It's not just the NSO group. Hacking Team is not exactly shy about the services they offer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacking_Team FinFisher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FinFisher MiniPanzer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniPanzer_and_MegaPanzer
Wow! I had no idea there was a whole industry selling spyware to dictatorships. Surveillance equipment, yes, but not actual hacking tools. Really sickening. Must be why governments in Europe are so afraid of Huawei building 5G networks - they will only run Chinese spyware.
WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones
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Re: WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones
#192All my life I've thought spyware was developed primarily by evil Russian and Chinese hackers. But apparently also by Israeli developers with their government's blessing and open endorsement. That's some very shady stuff. Before someone says something about government surveillance of fiber cables. Yes, that is also bad, but exploiting vulnerabilities to install spyware on peoples phones... It crosses yet another line…
I love how you’ve been convinced that Russia and China are naughty and Israel is somehow too good to be shady.
Re: WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones
#193Re: WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones
#194Just to be clear – does this affect iPhone, or just Android?
Re: WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
The secure enclaves on Android smartphones have a poor track record. Even the top-of-the-line manufacturers have seen published hacks of their TEE environments, and those are usually just the tip of the iceberg. Android is incomparable to Apple's platform in this regard. (I'm not trying to argue the iPhone is unhackable, though.) FWIW, I'm an Android user.
The Pixel 3 has a "Titan M" chip with much reduced attack surface compared to the TEE. Don't otherwise know much about it.
Re: WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting to hear about this lack of boundaries among Israelis, is this only for non-Israelis or do you/they cross each others boundaries? Is this a cultural thing, why do you think this the case?
> Is this a cultural thing Israelis in general are very blunt and perfectly willing to question superiors and voice opinions and questions in situations where Americans never would. This includes the military where subordinates would question a superior in a way that would never fly in an American military (and probably others). Israelis on the street will voice opinions to strangers in a way that would be perceived…
Well, they claim they are but you don't see anything at least from outside. From outside it seems they are easily buying whatever government is selling to them. Working on surveillance projects is rather embraced and you even receive strong social support for it.
So I don't get how do you compare it to the US! Whereas in the US you would have a hard time to convince people to work on surveillance projects and even then often people end up having a hard time with their moral values even when they are not directly doing anything wrong. Not to mention many anti-surveillance activists are based in the US. I believe that is a very unfair comparison.
The truth is every country you look people are a bag of goods and bads and they manage to find greedy people to work on surveillance projects even in the EU.
Re: WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones
#197It's not just the NSO group. Hacking Team is not exactly shy about the services they offer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacking_Team FinFisher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FinFisher MiniPanzer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniPanzer_and_MegaPanzer
Re: WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones
#198Re: WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
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The US has killed millions of people in the last 15 years alone in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen and a dozen other countries that we have bombed or invaded (including the 8 we are bombing right now). I'm under no illusions about the many despicable things done by the Russians and the Chinese, but its simply absurd to contend that their behavior has any worse than the United States. We have more of our citize…
Russia/Soviet Union is roughly on par with the US on the invasion/occupation/regime change count -- of course they did it mostly in eastern Europe, the Caucasus and the MENA region rather than in Latin America.
Re: WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. Nobody should underestimate the Mossad: https://youtu.be/bJujIwtdk8w
From my favourite Usenix paper ( https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf ): Basically, you’re either dealing with Mossad or not-Mossad. If your adversary is not-Mossad, then you’ll probably be fine if you pick a good password and don’t respond to emails from ChEaPestPAiNPi11s@virus-basket.biz.ru. If your adversary is the Mossad, YOU’RE GONNA DIE AND THERE’S NOTHING THAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. The Mos…
That's basically Israel's attitude on anything: doing anything they want without any kind of boundaries, then denying brazenly they did it, while doing it again and again. Like having snipers shooting at thousands of civilians, kids, journalists, paramedics, who are protesting inside their own borders.