Tag: Pegasus

Pegasus spyware row is really about who controls cyber weapons

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Monday, 31 January 2022 — Jonathan Cook

Washington’s ban on NSO Group is not about safeguarding human rights. It’s about curbing Israel’s dominance of ‘espionage diplomacy’

Middle East Eye – 31 January 2022

The Israeli spy software firm NSO Group has rarely been out of the headlines over the past year.

Its spyware tool Pegasus worms its way into phones, accessing data and turning on the microphone and camera to act as round-the-clock surveillance equipment. Authoritarian states have reportedly bought the cyber weapon from NSO and put it to nefarious political uses, targeting journalists, human rights workers, civil rights lawyers and opposition parties.

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US reminds India it’s showtime

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Sunday, 30 January 2022 — Indian Punchline

Pegasus, ‘ultimate spyware’ from Israel, is back in news cycle

Pegasus, CAATSA, Nagaland — prime facie, they’ve nothing in common. At least, reading the Indian press, one gets that impression. But it is always important to connect the dots to understand where the trail is leading to.

The Biden-Harris Administration is sensing that Modi Govt, a perceived ally, is not to be seen as its war machine revs up in anticipation of a horrific war. Typically, if a country is not with the US, then, it must be against it. But India falls in a category by itself.

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Israel Slapped ‘Terrorist’ Label On Palestinian Human Rights Groups After They Uncovered Pegasus Spyware

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8 November 2021 — The Dissenter

BY KEVIN GOSZTOLA

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz (Photo: US Embassy Jerusalem and in the public domain)

After the Israeli government designated six Palestinian human rights organizations as “terrorist” organizations, Jonathan Kuttab, the co-founder of Al Haq, one of the targeted organizations, suggested this showed Israel “realizes it has lost the public relations-war.”

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Blinken comes riding the Pegasus

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25 July 2021 — Indian Punhline

by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

Pegasus: the spyware technology that threatens democracy

Pegasus, the winged divine horse from Greek mythology, symbolises a range of things. The mythological salad can include many symbolic narratives — ranging from soul’s immortality to poetic inspiration — even the Marxist eschatological myth of the withering away of the state.

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Meet Toka, the Most Dangerous Israeli Spyware Firm You’ve Never Heard Of

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21 July 2021 — MintPress News

LONDON – This past Sunday, an investigation into the global abuse of spyware developed by veterans of Israeli intelligence Unit 8200 gained widespread attention, as it was revealed that the software – sold to democratic and authoritarian governments alike – had been used to illegally spy on an estimated 50,000 individuals. Among those who had their communications and devices spied on by the software, known as Pegasus, were journalists, human rights activists, business executives, academics and prominent political leaders. Among those targeted political leaders, per reports, were the current leaders of France, Pakistan, South Africa, Egypt, Morocco and Iraq.

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U.S. Takes Down Israeli Spy Software Company

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19 July 2021 — Moon of Alabama

A number of international papers report today on the Israeli hacking company NSO which sells snooping software to various regimes. The software is then used to hijack the phones of regime enemies, political competition or obnoxious journalists. All of that was already well known but the story has new legs as several hundreds of people who were spied on can now be named.

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Politicians, Journalists, HR Activists And Others Spied Upon Using Pegasus Spyware

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19 July 2021 — Counter Currents

NSO Group, a private Israeli firm that sells surveillance technology to governments worldwide, insists that its Pegasus spyware is used only to “investigate terrorism and crime.” Leaked data, however, reveals that the company’s hacking tool “has been used to facilitate human rights violations around the world on a massive scale.”

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Israel’s espionage crimes in Gaza and abroad By Maureen Clare Murphy

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28 November 2018 — Electronic Intifada – Maureen Clare Murphy

Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas in Gaza, displays a pistol with a silencer recovered from a vehicle used by Israeli commandos in Gaza during a memorial service for seven members of the resistance group’s armed wing who were killed during a shoot-out with the military unit, Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, 16 November. Ashraf Amra APA images

Amnesty International is demanding that Israel’s defense ministry revoke the export license from a company whose spyware has been used in “a series of egregious human rights violations.”

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