In the headlines: smile, you are being watched
Audio 02:47
The Pegasus software activates a phone's camera and microphone, acting like a pocket spy.
(Illustrative image) Sajjad HUSSAIN AFP / File
By: Sébastien Duhamel Follow
8 mins
Publicity
"
How the Israeli Company NSO Group revolutionized espionage
" Revelations to read on
the site of
Le Monde
.
The newspaper is one of 17 international media that lifted the veil on the Pegasus software, along with the Forbidden Stories team and Amnesty International.
We obviously talk about it on RFI, like most of the media.
Case released too late, on the other hand, to find it in the paper versions of the newspapers this morning in the newsstands, but it naturally floods the websites.
That of the
World
in the first place.
Software capable of knowing everything
And what surprises first of all are the capabilities of the software. Software exclusively sold to the States by NSO Group therefore, a company "
which has established itself in ten years as the leader in telephone surveillance. And the human rights violation scandals that have been erupting for several years are not slowing down its rise,
”underlines
Le Monde.
Its tool is so scary it seems effective.
“
Seen from the outside,
” the newspaper explains, “
the phone looks perfectly normal.
Notifications light up the screen, while exchanges pile up in messaging apps.
Calls are perfectly audible, Internet browsing is smooth and the camera works.
Nothing,
develops
Le Monde,
allows us to guess that an ultra-sophisticated spyware is in the process, surreptitiously, to enter the telephone to take control of it
”.
And yet, it can know all the content of a smartphone: calls, messages - even on encrypted messaging -, e-mails, photos, absolutely everything ...
A "
bewildering directory
" of potential targets
And pretty much who we want in the end ... Who the NSO client governments want to investigate at least. According to the revelations, around ten states would use it,
Le Monde
and the others were able to consult more than 50,000 telephone numbers "
selected as potential targets of this malicious program.
".
Mexico was NSO's first client in the early 2010s. There, on the list of numbers, is that of journalist Cecilio Pineda Birto, shot dead a few weeks after his appearance on this document.
Saudi Arabia reportedly spied on at least two relatives of journalist Jamal Kashoggi, before he was assassinated in his country's consulate in Istanbul.
Morocco, also a client, would have spied on journalists from the kingdom as well as French journalists, like Edwy Plenel of Mediapart.
Viktor Orbán's Hungary is also a client, or even Narendra Modi's India, and Kazakhstan, an authoritarian country in Central Asia.
Potential targets with surprising profiles
And we can see that the potential targets are therefore also surprising. "
It is not the members of terrorist groups or criminal organizations that dominate,
"
Le Monde is
surprised
.
“
It's a bewildering directory,” he
observes, “
in which we find a European head of state and two heads of government
; men and women at the highest levels of power in a former Soviet Republic
; dozens of opposition MPs from an African country
; princes and princesses, business leaders, a few billionaires, ambassadors, generals. And then, also and above all,
finally deplores
Le Monde,
hundreds of journalists, lawyers, human rights activists, all from fifty countries
.
Floods in Germany
Another subject on the front page of French newspapers: "
Germany bruised by surrealist floods
", headlines the paper version of
Le Figaro
. A "
terrifying
" toll of 157 dead, we read (the toll has also increased to 160 dead after printing). Surreal, terrifying,
Le Figaro
takes up here the words of Chancellor Angela Merkel, during her trip yesterday to an area of Rhineland-Palatinate particularly affected. On the spot, Angela Merkel "
called for accelerating measures to combat climate change
", and now "
the climate is back in the German electoral campaign
" analyze
Les Échos
. "
The political experts had warned that a new episode of drought could reshuffle the cards of the chancellor's succession, it is ultimately floods of unprecedented violence [...] which should play this role ten weeks before the federal elections
". "
The candidates are under pressure,
" notes the economic daily.
However, the victims do not necessarily count on them, we learn from
Liberation
.
Libé
takes us to the very affected village of Schuld, “
to meet the survivors
”.
"
In the end, we will have to fend for ourselves
",
testifies one of them.
For the time being, he relies like the others "
on the help of volunteers
".
Yes, it is "the
time of solidarity
", confirms
Le Parisien Today in France
: "
Volunteers have flocked by the hundreds to help with the cleaning.
"
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On the same subject
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Pegasus: Morocco pinned for using spyware, especially against journalists
Pegasus, Israeli software used to spy on journalists and activists around the world