#China-linked #LightSpy #spyware caught targeting victims in 13 countries, including the US

https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/06/china-linked-lightspy-spyware-caught-targeting-victims-in-13-countries-including-the-us/

#cybersecurity #privacy

Windows 11 is quietly installing OneDrive Photos, and it wants to scan your photos for faces

https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/07/29/windows-11-is-quietly-installing-onedrive-photos-another-image-viewer-that-nobody-asked-for/

#Microslop #Microsoft #Windows11 #OneDrive #spyware #malware #enshittification #privacy #surveillance #software #technology

The hacker who humiliated #spyware makers and was never caught

https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/25/the-hacker-who-humiliated-spyware-makers-and-was-never-caught/

#cybersecurity #privacy #malware

Outside of Anonymous, a well-known group of hacktivists, there's one name that has become synonymous with hacktivism: Phineas Fisher. Here's what to know about the most prolific and public hacker who humiliated controversial spyware makers and has never been caught.

https://flip.it/.5D_Po

#Cybersecurity #Hacker #Spyware

Is Windows tracking you? 😳 Proton's diving deep into Microsoft's data practices and a sneaky identifier they're using. VPNs aren't a full privacy fix either – find out more in this new video! Check it out. #Windows #Spyware #Privacy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASE94IrEkv8

Alt...

🔴 LIVE

Okay, LISTEN UP

DO NOT BUY LG.

Not ANYTHING LG.

Not only are they actively spying on you, not only have they updated their TOS to include requiring you to NOTIFY GUESTS ABOUT WIRETAPPING LAW, on Windows they're pushing ADWARE through WINDOWS UPDATE along with their monitor drivers - including on OLD monitors.

Gamers Nexus has all the deets:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9uefFYe6bM

DO NOT BUY LG PRODUCTS.

GN had a three-year-old monitor get an "update" that was adware. It wasn't even part of their investigation. It just happened to come in while they were investigating.

DO NOT BUY LG PRODUCTS.

#adware #spyware #surveillance #fascism #LG #FuckLG #DoNotBuy #boycott

⚠️ DO NOT BUY: LG’s Spyware TVs, Monitors, and Wiretapping Concerns

The attached #video details the absolute #privacy horror of LG #television and #monitor products, that install #adware without consent, have #AI integration, and a horrible privacy policy..

> LG recently forced upon us an app install loaded with #McAfee adware through a #Windows update. We found that this has been happening to tons of users, made worse by LG's shady history with #TV's that instruct buyers to inform house visitors of third-party microphones in their living room. At no point in the adware or application install did LG or Microsoft ask us for consent or permission to install the software and enable its various permissions. On monitors ranging 1 day old in our office to 3 years old, we've been able to replicate these issues -- including on the LG 34GX900A-B that we just bought (and have now returned, following #spyware concerns).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9uefFYe6bM

Alt...

Excerpt from LG privacy policy reading: i. CONSENT REQUIREMENT: You acknowledge and agree that it is your sole responsibility to obtain all necessary consents from any third parties whose voices may be captured by the Productand to notify household members and guests their their voices may be captured and processed, in compliance with the applicable wiretapping, eavesdropping, and privacy laws.

LG TVs and monitors said to surveil users and install bloatware without asking

Anyone who owns an LG smart TV must inform all guests and family members that they are being monitored – this is required by LG’s current terms of use. Meanwhile, LG monitors install potential malware and surveillance software on a connected Windows computer.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/LG-TVs-and-monitors-said-to-surveil-users-and-install-bloatware-without-asking.1345261.0.html

#LG #TV #Windows #privacy #surveillance #enshittification #dystopia #technology #spyware #malware

"This technical analysis provides the most detailed view yet into the inner workings of the Pegasus spyware system. This includes confirmation of key technical capabilities such as the infection vectors and methodologies used to infect devices, supported by analysis of internal NSO Group documents, that until now had only been identified via forensic investigations. It also presents new material further validating the accuracy and significance of the dataset underpinning the original Pegasus Project investigation. Finally, this research provides an updated analysis, drawing on previously published Pegasus forensic evidence and newly released materials, to validate the technical methodology used to forensically link Pegasus spyware attacks targeting different victims as originating from the same Pegasus customer.

A key aim of this publication is to document and demystify the functionality and operations of technological systems like Pegasus. We hope that it will inform the wider spyware accountability community on how complex surveillance systems such as Pegasus are used by government customers, and also illustrate the key and ongoing role of spyware vendors in keeping such systems operational. We believe this public understanding is of critical value to technologists, researchers, and policy makers and others with an interest in understanding the targeted surveillance ecosystem and threats posed to human rights by surveillance technologies.

