Weapons, lacking sentience and moral orientation, are there to be used by all. Once out, these creations can never be rebottled. Effective spyware, that most malicious of surveillance tools, is one such creation, available to entities and governments of all stripes. The targets are standard: dissidents, journalists, legislators, activists, even the odd jurist. Pegasus spyware, […]
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 […]
It is ironic that even former right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had rejected a Knesset (Israeli Parliament) bill which proposed to give the government greater power to control and suppress online content. This was in 2016, and the bill was introduced by Netanyahu’s Likud party rival, Gideon Sa’ar. Some analysts argued that Netanyahu had feared […]
The revelation, a few years ago, that the US National Security Agency (NSA) has been conducting mass surveillance on millions of Americans has reignited the conversation on governments’ misconduct and their violation of human rights and privacy laws. Until recently, however, Israel has been spared due criticism, not only for its unlawful spying methods on […]
In a modest effort to disrupt the global spyware market, the United States announced last week that four entities had been added to its blacklist. On November 3, the US Department of Commerce revealed that it would be adding Israel-based companies NSO Group and Candiru to its entity list “based on evidence that these entities […]
The post Blacklisting the Merchants of Spyware first appeared on Dissident Voice.
