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Raphael Satter
@razhael
, 6 tweets, 3 min read Read on Twitter
Remember the Israeli undercover operative ⁦@jsrailton⁩ exposed at a fancy midtown restaurant last month?

There were more of them. apnews.com/a1d1af4256c04c…
John Scott-Railton and I have been collecting documents related to these various undercover operations. Collectively they give some insight into the (fairly straightforward) tradecraft these spies use to approach people online: documentcloud.org/search/project…
Attention will quite naturally focus on the NSO Group given that the targets are lawyers who have fought the group & researchers who have exposed its operations. I’ve been trying to reach the company for a week — with no luck.
I also reached out to Black Cube, writing to their rep Eido Minkovsky and emailing him repeatedly. No replies to my questions from him either. I even visited Black Cube’s Tel Aviv office and left a message at the door
Meanwhile Citizen Lab researcher @jsrailton has given his GoPro footage of my confrontation with undercover agent Aharon Almog-Assouline to @BrianRoss. Watch it here:
Here’s the AP video, out today, of the awkward encounter:
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More from @razhael see all

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Raphael Satter
@razhael
It has not been a great week for Aharon Almog-Assouline, the man identified by The New York Times and Israeli investigative show Uvda as the undercover agent who met @jsrailton for lunch at the Peninsula Hotel last week.
Follow this link for a video that begins just as I crash the lunch mid-crème brûlée, independent.co.uk/news/world/mid…
Almog-Assouline, who on Thursday went by the alias "Michel," doesn't appear pleased. "I don't have to speak with you," he says. About 20 seconds into the video I take out my phone. Here's a still from a second video shot simultaneously by @jsrailton: mako.co.il/tv-ilana_dayan…
Read 7 tweets
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Raphael Satter
@razhael
G'morning, Manhattan! Here's how @jsrailton, @insyria, & @citizenlab outwitted a group of undercover operatives, turned the tables on them in a midtown restaurant & brought me along for the ride:
apnews.com/9f31fa2aa72946…
Also, a thread of some of the reporting that went into this:
-@citizenlab knew well before I got involved that these people weren't who they said they were. Almost immediately after Bahr Abdul Razzak met someone calling themselves Gary Bowman in Toronto, for example, the group knew the person was legitimate. Here's Gary's LinkedIn page:
Oops that should read "illegitimate" above, of course.

Here's Bowman's profile pic. Note that it's in black-and-white, that it's taken at an angle & that he's wearing sunglasses. Among other things, that makes it harder to run through a facial recognition search engine.
Read 12 tweets
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Raphael Satter
@razhael
Yesterday I reported on the attempts to digitally compromise @AliAlAhmed_en, a DC-based Saudi opposition figure. The hackers masqueraded as journalists for the BBC and the WaPo, but they also tried other tactics too. Here’s one that caught my eye ...
apnews.com/cee0e8a5338e4b…
In May of this year the hackers sent him a message that (badly) mimicked an event photography service, sending him a link to what were apparently pictures of him at a recent event. That’s Ali in the picture below, holding the microphone. 🎤
documentcloud.org/documents/5028…
Here’s the thing: That photo isn’t publicly available. You wouldn’t get it by doing a Google image search for Ali, for example.

The phishing message doesn’t make it clear, but Ali said the pics came from a Feb. 1 event at @AEI, the DC think tank.
aei.org/events/changin…
Read 7 tweets

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