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Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure

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Re: Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure

#41

Post by coldcode »

If someone were to use NSO paid hacking to attack Apple executives's devices and then release everything they found, I bet Apple might take this more seriously instead of having some PR flack write marketing copy. Same is true of any tech company: until it hurts them specifically they can just ignore it or make it sound innocuous. Maybe Amazon has been targeted and they found out.

If someone were to use it against US government entities, maybe the NSA/CIA/etc might decide enough is enough, no matter what country they are in. So far at least publicly it seems like a non-event. But once the phone numbers are identified from that leaked list, things might become more serious for NSO.

People used to fight real wars against adversaries who targeted their country in some way, why should commercial entities supporting such attacks not be treated the same, except via non military action? Spying has always been done, but it can lead to serious consequences.

Re: Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure

#42

Post by kdkdmdm »

esens wrote: post #32
javajosh wrote: post #27

Isn't NSO just a poor-man's NSA, since the NSA can force Google/Apple/Microsoft/Amazon/[Any Carrier] to do anything to any number of devices or data, and in secret?

NSO seems to be used by tyrants to go after legitimate opposition. The NSA isn't used by the President to target the party out of power no? But in NSO case in India apparently it was: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/19/key-modi-rival-... NSO is used to keep those with money and access to NSO in power undermine their legitimate rivals. It can be used to plant evidence on their devices as well as monitor ever…

> The NSA isn't used by the President to target the party out of power no

Close, but you've got the wrong organization. It was the FBI that used evidence it knew was false from the start to justify a spying campaign into the opposition candidate and then used the candidate's campaign's resistance of that illegal election interference to justify political interference and, ultimately, an indictment.

That's right, the Obama DOJ illegally harassed the Trump campaign and then the out of control FBI and House Democrats (led by the former FBI director, Mueller) followed through with the farce of an impeachment, aided and abetted by misleading coverage of the proceedings, which resulted in only an indictment for resisting the illegal investigation and election interference

And now the same people assure us that the 2020 election was the fairest and most secure ever. Real confidence inspiring! Personally I never had any doubt in the security of the US elections until the same machine that insisted the Russian collusion was real (it definitely wasn't), and that the lab leak theory was never plausible (it's not definitely true but it's definitely plausible and always has been), insisted that there was no way they could've been fraudulent.

Thou dost protest too much, methinks.

Re: Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure

#43

Post by srswtf123 »

hn8788 wrote: post #36
esens wrote: post #28

Anyone notice that this statement from NSO in the article doesn't make sense: "NSO does not operate its technology, does not collect, nor possesses, nor has any access to any kind of data of its customers." If this is true, how do we have a singular list of all phone numbers penetrated? If there was this type of "segmentation" or firewall between NSO and its clients, why was there this huge central data leak? NSO is…

It could mean that NSO controls the infrastructure that manages the tool, but that they don't actually collect the data themselves. So what they said could technically be true if all they do is manage the infrastructure that enables their clients to do the collection of data.

Seems more likely they’re lying.

Re: Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure

#44

Post by LoveLeadAcid »

jjoonathan wrote: post #33
sloshnmosh wrote: post #20

I contacted Amazon to report an advertiser out of Tel Aviv that was using JavaScript hosted on CloudFront to fingerprint user's devices and if an Android device was detected a fake media player or fake CAPTCHA would trick user's into accepting push notifications for fake virus warnings to install questionable apps from the Play Store. This script also pushed ads for a fake AdBlock app that was a dropper for banking t…

It feels like this is more a result of Amazon not being able to connect you with the right escalation path to verify & act on these claims than a considered decision to ignore them. Does anyone here know what an individual reporter should do? Is there an escalation ramp that exists but was so poorly marked that neither sloshnmosh nor Amazon support was able to find it? Does the ramp go through other organizations (e.…

Nah, Amazon has a cozy relationship with intelligence agencies (CIA, for instance, uses Amazon for cloud services) and they probably don’t want to step on any dangerous toes or lose money and business.

