New Delhi : The latest Spyware story is not at all convincing specially in Indian context. But internet security is a challenge.
Are we getting dragged into a set of very old questions – What are the negative effects of science? What are the side effects of Allopathic medicine?
The Pegasus row has generated enough debate on spyware threats globally. After all fingers are being pointed out at 45 countries.
In the Indian context the timing is crucial. PM Narendra Modi’s handpicked new IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw rightly said in Lok Sabha on Monday that the timing.is not without good reason.
"The press reports have appeared a day before the Monsoon session of Parliament. This cannot be a coincidence. In the past, similar claims were made regarding the use of Pegasus on WhatsApp. Those reports had no factual basis and were categorically denied by all parties, including in the Supreme Court. The press reports of 18th July 2021 also appear to be an attempt to malign the Indian democracy and its well established institutions".
Home Minister Amit Shah says, “The people of India have high hopes from the current monsoon session”.
In a statement, Shah has raised a few pertinent questions. “....to whose tune are these people (opposition politicians) dancing, who want to keep showing India in poor light?”
There is more to it.
India – under Prime Minister Narendra Modi - is seeking a greater role for itself in regional and global contexts.
The US and its allies are already moving out of Afghanistan. The war-devastated nation is already in conflicts with Pakistan as the Afghan envoy to Islamabad, Najib Alikhil,and other senior diplomats have been called back.
It is being presumed that India would play a more important role than a mere ‘development partner’ as it has done in the past in the Af-Pak and South Asian regions.
Thus, keeping New Delhi engaged in a controversy at the level of spyware would therefore suit someone’s narrative. Pakistan has its all weather friend China in the horizon as well.
Therefore Shah says, “aap Chronology samajhiye (Please understand the timing and chronology). This is a report by the disrupters for the obstructers”.
He has further explained: “Disruptors are global organisations which do not like India to progress”.
This could be in reference to Amnesty International which has courted controversies and announced shutting its office (read shop!) in India after some foreign funding and FCRA norms issues were raised by Indian authorities.
Its bank accounts were also frozen in September 2020.
Shah also focused on the domestic front and said, “To see the rudderless Congress, jump onto this bandwagon is not unexpected”.
BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad and even his colleague Gaurav Bhatia also raised the issue of ‘Congress house’ not being in order as far as snooping games are concerned.
In the past, none other P Chidambaram as Home Minister had allegedly spied on the then Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who later moved as the President of India.
“Some years back, just because there were two Haryana police constables around; it was the Congress party that had brought down Late Chandrashekhar’s government,” Prasad said implying snooping by tradition in Indian politics is a Congress culture.
So, the ‘Holier than thou’ attitude is not surprising.
But at the global level, the issue of internet security is definitely a serious matter and this ought to be addressed by the global community in a unity of purpose.
Will Cathcart, the head of Whatsapp, rightly said, “This is a wake-up call for security on the Internet...Governments and companies must do everything they can to make it as secure as possible”.
Back in Indian context, one can say that the lawmakers from opposition parties would do well to ensure that there is actually serious and enlightened debate on internet security.
Edward Snowden has called for restrictions in sales of spywares. “We don’t allow a commercial market in nuclear weapons. If you want to protect yourself you to change the game, and the way to do that is by ending this trade”.
Thus, finally the words of Urban Development and Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri make sense.
He has said, “Some of our colleagues in the opposition need to introspect of disruption is a worthy tool in democracy”.
Well, debates have never been a forte or strong point of Congress politics and its leader like Rahul Gandhi. The repeated adjournments of both the Houses only show that the negativism mixed with anarchism continues.
This time again, this spyware row is not the right tool or the Monsoon session of Parliament is not the right opportunity that could be used to corner the Modi government.
ends
Pegasus developer and Israeli cyber C. NSO says there is 'no basis' in fresh row
The report by Forbidden Stories is full of wrong assumptions and uncorroborated theories that raise serious doubts about the reliability and interests of the sources. It seems like the “unidentified sources” have supplied information that has no factual basis and are far from reality.
After checking their claims, we firmly deny the false allegations made in their report. Their sources have supplied them with information which has no factual basis, as evident by the lack of supporting documentation for many of their claims.
In fact, these allegations are so outrageous and far from reality, that NSO is considering a defamation lawsuit.
NSO Group has a good reason to believe the claims that are made by the unnamed sources to Forbidden Stories, are based on misleading interpretation of data from accessible and overt basic information, such as HLR Lookup services, which have no bearing on the list of the customers targets of Pegasus or any other NSO products.
Such services are openly available to anyone, anywhere, and anytime, and are commonly used by governmental agencies for numerous purposes, as well as by private companies worldwide.
The claims that the data was leaked from our servers, is a complete lie and ridiculous, since such data never existed on any of our servers.
As NSO has previously stated, our technology was not associated in any way with the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi. We can confirm that our technology was not used to listen, monitor, track, or collect information regarding him or his family members mentioned in the inquiry. We previously investigated this claim, which again, is being made without validation.
