
Government Spyware Targets Mexican Journalists and Their Families - growlix
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/world/americas/mexico-spyware-anticrime.html
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iliketosleep
The company that makes the software "says it sells the tool exclusively to
governments" as though they're trying to take a moral stand and say "we only
see it to the good guys". When in fact they sell to governments that are
highly oppressive and corrupt. It's a farce.

~~~
dsl
We need to avoid the slippery slope of blaming the tools. There are open
source and commercial solutions that implement much of the same functionality.

If you blame the tools Hacking Team or NSO or whomever, disappears into the
oblivion, and two more spawn to take their place. Meanwhile we build a popular
opinion that these things are dangerous and need to be restricted or
regulated. Software ends up as the new "burglary tools."

We need to shame the people that would have used any means available to the
same ends.

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tptacek
I don't understand this argument. If you build and sell tools that enable
online surveillance, you bear a special responsibility not to sell them to
people who will abuse them. Building surveillance tools and selling them to
repressive governments is blameworthy.

Equally blameworthy, but rarely remarked upon, is the practice of selling
generic computing infrastructure that you know will be used to build
surveillance infrastructure.

~~~
dsl
How do we apply that special responsibility to open source software? Say,
Metasploit.

I'm proficient with both commercial and open source tools, and in most cases
the open source ones are more powerful.

Not saying enabling isn't a shameful act, but it is a slippery slope. As you
pointed out, at what point does AWS need to start investigating customer
workloads.

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tptacek
Metasploit is free software. We're talking about a commercial enterprise
deliberately profiting from enabling surveillance.

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Puts
We are heading into an interesting future. The NSO Groups biggest owner
Francisco Partners has both Software and Semiconductor companies in its
portfolio, like Dell Software. Should I be worried about the firmware in my
Dell computer? When everything becomes entangled like this it's impossible to
know who to trust. And in the end it doesn't really matter what intent you
have if people don't trust you.

~~~
fictioncircle
Buy parts and run your own firewall/dns setup to drop anything odd.

Its honestly the only way to be "sure" if worry about a manufacturer doing
that sort of thing. It won't be perfect but the odds of someone targeting you
for hardware spyware is prettttttttty low. And most manufacturers of comp
enthusiast parts know its suicide to do it mass-market like that.

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armandososa
Important note: while in other countries the information acquired via this
hacking could be used to blackmail or imprison their targets, in Mexico they
are just shot dead.

~~~
pavement
Worse still, sometimes merely being shot dead is preferable to other
circumstances surrounding such murders.

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EternalData
Governments amplified by technology and unconstrained by law are the largest
threat to human liberty I can think of.

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ignoramceisblis
How about any organization (distinct group of humans)?

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lowpro
Governments are distinctly different than most other organizations, primarily
because they can force you to do something you don't want to do. Corporations
can't do this (unless there is a monopoly on a needed utility (water company,
etc). Even cartels and gangs are terrible because they act as a government in
small/local areas, but have incredibly unfair punishments when people don't
comply. Governments are ultimately far more dangerous than almost any other
organization.

~~~
ignoramceisblis
I know what you mean.

I don't suppose you think differently, but in general: I think it's worth
reminding ourselves that "a government" is made up of multiple people, which
may be largely influenced by distinct cliques, whether or not those cliques
are within the government. It may be the case that real danger lies
predominantly within those cliques.

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caf
_Starting as early as March, they began targeting Ms. Aristegui’s
then-16-year-old son, Emilio, who was living in the United States at the
time._

I wish the New York Times had asked the US Government for a response to this
allegation in particular.

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urubujj
Are they really so surprised that their promise to only survey criminals is
broken?

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cpach
Alternative link in case there is someone bothered by the NYT paywall:
[http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/report-mexican-
jo...](http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/report-mexican-journalists-
activists-targeted-spyware-48135826)

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charred_toast
Of course it does. These days, just imagine the most insidious and nightmarish
overreach and wait a few weeks. 2017 is looking like a benchmark year in this
regard.

~~~
xenihn
Save us, Vitalik.

