MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Posts Tagged ‘Pegasus’

How the US and its ‘friends’ keep stealing each other’s secrets

Posted by M. C. on January 2, 2024

Western spooks targeting Russian industry have long indulged in a spying orgy among themselves

Rachel Marsden

By Rachel Marsden, a columnist, political strategist, and host of independently produced talk-shows in French and English.

These days, no one with even two brain cells who attends the Paris Airshow, or the Milipol internal security summit, leaves their computer or phone in their hotel room. Just like back in the days of France’s Concorde supersonic jet, Canadian and American intelligence services warned their executives to treat the plane as though it was bugged to pick up any conversations. 

Not to be forgotten is America’s “best ally,” Israel, cited by the US government in targeting American business people for research and development intelligence as far back as 1992 – and more recently through its military-grade Pegasus spyware and its larger cyber-surveillance industry, whose separation from the state is highly questionable at best and nonexistent at worst. 

https://www.rt.com/news/589823-us-keep-stealing-secrets/

How the US and its ‘friends’ keep stealing each other’s secrets

©  Getty Images / breakermaximus

“There is an active hunt not only for promising research, the data and parameters of our weapons, but also for our specialists who are especially valuable,” Russian Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov recently said, referring to Western spies and their efforts to seek information about Russian defense production by targeting industry experts.  

Well, approaching “soft target” experts for info is certainly a better bet for spies than trying to chat up a soldier whose BS-detector is more finely tuned to espionage. And Western spooks know this better than anyone else since they’ve been busy practicing – among themselves. 

Ultimately, all spying is about getting an economic advantage – whether in conflict or war, where the outcome determines the prominence of any future economic foothold, or more directly through theft of economically valuable secrets or the subversion of trade or competition. The current focus on the military conflict between Russia and the Western military alliance via Ukraine obscures the fact that for all the public proclamations of unity and solidarity by Western leaders, they’d all screw each other over economically if given even the slightest chance.

The Ukraine conflict has really underscored the American view of Germany as an economic rival, which once translated into Washington’s systemic criticism of Germany’s Nord Stream economic lifeline of Russian gas (before it was mysteriously blown up). Now, it’s seen in the form of Uncle Sam’s enticing of German companies to US shores with green tax breaks and plentiful energy as limited and pricey replacement American liquified natural gas sold to Europe has sparked German deindustrialization. It was a longtime dream come true for the US, having considered Germany a key competitor on the global stage since the early ’90s.

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The FBI Unwittingly Investigates Itself!

Posted by M. C. on August 11, 2023

Today’s FBI has agents who are professional computer hackers. Today’s FBI has morphed from crime fighting to crime anticipating. Today’s FBI is effectively a domestic spying operation nowhere authorized in the Constitution. It should be defunded and disbanded.

antiwar.com

by Andrew P. Napolitano

In April of this year, the FBI began an investigation to determine who was using illegal software to spy from within the United States on persons in Mexico.

The software was illegal because its Israeli manufacturer, a company called NSO, had previously crafted other software for the FBI, which President Joseph Biden had put on a Department of Commerce blacklist. Stated differently, because NSO manufactured software that enabled the government to violate the Fourth Amendment, all NSO-manufactured products are prohibited from use in the U.S.

Yet, somehow NSO had bypassed the federal embargo on its products and someone was using at least one of those products unlawfully.

The FBI investigation determined that the user of the illegal software was: THE FBI ITSELF.

Here is the backstory.

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How the U.S. Came to Use NSO Spyware It Was Trying to Kill – The New York Times

Posted by M. C. on April 3, 2023

Under the arrangement, the Israeli firm, NSO Group, gave the U.S. government access to one of its most powerful weapons — a geolocation tool that can covertly track mobile phones around the world without the phone user’s knowledge or consent.

The secret November 2021 contract used the same American company — designated as “Cleopatra Holdings” but actually a small New Jersey-based government contractor called Riva Networks — that the F.B.I. used two years earlier to purchase Pegasus. Riva’s chief executive used a fake name in signing the 2021 contract and at least one contract Riva executed on behalf of the F.B.I.

https://archive.is/aF9iu

Mark Mazzetti
Ronen Bergman

By Mark Mazzetti and Ronen Bergman

The Biden administration has been trying to choke off use of hacking tools made by the Israeli firm NSO. It turns out that not every part of the government has gotten the message.

WASHINGTON — The secret contract was finalized on Nov. 8, 2021, a deal between a company that has acted as a front for the United States government and the American affiliate of a notorious Israeli hacking firm.

Under the arrangement, the Israeli firm, NSO Group, gave the U.S. government access to one of its most powerful weapons — a geolocation tool that can covertly track mobile phones around the world without the phone user’s knowledge or consent.

