NSO Group Keeping Owners 'in the Dark', Manager Says (ft.com) 24
Israeli spyware company NSO Group has stonewalled questions over whether it is operating legally, according to consultants acting on behalf of the controversial company's owners. From a report: Berkeley Research Group, the US consultancy that was last year put in charge of the private equity fund that owns 70 per cent of NSO, has told EU lawmakers that its inquiries about NSO's "lawfulness" have been "ignored and/or frustrated by NSO Group's management team." Concerns remain about âoethe historical management of the NSO Group" and "possible ongoing activities in relation to which [BRG is] being kept in the dark," BRG's lawyers wrote in a letter to MEPs. BRG's complaint is a further escalation of the controversy surrounding NSO, which was once a highly prized asset that Israel used as a diplomatic calling card, but is now facing lawsuits from Meta and Apple and has been blacklisted by the US. NSO's Pegasus software can infiltrate a smartphone and mirror its encrypted contents. It was last year found to have been used to target smartphones belonging to 37 journalists, human rights activists and other prominent figures.
Is NSO group owned by the great internet pioneer (Score:5, Funny)
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Or maybe it's managed/funded by one of our lovely 3 letter organizations state-side....
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Don't ask if you don't want the answer (Score:2)
I guess that the owners sense the answer to the question about legality, so I wonder why they ask. They would probably prefer being able to say that they don't know.
Isn't this called "due dilligence"? (Score:2, Insightful)
As in the sort of question you get a satisfactory answer to before you stick your d... er, invest money in the company?
Once you're in for 70%, you're in for the whole nine yards. Bit late to be asking questions then.
So yeah, why ask now? Or perhaps better yet, why didn't they ask questions then?
Re: Isn't this called "due dilligence"? (Score:1)
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The owners aren't asking the questions, or at least, not the owners in the sense of 'we bought this company'.
The "Put in charge of" is somewhat different from "We invested money into this private equity fun that owns this company".
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This. In business, that's not the sort of question you ask unless you have some serious misgivings about the answer already.
Paywall (Score:5, Informative)
Article link [archive.ph] that you can actually read without paying for the FT. Editors, this is your job not mine.
^ Mod parent up. (Score:2)
Thanks for the link.
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Their job is to maximize clicks and therefore comments, and you just helped
Thanks for the link, but don't assume the editors aren't doing their job. It's just a stupid job.
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Israeli spyware company NSO Group has stonewalled questions over whether it is operating legally, according to consultants acting on behalf of the controversial company’s owners.
"Hey, you NSO guys, you're legal, right?"
"Not going to tell you".
"Ah".
Love these contradictions (Score:4, Insightful)
So to catch evil-bad-no-gooders it becomes necessary (not really) to be just as bad and evil and cheating as them criminals, *just* to catch them!
Making good guys break laws (the same laws) to catch bad guys is amazingly clever. You were hacking so I need to be hacking to stop it. Because hacking is bad (when you do it).
Keep it coming!
Idiots. (Score:2)
Re:Idiots. (Score:4, Informative)
NSO are owned by a private equity fund. The fund managers had a falling out, and the fund owners replaced them by BRG.
BRG are now trying to find out whether the poison is in the vessel with the pestle.
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They haven't. The whole thing smells like a pressure putting effort in a bit for ownership. As usual, professional twitter users who write this stuff put the most important thing at the very tail end of the article:
BRG declined to comment. It has previously said in court filings that NSO is “valueless” to its private equity backers.
The letter to MEPs comes as BRG is under growing pressure. It took control of the €1bn Novalpina Capital private equity fund that owns NSO last year, after inves
Is ownership different in Israel? (Score:2)
It's Perfectly Legal (Score:2)
For certain definitions of "legal" that is.
I thought that's what they got paid for. (Score:2)
You know, rule one of working for an intelligence agency is don't talk about fight club, right? I'm pretty sure these guys were explicitly told "Do what you gotta do, just don't get caught." It's even right there in the CIA mission statement, I think? Why would any foreign intelligence agency be any different?
Prism. Magic Lantern. Echelon. Pegasus. And now, w^@3jo.+\21-$...
[Connection lost]
The answer is obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't give a clear yes or no answer to a simple question about whether you are operating legally, the obvoius the answer is no. You're not operating legally.
Objection by Cruise Missile (Score:3)
They're responsible for the targeting national leaders all over the globe. It's just a matter of time before a cruise missile creates a new C-suite balcony at NSO HQ.
They fucked around, and pretty soon they're going to find out.
Will company owners be insulated? I wouldn't want to take that chance.
Define `Lawful' (Score:1)
TFA has `lawfulness' in quotes for a reason. I am quite sure that NSO pays taxes, follows the Labour Code to the letter, and has a legally obtained permit for exporting weaponry; NSO does operate lawfully in that sense, under the Israeli jurisdiction.
The article hints at something without really telling what it is. Withholding information does not necessarily imply that this information is of an incriminating nature. Yes, withholding information may be a crime in itself (under certain circumstances, u