Former Chief of Cyber Staff for the IDF and Toka co-founder, Yaron Rosen. Credit: Spy Legends
He argued that no computer could ever be completely secure because it is possible to remotely control or change them even if there is no wifi or direct wiring, like the internet.
Today I learn of the existence of a company that claims to be able to screw up your fridge or other electrical appliance, so long as it is doing this on behalf of a major world government. People who wonder why a government might want to screw up a fridge, need to read up on the STASI.
TOKA, claims to be able to target the internet of things: sabotaging apparatus like thermostats, alarms and (of course) fridges. Not quite morphic resonance, but getting close.
The company was founded in 2018 with a very impressive backer: ex-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, as cofounder.
It works, if such pernicious and evil activity can be called work, by discovering flaws in the software of these appliances. Instead of telling the manufacturers Toka keeps this information under its hat.
So if the NSA uses Toka it is breaking the promise made in 2010 when the US government stated that it would disclose all pervasive vulnerabilities discovered.
Interest in Toka stems partly from the discovery that another malware purveyor, NSO, may have hacked into the mobile phones of 50,000 people, including journalists and political activists. According to at least one source Toka is worse than Pegasus, the malware sold by NSO.