John Scott-Railton Profile picture
Oct 2 10 tweets 10 min read
BREAKING: journalists & human rights defenders hacked with #Pegasus in 🇲🇽#Mexico.

Years *after* spyware scandals & new President's promise that abuses were over.

THREAD 1/

Report by @R3Dmx ejercitoespia.r3d.mx
We @citizenlab did forensic validation: citizenlab.ca/2022/10/new-pe… Key Takeaways Mexican digital rights organization R3D (Red eOur technical validation of forensic artifacts collected fro
2/ Per @R3Dmx, #Pegasus victims were infected while working on:

❌Connections between Los Zetas Cartel & Mexican Army
❌Official misconduct in investigations into #Ayotzinapa forced disappearances
❌Human rights violations by Mexican Armed Forces.

Chilling. Ricardo Raphael  Raphael, a prominent journalist and author Raymundo Ramos Vázquez  Ramos has spent years documenting h
3/ Mexico was first rocked by #Pegasus scandals in 2017 under President @EPN.

We @citizenlab, @R3Dmx @socialtic & @article19org had found dozens of abuse cases.

When Pres. @lopezobrador_ took office, he promised hacking abuses were a thing of the past...
4 Mexico's #Pegasus scandals didn't stop.

The #PegasusProject also revealed that scores in the circle of @lopezobrador_ had been potentially selected for targeting while @EPN was in office.

Including now-President AMLO's wife & children. In 2017, the Citizen Lab, along with partners R3D, SocialTic
5/ Mexico has been one of the *most* notorious cases of #Pegasus spyware abuses.

NSO Group has has been confronted about this. For years.

Mexico's new president, touched himself by spyware abuses prior to entering office... had promised it was over.

Yet here we are.
6/ Yet again, journalists & human rights defenders of intense interest to the Mexican government got hacked.

Chillingly, some of their work was clearly of intense interest to cartels, too.

#Mexico has seen *half a decade* of abuses like this. Need for an Independent Investigation These latest cases, wh
7/ I urge you to read @R3Dmx's full report. Here's their thread on the cases.
8/ Another key find via @R3Dmx: Mexico did recent business with companies linked to prior #Pegasus contracts👇👇

Despite making strenuous efforts to deny any such business.
9/ A key detail: while previous Pegasus cases @citizenlab investigated in #Mexico involved finding SMS messages and 1-click attacks... these latest cases were zero-click attacks.

No action was required on the part of the victims to be infected.
10/ Of course NSO has a response that is not serious.

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More from @jsrailton

Sep 29
So... I was part of a sting against a group of private spies targeting whistleblowers.

Wild story in this thread👇
Powerful people regularly hire private spies to suppress inconvenient facts & avoid scrutiny or prosecution.

Some are ex cops, others ex spooks. Some just mercenary amateurs.

It's a scourge... in desperate need of scrutiny by lawmakers & prosecutors.
Sometimes the private spying operations are bumbling.

But even when they mess up, they help to chill accountability & truth telling.

The message is clear: if you come forwards with an inconvenient truth against a powerful person, you may get targeted.
Read 7 tweets
Sep 16
Stop and watch this video.

Whatever you thought about the governors' stunt... it turns out it was worse.
DeSantis sent a videographer because he was trying to make an audition tape for the presidency.

Well, we've gotten a pretty good look.

Let's make sure this never happens.
Update: DeSantis escalated.

It's not going to stop.
Read 8 tweets
Sep 3
There's a good chance that you're safer because of Peter Eckersley or things he got started.

He had a vision of how to make the web saver & more private with ubiquitous encryption (HTTPS Everywhere!) & quietly worked towards it.

This is a tragedy.
The utter unfairness when the good die much, much too young.

Talented people who choose to use their gifts & vision to work for the benefit of us all are treasures.

We just lost one.
Peter did so much. From building tools that made browsing private & more secure, to working on AI & ethics... and asking hard future-looking questions.

The part that makes me so mad is that he had so much *more* to give.
Read 6 tweets
Aug 31
BREAKING: tanker #AFFINITYV has run aground & gotten stuck in the #SuezCanal.

Similar section to #EverGiven.

Suez canal traffic halted.

A whole bunch of tugs now working to pull the crude oil tanker free. 1/
2/ So, the crude oil tanker #AFFINITYV is only partially laden.

This fits. She's heading to Yanbu, Saudi Arabia. Presumably to get more from an oil terminal there.

That means her draught (part below waterline) isn't at max. (11.2m vs 15.5).

Read, easier to pull off.
3/ VIDEO UPDATE: #AFFINITYV is freed!

She got grounded, freed, maybe-grounded again, and now very gingerly under tow southbound in the #SuezCanal.

Cause unclear. But I've narrated an animation of the initial incident.
Read 7 tweets
Aug 20
It's amusing that Russia is pushing the OMG-Finland's-PM-drinks-at-parties.

World class levels of projection.
Only thing funnier than Russia faking concern about booze?

People mad because Finland's PM is a smart & strong woman who enjoys life.
Angry that a young politician can have an unscripted good time?

The alternatives: puritan hypocrisy, cult of personality, or a stolid, unimaginative & ancient political class etc.

You don't want any of that.
Read 4 tweets

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