Click the link and all your information is in the wrong hands the reality of being hacked so why did a secretive Israeli Company on the leading edge of spyware programming not show up for a recent court case does the n. S. O. Group think its beyond the law this is inside story. Hello and welcome to the program im peter dubey now its products can help pack the phone of a political activist a journalist or even a prince the spying technology owned by the israeli n. S. O. Group is allegedly being used by authoritarian regimes and within that its changing traditional relationships good and bad but its also increasingly helping governments to crack down on whoever opposes them n. S. A. Has faced a number of lawsuits one of them from whatsapp the messaging app seems to be getting close to winning that case if only as a function of a default ruling the spyware manufacturer failed to show up in court in the u. S. After it had said it would quote vigorously fight the allegations a default was entered on monday in San Francisco after what sap said that its efforts to give an astute group notice of the lawsuits all went on. Whatsapp says n. S. O. Abuse floor and its messaging app to remotely hijack hundreds of smartphones is alleges the created whats app accounts that were used to send malware. The mobile phones of 1400. 00 people among them journalists human rights activists political dissidents and diplomats the affected users receive calls from several countries including bahrain the United Arab Emirates and mexico separately a saudi activist accuses n. S. O. Of providing the kingdom with the spyware required to hack his phone conversations with the journalists Jamal Khashoggi who was later murdered a New York Times reported 20 teen says the u. A. E. Had asked to hack into the phones of prominent figures Amnesty International says rights activists and one of its own Staff Members have been targeted by enter so products. Ok lets get going joining us here on the program today from washington d. C. We have rafael sater hes a Cyber Security correspondent for reuters in london we have Tanya Carroll she is the director of amnesty tech and in brussels via skype we have james shiers whos a professor at the university of neednt researches Cyber Security across the middle east welcome to you all right feel coming to you 1st is it such a surprise that n. S. O. Didnt turn up to this court date you know peter it is and it isnt. To a certain degree these kind of cross traditional lawsuits are always a little bit fraught and theres often the argument that one party or the other simply doesnt have jurisdiction and doesnt have cause to file in a particular jurisdiction so its not particularly surprising that there is a dispute over that right now what is a little bit surprising is that n. S. O. Hasnt made any kind of legal answer whatsoever but is still commenting on the case publicly carol in london is it shortsighted or slightly devious and disingenuous on the part of the company not to turn up. Well i think this is actually in keeping with what weve seen from anna so really over the last year as they have increased their public profile more and more engaging with the media clearly trying to get ahead of the criticism that they have been confronted with. Not to mention a number of lawsuits this is just one theres also lawsuits in mexico and cyprus sorry cyprus and israel and Amnesty International bringing one of those cases in israel so i think its a delaying tactic its inconsistent consistent with what we know of them theyre a slippery company they have said they want they want to put up a vigorous fight but i suspect that that vigorous fight may not be by turning up and actually sitting in front of a judge and jury. To confronting the evidence thats been presented to them i expect it will be a lot more of a tactics of discrediting delaying as well as looking for a way out and of course theyve also brought count a lawsuit in israel against facebook so yes i think this is quite. What we expect and what we continue to expect from minister so were saying that proposed what we said in the introduction to the program discomfort he does think its above and or beyond the law because it can discredit people who are taking it to court outside the court system. Well the truth is a fortune at the moment they are above and beyond the door because there is absolutely no effective nor really providing Effective Governance and oversight of the spyware industry this is something that Amnesty International has been calling out for for years now the spyware industry has been operating in total impunity for more than a decade and n. S. O. Is one of the most prolific on the tourists active certainly one of the activists most in the media spotlight they have been multiple cases of very clear evidence at this point of isolated cases of human rights activists and journalists being attacked by anastos spyware pegasus but actually much more broadly 100 human rights defenders and activists were revealed by the whats up as closure of the state own research has found never getting very recently moroccan activists whove been targeted by and so spyware our own Staff Members have been attacked by an s. O. S. By us and until there is a fact of laws in place that really govern the export transfer of this kind of sophisticated Invasive Technology really were talking about Cyber Weapons here. They will continue to be able to act flagrantly and theres no stakes for them they can walk away and i hope that this case for face because i think is the 1st really strong case where we may actually have a chance of seeing