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NYT journalist hacked with Pegasus after reporting on previous hacking attempts

citizenlab.ca

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Re: NYT journalist hacked with Pegasus after reporting on previous hacking attempts

#101

Post by billiam »

geofft wrote: post #78
simlevesque wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, any end justifies every means ?

I don't think the comment you're replying to is talking about justification or justice, just rationality. If I say "Your bike lock doesn't have to be unbreakable, it just has to be strong enough that a rational thief will look for another target," that doesn't mean I think the thief is justified in stealing other people's bikes instead of yours.

There is no point to saying it is rational for NSO (or the Saudis) to act this way. It was quite rational for MBS to order his minions to lure Khashoggi to the embassy and cut him into pieces. It brings nothing to the discussion of just how this company and its clients continue to ignore laws and decency.

Re: NYT journalist hacked with Pegasus after reporting on previous hacking attempts

#103

Post by nix23 »

1cvmask wrote: post #79
midasuni wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was arrested in 2019 so your “over a decade” claim is demonstrably wrong. Could you point to amnesty international claiming belmarsh is torture?

Amnesty International is a mouthpiece for the UK/US governments on so many subjects including Syria and Chevron. They even famously withdrew their "support" for Steven DOnzinger who was prosecuted by Chevron for exposing their environmental damages in Latin America. It is a tainted and biased source. Use it as a source at your own peril.

Is the UN supported by Chevron too?

Re: NYT journalist hacked with Pegasus after reporting on previous hacking attempts

#104

Post by UweSchmidt »

otoh wrote: post #18

On the other hand, perhaps the hardware/OS designs of iOS and Android devices are fundamentally flawed, when viewed from a security-first perspective.

By now every piece of software and hardware that is in use, every abstraction layer in that computing tower of bable has been thoroughly hacked. Anywhere from plaintext passwords on a server to insane exploits like Rowhammer, those security websites and podcasts have long weekly litanies of tragedy. Additionally there is all-knowing Google, chinese phones phoning home, undocumented functions in intel processors, ISPs sabotaging user encryption, small-time browser plugin writers that get offered high sums for their plugin to get a front row seat to users' browsers, programmers pulling who-knows-what from npm and are probably pwned by time they write 'hello world', phishing, billions of smart devices constantly listening and often filming and we probably only know 10% of what's going on until a Snowden 2.0 comes along.

Yes, all of it is 'fundamentally flawed', and it would take a herculean effort to start over with a clean slate, yes, to figuratively burn it all down and make simple provably correct and safe hardware and a small and minimal OS that has browsing and communications built in.

Anyone?

Re: NYT journalist hacked with Pegasus after reporting on previous hacking attempts

#105

Post by varjag »

stareatgoats wrote: post #72
midasuni wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was arrested in 2019 so your “over a decade” claim is demonstrably wrong. Could you point to amnesty international claiming belmarsh is torture?

His confinement to the Embassy of Equador since 2010 amply qualify as both imprisonment and torture [0]. If you like to argue that it does not literally qualify then I suggest you don't in the interest of not wasting everybody's time. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-48473898

By making these ridiculous comparisons you only erase experiences of real torture victims.

Re: NYT journalist hacked with Pegasus after reporting on previous hacking attempts

#106

Post by pessimizer »

billiam wrote: post #101
geofft wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the comment you're replying to is talking about justification or justice, just rationality. If I say "Your bike lock doesn't have to be unbreakable, it just has to be strong enough that a rational thief will look for another target," that doesn't mean I think the thief is justified in stealing other people's bikes instead of yours.

There is no point to saying it is rational for NSO (or the Saudis) to act this way. It was quite rational for MBS to order his minions to lure Khashoggi to the embassy and cut him into pieces. It brings nothing to the discussion of just how this company and its clients continue to ignore laws and decency.

> It brings nothing to the discussion of just how this company and its clients continue to ignore laws and decency.

This is not worth discussing, it's a factual observation. Are we supposed to compete for who can make the most indignant face?

Re: NYT journalist hacked with Pegasus after reporting on previous hacking attempts

#107

Post by nix23 »

nuclearnice1 wrote: post #98
nix23 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact, the CIA had/has a rule not to impersonate priests etc, journalist or personnel of NGO's in undercover missions (because they have a hard life in some country's already). But then there is that excellent movie Spy Game....

The CIA reportedly used the “Save the Children” charity as a front for a fake hepatitis B vaccination program in Pakistan to help confirm Bin Laden’s location. A ban on the polio vaccination program in some Taliban territory and attacks on vaccine workers followed.

Hint to Spy Game where Brad Pitt plays a Journalist as an active CIA agent was no mistake.

Re: NYT journalist hacked with Pegasus after reporting on previous hacking attempts

#108

Post by iso1210 »

stareatgoats wrote: post #72
midasuni wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was arrested in 2019 so your “over a decade” claim is demonstrably wrong. Could you point to amnesty international claiming belmarsh is torture?

His confinement to the Embassy of Equador since 2010 amply qualify as both imprisonment and torture [0]. If you like to argue that it does not literally qualify then I suggest you don't in the interest of not wasting everybody's time. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-48473898

He literally chose to be there - skipping bail to do so.

It's like saying that a criminal on the run hiding out in the woods is being tortured.

Re: NYT journalist hacked with Pegasus after reporting on previous hacking attempts

#109

Post by fortran77 »

jprd wrote: post #92
fortran77 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unit 8200 gets no money from U.S. Taxpayers.

I will presume that this comment was made with forthrightness and lack of information rather than attempting to obfuscate a fairly obvious funding funnel from the US -> IDF -> 8200. The US gov't provides billions, yearly, in monetary aid and guaranteed loans to Israel specifically for military funding. Sure, most of that has earmarks, but that's the way the game is played. This doesn't account for anything in the bla…

So you admit this claim is just based on your hunch. This makes it a malicious lie.

Re: NYT journalist hacked with Pegasus after reporting on previous hacking attempts

#110

Post by heavyset_go »

smoldesu wrote: post #83
FridayoLeary wrote: post #9

So how do we protect our privacy from the advance of technology? It doesn't seem possible. Just going after NSO is useless.

You can't. It's all marketing fluff at this point, because significant enough state actors will see the ~$10,000,000 R&D cost for a few iOS/Android zero-days as a drop in the bucket. We live in a post-security world, where it's economically feasible to develop malware at a pace that outruns Blue Teams. We live in a post-privacy world because Apple and Google happily pass your data back to world governments in the nam…

> We live in a post-privacy world because Apple and Google happily pass your data back to world governments in the name of stopping terrorism, or whatever the social cause du-jour is.

To illustrate this point, Apple gives up users' data for about 150,000 users/accounts in the US[1] a year in response to government data requests.

[1] https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html

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