There's No Way to Protect Your Phone From 'Zero Click' Govt Spyware🎙Darknet Diaries Ep. 100: NSO

The highly secretive company NSO Group creates an insidious spyware called "Pegasus" that can jailbreak an iPhone remotely and log every keystroke and call. They sell it to governments who claim they're using it to fight crime and terrorism. But investigations by accountability groups show that this virus is used to spy on journalists, activists, and political opposition.

So, how can we possibly stop a cyber weapon from being sold to the "wrong" customers?

[colonelgraff]

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” - 4th Amendment, US Constitution

RIP our rights

[DocGMoney]

To think I was headed to bed and an accidental refresh was the best thing to happen all day! Love these man thank you for providing!!!

[aarondiaz_]

I don't want to draw too much attention to myself, but as a Mexican person listening to this podcast was a little hard but I gotta thank you for it. Won't go into much details, but one of the main reasons why I became a privacy advocate was because of the whole Pegasus scandal in my country.

[Skellyton]

This is the single most important journalism story I have heard in my life tbh like anybody that has not be notified that this tech exists should be informed of this info. This is a Black Mirror episode on steroids and that’s putting it lightly. Thank you for this.🙏🏼 “Outstanding job producing this content” is the least I can say!

[Sool]

You're telling us we've listened to 100 episodes already?! That is some achievement, capturing your audience like that. Way to go mr. Jack!

[kixxthemanz]

Hate to tell you but NSA and FBI have had a remote back door in every iPhone since iPhone 3GS… Apple just says there isn’t so people keep buying the devices

[LostinTimeYT]

Wikileaks had an entire section detailing known agency backdoors into basically every operating system ever made going back to early versions of Windows, even Linux, Unix, etc. There have aparrently been backdoors into every consumer device from the beginning of the internet.

[gnuPirate]

Thank you so much Jack / DnD / CitizenLab and JSR for bringing awareness to these absolutely terrifying and horrific issues. Can't believe I've been asleep on this channel and your podcasts for so long. I also cannot believe this stuff is not more thoroughly covered by mainstream media -- everybody should be aware. It seems to me to be an extreme lack of due diligence and even responsibility for the mainstream media not to make the things you report on far more publicised. Amazing work, fascinating and horrifying, feeding all my nightmares -- and thank you (:

[jssouthtx]

Let’s hope Jack doesn’t get “disappeared” What used to be stories of by-gone hackers now seems to be getting closer to real life current day bad actors. Congrats on 100 episodes sir 👍🏻

[squigglesmcjr]

This has got to be one of the best tech shows on the internet hands down!!! Keep up the good work Jack!👍👍

[ThisIsJustADrillBit]

Thank you for all of the amazing work Jack. This is basically public service, your stories are so relevant. Mostly when i try and talk cyber everyone groans, but i show them this channel and one of your stories and they grab popcorn. Youre a F'ing boss. ❤

[mosaton]

Omg this happened to me. I visited an unnamed country and my Pixel 5 started acting funny, like changing the country code to a number I'm texting, and sms threads deleting. I won't go into details but I immediately bought a new phone. Then my smart TVs at home said I wasn't in the country. It said I was in the country I visited. When I went into incognito mode on a wireless device and searched "where am I?", it said I was in that country. I replaced my Netgear router and that fixed it. Weird. But now that replacement is unusable and I've isolated the network. I don't remember clicking any link, so I assume it was an Android 0 day. None of my phones are jailbroken, I got sick of the cat and mouse game. I have a firewall, so I must have brought the payload in on my phone and when I joined my home network it infected my network. If someone can suggest a good infosec forum, I'd like to investigate further. I've made my own phone roms in the past so I think I can manage the technical part.

[anticom]

The US government has their own version of Pegasus that isn’t beholden to NSO, called Paragon Graphite.

[TheCloud]

For years I've just assumed that the government has full access to every device I own. It's lot easier that way.

[gmdzbanwic]

But there is way to know.
Your cpu load will be higher and your battery will drain faster ( due to camera use especially) so if ur battery drains without gaming and browsing ur watched

[VintageSecure]

Great episode, this was a great listen because its a concerning topic for everyone.
Privacy is non-existent.

[BlixenBlorp]

man I sure do just love this show, can't believe I've actually watched 100 EPs plus the all bonus ones. Your show is an inspiration jack, I'll pour one out for 100 more Darknet Diaries!

[danielevan]

Congrats on episode 100! I had no interest in computers. When I started listening to this podcast, now I’m learning about microcontrollers

[therunt]

NSO dude must be very very important, he must be more important than all of your guests combined! He's the most important person I've ever heard of, years of our time don't add up to an hour of his, astounding!
He didn't name any countries he wouldn't sell to.
Would they dare let anyone sit in on their ethics meetings?

[ticijevish]

Yaaaay! Congrats on the 100th episode! Keep up the great work! You are shedding a light into dark places that intrigue us all, and you're doing it very well.