Another Perturbation of the Intelware Market: Apple Cores Forbidden Fruit
August 6, 2021
It may be tempting for some to view Apple’s decision to implement a classic man-in-the-middle process. If the information in “Apple Plans to Scan US iPhones for Child Abuse Imagery” is correct, the maker of the iPhone has encroached on the intelware service firms’ bailiwick. The paywalled newspaper reports:
Apple intends to install software on American iPhones to scan for child abuse imagery
The approach — dubbed ‘neuralMatch’ — is on the iPhone device, thus providing functionality substantially similar to other intelware vendors’ methods for obtaining data about a user’s actions.
The article concludes:
According to people briefed on the plans, every photo uploaded to iCloud in the US will be given a “safety voucher” saying whether it is suspect or not. Once a certain number of photos are marked as suspect, Apple will enable all the suspect photos to be decrypted and, if apparently illegal, passed on to the relevant authorities.
Observations:
- The idea allows Apple to provide a function likely to be of interest to law enforcement and intelligence professionals; for example, requesting a report about a phone with filtered and flagged data are metadata
- Specialized software companies may have an opportunity to refine existing intelware or develop a new category of specialized services to make sense of data about on-phone actions
- The proposal, if implemented, would create a PR opportunity for either Apple or its critics to try to leverage
- Legal issues about the on-phone filtering and metadata (if any) would add friction to some legal matters.
One question: How similar is this proposed Apple service to the operation of intelware like that allegedly available from the Hacking Team, NSO Group, and other vendors? Another question: Is this monitoring a trial balloon or has the system and method been implemented in test locations; for example, China or an Eastern European country?
Stephen E Arnold, August 6, 2021
NSO Group: A Somewhat Interesting Comment
August 5, 2021
I read on August 5, 2021, “Israeli Government Finally Decides To Start Looking Into NSO Group And Its Customers.” The write up contained the interesting word “finally.” There’s nothing like criticizing a government agency for an easy pot shot. But here’s the passage which caught my attention:
the Israeli government has opened its own… something… of NSO Group. But this inquiry is moving much more cautiously with local agencies showing much less urgency.
I think the “delay” suggests differential time measurements. Some government agencies do the mañana thing; others have a cadence set to hippity hop time.
The evidence is in and the judgment is rendered:
This seems to indicate that the list of numbers is actually related to NSO Group and potential targets of its customer base. If the list has nothing to do with NSO or its customers — as NSO has claimed — it likely wouldn’t feel compelled to cut off customers and/or curtail their use of Pegasus malware. While this isn’t an explicit admission of culpability by NSO, the implication is that the company sold its products to governments it knew would abuse them to surveil people they didn’t like, rather than just criminals and terrorists.
Intriguing because specific factual information about the delta in time perceptions is ignored. Just go to the conclusion. Helpful.
Stephen E Arnold, August 5, 2021
NSO Group and France: Planning a Trip to Grenoble? Travel Advisory Maybe?
August 3, 2021
The PR poster kid for intelware captured more attention from the Guardian. “Pegasus Spyware Found on Journalists’ Phones, French Intelligence Confirms” reports in “real news” fashion:
French intelligence investigators have confirmed that Pegasus spyware has been found on the phones of three journalists, including a senior member of staff at the country’s international television station France 24. It is the first time an independent and official authority has corroborated the findings of an international investigation by the Pegasus project – a consortium of 17 media outlets, including the Guardian.
The consistently wonderful and objective, media hip newspaper provided a counter argument to this interesting finding:
NSO said Macron was not and never had been a “target” of any of its customers, meaning the company denies he was selected for surveillance or was surveilled using Pegasus. The company added that the fact that a number appeared on the list was in no way indicative of whether that number was selected for surveillance using Pegasus.
Is NSO Group adopting a Facebook- or Google-type of posture? I think response to implied criticism is to say stuff and nod in a reassuring manner? I don’t know. The Guardian, ever new media savvy, wraps up the PR grenade with this comment:
The investigation suggests widespread and continuing abuse of Pegasus, which NSO insists is only intended for use against criminals and terrorists.
