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US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

reuters.com

31–40 of 306 posts

Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#31
post #19
post #13

There should be no difference with usual botnet owner/ransomware gangs and such companies. Management should go to prison for good 20-30 years for that and being extradited worldwide. Considering that ransomware gangs are probably less harmful to the society than guys who hack journalists and politicians, putting their lifes at literal risks, not just their pockets. There should be no "legal" hacking of someone's dev…

Its not like this is that different than traditional "weapons" (i hate the "cyberweapons" analogy, but if the shoe fits). Sell guns to governments, even unsavoury ones, it is very rare anything will happen to you except in pretty extreme cases. Sell guns to street gangs, well that is a different story. Like i don't think this situation is different because it is "hacking".

The NSO created/ran cloud instances for each client country and reviewed and approved every target. The didn’t sell weapons like in your analogy. They were effectively assassins for hire.

The problem with selling exploits is you want to maintain “ownership” of the exploit details, lest your customer just take the exploit and sell/use it without paying more or use it to attack you or your friends. This means you end up with veto power. I.e. culpability.

Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#32
post #27

Aaaaand it's flagged out of the front page. @dang, so early in the day this is obviously some coordinated manipulation. 31. 206 points 9 hours ago US judge finds Israel's NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp (reuters.com) 22. 37 points 8 hours ago My Pal, the Ancient Philosopher (nautil.us) 15. 4 points 4 hours ago Testing for Thermal Issues Becomes More Difficult (semiengineering.com) 18. 11 points…

Probably done by the same NSO Group. But for US americans they are the good criminals, the chosen criminals

Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#34
post #13

There should be no difference with usual botnet owner/ransomware gangs and such companies. Management should go to prison for good 20-30 years for that and being extradited worldwide. Considering that ransomware gangs are probably less harmful to the society than guys who hack journalists and politicians, putting their lifes at literal risks, not just their pockets. There should be no "legal" hacking of someone's dev…

Certainly the ones that hack journalists should go to prison.

Why should journalist badge provide some kind of protection shield? [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Gonz%C3%A1lez_Yag%C3%BCe

Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#36
post #13

There should be no difference with usual botnet owner/ransomware gangs and such companies. Management should go to prison for good 20-30 years for that and being extradited worldwide. Considering that ransomware gangs are probably less harmful to the society than guys who hack journalists and politicians, putting their lifes at literal risks, not just their pockets. There should be no "legal" hacking of someone's dev…

I agree with the first part, at least in spirit. The second part though doesn't make sense. If the US president can send drones to kill terrorists without taking them to court, surely he can order hacking their phones. If you think that there's no case where the latter is ok you shouldn't you fight against the former first?

> send drones to kill terrorists

The part that you miss is, are they only killing "terrorists" extrajudicially? To take that propaganda at its face value is to ask, what else could they be killing brown people for, if not terrorism?

Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#37
post #13

There should be no difference with usual botnet owner/ransomware gangs and such companies. Management should go to prison for good 20-30 years for that and being extradited worldwide. Considering that ransomware gangs are probably less harmful to the society than guys who hack journalists and politicians, putting their lifes at literal risks, not just their pockets. There should be no "legal" hacking of someone's dev…

Imagine if they chase NSO as hard as they chased Wikileaks

Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#38
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not like this is that different than traditional "weapons" (i hate the "cyberweapons" analogy, but if the shoe fits). Sell guns to governments, even unsavoury ones, it is very rare anything will happen to you except in pretty extreme cases. Sell guns to street gangs, well that is a different story. Like i don't think this situation is different because it is "hacking".

All the cartels in Mexico buy their guns from America and nobody is going to jail over it.

People do in fact get sent to prison for that, straw purchases are a federal felony. Not all of them actually get caught, which is true of any crime.

Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#40
post #5

> "Surveillance companies should be on notice that illegal spying will not be tolerated." That is kinda funny, although sad at the same time On the flip side, I guess that means META allows WhatsApp users being only “legally spied” on

Isn't that obvious though? Meta wants exclusive spying rights to its users. You spying on users with Meta's products is not allowed. If you want to spy on your users, build an app that's so popular billions of people sign up willingly to allow you to spy on them. Have you no decency?
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