some accountability change science in brussels how unusual is it for a Service Provider to take a 3rd party into a Legal Process on the part of that Service Providers users because thats thats what whatsapp slash facebook are doing here. This is very unusual its the 1st time weve seen any cases of this kind where targeted Civilians Companies is being taken to court. Service provider or part from company usually as you say the users themselves are the main targets this is what i was talking. Stepping up and seems to be taking responsibility for his uses his rhetoric around the court case says that he wants to protect proceeded he was so has a large reputational effort in order to try and take this company to court to show that it is sending a message to companies are going to exploit its services this technology in this way Rockville Center in washington and also have gone public saying the saudis allegedly trying to hack jeff best sources phone wasnt the saudis using that technology 2 quick questions one do you believe them and 2 if it wasnt an s. Or technology who did the Technology Come from. Right well i mean its not my place to believe or not believe and i think its important to note that and so has declined to say who its clients are theres been a lot of speculation and indeed a lot of reporting some very serious reporting around the use of an a so technology by the saudis most notably recently when a journalist from the New York Times went public to say that he had been targeted using n. S. O. Technology so there does appear to be some use of very sophisticated spyware by the saudi government that said as far as the basis case is concerned i think that there are some some still some Unanswered Questions about exactly what happened there the f. B. I. Report which was committed by jeff bezos has been criticized by some people as being a little bit light on technical data and i look forward to seeing what other reporters can dig up on that particular case tanya in london israel or slash israel the onus group seems to corner the market at this leading edge of Cyber Security why israel why not the americans why not the russians for example. Well i dont know if its completely true that israel is the only company a country that is exporting this kind of cyber Surveillance Technology we actually see number of companies and we have been for 10 years tracking companies there was the Italian Company hacking team until it you know was sort of busted after some leaks in 2015 there was fin fish which was a briton originally a British CompanyGammer International then became a German Company there is a very very extensive industry that has been blossoming really in the last 10 years and i think as technology has driven prices down this technology is more readily available for governments around the world to purchase were seeing and were going to continue to see a proliferation and diversification of the market not only by Major Players such as you know israeli got. Where theres a lot of investment in universities in technology and really being out in front in developing some of the most more elite and sophisticated technologies in the industry but increasingly homegrown stuff as well an amnesty tech house a security lab of 5 hackers and technologists who pretty much spend their full time job is just tracking Cyber Attacks and campaigns targeting Civil Society activists all around the world and we found 10 campaigns in the last 2 to 3 years pakistan mexico u. A. E. Egypt really you name it this stuff is absolutely everywhere and were going to continue to see more and more of it being developed by governments and not just exported by by big governments like the countries like as well as in brussels turn youre in her earlier oncet one of my questions was basically saying this is an area of warfare or were heading towards a time perhaps when this will be an accepted area of warfare before we get to that point youve studied the middle east extensively is it rebalancing only redrawing relationships virtual relationships that exist outside of the traditional relationships because if the israelis are getting friendly with the saudis with an a so in the middle because people are hacking other peoples phones fast perhaps they would say a necessary positive relationship that one would never have predicted without this technology. Thats a really good point and its worth remembering that from the variable carter data it looks like m. S. O. Doesnt have that many customers have around 60 customers and around 40 percent of those are in the middle east and through the middle east as a large market not just for the n. S. O. Group but also for other spyware and toxic surveillance technologies in terms of the regional geography and the geopolitics of talk to surveillance although the use of the senses more g. s is generally domestic their desire for internal political control this can spread over boarded it can spread to dissidents beyond borders and as you say the source of this software the ability to sell it between countries that havent always been friends in the past can redraw political boundaries not to say this is the only thing there are other Technological Developments larger signals intelligence capabilities military capabilities and broader geopolitical pressures that are changing these boundaries but this is certainly paying playing a part turn you what are the potential consequences around the region like the middle east because if youve got multiple customers working for multiple agencies i mean to ask the question a different way is the use of the 2nd hand they dont