Government-grade spyware hits Mexican advocates of soda tax

http://www.bendbulletin.com/nation/5063332-151/government-grade-spyware-hits-mexican-advocates-of-soda-tax

by srameshc • 9 years ago

300 136 9 years ago

Using the software in a way that reveals its use seems ham-handed, perhaps its not a sophisticated actor using it in this instance.

But that is in some ways even more disturbing. It shows the capability is so available that even the unsophisticated are able to use it.

jcoffland• 9 years ago

NSO says it sells only to governments and law enforcement. This includes by definition a lot of unsophisticated actors.

retSava• 9 years ago

Yeah, and the alleged hooks sounds obvious. FTA, it's close to Nigerian prince-quality ("your daughter is dead", "your wife is cheating", ...). Doesn't sound very sophisticated, but perhaps they did some profiling and that's the level they thought deemed suitable. I mean, some actually do fall for the prince-thing.

coldtea• 9 years ago

Using the software in a way that reveals its use seems ham-handed, perhaps its not a sophisticated actor using it in this instance.

Or the message they want to pass is "we're tracking you", and that's more powerful than anything to get from actual tracking.

mi100hael2• 9 years ago

The soda industry has poured over $67 million into defeating state and local efforts to regulate soft drink sales in the United States since 2009, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Why don't these companies just pivot harder towards diet sodas? Seems like a win-win.

mmastrac• 9 years ago

They are probably aware of the pending shift in attitudes with diet sodas, ie more people becoming aware of [1] that they realize that regulation of sodas will lead to regulations of diet sodas a few short years later.

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/09/08/the-awful-truth...

lukasm• 9 years ago

1. It's not as addictive as sugar 2. Significant number of people don't like diet sodas

ozi• 9 years ago

3. Can cause gastrointestinal pain 4. Promotes overeating

tehlike2• 9 years ago

Coke zero is actually quite nice.

dpark• 9 years ago

Lots of people don't like diet soda and would stop drinking soda rather than switching to diet. The realistic outcome of heavy tax on sugary soda is a reduction in the amount of soda consumed. (Which I'd probably call a win, though obviously not a win-win.)

SilasX• 9 years ago

Sure, as long as you ignore all the costs of people cutting their soda consumption (e.g. costs to soda drinkers that have a healthy lifestyle, loss of utility from switching to a lower-valued activity, redirection of resources to substitutes).

But if you're going to make that assumption, just ban soda, since you no longer recognize any upsides to it.

tomjen34• 9 years ago

There will almost certainly be some reduction (unless soda becomes a Veblen good, which seems unlikely but not impossible) the question is how much the price elasticity is. I found a scientific paper[1] that suggest that under some ideal conditions I am not sure apply to reality a 10% tax means 10% less less consumption.

However what do they then consume? A switch from diet cola to juice would be bad from a sugar perspective and a switch to milk would be bad from a caloric perspective. Sparkling water is better from both perspectives but it is worse for your teeth than regular water [2] plain tea seems mixed [3] but realistically would you expect most people to switch to plain tea or tea with tons of sugar?

[1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X15... [2]: http://www.today.com/health/sparkling-water-bad-your-teeth-d... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_tea

qpalz• 9 years ago

My city attempted a large tax on sugary beverages only, but they ended up compromising with the opponents of the bill and implemented half the beverage tax on diet as well as sugary drinks. It seems like once the regulation for soft drinks is on the table, it's only a matter of time before diet sodas are included

nitrogen• 9 years ago

Is diet soda really any better with regard to health? I was under the impression that the sweet taste without the calories causes problems with insulin or satiety or something (can't recall details).

ZeroGravitas• 9 years ago

That seems a weird compromise. Who is against a soda tax, but pro a tax on diet soda?

I would have thought most big soda manufacturers sell both, and even if you only sold non-diet soda, you think it would be easier to pivot to diet soda than push for legislation to raise it's price.

adanto6840• 9 years ago

Personally, I'd really prefer to not pay inflated costs for soda, should I choose to consume it.

I am however completely and 100% fine with paying a higher i.e. health insurance premium due to my soda drinking habit (or any other habit that causes my health risk to be higher).

I'm just not a big fan of 'sin taxes' -- though I could be persuaded if they were actually put to use in the same way that the health insurance/risk concept would be; I'm just not convinced that's actually what would happen in the long or short term.

komali2• 9 years ago

I like your idea, but it seems like then the government (or somebody) would have to have a guaranteed way to detect whether or not you're drinking soda, smoking, etc. Seems invasive.

cantankerous3• 9 years ago

I agree with the idea that sin taxation is stupid in the sense that there's a moral component involved. The tax in this case is essentially an indulgence. That said, I see a benefit in taxing soda and cigarettes in particular because they impose a substantial externalized cost on society that isn't reflected in their price. With smoking its lost productivity for smoking, sickness, secondhand smoke, etc. With soda its increased diabetes, weight, secondary issues (joints, etc.).

