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UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

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Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#261

Post by LatteLazy »

Im a brit, Im not tech expert but I work adjacent to tech. I feel some what smug over this:

* If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear is official policy

* We aggressively use "tools" like this both domestically and abroad, both for military/intel and for law enforcement with basically no oversight

* Our government are basically technic-illiterate. And proud of that in many cases.

So this is a train wreck of their own making.

The only thing making me sad is that it will have zero effect.

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#262

Post by dreen »

Someone1234 wrote: post #2

I'm surprised this isn't a major diplomatic incident between the UK and Israel too, since the Israeli intelligence company was supposedly "closely monitoring how their customers were using the software" or akin to that. Like, yeah, blame the UAE mostly for this but let's also have a discussion about why this was sold to anyone who would pay with no oversight at all. Western countries need to do better.

The whole thing is barely in the news

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#263

Post by simonh »

Someone1234 wrote: post #2

I'm surprised this isn't a major diplomatic incident between the UK and Israel too, since the Israeli intelligence company was supposedly "closely monitoring how their customers were using the software" or akin to that. Like, yeah, blame the UAE mostly for this but let's also have a discussion about why this was sold to anyone who would pay with no oversight at all. Western countries need to do better.

There's nothing to be gained by wringing our hands and kicking up a public fuss, crying to the press about it. That's not how grownups do business. We all know everyone spies on everyone else, it's a given. I'm sure GCHQ spies on Israel and UAE.

For all we know the security services already knew about this and were feeding false info to manipulate the UAE. Heck, the Israelis might have even tipped us off, I'm sure they value their relationship to us much more than with the UAE. I'd give it at least 50/50 Munk School trying to 'help' us just trashed a perfectly good MI6 counterintelligence op. That's the sort of way these things work.

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#264

Post by InCityDreams »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #12

And what were GCHQ, MI6 and NCSC doing to protect our prime-minister at this time? We have a problem in democratic nations. I've written about it here [1]. Bruce Schneier has also addressed it in his own way. Our lack of any framework for civic cybersecurity is a disgrace. People in future ages will look back on our time as a wild-west. A solution can only come from a ground-up awareness through education. [1] http:/…

>And what were GCHQ, MI6 and NCSC doing to protect our prime-minister at this time?

Laughing their tits off?

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#265

Post by [deleted] »

foxhill wrote: post #213
Veen wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's impossible to prove the absence of something True, but in this case it was quite easy to prove the presence of anti-semitism in the Labour party, especially in the far left membership.

for what it’s worth, i’m yet to find an individual that was able to concretely identify a single anti-semitic action or statement both in the run up to, and after the november 2019 election. edit: probably worth mentioning, i read the report of the external investigation (all ~300 pages of it) on antisemitism in the labour party. to call it thin on the ground is somewhat of an understatement.

[deleted]

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#266

Post by cyberpunk »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #250
cyberpunk wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel plays the anti-semitism card much too loosely to be taken seriously. The issues I have with Israel are because of the actions of its government and absolutely nothing to do with the majority religion there. If you criticise Israel, you're an anti-semite. We're all scared of being called such, so we let them do whatever the fuck they want. Fuck Israel; but not because of their religion.

It's interesting that you find the need to type this out though, as if the UK (and US, and the West) doesn't cultivate many similar ties that absolutely get nowhere near the same level of attention. It's rare to see people with the same level of dislike towards a country like Saudi Arabia or the UAE. With Israel, people viscerally hate it.

I can't speak for anyone else; but I feel the same way about any other country which is committing similar crimes against people just for being alive, as I do about Israel.

That includes the US, Russia, China, UAE, SA, Myanmar and whatever other examples you wish.

Why pro-genocide israelis feel (and shout that) they get an inproportionate amount of criticism vs the other dickheads of the world is an exercise I leave to the reader.

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#267

Post by [deleted] »

cloutchaser wrote: post #252
gghhzzgghhzz wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are again examples without context. e.g. on Hobson's book. This was a book that was widely referenced. Certainly referencing it didn't mean endorsement of Hobson's antisemitism ( a few lines in that book).. like praising the works of many other authors of the time that contain antisemetic references. Here's the then leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg citing Hobson. http://www.demos.co.uk/files/Liberal_m…

Ok, how about the others?

