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Cellebrite Hacking Tools Sold To Bangladesh Police Unit Known For Human Rights Abuses (aljazeera.com) 57

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Al Jazeera: Documents obtained by Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit (I-Unit) and Israeli newspaper Haaretz reveal how the Bangladesh government spent at least $330,000 on phone-hacking equipment made by an Israeli company, even though the two countries do not have diplomatic relations. Developed by the Cellebrite security firm, UFED is a product that is capable of accessing and extracting data from a wide range of mobile phones. Its ability to hack encrypted phone data has worried civil rights campaigners, who have long called for its use to be more strictly regulated. It is unclear whether UFED was provided to Bangladesh directly by the Israeli company or via a Cellebrite subsidiary based elsewhere in the world, presumably with the intention to mask its origins.

The latest documents obtained by I-Unit, which Al Jazeera also found on the Bangladesh home ministry's own website, relate to contracts signed in 2018 and 2019. They are from the Public Security Division, a department in the Ministry of Home Affairs that is in charge of domestic security and whose agencies include the Bangladesh police force and border guards. The paperwork details how nine officers from the country's Criminal Investigations Department were given the approval to travel to Singapore in February 2019 to receive training on UFED to allow them to unlock and extract data from mobile phones. It outlines how the Bangladeshi staff would ultimately qualify as Cellebrite Certified Operators and Cellebrite Certified Physical Analysts.

The documents also say the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), a paramilitary force that has a well-documented record of abductions, torture and disappearances, would be trained on the usage of Cellebrite's hacking systems under an ongoing project that began in 2019 and is set to be completed in June 2021. The latest revelation that Bangladesh security services are being equipped with highly intrusive devices capable of accessing encrypted phones that contain private messages comes amid growing concerns over the country's human rights record.

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Cellebrite Hacking Tools Sold To Bangladesh Police Unit Known For Human Rights Abuses

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  • Not known for human rights abuses, say it aint so.

    I wonder if Al Jazeera will ever write about the Qatari or Bahraini government.?
  • But we're ok with.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fred911 ( 83970 ) on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @12:30AM (#61139438) Journal

    Local, State and Feds using these in the US WITHOUT WARRANTS to gain information for conviction as long as they can paint a picture that shows the possibility of a parallel construction?
    https://www.aclu.org/issues/pr... [aclu.org]

    Sounds like the pot calling the kettle a black ass.

    • Nah, they just could have shortened the title:

      "Cellebrite Hacking Tools Sold To Bangladesh Police Unit Known For Human Rights Abuses"
      "Cellebrite Hacking Tools Sold To Police Unit Known For Human Rights Abuses"
      "Cellebrite Hacking Tools Sold To Police Unit Known For Abuses"
      "Hacking Tools Sold To Police Unit Known For Abuses"
      "Hacking Tools Sold To Police Unit"

      Still mostly gets the point across.

      • "Company sells stuff to group to help them do stuff we don't like, because they can afford to buy it."

        imagine that.

        I think what they're suggesting is whoever we don't like shouldn't be allowed to do business with anyone, anywhere.

        OK: "I won't do that because it violates my morals.

        NOT OK: "YOU can't do that because it violates MY morals."

        Basically, apply the Golden Rule. They want to be able to control other people in a way they themselves would never want to be controlled. nope.

        • by fred911 ( 83970 )

          I agree with you. It is a case of do as I say, not as I do. Multiple times police organizations in this country have used them to violate civil rights. On the same level, in the analogue cellular days when your device was handed off to a different cell, you would be notified on your handset. Fixing IMSI catchers or cell simulators isn't that difficult to incorporate into all handset design, you gotta wonder why no one is concerned.

          Also another little nuance is the fact that Israel is debatably one of the wo

  • If we have a modern Hitler bent on committing a genocide against some nationality, then the modern Israel would gladly fight by his side. That's how far they've fallen.
    • If we have a modern Hitler bent on committing a genocide against some nationality, then the modern Israel would gladly fight by his side.

      That's utter nonsense, a flight of fancy. The Israel situation is a tough one that doesn't lend itself to easy answers.

      • by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 ) on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @02:42AM (#61139568) Homepage

        The Guardian once allowed its former South Africa correspondent, who had transferred to Israel, to compare in detail the two countriesâ(TM) systems of apartheid. [theguardian.com] Israel is the only western society to deny construction permits to people on the grounds of race. Until 1992, so did South Africa. "There are few places in the world where governments construct a web of nationality and residency laws designed for use by one section of the population against another. Apartheid South Africa was one. So is Israel."

        • The Guardian? Really? You fail because Apartheid isn't even close to what the Naxis tried to do.

          It's easy to call names, but what is the solution for Israel?

            • An upper-class journalist from the New York Times? That's it? Why don't you speak for yourself? Do you lack ideas?

              It's easy to call names, anyone can do it. But what is the solution for Israel?

              • It's easy to call names, anyone can do it. But what is the solution for Israel?

                For the US' part, stop throwing money down the apartheid rabbit hole.

                • That's possible but also avoiding the question.

                  • There is no peaceful solution that will work in the short term because the people involved have had literally thousands of years to develop their prejudices. They're not going to give them up over night.

                    The best solution is a whole lot of education for everyone involved, until they eventually give up their religious bullshit beliefs about magical sky friends, or at least enough of their fervor for that crap to stop killing one another over it.

