Spyware Firms in Breach of Global Sanctions

From a report on Al Jazeera: Spy equipment producers are breaking laws and circumventing international sanctions by agreeing to sell stock to countries known for human rights abuses, and to clients who do not declare the end user -- meaning surveillance tools could easily fall into the hands of armed groups, corporations, governments cracking down on dissent, or opposition leaders, an exclusive investigation by Al Jazeera reveals. During "Spy Merchants", a four-month undercover operation, Al Jazeera secretly filmed representatives of two Italian companies and one Chinese business agreeing to sell spyware that is capable of tracking millions of people online and able to intercept phone calls and text messages without anyone finding out. The vendors boasted of being able to side-step the law by using sister and shell companies and explained how to possibly circumvent export regulations by lying about the details of shipments and using third countries exempted from certain rules as stopping places.

Shocked I am.

[ColdWetDog]

Shocked and surprised. Who could have possibly imagined an outcome like this?

In fact, who could possibly have imagined anything else but this sort of thing happening?

(Evil laugh.)

Re:

[mi]

two Italian companies and one Chinese business

Quite possibly, American, British and others are either more ethical or better regulated. Or that Al Jazeera's investigation is hardly complete and they rushed to publish the results before investigating more.

Re:

[ColdWetDog]

Doesn't really make a difference, does it? If $RandomNasty can get the product from somebody in China or Italy or the Seychelles what do they care? Maybe you could get a quick vacation to an exotic place without getting strip searched. Especially software. All you need is something to pretend it's a bank and an internet connection.

Re:

[guruevi]

A lot of established US and UK companies will only deal with US and UK companies, to get their products, you have to go through one of their shell companies directly.

Startups and competitors looking for a good market share won't care, especially not in China.

Re:

[Errol backfiring]

That does not contradict the article. If you remember Snowden, you know that the US fits the definition "govenrment cracking down on dissident" just fine.

Re:

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Could also be a budget/marketing style thing.

I'd be fairly shocked if the Americans and the British are 'more ethical'(Gamma Group LTD. certainly comes up in some unpleasant news); but if you sell product through established channels to deep-pocketed American military customers, say, your goods may well end up assisting some fairly awful people(our 'basically anyone who says they hate terrorists more than they hate us is a freedom pal!' policy has led to some ugly friendships); but you probably have less

Let me get this straight...

[Frosty Piss]

So... Manufacturers of spy equipment sell to shady people? SURPRISE!

Re:

[Archangel Michael]

Do not spy, the government doesn't like competition.

Re:

[slimshady76]

Do not spy, the government doesn't like competition.

No government-sponsored spy agencies have been harmed in the making of this motion picture.

How else were they going to sell stuff?

[Anonymous Coward]

No spy agencies in the world would directly identify who they are when they buy stuff from you. So how are you supposed to background check any of them?

Not surprised, and having trouble being outraged.

[Baron_Yam]

>Spy equipment producers are breaking laws and circumventing international sanctions by agreeing to sell stock to countries known for human rights abuses, and to clients who do not declare the end user -- meaning surveillance tools could easily fall into the hands of armed groups, corporations, governments cracking down on dissent, or opposition leaders,

Unless you have a cop assigned to follow each device 24/7, they're going to end up wherever anyway.

Unlike nuclear bombs which are kind of difficult to make (and we still can't stop the tech and materials from spreading), most 'spy tech' is fairly easy to reproduce once you understand it.

It's like trying to stop a river with a chain link fence...

I'd like to know ...

[PPH]

... how Canada [slashdot.org] ever got their hands on this stuff.

Re:I'd like to know ...

[Nidi62]

... how Canada [slashdot.org] ever got their hands on this stuff.

Seeing as how it's Canada they probably asked very politely.

Re: human rights abuses == muslims

[Anonymous Coward]

Right.... As in all that has happened TO the Muslims since oh, the crusades == human rights abuses. Glad we agree.

Re:

[superwiz]

Crusades, while they are often brought up as an example of human rights abuses pale in comparison to the level of violence committed by another power center which was their contemporary -- the Mongol horde. Crusades could kill a few hundred thousand during each wave. The Mongols killed 1 to 1.5 order magnitude more in each wave (half a million to 10 million). It wasn't for the lack bloodthirst. The Mongols just moved quicker.

Re:human rights abuses == muslims

[Nidi62]

Yep. Just look as that damn Muslim Myanmar persecuting all of those Buddhist Rohingya. Wait, you mean Myanmar are the Buddhists and Rohingya are Mulsim? Well, certainly that's just an isolated incident. Oh, you mean China severely represses the Muslim Uighurs? Well, they are evil, atheist Communists, something like that would never happen in a democracy. Damn, the Hindu dominated government in Uttar Pradesh (a state in the world's largest democracy, India) is severely cracking down on slaughterhouses (disproportionately affecting Christian and Muslim minorities in the state) over alleged killing of cattle. At least things are better here in the US though. We don't persecute Muslims. We just have people kill non-Muslims because they assume [newsday.com]all brown people [wikipedia.org] are Muslim [wikipedia.org]

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Good to know.

[Gravis Zero]

And now that we know, it's time to prosecute them, no?

gordonb

[gordonb]

Privacy? How quaint.

wrong premise

[superwiz]

If a country doesn't have the capability to develop the spyware itself, then it will almost certainly not be able operate it autonomously. So it doesn't matter that the spyware is sold through a 3rd-party country. The customers depend on original-manufacturer customer support as much as they depend on it for wares themselves. So, yeah, the premise that this type software can be shipped and billed through a 3rd party to conceal the connection between the buyer and seller is shaky at best.

Re:

[superwiz]

But it's not a retail-market solution. It's a professional-market solution. Those almost-always require training or a high level of previous expertise. I think if you give source to malware to 99% of professional programmers, they wouldn't know what to make of it. Maybe they have, in fact, packaged with retail-level installers and config menus, but that sounds more like a Hollywood plot rather than something one can expect from small almost-certainly-paranoid vendors.