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Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

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Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#171

Post by whimsicalism »

koheripbal wrote: post #141
qwerty456127 wrote: post #3

I dunno anything about these particular organizations so can't judge who is right here but the fact any country government can declare anybody they don't like a terrorist or another kind of criminal and have them cancelled or hunted in the whole world has long baffled me.

One major function of a government is the monopoly on "cancelling" or really the use of force. The nice thing about western countries is that they require due process of law. ...which was followed in this case.

> The nice thing about western countries is that they require due process of law. ...which was followed in this case.

Israel routinely skirts "routine operation of law" assassinating innocent civilians abroad and refusing to apologize.

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#172

Post by whimsicalism »

bawolff wrote: post #86
boomboomsubban wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel most likely.

This type of analysis is kind of hard, because you could also say that Israel's enemies would benefit a lot from this sort of thing being discovered.

False flags pretty much never happen irl, they are much more popular in the minds of internet commentators.

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#173

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

stef25 wrote: post #148
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (this was clear from the Darknet Diaries episode) think that episode also mentioned it iirc ... that the plausible deniability goes out the window the minute they host their own infrastructure. also NSO Group goes through great length to obscure who they're selling to using shell and shelf companies. actually indistinguishable from how narco terrorists and organized crime operates: https://forensicnews.net/the-cove…

Jack was alluding at that but afaik he didn't mention anything about how they ensure it's not used against their own citizens?

I also don't recall it. iirc the topic also came up in a tptazcek episode of "security cryptography whatever" and a handful of other places ... so I might be conflating things on who made claims when.

If it were used against their own IL citizens, would it really matter legally? As long as the parent company (NSO) can plausibly claim it had no knowledge of even the existence of a specific SLA between a foreign spinoff (e.g. FloLive, Circle etc) and their clients. If you think yourself into a position where you want to become a global player in an increasingly regulated market (embargoes, sanctions lists etc) the only way to avoid repercussions is by not knowing what other parts of your affiliates are doing.

Just because some of these shell companies have been unmasked must be annoying for NSO. But they can still say they had no idea what directors of these "independent" companies were doing.

It would be normal military tactic to compartmentalize information not just on paper but also in reality to be on a "need to know basis". So it's double baffling to me that the shell companies listed as the main investors are the same people sitting on the NSO board of directors.

sorry lots of conjecture IANAL ...

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#174

Post by Banana699 »

1shooner wrote: post #119
Banana699 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the brightest bulb in American politics, but the trope of right wing evangelicals single-handedly being responsible for America-Israel bizarre parasitic relationship is tired and false IMO. If it were true, progressives and their allies would drop into this new fertile frontier of the culture war, and if that was true, we would see a lot more struggle and conflict than the meek 'meh' and shoulder shrug that t…

>Look at abortion for example, do right wing evangelicals value this issue less than their support for a 10-thousand+-kilometer-away country? did they manage to make it controversial and costly to not adopt their position on it? Being anti-abortion is a political litmus test in many parts of the US.

It's vastly different scale. Yes it's costly and contraversial to say you're pro-abortion in _parts_ of the US, but not all of US. And not the congress, not the white house. Look at the sheer amount of flak the supreme court got when it decided to let the Texas law slide temporarily, even though they cited standard legal procedure.

Contrast that with majorities that pro-Israel laws always get in congress. Trump even recently complained outright that "Israel used to control the congress" and he didn't even mean it in a bad way, the ADL shat its pants and quickly tore into him saying that it's AntiSemitic (^TM) to say that. Nobody in the Democrats is willing to approach criticising Israel with an INT_MAX foot pole except possibly old-school anti-imperialism marxists, and they are fringe.

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#175

Post by pythonlion »

Quanttek wrote: post #156
pythonlion wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but since when governments need to provide evidence and to whom? the world government? Can I go to random governments around the world and ask them to show evidence about their security issues to my organization?

Any state abiding by the rule of law, human rights, and democracy needs to provide evidence proving such allegations beyond a reasonable doubt and enabling the victims to challenge such administrative decisions in court. If Israel wants to drop the pretense of democracy, so be it. But human rights and the rule of law are universal obligations under international law.

this is biased for countries which are not under conflict and don't get accused by the other side every other week

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#176

Post by whimsicalism »

q1w2 wrote: post #159
stef25 wrote: post #15

Slightly OT - Isn't it obvious that NSO must be able to control every "copy" of Pegasus it sells? They wouldn't sell it unless they were absolutely sure it wouldn't be used against its own people and they have no problem selling to their arch enemies. NSO's defense has always been "we just sell the tech and can't be held responsible for what our clients do with it" (this was clear from the Darknet Diaries episode). I…

> "we just sell the tech and can't be held responsible for what our clients do with it" This should not be put in quotes - as it is not a quote. Also, they issued a statement saying the opposite - that they review the uses of the tech, and sign agreements with nations buying it that they will act in a certain way. Enforcement those agreements is obviously complicated.

I think it is pretty clear from the context that this is not a direct quote. The usage of quotes online has evolved - language is not prescriptive.

Have a great day :)

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#177

Post by zibzab »

stef25 wrote: post #167
zibzab wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not correct. It was actually a distributed campaign with multiple hackers with different methods but the main leaks were due to the following problems: 1. Bug in some Apple services allowed unlimited login attempts 2. Bug in Apple backup restoration function allowed bypassing multi-factor authentication (or was it confirmation email?) This is all from memory, I might be wrong about the details. Anyway, that A…

According to the link below it clearly was phishing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_celebrity_nude_photo_leak...

From your own link:

" ... such as phishing and brute-force attack guessing ..."

Just take a moment to think about the brute force attack and whether that should have worked at this scale in the properly secure environment.

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#178

Post by LegitShady »

ashtonkem wrote: post #139
pythonlion wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but since when governments need to provide evidence and to whom? the world government? Can I go to random governments around the world and ask them to show evidence about their security issues to my organization?

Yes, and you should. And for those governments who can’t or won’t provide evidence, you should disregard their assertions as baseless and suspect. I mean, why wouldn’t you demand proof? Governments have a long and nasty history of conflating their political interests with security interests, just trusting their assertions seems extremely foolhardy.

because it would compromise means and methods

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#179

Post by whimsicalism »

yonixw wrote: post #146
tartoran wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever wondered why those people are protesting? If you only follow the history of the region you’d quickly realize that Israel did (and does) terrorize their neighbors who in turn retaliated and the vicious cycle of vendettas on eachother continues to this day. What is realy cool about Israel is that they’re a democratic country and a large part of their country denounces all this violence, there is a way forward towa…

1) Molotov != Protest 2) > follow the history of the region > terrorize their neighbors Counter example: 2005: Israel unilateral dismantling of the 21 Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip 2007: Hamas takeover of Gaza 2007: Gaza Blockade I do not think we see the history of the region in the same way.

Hamas has also initiated unilateral ceasefires (called "tadiyah") that Israel has broken.

The actual timeline is that in 2006, Hamas won the elections (hence the "takeover") despite Israel prohibiting them from campaigning and arresting their candidates.

Upon their election, Israel put them under sanction, prohibited them from traveling between the two parts of Palestine they had been elected to run, withheld governmental money owed to the PA, and sponsored a coup against their government (which pushed them out of the West Bank, hence Hamas' exclusive control of Gaza).

AFAIK, elections have not been permitted in the PA since then.

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#180

Post by FridayoLeary »

calling them "defenders" of human right implies that there is a war being fought (by Israel) against human rights. I don't believe that this has been adequately demonstrated, therefore i think the title is inflammatory and misleading. Please can you change it, Dang
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