The contents of this technical research draw heavily on a large pool of confidential NSO Group training material, presentations and internal technical documentation which were disclosed as part of a long-running civil case taken by WhatsApp and Meta against NSO Group in U.S. court. This new material provides an unprecedented insight into the evolution of NSO Group’s spyware."

https://securitylab.amnesty.org/latest/2026/07/inside-pegasus-the-evolution-of-the-worlds-most-notorious-spyware/

#CyberSecurity #Spyware #NSOGroup #Pegasus #Surveillance #Privacy

What are the worst #spyware apps — and how do you spot them?

https://proton.me/blog/spyware-apps

#privacy #cybersecurity #guide

Ontario police services have increasingly turned to powerful digital surveillance tools, including spyware and other technologies capable of extracting data from phones and electronic devices.
#surveillance #spyware #police #ontario #canada

https://youtu.be/R8zQGlCG44c?si=5XNrP1pOOBTdaWWP

What is #spyware and how can you protect yourself?

https://proton.me/blog/what-is-spyware

#cybersecurity #privacy #guide

RE: https://mastodon.social/@Tutanota/116877486063560086

There’s now plenty of evidence, that child abuse that doesn’t get procecuted today is a domain of the privileged and the rich, not of the mass & working classes.

The same rich child abusers who evade police today will have the means tomorrow to evade Chat Control. This legislation will do nothing or very little for CSA.

But what it will do, is encourage hacking and corruption, because all your devices will have #spyware.

Spyware can and will be hacked. Period.

#chatcontrol #childabuse

Tuta » 🌐 2026-07-07
@Tutanota@mastodon.social

Abuse victims to EU Parliament: #ChatControl silences victims and hinders criminal prosecution. 😠🚨

NO EXPEDITED PROCEDURE! https://thatprivacyguy.com/blog/csa-survivor-plea-to-eu-parliament/

Call Members of Parliament marked as "SUPPORTS" — demand a NO to urgency: https://fightchatcontrol.eu/de/#delegates

@echo_pbreyer

#EU Politicians Investigated #Pegasus #Spyware. Then It Ended Up on One of Their Phones

https://www.wired.com/story/eu-politicians-investigated-pegasus-spyware-then-it-ended-up-on-one-of-their-phones/

#cybersecurity #privacy

"Security researchers have confirmed that a European politician had his phone hacked with the Pegasus spyware while serving on an investigatory committee probing abuses of the notorious surveillance tool. This has reignited fresh controversy over governments abusing spyware to collect information about their critics.

The researchers at the University of Toronto’s digital rights unit The Citizen Lab say the confirmed phone hacking of Greek journalist and former politician Stelios Kouloglou during 2022 and 2023 marks the first time that a member of the European Parliament’s PEGA committee, tasked with investigating phone spyware attacks by European governments, has been publicly identified as a victim of spyware.

Kouloglou told TechCrunch in a phone call that the deliberate compromise of his phone was “reckless.” One serving European lawmaker described the hacking of Kouloglou’s phone as a “direct attack on the rule of law,” and called on the European Commission to take concrete action by imposing strict limits on the use of spyware across the 27 member-state bloc."

https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/02/politician-who-investigated-spyware-abuses-had-his-phone-hacked-with-pegasus-spyware/

#CyberSecurity #Spyware #Greece #EU #Pegasus

The Wall Boycott Assistant helps people “know what’s really on your phone” by scanning installed apps for ties to companies you may want to avoid (HQ, founders, investors, or BDS categories). One-tap checks run with an offline database—no accounts. 🌐📱🛡️ #AppScanner #DigitalSafety #OpenSource https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thewallboycott.android&hl=en

https://the-wall.win/

https://github.com/theWallProject/mono

#StopTheGenocide

Don’t forget 🇮🇱⚠️ that Israel is facing serious allegations of mass atrocities 🩸❌. Israel-based firms have produced widely condemned spyware (e.g., Pegasus) that has been exported to government clients and reportedly misused to spy on Palestinians and many others 🇵🇸👁️. The broader pattern is that advanced surveillance tools are proliferating with too little accountability—across governments and political networks

#Israel #MassAtrocities #HumanRights #Palestinians #Surveillance #Spyware #CyberSecurity #Pegasus #Privacy #Accountability #RightsAndDignity #StopViolence #FreedomOfSpeech #DigitalRights #Security

" Governments have tried to use export controls to limit the proliferation of what they see as dangerous cyber technology for decades, but their track record has been middling at best.

The U.S. government was behind what is perhaps history’s most spectacular failure of this approach in the early to mid-1990s. At the time, computer scientists were developing encryption technologies to secure data as it traveled over the internet. One of those encryption products was called Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP, a popular software that could encrypt data and make it virtually impossible to unscramble even if intercepted as it traveled to its intended recipient over the internet.