[deleted]

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#268

Post by pydry »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #250
cyberpunk wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel plays the anti-semitism card much too loosely to be taken seriously. The issues I have with Israel are because of the actions of its government and absolutely nothing to do with the majority religion there. If you criticise Israel, you're an anti-semite. We're all scared of being called such, so we let them do whatever the fuck they want. Fuck Israel; but not because of their religion.

It's interesting that you find the need to type this out though, as if the UK (and US, and the West) doesn't cultivate many similar ties that absolutely get nowhere near the same level of attention. It's rare to see people with the same level of dislike towards a country like Saudi Arabia or the UAE. With Israel, people viscerally hate it.

The main difference between Israel and worse global players is the wide range of westerners (including self described "liberal" ones) who tolerate or are willing to step up to endorse its vicious racism, its ethnic cleansing and its illegal settlement expansion both with trumped up accusations of antisemitism and whataboutism.

That naturally elicits a bit of a reaction.

By contrast I dont remember anybody calling anybody an Islamophobe because they condemned Mohammed bin Salman's killing of Khashoggi or invasion of Yemen.

There's also an element of what is done in Israel being done in our name, since it was essentially a remnant of European colonialism (a particularly shameful part of our history) and continues thanks to support from our governments.

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#269

Post by gghhzzgghhzz »

cloutchaser wrote: post #259
gghhzzgghhzz wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well that's exactly the trap isn't it? The others have clearly been contextualised and explained many many times, but that's never enough and there's always 'but what about this one..' Throw enough stuff at the wall and hope something will stick. And if I put up a list of the times where Corbyn has gone above and beyond to support Jewish communities in the UK, people will undoubtedly put the effort in to dismiss them…

No, you are doing exactly what you are claiming was done, explaining away one thing (which still btw doesn’t work, Blair and brown are both labour too), and saying the others don’t matter because you’ve proved one wrong. Yet somehow it’s always Corbyn labour that gets “misquoted”. Why is that? The Labour Party has plenty of motivation to smear the conservatives over antisemitism, yet somehow they don’t have the mater…

"plenty of motivation to smear the conservatives over antisemitism" "yet somehow they don’t have the material for it."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_UK_Conserv...

And On the Tory Prime minister

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/11/boris-johns...

On the mural. Yes I agree that is the clearest example. The mural is clearly antisemetic. Corbyn claims he wasn't paying attention and made the comment about censorship without opening the image. He has since agreed the mural was antisemetic and that he made a mistake.

That's basically the only scandal that has stood up though, that he said he wasn't paying attention when surfing on Facebook 10 years ago, and people who believe the other scandals insist he was paying attention and was deliberately endorsing a piece of antisemetic art.

And on the 'left' blaming Jews for everything. You are wrong obviously. but also worth noting many of the heros of the left : Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Jesus Christ. Are Jews.

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#270

Post by CamelRocketFish »

csmpltn wrote: post #229
CamelRocketFish wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here you go: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/100/

Could you please point out where exactly in this 69 minute podcast do they talk about NSO knowing who exactly is being targeted at any given moment, and what proof is there to back these claims? Could you perhaps quote the transcript? This is a 69 minutes podcast episode, I'm not in a position to listen to all of it and try and pick out the relevant details. A lot of links are provided, but again - which of those are…

I’ll have a relisten later to find it but in a brief scroll I found this:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/29/whatsapp-israe...

—-

According to WhatsApp’s filing, NSO gained “unauthorised access” to its servers by reverse-engineering the messaging app and then evading the company’s security features that prevent manipulation of the company’s call features. One WhatsApp engineer who investigated the hacks said in a sworn statement submitted to the court that in 720 instances, the IP address of a remote server was included in the malicious code used in the attacks. The remote server, the engineer said, was based in Los Angeles and owned by a company whose data centre was used by NSO.

NSO has said in legal filings that it has no insight into how government clients use its hacking tools, and therefore does not know who governments are targeting.

But one expert, John Scott-Railton of Citizen Lab, who has worked with WhatsApp on the case, said NSO’s control of the servers involved in the hack suggests the company would have had logs, including IP addresses, identifying the users who were being targeted.

“Whether or not NSO looks at those logs, who knows? But the fact that it could be done is contrary to what they say,” Scott-Railton said.

In a statement to the Guardian, NSO stood by its earlier remarks. “Our products are used to stop terrorism, curb violent crime, and save lives. NSO Group does not operate the Pegasus software for its clients,” the company said. “Our past statements about our business, and the extent of our interaction with our government intelligence and law enforcement agency customers, are accurate.”

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