The advertising ecosystem upon which surveillance vendors like Penlink draw their data is a toxic, poorly regulated and exploitative swamp
My @citizenlab.ca colleague @wchr.bsky.social with some follow-on observations about this swamp related to our "Uncovering Webloc" report published last week 👇
We publish a major @citizenlab.ca report on Webloc, an ad-based mass surveillance system that monitors the movements and personal characteristics of hundreds of millions people globally based on data obtained from mobile apps and digital advertising. Customers include ICE, El Salvador, and Hungary.
NEW: Former L3Harris boss Peter Williams was sentenced to seven years in prison for stealing sensitive company hacking tools, and then selling them to a Russian broker.
Williams, aka Doogie, previously pleaded guilty to stealing and selling eight trade secrets to Russian broker Operation Zero.
Cory Doctorow serà a Barcelona.
Una de les veus q marca el camí en la conquesta d’un futur digital just. I és divertit :). No t’ho perdis.
Presentem #Enshittification traduït amb ❤️ per @Capitan_Swing Capitán Swing
📍 Llibreria @Ll_Finestres
📅 20 de març 19.00 h
For 7 years, we’ve powered elections for big orgs, political parties & towns. Now, we're putting that high-guarantee tech into everyone's hands.
Introducing the Vocdoni App: Secure, privacy-first voting for any organization. No hidden costs.
Announcement & roadmap: blog.vocdoni.io/announcing-...
On Dec 11, tune in for @rondeibert.bsky.social's conversation w/ @signal.org president @meredithmeredith.bsky.social about the critical lessons learned from the Signalgate scandal at @financialtimes.com #FTGlobalBoardroom conference.
Learn more: globalboardroom.ft.com/agenda/sessi...
For over a decade, we @citizenlab.ca have documented extensive abuse of NSO Group's spyware, including being used to target political opposition, journalists, activists, human rights defenders and US govt officials.
*This sale should not be permitted*
techcrunch.com/2025/10/10/s...
Apple just doubled its top bug bounty: $2M for critical iPhone exploits, up to $5M with bonuses for Lockdown Mode bypasses or beta-phase finds. A clear response to the mercenary spyware booming economy & perhaps an incentive for responsible disclosure.
www.wired.com/story/apple-...
Jens Spahn hat sich gerade zur #Chatkontrolle geäußert: "Wir als CDU/CSU-Bundestagsfraktion sind gegen die anlasslose Kontrolle von Chats. Das wäre so, als würde man vorsorglich mal alle Briefe öffnen und schauen, ob da etwas Verbotenes drin ist. Das geht nicht, das wird es mit uns nicht geben." 1/x
Germany voices opposition to Chat Control, tilting the balance.
🇩🇪 Germany is AGAINST Chat Control:
Jens Spahn: "We as the CDU/CSU parliamentary group are against indiscriminate monitoring of chats. That would be like preemptively opening all letters to check whether there's something illegal in them. That's not acceptable, that won't happen under our watch."
The Sagrada Família Takes Its Final Shape
The Sagrada Família Takes Its Final Shape
#HackerNews
www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/09/22/is-t...
In this week’s Style & Design Issue, D. T. Max writes about the slow becoming of one of the world’s most unusual—and soon to be tallest—churches: the Sagrada Família.
💬 «Ils ont cru les promesses de Mark Zuckerberg»
📱 A l’heure où Meta est accusé d’avoir illégalement racheté WhatsApp il y a onze ans, Elies Campo, un ex-employé de la messagerie, raconte à Libé les coulisses du rachat en 2014 :
The Sagrada Família is an immense, unfinished church in Barcelona, begun in 1882—“a famously slow project, even in a country where, to American eyes, many things move without haste,” D. T. Max writes.
“…millions in EU subsidies and taxpayer money in member states are supporting an industry criticised for undermining democracy and freedom of speech”.
www.ftm.eu/articles/spy...
Antoni Gaudí’s wild design for the Sagrada Família, begun nearly 150 years ago, has been obsessively realized over time, creating the world’s tallest church—and an endlessly debated icon.
thanks anne—and we're not done.
if you're considering subscribing to WIRED and still on the fence, this year, we also dropped paywalls for FOIA-based reporting (and some guides).
so, here is a 🧵 of some unpaywalled articles (which includes some of our most important work)!
NEW: 🇩🇪#Germany's top court says spyware severely violates fundamental rights.
Bans spyware in cases with <3year sentences.
Imposes tough proportionality tests. Restricts #spyware to serious cases.
Very interesting 1/
www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/P...
NEW: I spoke to @rondeibert.bsky.social ahead of his keynote at Black Hat today.
Ron travelled to Vegas to warn the cybersec industry that perhaps it’s time to get political.
“They should be aware of what’s going on and hopefully they can not contribute to it, if not help reverse it,” he said.
Here's an article from Citizen Lab on how the Spanish government used exploits against political opponents in Catalonia:
citizenlab.ca/2022/04/cata...
Bear in mind even police using these will almost entirely be using them against people not convicted of a crime based on suspicion.
European authoritarians and their enablers in the media are misrepresenting GrapheneOS and even Pixel phones as if they're something for criminals. GrapheneOS is opposed to the mass surveillance police state these people want to impose on everyone.
www.xatakandroid.com/sociedad/cad...
I was encouraged to see the #G7 Leaders' Statement on Transnational Repression which also calls out mitigating harms around mercenary spyware 👇🇨🇦
www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/stat...
NEW: #Google's #Android 16 to feature optional high security mode. Cool!
It's the 'turn this one thing on if you face elevated risk' that we've been asking for from Google.
Bunch of requested features that address the kinds of threats we worry about.
Let's dig in a bit 1/
Catalan spyware victims — including the region's former President Artur Mas — this week announced new court challenges against Spanish security services and Israeli surveillance software vendors.
In a stunning defeat for the #spyware industry, an Oakland jury has directed Pegasus maker NSO Group to pay Meta's WhatsApp $167 million in punitive damages for routing its attacks through the company's servers. GIFT LINK wapo.st/4jLGYKz
NSO to pay almost 168 million in damages!
Congrats to WhatsApp on this historic (yes, historic) jury verdict against NSO Group!
This is also a win for all the researchers, advocates & victims who have been tirelessly exposing NSO's abuses & advocating for justice!
www.accessnow.org/press-releas...
🧵 1/ Following our #JUICYJAM report @citizenlab.ca , the Thai authorities admit that the documents leaked to parliament - the ones containing evidence that they were running a longstanding IO using doxxing and harassment to target activists - were real. But *deny involvement in the IOs themselves*.
“Digital Authoritarianism and the Fight for Democracy,” 5/7, 6-8pm ET, at @columbiajournalism.bsky.social. Sheila Coronel, Ron Deibert, & Jameel Jaffer on the rise of authoritarianism, new surveillance tools, & legal regimes that fail to keep up w/ tech.
RSVP:
knightcolumbia.org/events/digit...
Mercenary spyware + ADINT data-brokers let dictators buy a 24/7 window into any leader’s life.
"SignalGate should serve as a wake-up call to rein in the mercenary surveillance industry."
Read @rondeibert.bsky.social's
@foreignaffairs.com essay for why it urgently matters.
If EU governments were serious about ending the abuse of spyware, they could simply adopt binding EU legislation, as recommended by @europarl.europa.eu #PEGA. The abuse of spyware is ongoing in the EU, and past abuse has been covered up. With tacit agreement of ALL national governments.