Manipulation of the public 101 Australia

Monday, 20 April 2020 2:01 pm

Coronavirus Australia: Barnaby Joyce refuses to download contact tracing app

Barnaby Joyce is leading the charge of federal politicians refusing to download a mobile phone app to trace people in contact with coronavirus cases.

But the Nationals MP admits he hasn’t spoken directly to any government officials or experts about how it works.

“My major concern is that it doesn’t matter what people say, there’s always a capacity for people to hack into it,” he said on Sunrise.

“I’ve been doing my own research and listening to people who are profoundly cleverer than both of us.”

Set to be launched in a few weeks, the app that will trace every person who has been in contact with a mobile phone owner who has tested positive for COVID-19.

It uses Bluetooth, not geo-location, to digitise the manual contact tracing process and collects four things - name, mobile number, age and postcode.

https://7news.com.au/sunrise/on-the-show/coronavirus-australia-barnaby-joyce-refuses-to-download-contact-tracing-app-c-986069

6 days later

https://www.smh.com.au/national/i-m-a-covid-tracing-app-convert-barnaby-you-brought-me-to-my-senses-20200424-p54n0v.html

Facebook offers proof of NSO hacking WhatsApp in US

NSO promises future response

Facebook significantly upped the ante on Friday in its blockbuster US lawsuit against NSO Group for allegedly hacking around 1,400 of its WhatsApp users accounts, giving detailed proof of NSO acting within the US for the first time.

To date, NSO has denied the allegations and denied that it operates in the US in any fashion.

Further, NSO has said that it should have sovereign immunity from the lawsuit since it works hand-in-hand with foreign governments’ intelligence agencies.

Facebook’s legal brief on Friday said it was exposing a massive NSO attack infrastructure operating in the US, in direct contradiction of NSO’s defenses, under the guise of third parties.

The social media giant said that its attacks on WhatsApp users were hosted by Amazon Web Services in the US and by the Californian company QuadraNet (with a German provider).

Further, Facebook asserted that NSO had a contract with QuadraNet, using its server “more than 700 times during the attack to direct NSO’s malware to WhatsApp user devices in April and May 2019.”

The brief named the remote server IP addresses 104.223.76.220. 5 and 54.93.81.200 as being used for the attacks.

Moreover, the brief listed a bunch of subdomains which were all allegedly hosted on Amazon servers covering the dates of the attacks.

The new revelations could make it harder for NSO to continue to deny any US operations and harder to get out of the lawsuit with a sovereign immunity defense.

The October 29 lawsuit had already alleged NSO creating specific WhatsApp accounts in Cyprus, Israel, Brazil, Indonesia, Sweden and the Netherlands to achieve the hack, and mentioned malicious servers owned by Choopa, Quadranet and Amazon Web Services.

A sticking point in the public debate and likely in the US case could be cutting through whether NSO can really “provide basic technical support” without at least indirectly touching on “any operational activity” – it claims the two issues are separate.

https://www.jpost.com/international/facebook-offers-proof-of-nso-hacking-whatsapp-in-us-625892