Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

citizenlab.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 314 posts

Re: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

#231

Post by edanm »

baybal2 wrote: post #201
slavak wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Israeli government has absolutely no say in how any of this plays out, that is the entire point of an independent judiciary. The lawsuit and sanctions are decided by the courts based on existing laws and precedent, and for them Facebook's size or position in the Israeli market does not (and should not) hold any weight whatsoever. The most the legislative can do is amend the relevant laws to make what Facebook tri…

> The Israeli government has absolutely no say in how any of this plays out, that is the entire point of an independent judiciary. Israel has no genuinely independent judiciary, nor genuinely free press. IDF regularly intervenes in both, that's a very poorly held secret. Any normal nation would be completely horrified at the prospect of a private company effectively intervening into its foreign relations, but Israel…

> Israel has no genuinely independent judiciary, nor genuinely free press.

That's just not true, where are you getting your information from?

Re: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

#232

Post by RpFLCL »

ThePadawan wrote: post #188
bjourne wrote: post #104

How come when we hear about this stuff it is always Israeli companies involved? Is ethics not taught in Israeli Computer Science curricula? Those who wrote this exploit are clearly "brilliant" and at least some of them are bound to be reading Hacker News. Is other countries' spyware firms just better at hiding their malware than Israel's is?

> Is ethics not taught in Israeli Computer Science curricula? ...Is ethis taught in any CS curriculum? It sure wasn't in mine (but to be fair, that was in Switzerland).

It was a requirement for my Software Engineering degree (my university was in the US). When discussing with my coworkers in the past, I don't think many of them were required to take any ethics courses, unfortunately.

Ethics in software is something we should all probably talk about a little more often.

Re: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

#233

Post by _kbh_ »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #154
1cvmask wrote: post #3

Journalists as messengers have always been targeted, and even killed, and it seems that Apple’s messaging system was the attack vector here. While the article decries NSO being nefarious and selling to suspect “authoritarian” countries, high schools here in our democratic US have been buying hacking solutions to spy on students: https://gizmodo.com/u-s-schools-are-buying-phone-hacking-tec...

That isn’t a spy tool. It’s for forensics. You have to hand over your phone and unlock it voluntarily, and physically attach it to that thing and dump it. Very different.

Its only for forensics because schools cannot afford the version that breaks into the phone for you, its expensive and not something that a school can get access to.

Re: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

#234

Post by AsyncAwait »

edanm wrote: post #231
baybal2 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Israeli government has absolutely no say in how any of this plays out, that is the entire point of an independent judiciary. Israel has no genuinely independent judiciary, nor genuinely free press. IDF regularly intervenes in both, that's a very poorly held secret. Any normal nation would be completely horrified at the prospect of a private company effectively intervening into its foreign relations, but Israel…

> Israel has no genuinely independent judiciary, nor genuinely free press. That's just not true, where are you getting your information from?

Israeli courts have repeatedly ruled in a way that violates international law, including on illegal Israeli settlements.

Does it really matter if they're independent if they disregard the law in exactly the same way the Israeli government does?

Re: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

#235

Post by AsyncAwait »

bjourne wrote: post #104

How come when we hear about this stuff it is always Israeli companies involved? Is ethics not taught in Israeli Computer Science curricula? Those who wrote this exploit are clearly "brilliant" and at least some of them are bound to be reading Hacker News. Is other countries' spyware firms just better at hiding their malware than Israel's is?

> How come when we hear about this stuff it is always Israeli companies involved? Is ethics not taught in Israeli Computer Science curricula?

Personal opinion, but I think the mandatory army service in Israel seems to teach that everything is 'defense' and Israel is always 'defending itself', no matter what, this sort of thinking then bleeds into the private sector as these guys leave the military and use the skills they learned there to establish businesses.

Having interacted with the Palestinians during their army service as 'the enemy', the victims of NSO undoubtedly fall into the same category, thus not worth loosing their sleep over.

