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US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

apnews.com

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Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#311

Post by ashoeafoot »

bilalq wrote: post #179
jmyeet wrote: post #17

There is now a rich history in outsourcing activities that would otherwise be illegal to other countries where it is legal. For example, the CIA's extreme rendition [1], knowingly sending prisoners to countries to be tortured and/or executed. This is how such countries make themselves useful to American empire. Likewise, restrictions on the NSA spying on American citizens, for example, are bypassed by outsourcing tha…

Chomsky described these countries as "mercenary states". One of his books, Understanding Power, dives into the topic quite a bit.

Chomsky has supported "anti-imperialist" russia and ignored all warnings by the eastern European people, who dared to walk out on socialism in a freedom movement. Blood on the hands, blood on the quill, blood in the will..

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#312

Post by croes »

edanm wrote: post #114
croes wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the time the country of the creator is named if it’s about spyware. The misuse of such tools outweighs the legitimate use cases, so people want to know who is so reckless to sell these programs

> The misuse of such tools outweighs the legitimate use cases, so people want to know who is so reckless to sell these programs Do you have any evidence of this? Cause my guess is the misuse is the stuff you hear about because it eventually makes the news. But the thousands or millions of legitimate use cases in which it prevented terror attacks or just, y'know, helped solved crimes, are just routine and don't get a…

It's simple math.

What happens more often terror attacks which aren't easy to plan and do or journalists and activists do something the people in power don't like.

And how often are tools that were promised to be used only to combat serious crimes such as terrorism and child abuse used for the worst of all crimes: Copyright piracy

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#313

Post by BlueTemplar »

bilbo0s wrote: post #149
amarcheschi wrote: post #135

To give more context copy pasting my comment from a similar thread I would like to add that Paragon disagrees with COPASIR: (article in italian) https://www.fanpage.it/politica/paragon-smentisce-il-copasir ... They offered to give some information about who was surveilled by whom, but not surprisingly the Italian government refused (it was used by 2 secret service agencies in italy). At this point, Paragon stopped gi…

Could also be that both are being untruthful. Lincoln let us know a long time ago, there are times when "both may be, but one must be". Personally, I think there may even be times when both parties are being truthful. ie - you're being played by a third party. I'd imagine this is the sort of fallout when things go sideways and there is not the requisite level of trust on both sides to definitively run down root cause…

https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/medita....

(Is that 3rd party -- God ? xD)

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#314

Post by yetihehe »

herbst wrote: post #297
udev4096 wrote: post #283

> Graphite allows the operator to covertly access applications, including encrypted messengers like Signal and WhatsApp That's pretty obvious. Signal doesn't protect you against full device compromise. Any app can trivially extract your signal conversations

> Any app can trivially extract your signal conversations There is a security model baked in to the mobile OS that usually does not allow that.

Yes, and it can be subverted when the mobile OS is compromised.

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#315

Post by buyucu »

yosefk wrote: post #47
coliveira wrote: post #10

Just a small part of the biggest spy network ever invented, which is woven into practically all software and tech infrastructure we use in the West and backed by large corporations with ties to that small country.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#316

Post by specproc »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #253
sva_ wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean what can you feasibly do against these zero-click exploits? There's only really two things you can do: 1. keep your phone's identifiers secret, as they must target the devices in some way (like phone number/email/whatever) or 2. don't own a phone

> 2. don't own a phone Honestly I don't think this is going to protect you if you are being targeted. We've already seen what can happen with pagers

Well, a group centered its comms on that particular technology but it was quite an esoteric move.

Not having a phone is nigh on impossible, minimizing phone use isn't quite as bad as you might think. Mine ran out of battery on Monday and I've not charged it all week.

I'm toying with the idea of only using it when I absolutely need to (e.g., for MFA, if I'm out of an evening and likely to need a taxi). Not so much an opsec thing, more that I spend enough time in-front of screens as it is.

The parent comment was flippant, but I think in the context of this piece, phone-use minimization isn't necessarily a bad idea.

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#317

Post by [deleted] »

Gud wrote: post #295
botanical wrote: post #292

North Korean and Chinese hackers are soundly shunned but for some reason it's always a "company" from a pariah country like Apartheid Israel that are able to sell their software weapons to indiscriminately target any civilian from any country.

Israel is not a pariah but one of the US closest allies.

[deleted]

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#319

Post by yb6677 »

input_sh wrote: post #94
ethagnawl wrote: post #68

How does the exploit work, though? The article does some real handwaving around "now the device is yours and now it's not". They don't need to go too deep but isn't anyone reading that far into the article going to be curious?

You're not gonna find technical details in an AP article of all places. You will find it in CitizenLab's report: https://citizenlab.ca/2025/06/first-forensic-confirmation-of...

There isn’t much technical details there either. They list the servers it connected to and log entry but that’s it.

It mentions a CVE number but the apple link is generic and mo details on the CVE database.

Has this even been fixed by apple?

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#320

Post by immibis »

slim wrote: post #288
tptacek wrote: post #131

This is my irritating reminder that there is a whole marketplace of implant/CNE products, most of which you have never heard of, produced in basically every jurisdiction in the world. It used to be NSO Group that got all the press, now it's Paragon, and I think it's all for the good that the spotlight gets shone on these companies, but do keep in mind that this is not an "Israeli" phenomenon. There are American compa…

how come each time researchers find a new spyware, it's always an Israeli shop behind it ? maybe because Israel has developed an ecosystem and an industry around spying. I think it's evil to try to deflect the blame from israel given the fact it's currently committing genocide in Palestine

They have more experience with such things - all the expertise concentrated there. It's the same reason all the megasocialtech web apps come from Silicon Valley.
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