We would like to emphasize that NSO sells it technologies solely to law enforcement and intelligence agencies of vetted governments for the sole purpose of saving lives through preventing crime and terror acts. NSO does not operate the system and has no visibility to the data.
AshwiniVaishnaw, the Minister of Electronics & Information Technology made following statement on “Alleged use of spyware Pegasus to compromise phone data of some persons as reported in Media on 18th July 2021” in Lok Sabha on July 19 :
“Hon’ble Speaker Sir,
I rise to make a statement on reported use of spyware Pegasus to compromise phone data of some persons.
A highly sensational story was published by a web portal yesterday night.
Many over the top allegations have been made around this story.
Hon’ble Speaker Sir, the press reports have appeared a day before the Monsoon session of Parliament. This cannot be a coincidence.
In the past, similar claims were made regarding the use of Pegasus on WhatsApp. Those reports had no factual basis and were categorically denied by all parties, including in the Supreme Court. The press reports of 18th July 2021 also appear to be an attempt to malign the Indian democracy and its well established institutions.
We cannot fault those who haven’t read the news story in detail. And I request all Hon’ble Members of the House to examine the issues on facts and logic.
The basis of this report is that there is a consortium which has got access to a leaked database of 50,000 phone numbers. The allegation is that individuals linked to these phone numbers were being spied upon. However, the report says that:
The presence of a phone number in the data does not reveal whether a device was infected with Pegasus or subject to an attempted hack.
Without subjecting a phone to this technical analysis, it is not possible to conclusively state whether it witnessed an attack attempt or was successfully compromised.
Therefore, the report itself clarifies that presence of a number does not amount to snooping.
Hon’ble Speaker Sir, let us examine what NSO, the company which owns the technology has said. It said:
NSO Group believes that claims that you have been provided with, are based on misleading interpretation of leaked data from basic information, such as HLR Lookup services, which have no bearing on the list of the customers’ targets of Pegasus or any other NSO products.
Such services are openly available to anyone, anywhere, and anytime, and are commonly used by governmental agencies as well as by private companies worldwide. It is also beyond dispute that the data has nothing to do with surveillance or with NSO, so there can be no factual basis to suggest that a use of the data somehow equates to surveillance.
NSO has also said that the list of countries shown using Pegasus is incorrect and many countries mentioned are not even our clients. It also said that most of its clients are western countries.
It is evident that NSO has also clearly rubbished the claims in the report.
Hon’ble Speaker Sir, let us look at India’s established protocol when it comes to surveillance. I’m sure my colleagues in the opposition who have been in Government for years would be well aware of these protocols. Since they have governed the country, they would also be aware that any form of illegal surveillance is not possible with the checks and balances in our laws and our robust institutions.
In India, there is a well established procedure through which lawful interception of electronic communication is carried out for the purpose of national security, particularly on the occurrence of any public emergency or in the interest of public safety, by agencies at the Centre and States. The requests for these lawful interception of electronic communication are made as per relevant rules under the provisions of section 5(2) of Indian Telegraph Act,1885 and section 69 of the Information TechnologyAct, 2000.
Each case of interception or monitoring is approved by the competent authority. These powers are also available to the competent authority in the state governments as per IT (Procedure and Safeguards for Interception, monitoring and Decryption of Information) Rules, 2009.
There is an established oversight mechanism in the form of a review committee headed by the Union Cabinet Secretary. In case of state governments, such cases are reviewed by a committee headed by the Chief Secretary concerned. The law also provides an adjudication process for those adversely affected by any incident.
The procedure therefore ensures that any interception or monitoring of any information is done as per due process of law. The framework and institutions have withstood the test of time.
Hon’ble Speaker Sir, in conclusion, I humbly submit that:
The publisher of the report states that it cannot say if the numbers in the published list were under surveillance.
The company whose technology was allegedly used has denied these claims outrightly.
And the time tested processes in our country are well-established to ensure that unauthorised surveillance does not occur.
Hon’ble Speaker Sir, when we look at this issue through the prism of logic, it clearly emerges that there is no substance behind this sensationalism.
Thank you Hon’ble Speaker Sir.”
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| Blogger ! |
Some issues:
The targeted phone numbers were on a list provided by Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International to the 17 media organizations. It was not clear how the groups obtained the list.
The numbers on the list were not attributed, but reporters identified more than 1,000 people spanning more than 50 countries.
They included several Arab royal family members, at least 65 business executives, 85 human rights activists, 189 journalists and more than 600 politicians and government officials – including several heads of state and prime ministers.
## “We are deeply troubled to learn that two AP journalists, along with journalists from many news organizations, are among those who may have been targeted by Pegasus spyware,” said Director of AP Media Relations Lauren Easton.
“We have taken steps to ensure the security of our journalists’ devices and are investigating,” she added.
Dave Moran of Reuters said, “Journalists must be allowed to report the news in the public interest without fear of harassment or harm, wherever they are. We are aware of the report and are looking into the matter.”
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