The Pegasus story unravels at such a pace and it is easy to think that people have moved on but then another angle entirely is presented. This time it is Catalan independence, it’s not a new angle by any stretch but one that has finally made its way to mainstream media. Ronan Farrow has done a long form piece of investigative journalism on the threat of modern spyware, with a focus on NSO groups spyware.
The Pegasus Project by The Guardian. An uncovering of substantial proportions by journalists about the Israeli company, NSO and their surveillance/spying software, Pegasus. The contact targets for surveillance were leaked and the list was phenomenal in size (tens of thousands) and international breadth. The targets were also wide ranging and yes, of course, there were probably some criminals on the list confirming the goals of the NSO Group, to save lives, but there were also human rights activists and journalists and PRINCESSES!
A white hat is a hacker with heart, Wiki gives a conservative definition here but a description with firework flair was recently documented in a Bloomberg piece quoting self-aggrandising hacker, Tillie Kottmann, “lots of curiosity, fighting for freedom of information and against intellectual property, a huge dose of anti-capitalism, a hint of anarchism — and it’s also just too much fun not to do it.” That really turns the hacker ‘stealing data and cash’ trope on its head.
