Motherboard has obtained and published a copy of the forensics report that suggests that Jeff Bezos’s phone was hacked by Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud, possibly in a scheme to obtain kompromat that could be used as leverage to prevent the Washington Post of reporting on the death of Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered and mutilated by agents of the prince.
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Tag: Jamal Khashoggi
Forensics team accuses Prince Bone Saw of hacking Jeff Bezos’s phone to obtain kompromat and force Washington Post silence on Khashoggi
When Jeff Bezos accused the National Enquirer of blackmailing him over personal messages he sent to his lover while married to his then-wife, many pointed the finger at his lover’s brother, noted asshole Michael Sanchez, suggesting Sanchez received $200,000 from the Enquirer for stealing the data from his sister’s phone — but Bezos’s own investigative team said that they suspected an unspecified government actor had played a role in the leak.
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Facebook sues notorious spyware company NSO Group for 1,400 attacks on diplomats, journalists, dissidents, and government officials
[Addendum 2/20/2020: Following a legal complaint, the Guardian removed its article of 14 June 2019 and apologised to Mrs Peel. We are happy to clarify that Yana Peel is not, and was not, personally involved in the operation or decisions of the regulated Novalpina Capital investment fund, which is managed by her husband Stephen Peel, and others. Mrs Peel was not involved in any decision-making relating to the fund’s acquisition of NSO. Mrs Peel only has a small, indirect and passive interest in the fund. She does not own, whether directly or indirectly, any Novalpina Capital entity or any stake in NSO Group.]
The NSO Group is one of the world’s most notorious cyber-arms dealers, selling hacking tools to some of the world’s most oppressive regimes that are used to identify targets for arrest, torture and even murder.
The Israeli company went through a series of buyouts and buybacks, ending up in the hands of the European private equity fund Novalpina.
Novalpina has pledged to rehabilitate the NSO Group’s reputation by reforming its practices and limiting the sale of its spying tools to legitimate actors (whomever they may be). But research from the world-leading Citizen Lab (previously) revealed that NSO was behind a string of attacks on Whatsapp users last may, which was used to target human rights campaigners, journalists, and political dissidents.
Facebook has filed a lawsuit against the NSO Group, accusing the company of being behind Whatsapp attacks in 20 countries (Whatsapp is a division of Facebook); Facebook claims that the attacks swept up at least 100 members of civil society groups.
The suit seeks an injunction against future NSO Group attacks on Whatsapp and unspecified monetary damages.
NSO is also being sued in Israel for allegedly helping to entrap the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was kidnapped, murdered and dismembered at the direction of the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
Facebook’s suit presents a mixed bag of legal theories: they accuse NSO Group of violating California contract and property law, but also of violating the tremendously flawed Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a 1986 federal anti-hacking law that Facebook drastically expanded when it sued a competitor called Power Ventures in 2008 (the CFAA was also the law used to hound Aaron Swartz to death). There’s a risk that a verdict in Facebook’s favor will strengthen precedents that allow the CFAA to be wielded against legitimate competitors, independent security researchers, and other good actors.
One potential fix for this would be an “interoperator’s defense” that would clarify that CFAA and other statutes do not apply to good actors, ever, something like “Notwithstanding any law or regulation, it is never an offense to create a new interoperable product, service, part, software patch or application, tool, or consumable that allows the legitimate owner or user of an existing product to service to repair, reconfigure, improve or customize that product or service.”
In its statement, Facebook frames its work in the context of defending human rights, citing the work of UN Special Rapporteur on Free Expression David Kaye (previously), who has called for a moratorium on sales of cyber-weapons, including to nation-states.
The NSO Group denies any wrongdoing.
WhatsApp sues Israel’s NSO for allegedly helping spies hack phones around the world [Raphael Satter/Reuters]
NSO Group / Q Cyber Technologies [Citizen Lab]
Davos in the Desert is back, and banks and hedge fund managers are flocking to Mister Bone-Saw’s side
“Davos in the Desert” is Saudi Arabia’s charm offensive aimed at global financial elites, but its launch last year was marred by its close proximity to the gruesome murder and dismemberment of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, carried out at the personal behest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who styles himself a progressive reformer.
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CEO of London’s Serpentine Gallery resigns after Guardian report
[Addendum 2/20/2020: Following a legal complaint, the Guardian removed its article of 14 June 2019 and apologised to Mrs Peel. We are happy to clarify that Yana Peel is not, and was not, personally involved in the operation or decisions of the regulated Novalpina Capital investment fund, which is managed by her husband Stephen Peel, and others. Mrs Peel was not involved in any decision-making relating to the fund’s acquisition of NSO. Mrs Peel only has a small, indirect and passive interest in the fund. She does not own, whether directly or indirectly, any Novalpina Capital entity or any stake in NSO Group.]
The NSO Group (previously) is one of the world’s most notorious cyber-arms dealers, linked to horrific human rights abuses, extrajudicial killing of human rights activists, and the dirtiest of dirty trick campaigns against its critics (and their lawyers) — they’re also accused of helping with the Saudi government’s murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The company has changed hands several times, and its ownership structure is predictably obscure. It’s well understood, however, that a regulated investment fund, managed by a private equity firm called Novalpina, owns a controlling interest in the company; Novalpina’s co-founder is Stephen Peel.