Should NSO Group professionals consider a visit to France and a side trip to Grenoble in order to ride Les Bulles?
Stephen E Arnold, August 3, 2021
NSO Group: Now the Women Allegedly Harmed Gain Media Traction. Wowza!
August 2, 2021
I read “I Will Not Be Silenced: Women Targeted in Hack and Leak Attacks Speak Out about Spyware.” My first reaction to the story was, “How many college sociology and poli-sci classes will make NSO Group, its product Pegasus, and the implications of “targeting” a subject for a case study, discussion groups, and papers? My second thought was, “NSO Group has been able to watch the ripples of intelware crashing against the awareness of the naïve, the clueless, and the mobile phone addicts.”
I don’t know if the peacock’s news report is accurate or just one of those weird bird noises made by the species. That probably doesn’t matter because the write up pulls in women and hooks intelware to a quite magnetic topic: The treatment of women.
The peacock squawked:
Female journalists and activists say they had their private photos shared on social media by governments seeking to intimidate and silence them.
Now that’s a heck of an assertion. True or not, the idea of “personal” pix nestling in distributed and local storage devices is not something that most people want to have happen.
Here’s a quote from the write up, and it will be interesting to watch how the crisis management advisors to NSO Group tap dance across this allegedly true statement:
“I am used to being harassed online. But this was different,” she added. “It was as if someone had entered my home, my bedroom, my bathroom. I felt so unsafe and traumatized.”
That’s a whiz bang statement which drags in nuances of privacy invasion and personal safety. Let’s call a meeting and maybe issue another feel good, make streets safer story. Yeah, how’s that working out?
The write up has another quote that glues NSO Group to the notion of freedom. Hello, Israel?
“Pegasus is a spyware tool and a weapon used against freedom of the press, freedom of expression, human rights activism and journalism,” said Rasha Abdul Rahim, director of Amnesty Tech, a division of Amnesty International focused on technology and surveillance tools. “Women’s freedom of expression is abused and targeted in a very specific way both online and offline. “The focus is on silencing them, putting the attention on their bodies or what they should be wearing or saying,” she added.
I have noticed that more people are aware of intelware as a result of this NSO Group toe stubbing.
What about those intelligence conference organizers? How about those experts pitching intel-related conferences on LinkedIn? What about those nifty white papers on intelware vendors’ Web sites?
My thought is that as more content is downloaded and more of the journalists chasing NSO Group info punch their searches into the Google, the more those ripples will be agitated.
Yikes. No easy fix it seems. Chasing revenues and making intelware into a household word are problematic. Many entities are likely to be suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. PR is good until it is not.
Stephen E Arnold, August 2, 2021
NSO Group and an Alert Former French Diplomat: Observation Is Often Helpful
August 2, 2021
I read “French Ex-Diplomat Saw Potential for Misuse While Working at NSO.” The allegedly accurate write up reports that Gerard Araud [once a French ambassador] took a position at NSO Group. The write up adds:
His one-year mission from September 2019, along with two other external consultants from the United States, was to look at how the company could improve its human rights record after a host of negative news stories. Earlier that year, the group’s technology had been linked publicly to spying or attempted spying on the murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi Arabian security forces, which it denied. The group was acquired in 2019 by a London-based private equity group, Novalpina, which hired Araud to recommend ways to make the company’s safeguard procedures “more rigorous and a bit more systematic,” he said.
The write up explains how a prospect becomes an NSO Group customer:
Its [the Pegasus software and access credentials] export is regulated “like an arms sale,” said Araud, meaning NSO must seek approval from the Israeli government to sell it, and state clients then sign a lengthy commercial contract stipulating how the product will be used. They are meant to deploy Pegasus only to tackle organised crime or terrorism — the company markets itself this way — but Araud said “you could see all the potential for misuse, even though the company wasn’t always responsible.”
The argute veteran of the French ambassadorial team maybe, possibly, could have discerned the potential for misuse of the Pegasys system.
