U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

Post by spear » Fri, Dec 03, 2021, 7:36 PM UTC

elliekelly wrote: post #108

walrus01 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm suspicious of any messaging system that has ties into rich media / embedded-in-chat content. I even wish I could disable URL previews, gifs, and inline images in Signal.

I didn't know it was possible to disable URL previews in iMessage[1] until I read this comment. Does toggling this setting only prevent the preview from displaying or does it prevent the fetch altogether? I wish there were a way to white list the URL previews for certain contacts rather than turning it off all or nothing. [1] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7677834

Post by shmatt » Fri, Dec 03, 2021, 7:38 PM UTC

q1w2 wrote: post #144

redman25 wrote: post #17

> NSO Group said in a statement on Thursday that it did not have any indication their tools were used but canceled the relevant accounts and would investigate based on the Reuters inquiry. Why would they cancel accounts without knowledge of wrongdoing?

Aside from that obvious contradiction - this also indicates that the tools they deploy are either NSO hosted or use a licensing system to run. There was a recent Darknet Diaries episode that reported evidence that at least some of the NSO tools are hosted services.

Post by montblanc » Fri, Dec 03, 2021, 7:39 PM UTC

walrus01 wrote: post #49

maltalex wrote: post #46

I don't understand the focus on NSO in these stories. If U.S State Department personnel in Uganda were shot from an M-16, would the headline mention "an American arms manufacturer"? No, because it's ridiculous. For better or worse, NSO's product is a weapon. How is it any different from an M-16? Where is the outrage towards the people who used this weapon against the State Department?

It's my understanding that NSO runs centralized command and control servers that their "clients" are granted access to, for both the on-device payload installation and also data exfiltration. They do not give the software to their clients to go use somewhere in the world fully independently (self hosted payload dropper, C&C, etc) They're a direct participant in the network traffic. Unlike a dumb purely offline piece…

Post by goodpoint » Fri, Dec 03, 2021, 7:40 PM UTC

drusepth wrote: post #91

walrus01 wrote: post #11

I'm waiting for the day that the US declares a foreign corporation as an "enemy combatant", as they have done with foreign citizen wahabbist jihadis and US citizens such as Anwar Al-Awlaki. Given the extent and depth of US-Israeli cooperation and ties, the precedeing theoretical is probably going to remain in the realm of theoretical.

Didn't they get pretty close with Huawei when the previous president issued an executive order in response to state spying fears that: * banned the sale of any of their phones or networking products in the US * banned US companies selling product to Huawei * cut funding to wireless carriers using Huawei equipment ...and then pressured allied countries to do the same?

Post by tomjakubowski » Fri, Dec 03, 2021, 7:41 PM UTC

jimbob45 wrote: post #160

maltalex wrote: post #46

I don't understand the focus on NSO in these stories. If U.S State Department personnel in Uganda were shot from an M-16, would the headline mention "an American arms manufacturer"? No, because it's ridiculous. For better or worse, NSO's product is a weapon. How is it any different from an M-16? Where is the outrage towards the people who used this weapon against the State Department?

I'm in agreement with you. I don't see any indication that the Israelis specifically made this weapon to target US interests, nor do I see any indication that the Israelis are discriminating between the US and any other nation, nor do I see anything that leads me to believe that we aren't potentially using this ourselves against other nations. Fuck NSO, for sure. But I'm just not sure Israel should be held accountabl…