A 55-year-old political science professor based in Toronto might seem like an unlikely adversary for one of the world’s most controversial cyber-defence companies.
But as one of the foremost experts on surveillance techniques used by authoritarian regimes and head of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, Ron Deibert has been engaged in a stealthy cat and mouse game with NSO Group, the Israeli spyware company, for years.
Deibert and his team have used their novel research techniques – “pretty complex stuff” as Deibert describes them – to help expose how dozens of journalists, human rights activists, and senior government officials have allegedly been targeted by governments around the world who use NSO’s software to hack phones.
While NSO has insisted that its hacking software is only meant to be used by law enforcement officials to track down terrorists and other criminals , Deibert and his team have painted a different picture.
Citizen Lab’s investigations have alleged that Pegasus, NSO’s hacking software, appears to have been used against dozens of journalists, including a New York Times reporter who wrote a book about Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a staff member at Amnesty International, and an imprisoned activist in the UAE, Ahmed Mansoor, among others.
“We’ve seen repeatedly, and it’s an often overlooked element of this type of digital surveillance: the fear that an autocrat across the other side of the planet could be inside your very home, inside your pocket. It’s really disturbing,” Deibert said.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by TGS
