Looks like DPI vendor Sandvine is in the "find out" phase, after getting sanctioned by the 🇺🇸 US Dept of Commerce following @citizenlab @accessnow investigations

"Sandvine cuts staff after US blacklists Canadian tech firm."
via @wr_recordtherecord.com/news/waterloo-… And as bad as Sandvine's lack of due diligence may be, it's also the 🇨🇦 Canadian government's fault for not putting in place export controls of the sort we have long advocated for, as I said to reporter @PenderRecord

See here ⬇️, e.g.:

citizenlab.ca/2020/10/submis…

NEW REPORT by @citizenlab w @accessnow, @DeptFirst, Arjuna Team & uncovers a sophisticated and highly-personalized🇷🇺 #phishing campaign targeting civil society globally
RESIDENT.ngo
citizenlab.ca/2024/08/sophis… More in our thread here

https://x.com/citizenlab/status/1823692902536446135

🇨🇦 Canada-based @Sandvine's credit rating downgraded by @moodysratings

The pain of US 🇺🇸 @CommerceGov sanctions on the firm for selling surveillance and censorship gear to authoritarian regimes:



h/t @jsrailton ratings.moodys.com/ratings-news/4…
In 2018, @citizenlab purchased a second hand Sandvine/Procera PacketLogic DPI middlebox, used it to develop fingerprints for network scanning, and discovered it was used to inject spyware in Turkey and redirect traffic in Egypt.

citizenlab.ca/2018/03/bad-tr…

NEW: more #Pegasus spyware abuse discovered 👇

35 media workers and several human rights lawyers and activists confirmed infected or targeted in 🇯🇴 Jordan.

@accessnow @hrw @AmnestyTech @OCCRP and @citizenlab collaboration ⬇️

https://twitter.com/citizenlab/status/1752983627003011158

Among the victims are staffers at @hrw who had published reports critical of Jordan's human rights record.

See @josephmenn of @washingtonpost with coverage 👇

washingtonpost.com/technology/202…

BREAKING News: 🇺🇸 @POTUS @WhiteHouse issues Executive Order: limits federal government use of commercial #spyware from vendors that target US persons + facilitate human rights violations / transnational repression...
axios.com/2023/03/27/bid… The EO prohibits use from commercial spyware firms whose technology is used to target activists, academics, journalists and other members of civil society, or is used by states with a track record of systematic human rights violations
whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…

It appears that some Spanish MEPs are trying to block the European Parliament spyware committee from a fact-finding trip to Madrid

...among them: Juan Ignacio Zoido Alvarez, who served as the Spanish *interior minister* from 2016-2018 🤔

politico.eu/article/pedro-… It is really remarkable to see among right-wing 🇪🇸 just how much effort is put into (very poor) attempts at discrediting the research (shooting the messenger), blocking & deflecting, and casting aspersions on victims...

...Instead of a serious independent investigation.

NEW: @apple announces #LockdownMode, a major change to iPhone security that promises to help high risk users + other actions to hold the mercenary spyware industry to account nr.apple.com/d2I3Q1s4s0

My thread w context & details 👇 The @citizenlab has been undertaking evidence-based research on targeted espionage against civil society for close to 15 years

citizenlab.ca/category/resea…

🇨🇦 academic "National Security Experts" downplaying the risks of military, LEA, intelligence-affiliated protestors because of inflated CV's, kooky beliefs and discredited punditry credentials are missing the point

A little training and knowledge can be a very dangerous thing.

https://twitter.com/globeandmail/status/1491965987410743296

Increasingly paranoid and combative language coming out of the protestors' "intelligence reports"

That's a seriously dangerous combination

https://twitter.com/Justin_Ling/status/1491879769205583876

With @navalny sentenced to prison in Russia, I'm reminded of our @citizenlab 2017 study, "Tainted Leaks," in which we documented a Russian-organized hack and leak operation meant to discredit @navalny citizenlab.ca/2017/05/tainte… 1/ We discovered that Russian operators who successfully phished @FT journalist @DavidSatter and @OpenSociety then took private documents, inserted false content (in blue below) to make it appear as if both were financially and otherwise supporting @navalny. They weren't.

NEW @citizenlab REPORT: "Running in Circles: Uncovering the Clients of Cyberespionage Firm Circles" by @citizenlab: citizenlab.ca/2020/12/runnin… by @billmarczak @jsrailton @sidnext2none @sienaanstis and me In this report, we focus on Circles, a surveillance vendor that sells SS7 exploits to government clients.

I hope everyone will pardon my interruption to the doom scrolling here for some personal celebratory news…. 1/25 Today’s the official launch for my new book, RESET: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society (House of Anansi Press: 2020)! Thx to everyone @HouseofAnansi @cbcideas @MasseyCollege Feels great to finally hold it in my hands! 2/25

Thread re: Bezos Incident: 1. Like the UN Special Rapporteurs, we believe that serious allegations like these require further investigation and look forward to learning more about this case as it is made public.

Fresh Out: My new article "Three Painful Truths About Social Media", lead essay with the latest issue of @JoDemocracy muse.jhu.edu/article/713720 The first painful truth is that the social-media business is built around personal-data surveillance, with products ultimately designed to spy on us in order to push advertising in our direction....