The write up includes this information, allegedly direct from the former diplomat, who obviously provides information diplomatically:
In a firm that practices “a form of extreme secrecy,” he says he nonetheless became convinced that NSO Group worked with Israel’s Mossad secret services, and possibly with the CIA. He said there were three Americans who sat on the group’s advisory board with links to the US intelligence agency, and the company has said that its technology cannot be used to target US-based numbers. “There’s a question about the presence of Mossad and the CIA. I thought it was both of them, but I have no proof,” he said. “But I suspect they’re both behind it with what you call a ‘backdoor’.” A “backdoor” is a technical term meaning the security services would be able to monitor the deployment of Pegasus and possibly the intelligence gathered as a result.
Interesting. Several years ago, the BBC published “When Is a Diplomat Really Just a Spy?” In that 2018 write up, the Beeb stated:
So where do you draw the line between official diplomacy and the murky world of espionage? “Every embassy in the world has spies,” says Prof Anthony Glees, director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham. And because every country does it, he says there’s “an unwritten understanding” that governments are prepared to “turn a blind eye” to what goes on within embassies.
Would French diplomats have some exposure to ancillary duties at a French embassy? Potentially.
Stephen E Arnold, August 3, 2021
NSO Group: Talking and Not Talking Is Quite a Trick
July 30, 2021
I read “A Tech Firm Has Blocked Some Governments from Using Its Spyware over Misuse Claims.” First, let’s consider the headline. If the headline is factual, the message I get is that NSO Group operates one or more servers through which Pegasus traffic flows. Thus, the Pegasus system includes one or more servers which have log files, uptime monitoring, and administrative tools which permit operations like filtering, updating, and the like. Thus, a systems administrator with authorized access to one or a fleet of NSO Group servers supporting Pegasus can do what some system administrators do: Check out what’s shakin’ with the distributed system. Is the headline accurate? I sure don’t know, but the implication of the headline (assuming it is not a Google SEO ploy to snag traffic) is that NSO Group is in a position to know — perhaps in real time via a nifty AWS-type dashboard — who is doing what, when, where, for how long, and other helpful details about which a curious observer finds interesting, noteworthy, or suitable for assessing an upcharge. Money is important in zippy modern online systems in my experience.
My goodness. That headline was inspirational.
What about the write up itself from the real news outfit National Public Radio or NPR, once home to Bob Edwards, who was from Louisville, not far from the shack next to a mine run off pond outside my door. Ah, Louisville, mine drainage, and a person who finds this passage suggestive:
“There is an investigation into some clients. Some of those clients have been temporarily suspended,” said the source in the company, who spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity because company policy states that NSO “will no longer be responding to media inquiries on this matter and it will not play along with the vicious and slanderous campaign.”
So the company won’t talk to the media, but does talk to the media, specifically NPR. What do I think about that? Gee, I just don’t know. Perhaps I don’t understand the logic of NSO Group. But I don’t grasp what “unlimited” means when a US wireless provider assures customers that they have unlimited bandwidth. I am just stupid.
Next, I noted:
NSO says it has 60 customers in 40 countries, all of them intelligence agencies, law enforcement bodies and militaries. It says in recent years, before the media reports, it blocked its software from five governmental agencies, including two in the past year, after finding evidence of misuse. The Washington Post reported the clients suspended include Saudi Arabia, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and some public agencies in Mexico. The company says it only sells its spyware to countries for the purpose of fighting terrorism and crime, but the recent reports claim NSO dealt with countries known to engage in surveillance of their citizens and that dozens of smartphones were found to be infected with its spyware.
Okay, if the headline is on the beam, then NSO Group, maybe some unnamed Israeli government agencies like the unit issuing export licenses for NSO Group-type software, and possibly some “trusted” third parties are going to prowl through the data about the usage of Pegasus by entities. Some of these agencies may be quite secretive. Imagine the meetings going on in which those in these secret agencies. What will the top dogs in these secret outfits about the risks of having NSO Group’s data sifted, filtered, and processed by Fancy Dan analytics’ systems tell their bosses? Yeah, that will test the efficacy of advanced degrees, political acumen, and possible fear.