On Friday, The Guardian published an article revealing the NSO Group’s ownership structure. Peel has no involvement in the operations or decisions of Novalpina, which is managed by her husband, Stephen Peel, and his partners.
The report set off a firestorm in the art and human rights world over the weekend, and by Monday, Peel had resigned as CEO, while issuing a statement condemning her critics, characterising their concerns as “a concerted lobbying campaign against my husband’s recent investment.” On Friday, Novalpina vowed to rein in NSO Group, promising “to ensure NSO’s technology is used only for its intended lawful purpose — the prevention of harm to our fundamental human rights to life, liberty and security.”
Peel warned that the pressure she faced would set a precedent that put “the treasures of the art community” at risk of “an erosion of private support” — or, as I see her point of view, “if rich people are excluded from the philanthropic world because they attain and grow their fortunes through human rights abuses and crimes, there won’t be any rich philanthropists left” (I think this is probably true, and it’s a feature, not a bug, of chasing oligarchs and profteers out of genteel society).
Earlier this year, the Serpentine ended its longstanding ties with the Sackler family (previously), whose family company Purdue Pharma deliberately and maliciously created the opioid crisis, making the family richer than the Rockefellers in the process (the Serpentine was not able to unwind its naming rights deal with the Sacklers, so its annex is still called the “Serpentine Sackler Gallery”).
Peel characterised the campaign against her as one of “bullying and intimidation” that ran contrary to the arts world’s commitment to “free expression.”
I have had my own work featured at the Serpentine before; and I am also very concerned with the promotion of free expression and the elimination of bullying and intimidation, which is why I support and applaud Ms Peel’s resignation. The NSO Group has abetted the intimidation, surveillance, kidnapping, torture, imprisonment and murder of innumerable dissidents, journalists and campaigners. Free speech is never free of consequences. She is free to defend the NSO Group while disavowing control over it — and while profiting handsomely from its operations — and I (and other Serpentine-involved artists) am free to say that in light of this, her involvement with the Serpentine disqualifies it from receiving my artistic support or respect.
This is a position that many artists took in light of The Guardian article, and the Serpentine’s board took a decision in light of that view, deciding that artists and campaigners’ involvement with the gallery was more important than Peel’s.
In her resignation statement, Ms. Peel hit out at artists and others who led crusades against museums. “The world of art is about free expression,” she said. “But it is not about bullying and intimidation.”
“If campaigns of this type continue, the treasures of the art community — which are so fundamental to our society — risk an erosion of private support,” she added. “That will be a great loss for everyone.”
Serpentine Galleries Chief Quits, With Harsh Words for Activist Artists [Alex Marshall/New York Times]
(Image: Index on Censorship, CC-BY)
Lawyer involved in suits against Israel’s most notorious cyber-arms dealer targeted by its weapons, delivered through a terrifying Whatsapp vulnerability
NSO Group is a notorious Israeli cyber-arms dealer whose long trail of sleaze has been thoroughly documented by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab (which may or may not be related to an attempt to infiltrate Citizen Lab undertaken by a retired Israeli spy); NSO has been implicated in the murder and dismemberment of the dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi (just one of the brutal dictatorships who’ve availed themselves of NSO tools), and there seems to be no cause too petty for their clients, which is why their malware has been used to target anti-soda activists in Mexico.
Continue reading “Lawyer involved in suits against Israel’s most notorious cyber-arms dealer targeted by its weapons, delivered through a terrifying Whatsapp vulnerability”
McKinsey, the standard-bearer for autocrats, looters and torturers
In a deeply researched longread, New York Times investigative reporters Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe document in fine detail the role played by the ubiquitous McKinsey and Company in legitimizing, coordinating, and supercharging the world’s most notorious human-rights-abusing regimes, from Saudi Arabia to China to Russia.
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Exec who oversaw Google’s failed babykiller projects and cozied up to Saudis quits after employee uprising
Diane Greene was the CEO of Google’s cloud business, and it was she who tried to convince Googlers to back her bid to sell AI services to the Pentagon’s drone program, as a warmup for bidding on JEDI, the $10B Pentagon infrastructure project.
Continue reading “Exec who oversaw Google’s failed babykiller projects and cozied up to Saudis quits after employee uprising”
Mister Bone Saw got a standing ovation at Davos in the Desert
The assassination and dismemberment of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi (previously) finally accomplished what decades of detailed reports of human rights abuses and years of increasingly grave details of a brutal proxy war in Yemen could not do: it made the Saudi royal family into international pariahs, even among the plutocrat class who had fattened themselves off of Saudi money.
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NYT: Saudi Arabia’s Prince Charming was Mister Bone Saw all along
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Everybody knows that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the brutal killing and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi (everybody, that is, except the Trumps, who coincidentally do a lot of business with the House of Saud) and the lurid brutality of that murder has prompted calls for western businesses to reconsider their increasingly cozy relationship with Mohammed bin Salman.
Continue reading “NYT: Saudi Arabia’s Prince Charming was Mister Bone Saw all along”