Yesterday, The Guardian broke a new story about government surveillance. You know, that’s when your government spies on you without you knowing about it. That’s an invasion of our rights here in America, yet, it still happens to this day.
You remember the NSA spying scandal right?
This is just another flavor of it.
I want to run down their article with you, so let’s take a look at what they cover.
Human rights activists, journalists and lawyers across the world have been targeted by authoritarian governments using hacking software sold by the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group, according to an investigation into a massive data leak.
I love it.
“Authoritarian governments”.
As if only the “authoritarian governments” using Pegasus Malware are to blame.
- How about our good ol USA and their NSA?
- What about the COVID lockdowns, and limits on free speech, including that on the internet?
Who cares you say, that’s old news.
Well, let’s move on then!
You should know, “Human rights activists, journalists and lawyers” are not the only figures being spied on.
The article also mentions,
…hundreds of business executives, religious figures, academics, NGO employees, union officials and government officials, including cabinet ministers, presidents and prime ministers.
Now who on earth would want to spy on all these people?
The consortium’s analysis of the leaked data identified at least 10 governments believed to be NSO customers who were entering numbers into a system: Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
According to the report, some of these governments denied using the Israeli Pegasus Malware.
It becomes quite obvious though, crooked people are always out to destroy someone who stands in their way. The leaders of our nations are not choirboys with our best interests at heart. They are always out for numero, uno.
Now before you become too concerned by this latest report…
The company sells only to military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies in 40 unnamed countries, and says it rigorously vets its customers’ human rights records before allowing them to use its spy tools.
Well that makes me feel better!
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Who else is “laughing out loud”?
The nations the world over have been spying on their citizens for years and years. We all know about it, and none of us really care. We still provide every detail of our life online, because hey, “I have nothing to hide”.
Ohh, how well we have been programed my friends.
On with the article I say!
The Israeli minister of defence closely regulates NSO, granting individual export licences before its surveillance technology can be sold to a new country.
So wait a minute here.
We are supposed to feel better about the government spying on us, as the company who created this malware, to infect your device, and steal your data, “rigorously vets its customers’”?
Hypocrisy!
How can we trust a company whose sole purpose is to steal through deception?
Moreover, another government, who also spies on its people “closely regulates” which nation can and cannot use it?
They must think we are absolute idiots!!!
Enough hypocrisy.
I know what you want to know next, what exactly does the malware do to infected devices…
Claudio Guarnieri, who runs Amnesty International’s Security Lab, said once a phone was infected with Pegasus, a client of NSO could in effect take control of a phone, enabling them to extract a person’s messages, calls, photos and emails, secretly activate cameras or microphones, and read the contents of encrypted messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal.
By accessing GPS and hardware sensors in the phone, he added, NSO’s clients could also secure a log of a person’s past movements and track their location in real time with pinpoint accuracy, for example by establishing the direction and speed a car was travelling in.
The latest advances in NSO’s technology enable it to penetrate phones with “zero-click” attacks, meaning a user does not even need to click on a malicious link for their phone to be infected.
Well, that blows the safety of encrypted messaging then, doesn’t it?
If your device has been compromised, then anything you do on there, anywhere you go, it’s being tracked and monitored. But hey, who cares! You have nothing to hide. So let’s allow our crooked governments to have more free data on us, all while they destroy our rights in the process!