This is a big business fueled by authoritarian regimes world over. Hacking Team, the infamous Italian company which was exposed after wide scaled human rights abuse using its technology and tools like RCS has now reemerged as Memento Labs.
It is not what and how Hacker team and now ‘Memento Labs’ did for regimes in Egypt (during the Arab Springs), Sudan, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia. It is that p[rime targets worldwide are Human rights activists and Journalists. The issue is that products like KRAIT “…are designed to silently infect and invisibly surveil even ‘paranoid targets’ who might have a high level of digital security awareness,” Says Bill Marczak “…a researcher at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab who led early research into Hacking Team. “These products are a match made in heaven for human rights abusers, who are looking for tools to attack an increasingly vigilant civil society.“
MIT Technology Review has this report by Patrick Howell O’Neill on the fall and rise of Hacking Team and it reflects how the technology power nexus thrive. What is our response?
Where I learnt this #333
The fall and rise of a spyware empire
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614767/the-fall-and-rise-of-a-spyware-empire/
