INDEX	Wednesday November 24, 2021
Apple takes on spyware maker
It would be fair to say that I have long been sceptical of Apple's claim to be on the side of the angels when it comes to civil liberties on the internet. But the company appears, at last, to have shaken off the shackles of the various security services who seem to have a mission to make your internet experience like a prison sentence. The latest issue is the Pegasus spyware virus, designed to make it possible for governments and large corporations to take control of the phones of anyone they want. Apple describes the NSO Group, purveyor of software designed to land dissidents in jail or shut them up, as 'notorious hackers'. "Private companies developing state sponsored spyware have become even more dangerous," Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, said in a release. "While these cybersecurity threats only impact a very small number of our customers, we take any attack on our users very seriously." Apple has put its money where its mouth is by taking a lawsuit in a California Court attempting to block Pegasus and force NSO to provide information about data it has obtained, to the victims of the hacking. In the past NSO has said its software has helped prevent terrorism but this is the usual dodgy excuse made by disreputable organisations like MI5. In reality there has never been a conviction or a court case quoting evidence obtained by Pegasus, in any country with an open court system. Apple's move follows hard on the heels of a court ruling that NSO did not have immunity in an action brought by WhatsApp and the US Commerce Department blocking the sale of US technology to NSO Group by putting NSO on the US government's Entity List. However, anyone who believes it is now safe to go back on the internet is deluding themselves. NSO was only one of a number of companies peddling this kind of disreputable virusware. See also EU commissioner wants to legislate to block Israeli spyware
Wednesday November 24, 2021°Jonathan Brind		INDEX