                    But let's face it, the world is going through a massive social tr

              • Sanctions would be a good start. Banning them from international athletic competitions. Basically what we did to South Africa in the 1980s. According to the apartheid supporters, being banned from sport was what hurt the most.
                • You idiot, you didn't say what you wanted Israel to do. You only thought of ways to punish them.

                  Punishing someone without having an idea of what you want them to do is useless.

                  • Oh! I thought that was obvious. They should stop their apartheid system. Also, they should allow immigration from non-Jews. Right now you have to show Jewish blood to get in(!) Tell me that's not an alt-right ethnostate. Lots of refugees in the Middle East caused by Israel's wars and it's justice to see Israel have to take responsibility for their own actions instead of fobbing them off on Europeans.
                    • Oh! I thought that was obvious. They should stop their apartheid system

                      That easy, is it? There will be no suicide bombings, everyone will live in peace and happiness? Is that how you imagine it working?

                    • Apartheid is a great evil that must be fought, overcome, and destroyed just like it was in South Africa.
                    • So you haven't thought about how it should work in any great detail. That's too bad. Turn on your brain.

                    • Alt-right ethnostates are wrong. There is no argument that you can make that would justify an apartheid system. It's a moral stain on the human race.
          • > what is the solution for Israel?

            Madagascar.
        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          How many jews are allowed entry into Iran ?
          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            How does that excuse what Israel does?

            Seriously, what is the logic here? If someone else does something bad it's okay to be at least that bad, for reasons..?

            • > How does that excuse what Israel does?
              Never said that it did, im jsut saying there are far too many militants within Israels borders, so you can understand why they have to be careful. Inc ase you havent figure it out its the entire reason for the Wall and Gaza and west bank, the israeli people want the muslims to move over to that side of the fence.
          • Whataboutism is a propaganda technique first used by the Soviet Union, in its dealings with the Western world.[1] When Cold War criticisms were levelled at the Soviet Union, the response would be "What about..." followed by the naming of an event in the Western world.[2][3] It represents a case of tu quoque (appeal to hypocrisy),[4] a logical fallacy that attempts to discredit the opponent's position by asserting the opponent's failure to act consistently in accordance with that position, without directly r

            • Can you answer which middle east company has the lowest government death rate of muslims ? Where does Israel rank ? Where does the Gaza administration rank ?
              • This is whataboutism that neither addresses nor refutes the apartheid policies of Israel. Israel is an apartheid-based state which oppresses people. They are also an alt-right ethnostate that does not allow immigration or refugees. They have a border wall and undocumented migrants are deported.
                • In other words you acknowledge the difficults of living in a land where tehre are thousands of jihadis and you want to pretend it doesnt matter they have weapons and you just want to let them run free.
          • Q: What Western-Asian country boasts both the second largest Jewish community in the region, and the oldest - more than 2,700 years - continuous Jewish community in the world?

            A: Iran

        • Israeli apartheid is ETHNIC. Jews are not a race nor are Palestinians.

          Superstition is not race.
          Ideology is not race.
          Ethnicity is not race.

    • What a bunch of crap. An arab has a far safer life in Israel than any other Muslim country. The biggest enemy of any muslim iss guess who... another muslim or islamic gov.
      • by Cyberax ( 705495 )
        What's your point? Life in Germany was also far safer than (say) in the nearby USSR.
        • Just pointing out that the muslim population of Israel and other mid east countries make this sort of nasty gov and security necessary. WHy dont you look at the violence that happens in Gaza, the murders etc where the israel forces are not in command internally then you will understand why in the remainder of Israel they do what they do. If Israel didnt do what they do, life would be violence and chaotic liek it is in gaza or syria or Iraq or Egypt etc.
  • by Arzaboa ( 2804779 ) on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @02:15AM (#61139544)

    When your mission is to make as much money as possible, it becomes imperative to sell to everyone you can legally sell too. What these guys always end up falling back on is, "It was legal, there were no sanctions, 'How are we supposed to monitor all of the bad guys?'"

    --
    Capitalism is always evaluated against dreams. Utopia is a dream. It doesn't exist. - Rush Limbaugh

  • by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 ) on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @03:23AM (#61139600) Homepage

    So, for those of you who don't know, the Rapid Action Battalion in Bangladesh is a kind of extra-judicial police force. Bangladesh's justice system is broken, so they take it into their own hands to be judge, jury and executioner. They have the whole thing down to a formula that it's almost comical. It's the exact same story every time. So much that black humor has developed and parody stories are easy to write.

    What will happen is that they'll do a no-knock raid on someone, arrest them, interrogate them, and then suddenly their associates arrive to rescue the accused. Sadly, the accused is inevitably "killed in crossfire". Several guns are found at the spot, "rounds of bullet" and for some reason there is always something called a "shutter gun". Here's one such story, one need only change names and places to hear it again and again. [bdnews24.com] And Here's another one. [thedailystar.net]

    If for some reason you don't trust local sources and want our upper-class media's view on the subject, which gains its status by systematically excluding lower-class voices, try this article from The Diplomat. [thediplomat.com]

    • That police force sounds no different than the USs.
      • That police force sounds no different than the USs.

        Maybe you should move to Bangladesh, see if it is the same. I think you'll find it isn't.

      • It must be hell living your life, only going to the net to consume fabrications so you can become even more afraid and angry at the world.

Waste not, get your budget cut next year.

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