Collaborate Disseminate
Interesting paper on recent hack-and-leak operations attributed to the UAE: Abstract: Four hack-and-leak operations in U.S. politics between 2016 and 2019, publicly attributed to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, should be seen as the "simulation of scandal" – deliberate attempts to direct moral judgement against their target. Although "hacking" tools enable easy access to secret information,… Continue reading UAE Hack and Leak Operations
The smartphone messaging app ToTok is actually an Emirati spying tool: But the service, ToTok, is actually a spying tool, according to American officials familiar with a classified intelligence assessment and a New York Times investigation into the app and its developers. It is used by the government of the United Arab Emirates to try to track every conversation, movement,… Continue reading ToTok Is an Emirati Spying Tool
Signal, the encrypted messaging app I prefer, is being blocked in both Egypt and the UAE. Recently, the Signal team developed a workaround: domain fronting. Signal’s new anti-censorship feature uses a trick called "domain fronting," Marlinspike explains. A country like Egypt, with only a few small internet service providers tightly controlled by the government, can block any direct request to… Continue reading How Signal Is Evading Censorship
We’re starting to see some information on the Israeli cyberweapons arms manufacturer that sold the iPhone zero-day exploit to the United Arab Emirates so they could spy on human rights defenders. EDITED TO ADD (9/1): There is criticism in the comments about me calling NSO Group an Israeli company. I was just repeating the news articles, but further research indicates… Continue reading NSO Group
Last week, Apple issued a critical security patch for the iPhone: iOS 9.3.5. The incredible story is that this patch is the result of investigative work by Citizen Lab, which uncovered a zero-day exploit being used by the UAE government against a human rights defender. The UAE spyware was provided by the Israeli cyberweapons arms manufacturer NSO Group. This is… Continue reading iPhone Zero-Day Used by UAE Government