The U.S. government initially saw PGP as a dangerous weapon, fearing it would prevent its intelligence agencies from snooping on emails as they crossed their wires. To stop the distribution of PGP, the U.S. Customs Service opened a criminal investigation against PGP’s creator Phil Zimmermann for allegedly violating arms export controls. He fought back by publishing PGP’s source code as a printed book, igniting what is known today as the “Crypto Wars.”

Zimmermann later won a key battle when the investigation was closed, paving the way for crucial end-to-end encryption algorithms such as the one used by billions of Signal and WhatsApp users."

https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/19/encryption-spyware-and-now-mythos-history-shows-why-cyber-export-control-doesnt-work/

#CyberSecurity #Encryption #PGP #Spyware #ExportControls #Fable #Mythos #AI #LLMs

After a global scandal over its use of the notorious Pegasus spyware to target journalists and activists, the Presidential office of Nayib Bukele’s El Salvador secretly sought to acquire alternative spyware through a shadowy international deal involving intermediaries in Central America, Europe, and the Middle East. https://thenewsground.com/bukele-secretly-pursued-spyware-deal/ #spyware #journalist #surveillance

#WhatsApp says it caught new #spyware attacks linked to #NSO Group in violation of court order

https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/08/whatsapp-says-it-caught-new-spyware-attacks-linked-to-nso-group-in-violation-of-court-order/

#cybersecurity #Meta #privacy

"... If I sold Google some data cables, and months later sent them an email “btw in 5 business days your cables will start sending all the data going through them to me, even though you specifically told me not to enable this feature, unless you re-disable it”, I would go to jail for hacking."

#Surveillance #Panopticon #SpyWare #Google #Gemini #Privacy #Security #Email

"While the [age verification] bill moved through the legislature, the OSI, FSF, Software Freedom Conservancy, and Linux Foundation all sat it out — no testimony, no public analysis, no formal opposition on the record."

California's computer age verification law is poison. The new California age verification law is a version of INGSOC's telescreen watching you. And the usual self-proclaimed software freedom fighters are AWOL as this attack on your freedom is executed.

Don't listen to apologists who claim this isn't a big deal. It is a huge deal. This law is not about protecting children. The California law is a ruse for laying the foundation and precedent for mandatory remote control of all operating systems. They are using children as a shield for their true intentions. It's called a 'subterfuge' or a 'pretext' to hide the real rationale. And in politics subterfuge is very common. These politicians don't care about your children. They care about control and information is control. Compliance with California's new law is highly corrosive to free software and deadly to personal privacy.

With the mandatory age verification API in place, legislators can later add more laws mandating retrieval of even more privacy-invasive information just to install and use any operating system. This is Big Brother's telescreen in your living room. And the Linux community is nearly silent on the matter, instead focused on artificial intelligence investment.

Where were the software freedom organizations when California was mandating installation of #spyware in all free and open source operating systems? Did they oppose it? Or did they support it by silence? The California age verification law is the greatest threat to software freedom in recent history., striking right at the root of software installation for all users. Yet (((crickets))).

Is silence really tacit support?

"While the [age verification] bill moved through the legislature, the OSI, FSF, Software Freedom Conservancy, and Linux Foundation all sat it out — no testimony, no public analysis, no formal opposition on the record."

Where were they when this mandatory spyware infrastructure was being shoved down our throats? Where were the self-proclaimed software freedom fighters? Where were the calls to action? I didn't see any.

Is silence golden ... or is gold buying silence?

Let these organizations know that you oppose California's age verification spyware law and that you expect them to rally in defense of true software freedom--freedom from government oversight of your software systems. Parents--and not the spyware state--should protect their children. The government is neither your parent nor your god nor your savior and the people should send a clear message stating that.

California, stay out of my operating system! And stay the hell away from children!

@eff@mastodon.social
@linuxfoundation@social.lfx.dev
@fsf@hostux.social
@osi@opensource.org
@conservancy@sfconservancy.org

#AgeVerification #Linux #EFF #OSI #LinuxFoundation #FSF #Privacy #Cybersecurity #Surveillance #Spyware #OpenSource #OperatingSystems #FreeSoftware #SoftwareFreedom #Panopticon #BigBrother #Government

CC: @laffer1@bsd.network @leo@twit.social @MichaelRoss@social.linux.pizza @rms@mastodon.xyz @thenewoil@mastodon.thenewoil.org @TechDesk@flipboard.social @remixtures@tldr.nettime.org

Alt...

A crowd of sillouettes of people stands in front of a giant telescreen depicting a single giant eye watching them.