Re: Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure

#45

Post by wpietri »

lokedhs wrote: post #13
neom wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's "DigitalOcean" - sorry to be pedantic, it drives me absolutely nuts when people put a space between, especially publications.

There is another point if view, and that is that corporate marketing should not take precedence over correct use of language. Some languages tend to be more strict about this. I think it's particularly common to see English play fast and loose with the language compared to other languages. In Sweden, for example you will see media write Iphone, because it's a name, and names are capitalised. The same goes for Digital…

Exactly. Language is for all its users. I can insist that my name be rendered only in 14.5 pt Comic Sans colored with Pantone 19-3336 ("Sparkling Grape"). But people get to decide for themselves how they're going to speak and write. Corporate branding guidelines constrain only their employees and people who want to curry favor with them. Everybody else can do as they please.

Re: Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure

#46

Post by LoveLeadAcid »

neom wrote: post #8
justinclift wrote: post #2

Ouch. > The Amnesty report said NSO is also using services from other companies such as Digital Ocean, OVH, and Linode ... We've been using Digital Ocean for a few years now (sqlitebrowser.org), and they've been really good. Hopefully they look into this and take some useful action. :)

It's "DigitalOcean" - sorry to be pedantic, it drives me absolutely nuts when people put a space between, especially publications.

I call it an iPad and an iPhone, not iPad and iPhone like Apple wants me to.

Re: Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure

#47

Post by igorzx31 »

flyinglizard wrote: post #40
zzleeper wrote: post #9

Perhaps NSO Group should be considered a terrorism-aiding organization. Freeze its assets, track all their employees, backers, etc. Wonder if they are even helping to hack US government employees through China, etc. (besides just helping to torture dissidents).

The biggest customers for these companies are Western governments. You’re not going to take away their toys.

Their biggest customers are middle eastern governments according to the WaPo article. US certainly has bought the software but it's mostly Saudi, UAE, Qatar, etc. US has NSA so they don't really need some software. Middle eastern powers dont have the same type of technical expertise to develop their own in-house.

Re: Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure

#49

Post by b112 »

jjoonathan wrote: post #33
sloshnmosh wrote: post #20

I contacted Amazon to report an advertiser out of Tel Aviv that was using JavaScript hosted on CloudFront to fingerprint user's devices and if an Android device was detected a fake media player or fake CAPTCHA would trick user's into accepting push notifications for fake virus warnings to install questionable apps from the Play Store. This script also pushed ads for a fake AdBlock app that was a dropper for banking t…

It feels like this is more a result of Amazon not being able to connect you with the right escalation path to verify & act on these claims than a considered decision to ignore them. Does anyone here know what an individual reporter should do? Is there an escalation ramp that exists but was so poorly marked that neither sloshnmosh nor Amazon support was able to find it? Does the ramp go through other organizations (e.…

It feels like this is more a result of Amazon not being able to connect you with the right escalation path to verify & act on these claims than a considered decision to ignore them.

Those two things are actually the same thing, both are wilfully ignoring situations like this.

Re: Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure

#50

Post by igorzx31 »

kdkdmdm wrote: post #42
esens wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NSO seems to be used by tyrants to go after legitimate opposition. The NSA isn't used by the President to target the party out of power no? But in NSO case in India apparently it was: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/19/key-modi-rival-... NSO is used to keep those with money and access to NSO in power undermine their legitimate rivals. It can be used to plant evidence on their devices as well as monitor ever…

> The NSA isn't used by the President to target the party out of power no Close, but you've got the wrong organization. It was the FBI that used evidence it knew was false from the start to justify a spying campaign into the opposition candidate and then used the candidate's campaign's resistance of that illegal election interference to justify political interference and, ultimately, an indictment. That's right, the…

^This person is wrong. FISA and FBI counter-intel have a low bar to get warrants because that's what congress intended.
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