I do love me some regular Dr. Pepper, but it's so bad for me I rarely drink it any more. (Admission: I still drink diet soda. I had to acquire the taste.)

new_hackers• 9 years ago

Just because you ingest something doesn't mean you will ever get sick. Maybe there are some people that can drink a lot of soda, but would never use the insurance.

I agree with the 'sin tax' because it places it closer to the source. There are many, many external variables that will affect the individual before it affects health insurance.

If "soda" is "bad", then tax soda. Don't attempt to figure out the cost once it is so far removed from the situation (i.e. don't attempt to measure the flapping of butterfly wings in a hurricane)

riazrizvi• 9 years ago

There's more money in sugar-addicted fat people. Even in the US, drug and food policy is coordinated (see FDA drug approval board https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/100/5/296/938813/Membe...). It's a big industry where profitable addictive foods also support a lucrative obesity healthcare industry ($190bn in the US, https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesi...).

mtgx• 9 years ago

It's a big industry where profitable addictive foods also support a lucrative obesity healthcare industry

And that's the crux of the problem, isn't it?

If the U.S. had a single-payer healthcare system, you can bet it would care a lot more about issues like obesity, pollution, and all the things that make people sick and would make the government pay more for healthcare. It would have an incentive to reduce those issues.

Instead, the U.S. has a system where it's "profitable" to have sick people, so the stuff that makes people sick is kept in place. It's the same kind of the same perverse incentives we see with the private prison industry.

monocasa• 9 years ago

$67M is probably a drop in the bucket for them.

mikeyouse• 9 years ago

It's definitely a drop in the bucket.. The combined revenue for PepsiCo and CocaCola is over $100 billion per year.

$10 million/year fighting against soda taxes represents 0.01% of their revenue. I'd be surprised if they were only spending $10m/year.

33W• 9 years ago

1. the soda industry poured over...

2. I was just listening to a Stuff you should know on artificial sweeteners, and it seems that there's some downsides to diet sodas as well. One example was that the non-calorie sweetener reduced the body/brain's relation between sweetness and calories. This causes the body not to recognize other sweet things (full sugar drinks/candy, carbs, etc) as caloric.

azernik• 9 years ago

They do both.

tn134• 9 years ago

The soda industry has poured over $67 million into defeating state and local efforts to regulate soft drink sales in the United States since 2009, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

That seems like a very tiny amount compared to the profits we are looking at. I mean Let us say if you are focusing on 10 major US cities + DC then it is merely $6M per city. Isn't that too tiny an amount to get anything done ?

vkou2• 9 years ago

Political lobbying has some of the highest RoI a business can hope for. At a municipal level, a few hundred dollars can be sufficient to turn a councilor, get access to edit legislature as it is written, or just get your proposed legislature accepted as verbatim.

If the local media doesn't make a stink of it, you'll get away with it, too.

rhino369• 9 years ago

These taxes often include taxes on sugar-free versions too.

colemannugent2• 9 years ago

[NSO Group] claims to sell its spyware only to law enforcement agencies to track terrorists, criminals and drug lords
An NSO spokesman reiterated those restrictions in a statement Thursday, and said the company had no knowledge of the tracking of health researchers and advocates inside Mexico
NSO executives point to technical safeguards that prevent clients from sharing its spy tools.

Of the above only two can be true. My bet is they sell to anyone who can pay.

hxegon2• 9 years ago

Unless someone circumvented the safeguards, but I don't really know enough to say how likely that is.

colemannugent2• 9 years ago

I would imagine that if someone had the ability to defeat their safeguards they would have the ability to recreate the tools themselves.

At this level, these tools are more weapons than software. All the client wants is an end, they could care less about the means.

patsplat2• 9 years ago

Not really. The client may not be sharing its spy tools but is very likely lying about how organizations are being classified as terrorists.

This is about the law enforcement agency, not the arms dealer.

tn134• 9 years ago

Plenty of stories out there how completely normal individuals are targeted as terrorists.

Example: http://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/14/no-fly-list-challenged...

ChuckMcM• 9 years ago

Two most common misleading statements by law enforcement these days:

1) They were resisting arrest.

2) They are terrorists.

Makes it hard to find cases where there are actual terrorists or people actually resisting arrest.

lazaroclapp2• 9 years ago

Arms dealers have some responsibility about which governments and government agencies they sell arms to. At some point the German government forbade selling of certain broad categories of arms to the Mexican military, based on observing how often those arms ended up in the hands of drug cartels. I am from Mexico and we shouldn't be in any list that allows selling spy software, yet for some reason we are considered a Wassenaar Arrangement nation, so in principle we get a lot of sophisticated arms despite being constantly brought up for state violence and torture by the OAS ( http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/reports/pdfs/Mexico2016-en.pdf )

tn134• 9 years ago

claims to sell its spyware only to law enforcement agencies to track terrorists, criminals and drug lords

Once you sell how can you control where it is used ?