use of this technology is it licensed in any way is it governed in any way or does it does it just operate in the shadows all the time. Well technically one of the ways that its governed is through export licenses so the israelis are in an s. O. S. Case it needs to apply for an export license for the ministry of defense in israel who then grant that license and the allow it to exporters technologies around the world there should be a degree of g. Diligence that happens as part of that process and in terms of International Human rights law there should be a human rights to divisions there in terms of really saying is it actually appropriate to be selling this technology to x. Government if we know the x. Government has a really really poor track record in terms of human rights and internal repression of its own citizens and that therefore theres a high risk that the technology will end up being abused what were seeing not just in israel but really as i mentioned its really in knots of countries that are selling this and exporting this kind of Technology Many of them in europe increase not just spyware and malware is increasingly in really advanced biometric systems facial Recognition Systems many of which also can have incredibly detrimental consequences when theyre used or misused against their own populations and what were not seeing is really that theres any effective human rights to digits in that process so much like traditional arms way before we managed to get things like the arms trade treaty in place there is just a sort of wild west of companies springing up and able to sell things with very little scrutiny to really any any government that they like and the proof is in the pudding we are seeing such extensive misuse and abuse and that therefore there clearly the Due Diligence and governance that is existing at the moment is absolutely failing to curtail human rights abuses and needs an overhaul ok graphical sensor in washington coming back to you the people who work for citizen lab in toronto they on their website as of today listing several countries that use pegasus now correct me if im wrong somebody please take a sis is the bug. That you download into your device when you click on a link when you get that message on whats up there talking about this having a presence in bahrain kazakstan mexico morocco arabia and the u. A. E. But my key point in washington is this they also found that this tech has a footprint in 45. 00 countries around the world therefore is the technology an incubator for the military or those parts of a countrys apparatus its Security Apparatus that wants to do something involving this technology before it gets military or before you say kill a washington based journalist when hes walked in to the saudi consulate in istanbul. Right so citizen lab has indeed found traces of pegasus all over the world and and their reporting stretches back several years theres a theres a slight scary correction that id like to make to what you talked about in terms of the whatsapp bug most people think of hacking as something that happens when someone sends you a link for example by text or by email and then you inadvertently or out of naivety you click on that link and then you download that piece of spyware what was particularly frightening about the alleged whatsapp pack attributed to n. S. O. Was that itll nabl people. Operators across the world to be able to hack phones without any interaction with the target or the victim that is to say all you need is somebody is tell a phone number and you press a button and you have no interaction needed and thats what makes all of this so intrusive and so scary. To go back to your question about you know the spread of n. S. O. And who uses it and also says that it only sells to Government Agencies intelligence agencies and Law Enforcement agencies. So the fact that you have it so widespread or or the allegation that it is so widespread across the world suggests that for this company at least youve got a whole range of government clients across africa the middle east asia europe and indeed latin america so that does give you some hint of the ubiquity of this kind of spyware turner in london to go back to the point that you were talking about you know when it comes to how this stuff is governed. By quote its harmonizing its governance structure im not sure what that means but there is something of an international disconnect here surely because the f. B. I. Out of the states their official line is we are going to take a very very very hard line on this and yet few months back there was a very high profile off the Radar Security summits last conference slash sales pitch in london hosted by the British Government and theyre so had a presence there so how do you get governments to draw the balance between selling this kind of stuff and making sure that journalists people who are interested in human rights a kept safe. I mean that absolutely goes right to the heart of this doesnt it in the sense that the proliferate proliferation of the industry in the market for spiral like n s r is has come about precisely because there is so much demand from governments and that includes governments like the u. K. Government so clearly have a reputation theyve been able to to build up very credible reputation among many governments Law Enforcement intelligence agencies over a few short years the fact that novel pina. Bore the this is an Investment Company in london bought the majority share as of last year. From a from this previous owner in california is a sign and stephen peel whos on the you know who owns novel pain