Edward Snowden calls for spyware trade ban amid Pegasus revelations

Re:Edward Snowden calls for spyware trade ban amid Pegasus r... by milderworkacc on Monday July 19, 2021 @07:11PM (#27888329)

While I agree that the trade in these tools is reprehensible, I worry about creating a new class of software that is prohibited to possess or trade in. It wasn't so long ago that strong encryption was labelled a 'dual use technology', and moving it across national borders was non-trivial.

How long will it take for pentesting tools and end-to-end encryption to be labelled 'military weapons' under such a scheme?

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Re:Edward Snowden calls for spyware trade ban amid Pegasus r... by xbar on Monday July 19, 2021 @11:20PM (#27889744)

I worry, too. Regulators do hatchet jobs when it comes to software law. But slippery slopes aside, it's pretty clear that selling tools to take over phones en masse is a bad deal for free societies.

Here's what we will find next: military and political leaders' phones have also already been compromised by NSO Group tools. I feel confident it has happened at a higher rate than among journalists. Imagine both your favorite and your most hated political firebrands: how will their rhetoric sound when they realize they've been pwned by the opposition for the past year using COTS tools?

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