951
WaPo's editorial solution to the NSO scandal is so embarrassingly weak that it is itself a scandal. These companies (and their hosts) claim "transparency, accountability, and licensing requirements" are already in place!
You ask for less than nothing.
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
952
NSO has no way to know if anyone has done this in the past—or is continuing to do this right now. Exploit code can be caught and copied.
Just as with a biological virus, it takes just a single digital infection for the possibility of retransmission—and mutation. Ban the trade. twitter.com/Snowden/status…
953
How else can NSO's country-code targeting prohibition be bypassed? Simple:
1) Target a specially-prepared device *you control* in an eligible country code
2) Forensically capture each exploit stage as it's served to your trap device
3) Reverse it
4) Retarget anyone, anywhere twitter.com/Snowden/status…
954
NSO's claim that it is "technologically impossible” to spy on American phone numbers is a bald-faced lie: a exploit that works against Macron's iPhone will work the same on Biden's iPhone.
Any code written to prohibit targeting a country can also be unwritten. It's a fig leaf. twitter.com/Snowden/status…
955
No one is safe from the out-of-control designer spyware industry. Export controls have failed as a means of regulating this easily abused technology. Without an immediate global moratorium on the trade, this will only get worse. washingtonpost.com/world/2021/07/…
956
ICYMI, you can read the rest here: edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/lifting-the-…
957
This probably didn't end the way people expected.
edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/qa01
958
This is an industry that should not exist: they don't make vaccines—the only thing they sell is the virus.
theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/…
959
They spied on the opposition. They spied on judges, journalists, and even teachers. They spied on their wives and children, their doctors -- and priests. It is unbelievable how deep this story goes.
theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/…
960
Read about the Biden, Trump, and Obama officials who accepted blood money from the NSO group to bury any efforts at accountability -- even *after* their involvement in the death and detention of journalists and rights defenders around the world! washingtonpost.com/technology/202…
961
"Apple restricts the access researchers have to iOS in a way that limits the ability of consumers to discover when they’ve been hacked." washingtonpost.com/technology/202…
962
The text delivered last month to the iPhone 11 made no sound. It produced no image. It offered no warning of any kind as an iMessage from somebody she didn’t know delivered malware directly onto her phone — and past Apple’s security systems. washingtonpost.com/technology/202…
963
"Those who did [the hacking] were looking to take undue advantage of their position of power... It is an attack on the democratic foundations of our country. It must be thoroughly investigated and those responsible be identified and punished.”
theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/…
964
If we don’t do anything to stop the sale of this technology, it’s not just going to be 50,000 targets. It’s going to be 50 million targets, and it’s going to happen much more quickly than any of us expect. theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/…
965
There are certain industries, certain sectors, from which there is no protection. We don’t allow a commercial market in nuclear weapons. If you want to protect yourself you have to change the game, and the way we do that is by ending this trade.
theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/…
966
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. twitter.com/UKDefJournal/s…
967
Hungary gave the most incriminating response I've ever seen to a request for comment on the #Pegasus surveillance scandal. I mean, whenever I'm "not aware" of whether I did something or not, I demand to know if foreign spies tipped you off about it.
LINK: theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/…
969
HUGE: Israel's NSO group has repeatedly denied having had anything to do with Khashoggi's killing -- but astonishing new evidence confirms the phones of the central women in his life were hacked right around his murder. twitter.com/jsrailton/stat…
970
The coming week's stories about the global hacking of phones identical to the one in your pocket, by for-profit companies, make it clear that export controls have failed as a means to regulate this industry.
Only a comprehensive moratorium on sales can remove the profit motive.
971
The Israeli company behind this -- the NSO group -- should bear direct, criminal liability for the deaths and detentions of those targeted by the digital infection vectors it sells, which have no legitimate use. twitter.com/wcathcart/stat…
972
Stop what you're doing and read this. This leak is going to be the story of the year: (LINK: theguardian.com/world/2021/jul…)
973
P.S. @GIMP_Official, I'm really hoping for a major UI overhaul. You guys could be eating Adobe's lunch.
974
Every time I use @Blender, I'm blown away by what free and open source software can achieve. I honestly don't know how they do it. It's a monument. blender.org/download/
975
"Our Presidents have the power to stop democracy from one day to the next." How?
Hear it from @DanielEllsberg, legendary source of the Pentagon Papers: edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/ellsberg1
You can find me on #nostr @ pubkey: #npub1sn0wdenkukak0d9dfczzeacvhkrgz92ak56egt7vdgzn8pv2wfqqhrjdv9. (use Damus on iOS, Amethyst on Android, or snort.social)