there is widely regarded fact hes to be on the board of Global Witness which is an environmental n. G. O. S so hes very much part of the season south as part of the great to great and the good that are lengthy backwards and forwards with novel pain about that purchase show that they really see themselves as wanting to come in and clean up the the industry clean up n. S. O. Make sure that theres proper affective human rights Due Diligence in place and if so then published its 1st human rights policy is unprecedented in this industry to see a company publish a human rights policy but at the moment were still seeing that this is all nice words that well they have a very clear interest in kind of stepping out of the shadows and wanting to to be seen as more credible in the public eye. And theyve hired a p. R. Firm its a good example of that theyve been doing interviews with journalists i think in order to sort of clean up that image even the name pegasus itself the sort of white winged horse gives the idea i think of this sort of on a dime Computer Program doing good fighting terrorists fighting bad guys but were just not into it till we actually start seeing that you know this is not ending up on the phones of. Human rights activists journalists any critical voice around the world then you know we cant really take them at their wedding we cant take them seriously and at the same time these underhand tactics the fact that the lawyers who are involved in the cases bring the cases in cyprus and israel have been approached by undercover operatives that no one knows his behind any of that of course it may be one of episodes clients maybe one of the governments but there is a lot to suggest that you know n. S. A. Was not doing enough at the very least its being grossly negligent in terms of its obligations to human rights james if we assume for a 2nd that a lot of this will be played out as part of this Legal Process in San Francisco is one of the biggest issues Going Forward whatsapp facebooks interpretation of the law as it comes down to a thing called the Computer Fraud and abuse act and how do you apply that in a court in San Francisco to a company thats got customers around the world thats based in the middle east thats got operatives in other parts of the middle east and theres lots of business with 45 other countries as you say its complicated the legal argument whats out is putting forward is based on the Computer Fraud and abuse act in the u. S. There are other charges breaching terms of service whats up contracts for example but they are state based charges so they are secondary to this larger charge based on Computer Fraud and abuse art the hard thing for words have to show is that it was the target of an s os actions and that is what legal experts seem to think is the key difference it has to show that there was some sort of violation some sort of. Illegal action taken against whats ups servers or what ups code rather than against its users and ill be one of the key things if this case ever comes to light but across jurisdictional issues legal cases where the firms themselves are multinational firms depends a lot on the new shopping for both the legal system they want to take the court case in and also where they are officially based raphael sat in washington just some some of this is welcomed and the fact that multiagency these multiple countries have to deal with the Infrastructure Companies because you need to be able to cut the supply chain of that bug getting onto your device and thats the only way to do it. Well up in terms of the Legal Process i think that what will be very interesting if it does indeed you know if n. S. O. Does indeed show up to court which is not totally clear that it will i think the discovery will be very interesting on the one hand its going to be very unusual in fact unprecedented as far as im aware to see the inner workings of a Spyware Company through a court case through the lens of a court case like this because theres a process called discovery in which both whats happened and a so well have to produce some documentation on the other had a lot d of the interesting from the whats happening to you because well see how whatsapp deals with these kinds of spyware companies how it protects its customers or and its rather its users and and we dont you know we dont have a great deal of insight into that whats up as a platform thats used by an extraordinary number of people across the world so im very much looking forward to seeing how that case plays out as far as the infrastructure that you mentioned you know the supply of bugs thats a whole nother story n. S. O. And other spyware companies rely on an entire market of vulnerability vendors these are people who find the sorts of weaknesses in programs like whatsapp or skype or other Telecommunications Programs they find those vulnerabilities they they create tools to exploit them and then they sell those tools on to vendors that can then package them into pieces of software that are used by companies its a complicated supply chain and i think its its worthy of kind of further journalistic investigation ok its genuinely very very scary stuff tanya james thank you all so much thank you to our guests they were Raphael SutterTanya Ocarroll and james shiism thank you for your company the last half hour you can see the show again any time on our web site al jazeera dot com and for further discussion go to our Facebook Page thats facebook. Dot com forward slash a. J. Inside story can also join the conversation on twitter at a. J. 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