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Every time I heard from Pegasus I wonder why nobody is talking about how illegal this business is and how EU and other countries are talking nothing about the u

Every time I heard from Pegasus I wonder why nobody is talking about how illegal this business is and how EU and other countries are talking nothing about the use of this.

ben_w 4y ago
The impression I have — and I’d be very interested to find out if I’m right or wrong — is that governments basically all spy on each other all the time, and they consider this normal and only problematic when it touches certain very specific projects. Something about it being important to know the capabilities of your friends and your enemies, and to test the quality of your intelligence and counterintelligence assets before it becomes critical: you don’t want to start stupid wars you can’t win, nor waste money fighting wars to end the non-existent threat of non-existent WMDs. I can’t tell the difference between espionage that gets overlooked, espionage that gets chest-thumping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and espionage that gets kinetic responses, but I assume there must be such divisions.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  > The impression I have — and I’d be very interested to find out if I’m right or wrong — is that governments basically all spy on each other all the time Yes. That's exactly what NSA, GCHQ, MI6 etc are tasked to do.[1] The problem came when foreign intelligence got confused with domestic intelligence. This is further compounded by the change in procurement of specialist technologies that the army or government offices might once have had. In the 80s a prime-minister would communicate with a special "scrambler" (supplied by the security services and designed against foreign espionage). Today everyone uses the same gear made in China, and the market for offensive cyberweapons is both international and privatised. Here is a quote from [2] "" For complex reasons the US embargo on Huawei, while looking like a trade dispute, more or less proves this. Simply; western phones have backdoors and remote controls for western governments. Chinese phones have backdoors for Communist Party intelligence apparatus. Each spies on their own citizens and everybody is happy (except the citizens that end up in camps). It's the presence of the other's spyware within the respective borders/markets that is the problem, do you see? So when these powers fell out, or failed to reach agreement on data sharing, this escalated into an issue with clear symmetry. We see that products by Apple, Google or Amazon are to be trusted no more than Huawei handsets. Indeed, the safest phone for a Chinese citizen is probably an Apple iPhone, whereas the safest phone for a western civilian would be a Huawei, because historically, people are most risk from their *own* government's domestic surveillance than a foreign government's international surveillance. "" The upshot of this is that offensive cyberweapons, which are indiscriminate, persistent, reusable and infinitely replicatable at near zero cost (all the worst qualities of a weapon on par with bioweapons) affect all strata of society. Politicians, military generals, schoolteachers and pizza delivery guys are equally exposed. This marks a significant transition that blurs the boundaries between civil and military war, as the current Russo-Ukraine conflict shows. We're all soldiers now. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-20949,00.html https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-20... [2] https://digitalvegan.net https://digitalvegan.net
- KarlKemp 4y ago
  You'd be wrong. All of the available evidence points to a tiered system, with some countries spying on everyone, some spying on very specific other countries, and some just not doing much at all. Yes, you can claim that that last category just hasn't been caught yet. But there are some, like the US and Israel, that have been caught several times while others have, so far, escaped notice. Is Belgium so much smarter, or are they maybe just not doing as much?
- kingcharles 4y ago
  And the funny thing is that most of the spies are actually known to each nation. Whenever you hear about country X has evicted Y number of "diplomats" from the embassy, that is just a few spies getting thrown out to make a point (and of course the evicted country will throw out a few spies in retaliation). What has been interesting of late is the mass evictions of known Russian spies from even the smallest of nations like Belgium. And of course, Russian has been throwing out Western agents at an equal rate these last few weeks. There are a lot of spies on desk duty right now...
sgjohnson 4y ago
> and how EU and other countries are talking nothing about the use of this. Because they are all customers themselves. It’s just that these countries start crying when they get hit with their own medicine.
azernik 4y ago
Because it's illegality perpetrated by the state. NSO's customers are governments and law enforcement. They're not keen on investigating themselves.
rndgermandude 4y ago
>how EU and other countries are talking nothing about the use of this You mean the customers of such malware (even if not necessarily Pegasus in particular)? E.g. the German government bought FinFisher licenses, the German federal police bought Pegasus licenses. France was reportedly in late talks with NSO to buy Pegasus when the latest scandal hit that included Pegasus apparently having been used against Macron (tho the French government denies it was about to buy Pegasus). The UK might have been a customer too - at the very least the UK government hosted NSO at a trade show. Aside from buying spyware, governments are keen on spying not just on foreigners but also their own citizens, in the EU too, e.g. the EU Data Retention Directive [0] or the German "remote forensic software" which is commonly known as the "Staatstrojaner" ("state trojans") which is basically the same as Pegasus just in blue. Or in the UK Theresa May's "snooper charter" (which eventually became the "Investigatory Powers Act"). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive
- KarlKemp 4y ago
  Note that Germany failed to buy Pegasus in 2017 because their in-house lawyers decided that it would be illegal to use. After a lot of back-and-forth, they did eventually sign a contract for modified version in 2021. That version was supposed to include changes making its use legal. It isn't quite known what the alterations were, but it's been speculated that data would have to match a case-specific wordlist to be exfiltrated, excluding, for example, irrelevant private data.
  - Brian_K_White 4y ago
    I think the only important fact is that they wanted to. Being thwarted, partially, this time, for the moment, in one location, doesn't change anything. Do you deny the essential assertion that states seek to surveil, and get what they want? Does this speedbump change that?
    - KarlKemp 4y ago
      "They" in the end, didn't want to. It was an internal struggle, and the law won.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> wonder why nobody is talking about how illegal this business is and how EU and other countries are talking nothing about the use of this The ground is shifting with Israel’s (albeit forced) hesitance to criticise Russia too loudly. Prior to a few weeks ago, maintaining security ties outweighed NSO’s nuisance factor. (In Europe. The U.S. is already fed up with NSO.)

