23h ago

Ice obtains access to Israeli-made spyware that can hack phones and encrypted apps

www.theguardian.com

US immigration agents will have access to one of the world’s most sophisticated hacking tools after a decision by the Trump administration to move ahead with a contract with Paragon Solutions, a company founded in Israel which makes spyware that can be used to hack into any mobile phone – including encrypted applications.

The Department of Homeland Security first entered into a contract with Paragon, now owned by a US firm, in late 2024, under the Biden administration. But the $2m contract was put on hold pending a compliance review to make sure it adhered to an executive order that restricts the US government’s use of spyware, Wired reported at the time.

That pause has now been lifted, according to public procurement documents, which list US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) as the contracting agency.

90 comments

I already know the answer to this, but I'm going to ask if anyway.
How did we go from the most paranoid group of people choosing death over vaccinations bc of government surveillance conspiracies, literally storming the capital in an uprising over false rumors, and now that we have multiple confirmations of the most insane and ongoing 1984 government surveillance programs: fucking crickets?
- Because the people spreading the first conspiracy are also the people doing the second.
- Fucking crickets is tough, wrap some tape around them first so they don't burst.
Fascists gonna fasc. They will continue to fasc until somebody decides they've had enough.
Nothing says "we're the good guys" like being allied with genociders and hacking people's phones! /s
Fuck Israel. They have been a force for evil from day 1.
this just brings them on par with local LEOs. these cabinets have charging ports and run brute force attacks on pins and passcodes, at least the simplest and cheapest options do.
Yeah to hell when they’re belong freaking hypocrites always trying to silence the truth about killing in Gaza
Fun fact: Americans benefited from Nazi technology after World War II as well.
It's as if we lived in a very silent storm. (Thinking of that moment with Putin and Xi caught discussing how today one can live till 150 ; I don't think Trump will last that much, but someone else from their crowd - easily.)
Thank god! Israel is our greatest ally.
- When politicians say "israel is our greatest ally" they aren't lying.
  Their definition of "our" just doesn't include us
Very surprising from the country of freedom
Biden helped this happen. Don't forget, voters. We need a real candidate in 2028.
- Blaming it on dems that you voted Republican?
  It’s your finger on the trigger with the gun to your own head. That's not biden’s. This is how people with mental illness sociopathy reason their actions. Manipulation and unreasonable rules that never hold themselves accountable to themselves.
- Historically, NSO has avoided selling to US-based clients and was banned by the US Commerce Department under President Joe Biden's administration for allegedly supplying spyware to authoritarian governments. However, shifting political dynamics under the Trump administration raised the possibility that spyware could become more prevalent in the United States, exacerbating mobile exploitation
  https://www.zdnet.com/article/rebooting-your-phone-daily-is-your-best-defense-against-zero-click-attacks-heres-why/
- Ah yes, another trump is the solution
  
  I don't think that's what they're saying
- And for anyone else, anywhere in the world.
  Giving governments tools to fight crime that can also invade your privacy is a sure path to governments invading your privacy for any reason they deem righteous. If not the current one, surely the next one.
For the Democrats/liberals who think they're leftist in the room, note that this done by Biden, how it was put on hold for review so that news spread and pacifies the anger, and how it came back stronger when you forgot about it. And now Democrats will shrug and say "Trump is in charge, we're powerles."
Democrats are not your friends, they are not a lesser evil, we need a revolution.
- Based on what has already happened, I'd definitely say Dems are the lesser evil. That's literally what this means in this context. Still evil, just not as much as Donald dump.
- The establishment dems still think they are playing good cop to Republican bad cop in 1990, even as the Republicans are openly playing Hitler now. Without getting new popular reform minded leadership there is no way we can take the country from this aspiring one party state.
- A revolution against the democrats who aren't in power.
  Bold.
- Dems didn't invent ice.
  Nor Epstein
  Nor trump.
  Voters need to take some culpability to their own mistakes here and stop blaming it on anyone else but themselves for this shit show they created.
  
  ICE was created by the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. 90-9 in the senate and 42 Yeas came from Dems.
  
  I hate voters! They are so gullible to be voting for the same bosses over and over again!!! :-(
- Not defending democrats here, but it says it was halted pending reviews. I would say at least the democrats have some sense of following rules, while under the Trump administration, these were immediately lifted.
  Make of it what you will, but it’s pretty clear that following the laws/rules is a thing of the past in the US of A.
Well well well. Isn't it the real reason the west supports the genocide. By sending money there you can do "research" without having to worry about pesky stuff like privacy or human rights
- As if anybody in the Silicon Valley worried about privacy and human rights.
- Gaza is the future for America.
  
  This is how I see it as a US citizen. Our violence is boomeranging hard which ok I don't wish it on others but yes absolutely this is the future of the US.
  
  You know, for those of us who are not Americans, such statements sound completely devoid of empathy, as if something could only worry you if it "were the future for America". And it really seems a pattern. It's as if any crime were only real for you all there if it were somehow directed against America. I'm not even talking about being tone deaf, it's just really strange how Americans think.
  
  Exactly. It's the canary in the coalmine.
  
  I sure hope nobody's carpet bombed.
  Like never again
- the west supports the genocide
  You mean America. The rest of us are against this and have made policy moves against Israel.
  
  Oh? Remind me again how many countries have even an arms embargo against Israel? Or they have any sort of penalties against them outside of completely symbolic actions done well past the time they should have been? How many of those countries is it a crime to criticize Israel in? The UK and Germany at a minimum.
  
  Lip service, really.
  
  The responsibility of america is undeniable ofc they're the main offender. But Germany still use israeli tech.
  https://www.dw.com/en/german-police-secretly-bought-nso-pegasus-spyware/a-59113197
  I think it's at least part of the reason why they're so stubbornly supporting israel, at least as much as the official wahwah about the genocide they did 80 years ago.
- If only Kojima was still making metal gear games
  
  The more things change, the more they stay the same
https://docs.mvt.re/en/latest/
Stay safe, stay ungovernable.
Found an article that says this software is usually in-memory only and restarting regularly will purge it (obviously you could get reinfected): ~~https://www.zdnet.com/article/is-meta-secretly-scanning-your-phones-camera-roll-check-this-setting-to-find-out/~~
Edit: wrong article, someone replied with the correct one
- After I didn't see the mentioned content I looked around Zdnet, and I think you might have meant to link this article instead:
  https://www.zdnet.com/article/rebooting-your-phone-daily-is-your-best-defense-against-zero-click-attacks-heres-why/
  Bad click, it happens. Good article, though. Thanks!
  
  So weird. I don't even remember viewing that article. Maybe it was a link just above my address bar.
Only good Ice agent is a dead one.
- That's a bit like blaming the gun instead of the shooter, no?
  
  Yeah, don't blame the brownshirts kicking teeth in, blame the government that hires them /s
  They volunteered for this, they can sleep in the pit for it in the end.
- They don't need to die. They can go back to guarding parking lots.
Can't find shit about how well this works on Graphene because of their stupid names.
- I don't know about this attack, but Cellebrite's support table gets leaked pretty regularly: https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/updated-cellebrite-google-pixel-matrix-leak-february-2025/25911
  
  Soo basically to stay ahead of this you gotta have the newest pixel running the latest build always... that sounds expensive.

90 comments