NSO Group Knock On: More Attention Directed at Voyager Labs?
April 12, 2022
Not many people know about Voyager Labs, its different businesses, or its work for some government entities. From my point of view, that’s how intelware and policeware vendors should conduct themselves. Since the NSO Group’s missteps have fired up everyone from big newspaper journalists to college professors, the once low profile world of specialized software and services has come to center stage. Unfortunately most of the firms providing these once secret specialized functions are, unlike Tallulah Bankhead, ill prepared for the rigors of questions about chain smoking and a sporty life style. Israeli companies in the specialized software and services business are definitely not equipped for criticism, exposure, questioning by non military types. A degree in journalism or law is interesting, but it is the camaraderie of a military unit which is important. To be fair, this “certain blindness” can be fatal. Will NSO Group be able to survive? I don’t know. What I do know is that anyone in the intelware or policeware game has to be darned careful. The steely gaze, the hardened demeanor, and the “we know more than you do” does not play well with an intrepid reporter investigating the cozy world of secretive conferences, briefings at government hoe downs, or probing into private companies which amass user data from third-party sources for reselling to government agencies hither and yon.
Change happened.
I read “On the Internet, No One Knows You’re a Cop.” The author of the article is Albert Fox-Cahn, the founder and director of STOP. Guess what the acronym means? Give up. The answer is: The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project.
Where does this outfit hang its baseball cap with a faded New York Yankees’ emblem? Give up. The New York University Urban Justice Center. Mr. Fox-Cahn is legal type, and he has some helpers; for example, fledgling legal eagles. (A baby legal eagle is technically eaglets or is it eaglettes. I profess ignorance.) This is not a Lone Ranger operation, and I have a hunch that others at NYU can be enjoined to pitch in for the STOP endeavor. If there is one thing college types have it is an almost endless supply of students who want “experience.” Then there is the thrill of the hunt. Eagles, as you know, have been known to snatch a retired humanoid’s poodle for sustenance. Do legal eagles enjoy the thrill of the kill, or are they following some protein’s chemical make up?
The write up states:
Increasingly, internet surveillance is operating under our consent, as police harness new software platforms to deploy networks of fake accounts, tricking the public into giving up what few privacy protections the law affords. The police can see far beyond what we know is public on these platforms, peaking behind the curtains at what we mean to show and say only to those closest to us. But none of us know these requests come from police, none of us truly consent to this new, invasive form of state surveillance, but this “consent” is enough for the law, enough for the courts, and enough to have our private conversations used against us in a court of law.
Yeah, but use of public data is legal. Never mind, I hear an inner voice speaking for the STOP professionals.
The article then trots through the issues sitting on top of a stack of reports about actions that trouble STOP; to wit, use of fake social media accounts. The idea is to gin up a fake name and operate as a sock puppet. I want to point out that this method is often helpful in certain types of investigations. I won’t list the types.
The write up then describes Voyager Labs’ specialized software and services this way:
Voyager Labs claims to perceive people’s motives and identify those “most engaged in their hearts” about their ideologies. As part of their marketing materials, they touted retrospective analysis they claimed could have predicted criminal activity before it took place based on social media monitoring.
Voyager Labs’ information was disclosed after the Los Angeles government responded to a Brennan Center Freedom of Information Act request. If you are not familiar with these documents, you can locate at this link which I verified on April 9, 2022. Note that there are 10,000 pages of LA info, so plan on spending some time to locate the information of interest. If you want more information about Voyager Labs, navigate to the company’s Web site.
Net net: Which is the next intelware or policeware company to be analyzed by real news outfits and college professors? I don’t know, but the revelations do not make me happy. The knock on from the NSO Group’s missteps are not diminishing. It appears that there will be more revelations. From my point of view, these analyses provide bad actors with a road map of potholes. The bad actors become more informed, and government entities find their law enforcement and investigative efforts are dulled.
Stephen E Arnold, April 12, 2022
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