If the veiled nature of the deal was unusual — it was signed for the front company by a businessman using a fake name — the timing was extraordinary.

Only five days earlier, the Biden administration had announced it was taking action against NSO, whose hacking tools for years had been abused by governments around the world to spy on political dissidents, human rights activists and journalists. The White House placed NSO on a Commerce Department blacklist, declaring the company a national security threat and sending the message that American companies should stop doing business with it.

The secret contract — which The New York Times is disclosing for the first time — violates the Biden administration’s public policy, and still appears to be active. The contract, reviewed by The Times, stated that the “United States government” would be the ultimate user of the tool, although it is unclear which government agency authorized the deal and might be using the spyware. It specifically allowed the government to test, evaluate, and even deploy the spyware against targets of its choice in Mexico.

Asked about the contract, White House officials said it was news to them.

“We are not aware of this contract, and any use of this product would be highly concerning,” said a senior administration official, responding on the basis of anonymity to address a national security issue.

Spokesmen for the White House and Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to make any further comment, leaving unresolved questions: What intelligence or law enforcement officials knew about the contract when it was signed? Did any government agency direct the deployment of the technology? Could the administration be dealing with a rogue government contractor evading Mr. Biden’s own policy? And why did the contract specify Mexico?

A close-up photo of President Biden speaking at a lectern.
President Biden signed an executive order further cracking down on the use of commercial spyware on Monday.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
A close-up photo of President Biden speaking at a lectern.

The secret contract further illuminates the ongoing battle for control of powerful cyberweapons, both among and within governments, including the United States.

The weapons have given governments the power to conduct targeted, invasive surveillance in ways that were unavailable before the advent of the tools. This power has led to abuses, from the Mexican government spying on journalists who were investigating military crimes to Saudi Arabia using NSO technology to hack the devices of political dissidents. The use of spyware against journalists and opposition figures sparked a political scandal in Greece.

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The FBI and Zero-Click – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on November 17, 2022

Wyden’s healthy skepticism caused the FBI reluctantly to reveal that it had ordered its own version of Pegasus, called Phantom, which the Israelis tailor-made for hacking American mobile devices.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/11/andrew-p-napolitano/the-fbi-and-zero-click/

By Andrew P. Napolitano

During the Trump administration, the FBI paid $5 million to an Israeli software company for a license to use its “zero-click” surveillance software called Pegasus. Zero-click refers to software that can download the contents of a target’s computer or mobile device without the need for tricking the target into clicking on it. The FBI operated the software from a warehouse in New Jersey.

Before revealing any of this to the two congressional intelligence committees to which the FBI reports, it experimented with the software. The experiments apparently consisted of testing Pegasus by spying — illegally and unconstitutionally since no judicially issued search warrant had authorized the use of Pegasus — on unwitting Americans by downloading data from their devices.

When congressional investigators got wind of these experiments, the Senate Intelligence Committee summoned FBI Director Christopher Wray to testify in secret about the acquisition and use of Pegasus, and he did so in December 2021. He told the mostly pliant senators that the FBI only purchased Pegasus “to be able to figure out how bad guys could use it.” Is that even believable?

In follow-up testimony in March 2022, Wray elaborated that Pegasus was used “as part of our routine responsibilities to evaluate technologies that are out there, not just from a perspective of could they be used someday legally, but also, more important, what are the security concerns raised by those products.” More FBI gibberish.

Last week, dozens of internal FBI memos and court records told a different story — a story that has caused Sen. Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to question the veracity of Wray’s testimony. Wyden’s healthy skepticism caused the FBI reluctantly to reveal that it had ordered its own version of Pegasus, called Phantom, which the Israelis tailor-made for hacking American mobile devices.

Here is the backstory.

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How Israeli spyware firm NSO operates in shadowy cyber world

Posted by M. C. on May 14, 2019

In 2016, Apple rushed out a security update after researchers said prominent Emirati rights activist Ahmed Mansoor was targeted by UAE authorities using Pegasus spyware.

Like Superman and his X-Ray vision – NSO uses its spyware that thoroughly invades your privacy without your knowing it only for good.

https://www.wionews.com/photos/how-israel-spyware-firm-nso-operates-in-shadowy-cyber-world-218782#israeli-spyware-company-report-on-whatsapp-security-218747

Israeli spyware company report on WhatsApp security

An Israeli spyware company named in a Financial Times report on a WhatsApp security flaw prides itself on “rigorous, ethical standards” despite previous links to alleged espionage.

Founded in 2010 by Israelis Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie, NSO is based in the Israeli seaside hi-tech hub of Herzliya, near Tel Aviv.

It produces Pegasus, a highly invasive tool that can reportedly switch on a target’s cell phone camera and microphone, and access data on it, effectively turning the phone into a pocket spy. Read the rest of this entry »

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