And what’s NSO Group’s position. The information does not come from an NSO Group professional who does not talk to the media but sort of does. Here’s the word from the NSO Group’s lawyer:
Shmuel Sunray, who serves as general counsel to NSO Group, said the intense scrutiny facing the company was unfair considering its own vetting efforts.
“What we are doing is, what I think today is, the best standard that can be done,” Sunray told NPR. “We’re on the one hand, I think, the world leaders in our human rights compliance, and the other hand we’re the poster child of human rights abuse.”
I like this. We have the notion of NSO Group doing what it can do to the “best standard.” How many times has this situation faced an outfit in the intelware game, based in Herliya, and under the scrutiny of an Israeli agency which says yes or no to an export license for a Pegasus type system. Is this a new situation? Might be. If true, what NSO Group does will define the trajectory of intelware going forward, won’t it?
Next, I like the “world leaders” and “Human rights compliance.” This line creates opportunities for some what I would call Comedy Central comments. I will refrain and just ask you to consider the phrase in the context of the core functions and instrumentality of intelware. (If you want to talk in detail, write benkent2020 at yahoo dot com and one of my team will get back to you with terms and fees. If not, I am retired, so I don’t care.)
Exciting stuff and the NSO Group ice cream melt is getting stickier by the day. And in Herzliya, the temperature is 29 C. “C” is the grade I would assign to this allegedly accurate statement from the article that NSO Group does not talk to the media. Get that story straight is my advice.
And, gentle NPR news professional, why not ask the lawyer about log file retention and access to data in Pegasus by an NSO system administrator?
Stephen E Arnold, July 30, 2021
Digital Kudzu: Constant Gardeners Arrive at the NSO Group Orangerie
July 29, 2021
Is this a line from a motion picture? “Hello, we’re from the government and we’re here to help you.” I can’t remember. But constant gardeners do make visits to places where stuff grows, even in 2021 in the midst of a spike in respiratory diseases and quite toasty 31 C weather with some inclement weather expected.
I read “Israel Begins Investigation into NSO Group Spyware Abuse.” I am never sure about the accuracy of information when the source is one of Jeffrey Epstein’s sources of academic inspiration. (Wasn’t there some fancy wordsmithing about MIT’s interactions with this high water mark of human interaction?) As M. Macron might say, “Petits pois.” So shall we assume that the “Israel Begins…” article is in the capable hands of an honest vendeur de fruits, shall we?
The write up asserts:
The Ministry of Defense did not specify which government agencies were involved in the investigation, but Israeli media previously reported that the foreign ministry, justice ministry, Mossad, and military intelligence were also looking into the company following the report. NSO Group CEO Shalev Hulio confirmed to MIT Technology Review that the visit had taken place but continued the company’s denials that the list published by reporters was linked to Pegasus.
Ah, a coincidence. There are so many in the modern world. Example, you want? Less driving during Covid, more traffic deaths? See coincidence.
The write up notes:
NSO is not the only Israeli hacking company in the news lately. Microsoft and the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab also recently reported on hacking tools developed by Candiru that were subsequently used to target civil society groups.
Yep, Candiru. But are there other specialized software firms which the Israeli government might call, text, email, or Facetime? I don’t know from nothing because the Epstein-fave MIT “real” journalists did not mention any other firms. Am I to conclude that NSO Group and the Candiru outfit are rare birds, almost one of a kind?
Is it possible that NSO Group’s comments, the government’s alleged visit, and the grousing from the land of a couple of hundred different types of cheese are like the complaints of irritated customers of the orangerie’s delicate comestibles? If you got money, you can buy what the French call fruits mystérieux, right?
Observations:
- A visit in itself is surprising in the midst of a surge in Israel
- There indeed other firms providing specialized services, but these have been fortunate enough or wise enough to remain in the shed at rear of the orangeries in Herzliya
- The MIT Review is saddled with that Epstein thing; thus, it is difficult to do much more than ask, “Is this the rest of the story?”
