The US Is Now the Largest Investor In Commercial Spyware (arstechnica.com) 19
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: The United States has emerged as the largest investor in commercial spyware -- a global industry that has enabled the covert surveillance of journalists, human rights defenders, politicians, diplomats, and others, posing grave threats to human rights and national security. In 2024, 20 new US-based spyware investors were identified, bringing the total number of American backers of this technology to 31. This growth has largely outpaced other major investing countries such as Israel, Italy, and the United Kingdom, according to a new report published today by the Atlantic Council.
The study surveyed 561 entities across 46 countries between 1992 and 2024, identifying 34 new investors. This brings the total to 128, up from 94 in the dataset published last year. The number of identified investors in the EU Single Market, plus Switzerland, stands at 31, with Italy -- a key spyware hub -- accounting for the largest share at 12. Investors based in Israel number 26. US-based investors include major hedge funds D.E. Shaw & Co. and Millennium Management, prominent trading firm Jane Street, and mainstream financial-services company Ameriprise Financial -- all of which, according to the Atlantic Council, have channeled funds to Israeli lawful-interception software provider Cognyte, a company allegedly linked to human rights abuses in Azerbaijan and Indonesia, among others. [...]
Apart from focusing on investment, the Atlantic Council notes that the global spyware market is "growing and evolving," with its dataset expanded to include four new vendors, seven new resellers or brokers, 10 new suppliers, and 55 new individuals linked to the industry. Newly identified vendors include Israel's Bindecy and Italy's SIO. [...] The study reveals the addition of three new countries linked to spyware activity -- Japan, Malaysia, and Panama. Japan in particular is a signatory to international efforts to curb spyware abuse, including the Joint Statement on Efforts to Counter the Proliferation and Misuse of Commercial Spyware and the Pall Mall Process Code of Practice for States. The Atlantic Council's Jen Roberts, who also worked on the report, urged expanding Executive Order 14105 to also include spyware. He also emphasized preserving Executive Order 14093, noting that U.S. purchasing power is a key lever in shaping and constraining the global spyware market. "US purchasing power is a significant tool in shaping and constraining the global market for spyware," said Roberts.
The study surveyed 561 entities across 46 countries between 1992 and 2024, identifying 34 new investors. This brings the total to 128, up from 94 in the dataset published last year. The number of identified investors in the EU Single Market, plus Switzerland, stands at 31, with Italy -- a key spyware hub -- accounting for the largest share at 12. Investors based in Israel number 26. US-based investors include major hedge funds D.E. Shaw & Co. and Millennium Management, prominent trading firm Jane Street, and mainstream financial-services company Ameriprise Financial -- all of which, according to the Atlantic Council, have channeled funds to Israeli lawful-interception software provider Cognyte, a company allegedly linked to human rights abuses in Azerbaijan and Indonesia, among others. [...]
Apart from focusing on investment, the Atlantic Council notes that the global spyware market is "growing and evolving," with its dataset expanded to include four new vendors, seven new resellers or brokers, 10 new suppliers, and 55 new individuals linked to the industry. Newly identified vendors include Israel's Bindecy and Italy's SIO. [...] The study reveals the addition of three new countries linked to spyware activity -- Japan, Malaysia, and Panama. Japan in particular is a signatory to international efforts to curb spyware abuse, including the Joint Statement on Efforts to Counter the Proliferation and Misuse of Commercial Spyware and the Pall Mall Process Code of Practice for States. The Atlantic Council's Jen Roberts, who also worked on the report, urged expanding Executive Order 14105 to also include spyware. He also emphasized preserving Executive Order 14093, noting that U.S. purchasing power is a key lever in shaping and constraining the global spyware market. "US purchasing power is a significant tool in shaping and constraining the global market for spyware," said Roberts.
The US Is Now ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Planet the size of a closet.. (Score:2)
The US Is Now coming out of the closet
The entire modern planet, allows social media to use them. If you don’t believe social media is spyware, then you still don’t know what The Product being sold is.
Orwell should have written a recipe book on how to boil frogs. He clearly didn’t leave behind enough hints.
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Re: Land of the Free (Score:1)
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Note to self: after the collapse, and after reestablishing the republic, let's outlaw the shit out of these companies. Markets should serve mankind, not the other way around.
Who do you think will get to write the rules in this theoretical collapse and and reestablishment of the republic? It won't be the commoners. It'll be whoever happens to be richest and whoever is leftover from the former, most corrupt assholes from the establishment, pretending to be part of the people, speaking for us as they always have. This coming reset, if they manage to pull it off, is to reset public expectations. Most of us will return to drudgery, if we ever left it, so as to better serve the ones
The US has an extortion industry. (Score:5, Insightful)
Since this event there seem to be more shady tabloids weaponing more and more hacked cell phone data. All of these outlets seem to have deliberately designed themselves to be some monetized form of "useful idiot" for extortionists. The business model exposed by Bezos is clearly more widespread now than it was when he first told the story. Rupert Murdoch, a man who currently dominates the US journalism and broadcasting industries, was caught running one outlet that seemed to have a well-documented 20 year history of hacking cell phones. When you realize how ingrained into our culture these kinds of extortion rackets have become, it makes perfect sense that we're the ones spending the most on this kind of spyware.
America runs on extortion and spyware is it's greatest tool.
*not including China (Score:2, Interesting)
They've missed the really big elephant (Score:5, Insightful)
Ads as spyware! The whole online ad industry has been built around tracking individuals. That utterly dwarfs all other investments.
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You're looking at stock manipulation and other types of financial chicanery as "economic output", which is wrong. This article is one of several by this author pointing out the differences in how the US and Chinese economies are measured. I highly recommend browsing though his articles, they're very interesting.
https://kdwalmsley.substack.co... [substack.com]
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You're looking at stock manipulation and other types of financial chicanery as "economic output", which is wrong.
Just how much of this "financial chicanery" can be accounted for with stock manipulations? The per capita GDP of the USA is double that of the EU, did stock manipulations allow for this wide of a gap? To better put that in context that is 89,105 USD for the USA vs. 44,220 USD for the EU.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I'll keep this "financial chicanery" in mind and look into it further. I have no doubt that the reported numbers would not reflect true economic output as such a complex topic is not so ea
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Thanks for defending people who are attacking among others also your privacy. Why does someone write such a post?
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Yeah, lets swap $5k with each other, pay tax on it-- then we contributed $5k to the USA's economic "output." We can pat ourselves on the back for all our valuable hard work.