th<\/sup>, 2021<\/p>\nThe news about Pegasus and NSO Group, its parent company, is horrifying. Pegasus can be used to hack into any mobile phone \u2013 Apple or Android \u2013 without the operator of the device taking any action. Without so much as a click, it can explore and copy all data on the phone\u2014phones, contact lists, passwords, everything. It can surreptitiously turn on the camera and the microphone and record everything it sees and hears. And of course it knows the exact location of any cell phone it monitors, and can record phone calls\u2014not just the metadata, but the conversations themselves.<\/p>\n
The Israeli government commissioned the production of this nuclear spying software, and have been extraordinarily feckless in who they\u2019ve leased it out to. In fact, they\u2019ve been so reckless it\u2019s hard to fathom if they aren\u2019t simply trying a particularly involved form of national suicide. Among the people they\u2019ve entrusted with this software are the United Arab Emirates (better than most middle-eastern governments, but gawds, that\u2019s a low bar) Saudi Arabia, one of the most vicious theocracies on Earth, and Azerbaijan (I wouldn\u2019t trust that government to feed my goldfish).<\/p>\n
According to the Guardian, which broke the story, \u201cA recent transparency report released by NSO Group acknowledged the company was \u2018closely regulated\u2019 by export control authorities in Israel. The Defense Export Controls Agency (DECA) within the Israeli defence ministry \u201cstrictly restricts\u201d the licensing of some surveillance products based on its own analysis of potential customers from a human rights perspective, the company said, and had rejected NSO requests for export licences \u2018in quite a few cases\u2019.<\/p>\n
I repeat: Azerbaijan? That renowned guardian of human rights? Saudi Arabia? The Emirates?<\/p>\n
You have to wonder who the Israelis might consider unfit to have their nuclear spyware. Just the fact that a corrupt fascist pig like Benjamin Netanyahu had control over who got it was alarming enough. The Guardian is reporting that misuse of the spyware has roiled politics in Hungary, Mexico, Russia and other places.<\/p>\n
NSO Group claims that it supplies the spyware to governments (51% of leases), police (38%) and intelligence agencies (11%). Given the list (both known and inferred) that the Israelis and NSO deemed fit to possess this spyware, that\u2019s less than reassuring. Intelligence agencies? CIA, SIS or Mossad are bad enough. Russia\u2019s FIS? China\u2019s Ministry for State Security? Turkey\u2019s NIO? We can assume the Ministry of National Security of Azerbaijan is in on the deal. How about North Korea? Kim likes to keep tabs on things, you know.<\/p>\n
Police agencies are a concern. I wouldn\u2019t trust Scotland Yard with a cyberweapon like that, and they have a faintly better rep than most national police forces. I definitely wouldn\u2019t want it in the hands of the NYPD or the LAPD. And there\u2019s a lot of police forces that have been surreptitiously infested with Nazis and fascists and other right wing nuts. Hell, I live right next door to Oregon!<\/p>\n
Rahul Gandhi, one of the targets of abuse by this program, said: \u201cIf your information is correct, the scale and nature of surveillance you describe goes beyond an attack on the privacy of individuals. It is an attack on the democratic foundations of our country. It must be thoroughly investigated and those responsible be identified and punished.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edward Snowden felt that Pegasus should be treated like nuclear weaponry because of the mass damage it can do. \u201cIf they find a way to hack one iPhone, they\u2019ve found a way to hack all of them,\u201d<\/p>\n
They can break in to pretty much any cell phone. You don\u2019t have to click on a dodgy link or call the wrong number. Pegasus does it all for you. I\u2019m told that just turning your phone off is no defense. They can turn it on. About the only way you can ensure your phone isn\u2019t being used to spy on you is buy taking the battery out, at which point you may as well use it as a drink coaster because that\u2019s about all it can do.<\/p>\n
NSO Group and Israel say they are extremely careful and screen their clients to ensure that human rights to privacy are not abused. You know. Clients like Azerbaijan. Or the vicious religious cabal running Saudi Arabia? Or India under Modi? Or for that matter, Israel under its far-right government.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s worse is that now it\u2019s only a matter of time before it ends up on the dark web (if it hasn\u2019t already) and winds up in the hands of every terror group out there. Or anyone with a nasty sense of humor and a taste for chaos? Or the flat-out psychotic. Even if NSO can safeguard the source code of Pegasus (and Windows\u2019 source code eventually got out), people will realize that the fact that the capabilities of Pegasus exist means that it can be reverse engineered or even reinvented.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s only a matter of time, and time may have already run out for 99% of us.<\/p>\n
Cell phones are hopelessly compromised. ALL cell phones. Nobody is safe.<\/p>\n
So now is the time to start thinking about life without cell phones. They weren\u2019t our greatest cultural advance to begin with, being flooded with spammers and providing poor quality for the price, but now they are an active danger to the security and freedom of our lives.<\/p>\n
It may be time to trash our cell phones.<\/p>\n
Just be sure to take the battery out and smash the unit with a hammer. That\u2019s the only way you can be sure the personal information it carries isn\u2019t going to Azerbaijan, or the Proud Boys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Great Hack Is it time to burn the burners? July 20th, 2021 The news about Pegasus and NSO Group, its parent company, is horrifying. Pegasus can be used to hack into any mobile phone \u2013 Apple or Android \u2013 without the operator of the device taking any action. Without so much as a click, … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “The Great Hack — Is it time to burn the burners?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,799,735],"tags":[1243,1241,242,1240,1239,1242],"class_list":["post-1126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-technology","category-terror","tag-azerbaijan","tag-cell-phones","tag-israel","tag-nso-group","tag-pegasus","tag-spyware"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Great Hack -- Is it time to burn the burners? · Zepp's Commentaries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=1126\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Great Hack -- Is it time to burn the burners? · Zepp's Commentaries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Great Hack Is it time to burn the burners? 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