Worth watching. Because fruits mystérieux. The care of constant gardeners may be needed. Could it be too late? Could the blight migrate to haricots verts, tomates allongées, and petit avocats.
Avocats? Fruits or conseillers juridique?
Stephen E Arnold, July 29, 2021
NSO Group: A PR Consequence and Expected If Not Anticipated
July 28, 2021
The intelware outfit NSO Group has moved from a narrow, somewhat wonky specialized services niche to a different arena. The development was discussed my the DarkCyber research team when the news of the NSO Group ice cream spill floated to the top of the info river. (Why are we using the code phrase ice cream meltdown? Maybe a Ben and Jerry’s reference to certain interests not aligned with those of Israel’s specialized services industry? Metaphors are the stuff of poetry, so you will have to reach your own conclusions.)
So the ice cream meltdown is getting messy. DarkCyber was not surprised to read “Snowden Skewers Big Tech, Amoral Capital Firms for Enabling Insecurity Industry & Calls for Urgent Action.” The write up appears in an interesting publication which runs advertising to supplement its other sources of income. Snowden, as you may recall, is a former security sector worker bee who dumped documents, many of which are marked as secret or classified. Then Mr. Snowden found himself within the fashionable confines of Sheremetyevo International Airport. He then repaired to a more permanent location in Moscow and crafted a bit of work thinking, writing blog posts, doing lectures, and giving interviews. The topics are mostly about security, which is a shorthand way of rippling the fabric of some countries’ intelligence gathering nets.
The write up states:
In a searing post on his blog, ‘Continuing Ed’, the NSA whistleblower pointed to the Pegasus scandal as a “turning point” that exposed the “fatal consequences” of private-sector companies like the NSO Group that are part of this “out-of-control” industry – whose “sole purpose is the production of vulnerability.” “The phone in your hand exists in a state of perpetual insecurity, open to infection by anyone willing to put money in the hand of this new Insecurity Industry,” Snowden noted, adding that its clients range from countries to “sex-criminal Hollywood producers who can dig a few million out of their couch cushions.”
The write up, not content to link to Mr. Snowden’s intriguing blog, includes one of his tweets which is in italics below:
If you want to see Microsoft have a heart attack, talk about defining legal liability for bad code in a commercial product. To give Facebook nightmares, talk about making it legally liable for leaks of their unnecessarily collected personal records.
Several observations I want to capture before I forget them are:
- The NSO Group ice cream melting has become a sticky mess. The PR problem spilled into the political arena in Israel, and now it has captured other entities and their methods as well. I think it is crisis management time, not SEO content management time.
- Mr. Snowden’s comments indicate that he is not a fan of some of the business practices associated with the US and its allies. This raises the question, “To what is Mr. Snowden allied?”
- The language of the Russia Today write up makes it clear that NSO Group has jumped from specialized software to the foil for state-sponsored cyber activities. The NSO Group’s actions, one might conclude, make the actions of a few young hackers look like very small potatoes like those grown near the border of Estonia.
The NSO Group ice cream melt may spread farther, attract flies, and damage some very expensive kitchen furnishings, maybe a careless person’s jumper, and require replacement of some placemats.
Yep, melting ice cream. A mess with consequences for the specialized services sector.
Stephen E Arnold, July 28, 2021
Facebook and NSO Group: An Odd Couple or Squabbling Neighbors?
July 28, 2021
Late in 2019, The Adware Guru published “Facebook Sues NSO Group Spyware Maker Due to Exploitation of WhatsApp Vulnerability.” That write up stated:
The cause of [Facebook’s] lawsuit was WhatsApp’s zero-day vulnerability, which Facebook claims was sold to the NSO Group, and then the company helped use the problem to attack human rights defenders, journalists, political dissidents, diplomats, and governmental officials. According to court documents, more than 1,400 people in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Mexico suffered a total of 11 days from attacks. Facebook has already sent WhatsApp special messages to everyone affected.