Re: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

#236

Post by xvector »

comprev wrote: post #194
Sahbak wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's absolutely bullshit, many tech literate people here are against the weapon industry, which NSO is part of. Enough of them don't give a shit, which is why NSO can hire people from the intelligence arm of the army for ridiculous salaries.

I'm firmly in the camp that my brain will never be used in the weapons (or gambling) industry - no matter what the salary.

Not in the weapons industry, but in my experience statements like that struggle to hold up to the test of time. Seems like the places I wanted to work the least for offered the most, by a significant margin.

Re: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

#237

Post by AsyncAwait »

keyme wrote: post #134
bjourne wrote: post #104

How come when we hear about this stuff it is always Israeli companies involved? Is ethics not taught in Israeli Computer Science curricula? Those who wrote this exploit are clearly "brilliant" and at least some of them are bound to be reading Hacker News. Is other countries' spyware firms just better at hiding their malware than Israel's is?

When HackingTeam was exposed, no one was asking to sanction Italy. Hating on Israel specifically is a very cool and woke thing to do. Has been for decades.

> Hating on Israel specifically is a very cool and woke thing to do. Has been for decades.

And defenders of Israeli actions using the defense of people 'hating on Israel' instead of reflecting on the fact that people have genuine policy disagreements with what Israel does has been a popular deflection tactic for decades.

You can't divorce what Israel does on a daily basis from its image and then act surprised when it is being criticized.

Re: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

#238

Post by smashah »

PeterisP wrote: post #199
smashah wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israeli courts rejected the case to revoke NSOs export license which would then implicate the state itself. IANAL but I think the case can be made that the export of NSOs software is against US law and a violation of the Wassenaar Arrangement. See: 5D002.C.1 So in theory if Israel is allowing one of its companies to break US law then it would make sense to use that as a basis to stop aid to Israel which may be what O…

Can you elaborate why do you think that export of NSOs software would be against US law, preferably which specific law? My first assumption is that the act isn't covered by any US law at all. For some analogy, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi does not violate any US law as the many US laws regarding murder (i.e. the separate criminal statutes of each of the US states plus any federal laws that may apply) do not regulate…

I'm not able to elaborate because I'm not a lawyer.

I am speaking in more general terms regarding the history of NSO and pegasus.

I am not certain if Jamal's phone itself was hacked but if it was then, in all likelihood, his phone was hacked while he was residing in the US.

His compatriot, who lives in Canada, was definitely hacked using pegasus and that happened in Canada.

I have no hope that the UK government would do anything about this unless the Qataris apply pressure.

Re: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

#239

Post by flyinglizard »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #184
flyinglizard wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying “Iran is punished for supporting Palestine” is like saying “ISIS was punished for supporting traditional Islamic values”.

People regularly do say that, and they are generally the same ones using Iran's support of Palestine to justify our actions against Iran. I don't get your point.

The problem with ISIS is their beheadings, slaughter of innocents, destabilization of countries, piracy, and persecuting minorities. Not their support of Islam.

The problem with Iran is their development of nuclear weapons, their ballistic missile program which now extends in range to cover the Europe, their support in weapons, money and training of various paramilitary groups such as the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, their oppression of their own citizens, hanging gays from cranes, various bombing and attack operations (US forces, Saudi facilities), attacks against oil tankers and calls to annihilate Israel. Not their support of Palestine.

Re: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit

#240

Post by marcan_42 »

computerex wrote: post #193
marcan_42 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's security architecture is leagues ahead of Android's. They have bespoke innovative protections at the hardware and hypervisor level, as well as an actual security CPU (as opposed to TrustZone on Androids, which is always swiss cheese in one way or another). This is largely possible because Apple are building their own silicon (none of the other silicon vendors are anywhere near as competent in this field). I s…

Android dominates the mobile OS market share though. Seems like targeting it would yield a higher ROI. Much like how malware writers target Windows, because it dominates the desktop OS market share.

Android is fragmented (though that is changing slowly), which means it's much harder to port and validate a single exploit chain to work on many Android phones.
Post reply on HN