Plus: Inside The 3D Printed Gun Movement |
As one of the biggest and most notorious surveillance companies in the world, NSO Group has changed owners a number of times–from ex-Israeli spies to American private equity. Now it’s going to be sold to an American-based group in an acquisition reportedly led by Hollywood film producer Bob Simonds, founder of STX Entertainment.
Details of the deal are thin on the ground, but Simonds had previously been on the board at NSO Group, which has been lambased over the last decade over alleged human rights abuses whenever its Pegasus spyware found its way onto the phones of activists, journalists and lawyers. Simonds left the board after a failed 2023 bid to buy the company with William ‘Beau’ Wrigley, heir to the eponymous chewing gum fortune. The deal also means the two original founders, Omri Lavie and Shalev Hulio, are no longer with the company, Israel’s Calcalist reports.
NSO Group declined to comment on the nature of the deal, though it’s reportedly in the tens of millions of dollars. It’d previously confirmed to TechCrunch that the company would still have to obey Israel’s export laws.
Forbes could not reach Simonds for comment. According to IMDB, his previous roles include producer on the 1996 Adam Sandler classic Happy Gilmore and Hustlers, the 2019 film starring Jennifer Lopez.
Per previous reports, Simonds’s STX business has a number of ties to China, having founded the company with the backing of Chinese private equity and later receiving funding from Beijing tech giant Tencent. That could complicate required approvals from U.S. regulators.
Got a tip on surveillance or cybercrime? Get me on Signal at +1 929-512-7964. |
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 | | Illustration by Samantha Lee for Forbes; Photos by Sven Loeffler/GettyI mages; Connect Images/Getty Images; Dave Collins/Getty Images; Debbie Galbraith/Getty Images; adwalsh/Getty Images; Jeff R Clow/Getty Images |
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Forbes spent months on Facebook and Discord gun groups dedicated to 3D printing firearms and the Second Amendment, speaking to the men running them, while looking at law enforcement’s attempts to surveil them.
The cops and social media giants are struggling to contain the groups, some of which are run by felons and count convicted criminals among their members. Leaders of the so-called 3D2A movement think criminals should have guns, too–while also preaching civility. |
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Researchers at UC San Diego and the University of Maryland tell Wired that satellites are beaming out all manner of unencrypted sensitive data, from contents of Americans’ calls over the T-Mobile network and U.S. military communications.
Employees at the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have been assigned to immigration tasks, according to Bloomberg, further depleting a department that’s dealing with a government shutdown and a glut of widespread cyberattacks.
A breach of Discord user data, affecting up to as many as 70,000 users, looks severe, including people’s passport data, selfies and other identifying information they used to verify themselves.
The FBI has taken down domains associated with BreachForums, a major criminal marketplace used by a hacking crew known as ShinyHunters, which was allegedly behind the Discord hack and massive thefts of data belonging to Salesforce and Red Hat customers.
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| Signal was cheering for Germany this week, after the country reversed course over supporting a proposed European Union law dubbed “Chat Control.” If passed, the law would require mass scanning of communications in order to find people sharing child sexual abuse material. With Germany pulling its support, Chat Control is set to be ditched. Signal had threatened to leave Europe if the law had been given the thumbs up. |
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| After banning the ICEBlock app, Apple has cut off access to another tool that helped people monitor ICE raids. That included Eyes Up, which preserved online footage of alleged abuses by the agency’s enforcers. |
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