In April 2020, Technadu published “The NSO Group Is Accusing Facebook of Having Tried to License Their Spyware.” That write up stated:
The ‘NSO Group’ is now turning the tables, claiming that they rejected Facebook’s proposal to license Pegasus because they only did it for governments and not private companies. In addition to that, they describe Facebook’s accusations as baseless and even accuse the social media company of failing to prepare the legal paperwork properly, which resulted in legislative procedure problems. NSO says Facebook didn’t have powerful methods to spy on iOS devices in the same way that they did with Android, and they felt like Pegasus could solve this problem for them. Facebook, on the other side, completely dismissed these statements by saying that these allegations had the sole purpose of distracting the court from the real facts.
Technadu added:
even if Facebook wasn’t trying to add Pegasus in Onavo for iOS, they are giving the NSO Group something to hold on to and make allegations that are at least seemingly realistic. At the very least, this development will complicate the legal process by much now.
Jump to the present. The Guardian’s story “Officials Who Are US Allies Among Targets of NSO Malware, Says WhatsApp Chief” reported on July 24, 2021:
Cathcart said that he saw parallels between the attack against WhatsApp users in 2019 – which is now the subject of a lawsuit brought by WhatsApp against NSO – and reports about a massive data leak that are at the centre of the Pegasus project… When WhatsApp says it believes its users were “targeted”, it means the company has evidence that an NSO server attempted to install malware on a user’s device.
The Guardian story includes this statement from the PR savvy NSO Group:
An NSO spokesperson said: “We are doing our best to help creating a safer world. Does Mr Cathcart have other alternatives that enable law enforcement and intelligence agencies to legally detect and prevent malicious acts of pedophiles, terrorists and criminals using end-to-end encryption platforms? If so, we would be happy to hear.”
Are Facebook’s statements credible? Is NSO Group’s version believable? Are these two behaving like the characters in Neil Simon’s “Odd Couple” or like the characters in the 1981 film “Neighbors”? Does each firm have something the other needs?
Stephen E Arnold, July 28, 2021
NSO Group: Investigative Reporters Are Investigating
July 27, 2021
What happens when one puts a family of beavers (the furry animals once prized for hats) in what remains of the Chrysler Building in Midtown? Well, those beavers will try to build a dam. What do investigative reporters do from more than a dozen newspapers enthralled by the NSO Group intelware story? The answer, gentle reader, is investigate.
What’s been made public in the last few days?
There were a handful of data nuggets I found mildly interesting; for example:
- The very wonderful UK Daily Mail reported that NSO Group “spent millions of dollars on Washington lobbyists, consultants, and lawyers, as it tried to sell its Pegasus spyware to the US government.” One name disclosed in the article was Tom Ridge, the first secretary of homeland security. The estimable Daily Mail notes that the Washington Post knew this factoid too. The Daily Mail added, that NSO Group retained “The Who’s Who of government figures runs through at least three administrations.” The money flowed from OSY Technologies and Francisco Partners, which once owned NSO Group.
- Mashable published “QAnon Believers Don’t Know How to Handle Michael Flynn’s Ties to Spyware Firm Behind Pegasus.” In addition to the QAnon trigger word, the Mashable story noted, “Edward Snowden is call it [Pegasus] the story of the year.” Mashable reported: “Many QAnon followers still don’t exactly know what to make of the news. Some seemed to accept the idea that this “doesn’t look good” for Flynn.”
- Axios (via Yahoo News) reported that Francisco Partners “…The firm finally exited NSO in early 2019, selling it back to the [NSO Group] company’s founders and London-based private equity firm Novalpina, which pledged “a new model for public transparency. Since then, NSO has become the pulsing heart of a dispute between the partners of Novalpina. And, in an ironic twist, it involves leaked WhatsApp messages and a lawsuit against one of the newspapers that later became part of the Pegasus consortium.”
My hunch is that the investigative reporters will continue just like the hypothetical beavers. Beavers were skinned by intrepid traders. Will the investigative reporters find themselves in a similar business process? Flipping stones with the NSO Group logo stenciled on them may reveal some surprises.
Stephen E Arnold, July 27, 2021
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