US lawmakers want to put NSO Group, 3 other spyware makers out of business with fresh severe sanctions

Eighteen US Democratic lawmakers have asked the Treasury Department and State Department to punish Israel-based spyware maker NSO Group and three other surveillance software firms for enabling human rights abuses. In a letter [PDF] signed by US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA …

[quattroprorocked]

Candiru?

They actually named their company after a fish that swims up your john thomas and sticks spines into you?

I'm going with "guilty as sin".

[rcxb1]

Re: Candiru?

"This belief about the fish has been held for centuries, but was discredited in 2001."

"To date, there is only one documented case of a candiru entering a human urethra"

"even if a person were to urinate while 'submerged in a stream where candiru live', the odds of that person being attacked by candiru are '(a)bout the same as being struck by lightning while simultaneously being eaten by a shark.'"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candiru_(fish)#Modern_cases

[Chris G]

It seems these companies must have trodden on some of the wrong toes.

[Blackjack]

Basically not working for a single government and so ending stepping into everyone toes eventually.

Looks like the USA will use homemade spyware from now on... or one that limits themselves to the USA.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Blackjack - Limiting themselves to the USA ?

Do you realize what you're saying ? US limiting themselves to spy only within USA ?

I'd rather say US will forbid the sale of that spyware to any other foreign government, except US of course. That would be the American way.

[Doctor Syntax]

One letter wrong If it had been NSA there'd have been no problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this a step in the right direction....or just more misdirection?

OK.....the NSO product is bad for anyone carrying a smartphone, whether Apple or Android. So far, so good.

*

But what else is going on in Forte Meade, Cheltenham, and elsewhere in China, and Russia, and Saudi.

*

I think we should be told!!

[Pascal Monett]

"defaulting on its debts"

Okay, the situation is clear : NSO knows its goose is cooked so it's shutting itself down in order to transition to a new structure, bringing all its intellectual resources with it in order to re-emerge and continue business as usual.

By the time US lawmakers get around to being pissed off again, the new group will have made more hay on the souls of those it damned.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Pascal Monett - Re: "defaulting on its debts"

And that new structure would be somewhere deep in the bowels of US intelligence agencies. They aren't that crazy to let this opportunity slip away.

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't the states that abused human rights be punished too?

I think all those great politicians must request immediate sanctions against Saudi Arabia (time for a Kashoggi Act, also?), UAE, Bahrein, Mexico, etc. etc.

Probably they are also using software and hardware made in the US to process data captured by NSO software - US should no longer allow US software and hardware to be sold to them, because it is used in human rights abuses. Apple should block immediately all those gold and diamond iPad and iPhone in the Gulf.

It's a funny in a dark way that an Israeli company made money selling to Arab countries - but is the real problem here that US has not a monopoly on effective mobile spyware? And why EU didn't say anything about NSO blocking +1 numbers - but not others?

Meanwhile I hope the Rohinga suit against Facebook is successful and Facebook is sanctioned for allowing human rights abuses too.

[Paul Smith]

Re: Shouldn't the states that abused human rights be punished too?

Anybody else think it is pretty hypocritical for the US to tell other countries how they should behave while Guantanamo still operates and prisoners are still executed?

[Anonymous Coward]

@LDS - Re: Shouldn't the states that abused human rights be punished too?

Sorry to bring this to you but Saudi Arabia is a valued partner of the USA, irrespective of human rights abuse.

[Gordon 10]

FTFY

Sorry to bring this to you but Saudi Arabia is a valued partner of the USA, irrespective because of human rights abuse.

[A random security guy]

Re: FTFY

Sorry to bring this to you but Saudi Arabia is a valued partner of the USA, because they have oil and buy our weapons.

[martinusher]

A waste of time

Apart from the certainty that the technology is going to pop up in another company its really an American import problem, not an export issue. The US doesn't control the technology.

As for the Maginsky Act itself this seems to have been born in a murk of misinformation. Following the dissolution of the USSR there was a lot of money to be made grabbing Russian state assets so the country was crawling with foreign carpetbaggers looking to make a quick killing. Towards the end of the 1990s the Russians started stabilizing the situation and went on an asset hunt using their tax system to claw back assets that had been stripped from them. (This is one of the reasons why Putin has remained so popular over there while being one of our enduring Betes Noir.) One of the side shows in this was a corruption case brought by a Russian lawyer, Maginsky, working on behalf of / with a US/UK group (not quite sure where they were based). The Russians turned the tables on the accuser who was jailed......anyway, look up "Maginsky Act" and read between the lines a bit, its one of those stories that vary depending on why tells it.

All I'm trying to say is that we're wasting so much time and energy trying to enforce US law overseas in countries where its obviously against their interests or they just don't care. Meanwhile at home we can't pass an Infrastructure bill, our democracy is in chaos and social division is worse than ever. (Bit like the UK?)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: A waste of time

All right then, but peel back one more layer of the onion and you will find that victorious Putin's oligarchs invariably move their assets overseas (to Malta, City Of London, etc.). All the Russian plebs get in exchange is a image of an topless Putin on Horseback.