Biden Administration Blacklists NSO Group over Pegasus Spyware (therecord.media) 18
The United States on Wednesday added the Israeli spyware company NSO Group to its "entity list," a federal blacklist prohibiting the company from receiving some American technologies, after determining the company's phone-hacking tools had been used by foreign governments to "maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics, and embassy workers." From a report: The move is a significant sanction against a company spotlighted in July by the global Pegasus Project consortium, including The Washington Post and 16 other news organizations worldwide. The consortium published dozens of articles detailing misuse of the Pegasus spyware by customers of NSO. The Commerce Department said in a statement that the action is part of the Biden administration's "efforts to put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy, including by working to stem the proliferation of digital tools used for repression." The U.S. has also added Israel's Candiru, Russian security firm Positive Technologies, and Singapore-based Computer Security Initiative Consultancy to the entity list.
Re:Outside US control (Score:4, Insightful)
In many ways you're right. And the US has overplayed the "sanctions" card.
On the other hand, the US sanctioning companies in Israel could still be a bit of a wakeup call for some people.
Re:Outside US control (Score:5, Informative)
Which is why all these companies are outside US control in the first place.
We live in a global economy.
Except we don't.
They've now got no access to:
iPhones, App stores, Google phones, Amazon AWS, Azure, GCP, CPUs from Intel, AMD. No Microsoft Office/SQL. Seagate. etc. No payment processors (e.g. Visa, Mastercard) nor access to any banks that have a US entity.
Good luck to them, but they're going to find it hard to actually do business.
Re:Outside US control (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh please. If you think a company which enables dictators to go after their opponents, and lies about doing so, will have any problem getting business, think again. There will be no shortage of people, groups, or governments lining up to buy this software, especially after this blacklisting, and willing to pay for it.
The Streisand Effect is now in play.
Re: Outside US control (Score:1)
In reality it will just take a little extra effort or maybe a name change. ðY
Re: (Score:2)
If it's not export controlled and available for sale they can just buy it in a shop outside the US.
Re: (Score:1)
They'll just change their company name and start again.
Re: Outside US control (Score:2)
That is not how this stuff works. There are plenty of consultants out there who will buy this equipment and software and route it to whoever you want.
How do you think Iran and North Korea function?
prohibiting? (Score:3)
"prohibiting the company from receiving some American technologies".
But not prohibiting US entities from buying NSO technology.
Re: (Score:1)
Yea, that's a key omission. Good catch.
Re: (Score:2)
If the US puts its mind to it then obviously everything in a nation which wants to do commerce with the US is within its control, they can just play economic chicken with those countries and win.
See the footnote 1 change to the entity list, which cut Huawei off from TSMC. Or the Iran sanctions which mostly cut off Iran from international banking.
Re: (Score:1)
about time (Score:5, Insightful)
It's about time we treated these kind of tools like the toxic waste that they are.
Re: (Score:1)
They're not exactly shy about it. Do you expect "candiru" to be something good? (If you don't know what a candiru is, look it up. But don't say I didn't warn you. And don't do an image search, ever)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't you mean (Score:1, Funny)
Don't you mean "Deny Lists"?
I thought that blacklist/whitelist was no longer PC ;)
Follow the money (Score:1)
Pegasus' US competitors are trying to eliminate the competition in the US.
But the apartheid is still okay, right? (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently it's only when a company allows dictators to spy on opponents that the U.S. is concerned. When it's the Israeli government doing it to enable its apartheid, no big deal.