Bloomberg is reporting “ICE to Gain Access to Paragon Spyware After Biden Order Dropped” (alternative Internet Archive link here).
This is a harbinger what some security researchers have been anticipating: the deployment of commercial spyware against US citizens engaged in legally-protected speech. The targets are activists, protestors, and all of those working against the disappearances of our neighbors by masked, armed, secret police. If any individual are compromised by these kinds of tools, their communications with the rest of their groups will be compromised.
What can you do?
- Keep your phones and apps as up-to-date as possible.
- Be very very intentional about what apps you install and what permissions you grant them.
- Turn your phones completely off and then turn them back on once a day.
- Be extremely intentional about bringing phones at all to meetings, protests and other actions.
- Apply best principles like those outlined by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
- Follow the news at places like University of Toronto Citizen Lab.
And ask questions! We’re all in this together.
