The Columbia Journalism review reports that five Indian journalists have been notifed by WhatsApp of attempts to hack their phone. In October 2019, WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, sued the Israeli technology firm NSO Group in a United States federal court and accused the company of exploiting a vulnerability in WhatsApp to enable its...
Category: Middle East
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Faulty Israeli Election App Is an Intelligence Disaster
This story comes from Yossi Melman, a well-informed Israeli journalist with a long record of reporting on the country’s security services. The story was published in Ha’aretz, Israel’s best news site. So I think it is reliable. The story resonates with the Iowa caucuses fiasco, in which a deficient app led to disaster. In Israel,...
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My Chat on Talk Nation Radio, with David Swanson
I spoke with the Charlottesville-based talk show host last week about Israel’s role in the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, Mossad’s “prestigious list” of assassination targets, Ukraine politics and a few other things. Listen here.
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Pakistan’s ‘Deep State’ and the Assassination of Benazir Bhutto
In a ten-part 2018 podcast, the BBC World Service investigated the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the daughter of a former prime minister who was seeking to become Pakistan’s first female leader. Instead a suicide bomber ended her life. A friend called it to my attention (HT/Jeffrey) and it is a compelling look at the possible...
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How the IDF’s Unit 8200 Feeds Israeli Cybersecurity Startups
One feature in the growth of “surveillance capitalism” is the boom in private intelligence companies, which offer the services of a secret intelligence agency to paying clients. The United States has spawned numerous private intelligence companies, including a firm called DREAD, run by Richard Clarke, a former top counterterrorism officials. The United Arab Emirates have...