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agents using Pegasus could, in theory, almost instantly transform phones around the world into powerful surveillance tools - everywhere except in the United States.Įver since the 2013 revelations by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, about U.S. They could also see the phone’s location and even take control of its camera and microphone. What they could see, minutes later, was every piece of data stored on the phone as it unspooled onto the large monitors of the Pegasus computers: every email, every photo, every text thread, every personal contact. They couldn’t see the Pegasus computers connecting to a network of servers around the world, hacking the phone, then connecting back to the equipment at the New Jersey facility. This version of Pegasus was “zero click” - unlike more common hacking software, it did not require users to click on a malicious attachment or link - so the Americans monitoring the phones could see no evidence of an ongoing breach. Then the Pegasus engineers, as they had in previous demonstrations around the world, opened their interface, entered the number of the phone and began an attack. employees bought new smartphones at local stores and set them up with dummy accounts, using SIM cards from other countries - Pegasus was designed to be unable to hack into American numbers. was now taking the next step.Īs part of their training, F.B.I. military’s Africa Command had all held discussions with NSO. The D.E.A., the Secret Service and the U.S. Additionally, the same year that Khashoggi was killed, the Central Intelligence Agency arranged and paid for the government of Djibouti to acquire Pegasus to assist the American ally in combating terrorism, despite longstanding concerns about human rights abuses there, including the persecution of journalists and the torture of government opponents. The details of the F.B.I.’s purchase and testing of Pegasus have never before been made public. None of this prevented new customers from approaching NSO, including the United States. Saudi Arabia used it against women’s rights activists and, according to a lawsuit filed by a Saudi dissident, to spy on communications with Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, whom Saudi operatives killed and dismembered in Istanbul in 2018.

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The United Arab Emirates used the software to hack the phone of a civil rights activist whom the government threw in jail. Mexico deployed the software not just against gangsters but also against journalists and political dissidents.

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For nearly a decade, the Israeli firm had been selling its surveillance software on a subscription basis to law-enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world, promising that it could do what no one else - not a private company, not even a state intelligence service - could do: consistently and reliably crack the encrypted communications of any iPhone or Android smartphone.īut by the time the company’s engineers walked through the door of the New Jersey facility in 2019, the many abuses of Pegasus had also been well documented. had bought a version of Pegasus, NSO’s premier spying tool. Then, with their equipment in place, they began testing.

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As they set up the equipment, the engineers made a series of calls to their bosses in Herzliya, a Tel Aviv suburb, at the headquarters for NSO Group, the world’s most notorious maker of spyware. They unpacked dozens of computer servers, arranging them on tall racks in an isolated room.

In June 2019, three Israeli computer engineers arrived at a New Jersey building used by the F.B.I.

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