Every time I heard from Pegasus I wonder why nobody is talking about how illegal this business is and how EU and other countries are talking nothing about the use of this.

ben_w 4y ago

The impression I have — and I’d be very interested to find out if I’m right or wrong — is that governments basically all spy on each other all the time, and they consider this normal and only problematic when it touches certain very specific projects. Something about it being important to know the capabilities of your friends and your enemies, and to test the quality of your intelligence and counterintelligence assets before it becomes critical: you don’t want to start stupid wars you can’t win, nor waste money fighting wars to end the non-existent threat of non-existent WMDs. I can’t tell the difference between espionage that gets overlooked, espionage that gets chest-thumping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and espionage that gets kinetic responses, but I assume there must be such divisions.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
> The impression I have — and I’d be very interested to find out if I’m right or wrong — is that governments basically all spy on each other all the time Yes. That's exactly what NSA, GCHQ, MI6 etc are tasked to do.[1] The problem came when foreign intelligence got confused with domestic intelligence. This is further compounded by the change in procurement of specialist technologies that the army or government offices might once have had. In the 80s a prime-minister would communicate with a special "scrambler" (supplied by the security services and designed against foreign espionage). Today everyone uses the same gear made in China, and the market for offensive cyberweapons is both international and privatised. Here is a quote from [2] "" For complex reasons the US embargo on Huawei, while looking like a trade dispute, more or less proves this. Simply; western phones have backdoors and remote controls for western governments. Chinese phones have backdoors for Communist Party intelligence apparatus. Each spies on their own citizens and everybody is happy (except the citizens that end up in camps). It's the presence of the other's spyware within the respective borders/markets that is the problem, do you see? So when these powers fell out, or failed to reach agreement on data sharing, this escalated into an issue with clear symmetry. We see that products by Apple, Google or Amazon are to be trusted no more than Huawei handsets. Indeed, the safest phone for a Chinese citizen is probably an Apple iPhone, whereas the safest phone for a western civilian would be a Huawei, because historically, people are most risk from their *own* government's domestic surveillance than a foreign government's international surveillance. "" The upshot of this is that offensive cyberweapons, which are indiscriminate, persistent, reusable and infinitely replicatable at near zero cost (all the worst qualities of a weapon on par with bioweapons) affect all strata of society. Politicians, military generals, schoolteachers and pizza delivery guys are equally exposed. This marks a significant transition that blurs the boundaries between civil and military war, as the current Russo-Ukraine conflict shows. We're all soldiers now. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-20949,00.html https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-20... [2] https://digitalvegan.net https://digitalvegan.net
KarlKemp 4y ago
You'd be wrong. All of the available evidence points to a tiered system, with some countries spying on everyone, some spying on very specific other countries, and some just not doing much at all. Yes, you can claim that that last category just hasn't been caught yet. But there are some, like the US and Israel, that have been caught several times while others have, so far, escaped notice. Is Belgium so much smarter, or are they maybe just not doing as much?
kingcharles 4y ago
And the funny thing is that most of the spies are actually known to each nation. Whenever you hear about country X has evicted Y number of "diplomats" from the embassy, that is just a few spies getting thrown out to make a point (and of course the evicted country will throw out a few spies in retaliation). What has been interesting of late is the mass evictions of known Russian spies from even the smallest of nations like Belgium. And of course, Russian has been throwing out Western agents at an equal rate these last few weeks. There are a lot of spies on desk duty right now...

sgjohnson 4y ago

> and how EU and other countries are talking nothing about the use of this. Because they are all customers themselves. It’s just that these countries start crying when they get hit with their own medicine.

azernik 4y ago

Because it's illegality perpetrated by the state. NSO's customers are governments and law enforcement. They're not keen on investigating themselves.

rndgermandude 4y ago

>how EU and other countries are talking nothing about the use of this You mean the customers of such malware (even if not necessarily Pegasus in particular)? E.g. the German government bought FinFisher licenses, the German federal police bought Pegasus licenses. France was reportedly in late talks with NSO to buy Pegasus when the latest scandal hit that included Pegasus apparently having been used against Macron (tho the French government denies it was about to buy Pegasus). The UK might have been a customer too - at the very least the UK government hosted NSO at a trade show. Aside from buying spyware, governments are keen on spying not just on foreigners but also their own citizens, in the EU too, e.g. the EU Data Retention Directive [0] or the German "remote forensic software" which is commonly known as the "Staatstrojaner" ("state trojans") which is basically the same as Pegasus just in blue. Or in the UK Theresa May's "snooper charter" (which eventually became the "Investigatory Powers Act"). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive

KarlKemp 4y ago
Note that Germany failed to buy Pegasus in 2017 because their in-house lawyers decided that it would be illegal to use. After a lot of back-and-forth, they did eventually sign a contract for modified version in 2021. That version was supposed to include changes making its use legal. It isn't quite known what the alterations were, but it's been speculated that data would have to match a case-specific wordlist to be exfiltrated, excluding, for example, irrelevant private data.
- Brian_K_White 4y ago
  I think the only important fact is that they wanted to. Being thwarted, partially, this time, for the moment, in one location, doesn't change anything. Do you deny the essential assertion that states seek to surveil, and get what they want? Does this speedbump change that?
  - KarlKemp 4y ago
    "They" in the end, didn't want to. It was an internal struggle, and the law won.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> wonder why nobody is talking about how illegal this business is and how EU and other countries are talking nothing about the use of this The ground is shifting with Israel’s (albeit forced) hesitance to criticise Russia too loudly. Prior to a few weeks ago, maintaining security ties outweighed NSO’s nuisance factor. (In Europe. The U.S. is already fed up with NSO.)