

im3w1l 5y ago

> Seems clear at this point that the official Spanish government was behind these attacks, or the official registries got hacked There is a third alternative. An insider leaked it.

LeifCarrotson 5y ago
That's similar to the Spanish government being behind the attacks... Effectively, a member of the Spanish government used (misused) their official capacity to take action against Catalan officials. Perhaps that's not the official stance of the government, but an organization is only a monolith with a single public position to the extent that they're able to enforce proper actions. The official Spanish government being publicly neutral but actually unable to ensure that their own members act in accord with this position and instead instigating extensive attacks is not that different from the official Spanish government being behind the attacks. Will the insider be punished sufficiently to deter others from following in their footsteps?
- azernik 5y ago
  "Insiders" are a very broad set of people, including low-level bureaucrats and motivations can include profit. To pick one of the more likely scenarios: if a government worker sold a database on the open (criminal) market, there's no meaningful sense in which "the Spanish government is behind this".
  - permalac 5y ago
    They could be using such database, in that case they would be involved.
FerociousTimes 5y ago
You mean a whistleblower?
pvaldes 5y ago
Update: After a few days, is clear now that it was the intelligence agency (CNI) of the Spanish Government.

dgut 5y ago

> Seems clear at this point that the official Spanish government was behind these attacks, or the official registries got hacked (together with various delivery companies). Both are bad, but that signs are pointing to the earlier makes it even worse. Not arguing again't your claim either way, but SMS sender can be set to anything, it's a feature of the system for it to work. The "DNI" (Spanish identification number) can't be considered private information and isn't difficult to find.

capableweb 5y ago
The mix of having access to Pegasus, PNR database, records from delivery services and more makes it clear that it's not a solo/individual hacker/group doing all of this, it would require extensive compromise of multiple organizations to get access to those kind of things.