TACIXAT• 9 years ago

EULA, because everyone knows clicking I Agree is like taking a blood oath.

That's actually an interesting problem, if a company licenses software to someone and they use it maliciously, can the parent company be held responsible in some way because it was licensed?

Someone12344• 9 years ago

Governments often classify protest groups as "terrorists."

The UK government has spent millions investigating non-violent environmental groups for one example, using anti-terrorism funds, teams, and laws to do so.

Companies asking the government to squish protestors is also extremely common all around the world. I mean in the US right now we have oil pipelines which primarily benefit private companies getting built by the Army Corps of Engineers using public money and protesters harassed & beaten by police. All to reduce an oil company's costs and/or increase their profit margins.

toomanybeersies• 9 years ago

Isn't the land simply the property of the Army Corps of Engineers, and it's being built by a private company?

The USACE is a weird organisation. It's part of the US army, but almost exclusively does domestic civil engineering and public works.

golergka• 9 years ago

The UK government has spent millions investigating non-violent environmental groups for one example, using anti-terrorism funds, teams, and laws to do so.

Not sure what situation you're talking about here in particular, but curious: do you think that government should investigate organization only after violence occurs? Or do you think that environmental organizations by their nature can't turn violent and terrorist?

Crosseye_Jack• 9 years ago

Maybe 2.5 of those are true

[NSO Group] claims to sell its spyware only to law enforcement agencies to track terrorists, criminals and drug lords
An NSO spokesman reiterated those restrictions in a statement Thursday, and said the company had no knowledge of the tracking of health researchers and advocates inside Mexico
NSO executives point to technical safeguards that prevent clients from sharing its spy tools.

LE says to NSO that this infection will be used on a track terrorists, criminals and drug lords by ticking the "We will only send this to infect terrorists, criminals and drug lords" checkbox, NSO gen's the unique link that needs to be visited to infect the device and then either LE or NSO send the target the text.

In other discovered 0days the servers the links where pointing to were in control of the group selling the hacks and no LE. My bet is a part of the "controls" they have inplace is not actually handing over the exploits, but offering an "exploit as a service".

Ofcause that doesn't stop LE saying "Gen link for number X, number X belongs to a bad guy..." and number X being a device belonging to their own tech teams to reverse the exploit and then they create their own.

megablast• 9 years ago

claims to sell its spyware only to law enforcement agencies to track terrorists, criminals and drug lords

How would they even know, whether the people targeting are terrorists, crims or lords? That is a ridiculous statement.

Maybe they have a form that governments must sign saying that the gov will only target those people, but it is a ridiculous statement.

ryandrake• 9 years ago

What the heck is "government-grade" spyware? 3X the cost but doesn't work?

smokinjoe• 9 years ago

Don't forget, only runs on IE.

hxegon2• 9 years ago

IE 8 that is

halestock• 9 years ago

I would assume they're referring to spyware that's sophisticated enough that it was likely state-sponsored, a la stuxnet, as states usually are the only entities with the resources to develop spyware of that level.

trafficlight• 9 years ago

I don't buy that for a minute. There are so many amazing developers out there who could absolutely do this independently.

YCode• 9 years ago

Pretty sure the author means that NSO Group's primary customers are government agencies.

That said it's still more of a buzzword than a qualification.

cantankerous3• 9 years ago

I wonder if somebody with a bone to pick with a soda tax works in a bureau that has access to this weaponized malware. Seems like the most plausible case to me.

a3n• 9 years ago

More plausible to me is that someone in the Sugar Industrial Complex bribed someone in a bureau that has access to this malware.

Reason077• 9 years ago

Seems like "Big Sugar" is increasingly behaving like the new "Big Tobacco" as they gear up to fight against regulation and taxation.

yuhong3• 9 years ago

I wonder if the technology to convert sugar to ethanol exists in the 1960s, which would probably involve yeast. Even turning it to charcoal using sulfuric acid would be better. (background: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-in...)

gjm11• 9 years ago

The technology to convert sugar to ethanol probably existed in the 6660s. BC, that is. (And yes, it probably involved yeast.)

calibas• 9 years ago

The sugar industry has been doing this for about as long as the tobacco industry. They've been using their influence to poison nutrition science for decades and steer modern dental practices.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-in...

http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jou...

dmix• 9 years ago

Big Oil has done this in the past too. I remember reading 'Private Empire' about ExxonMobil and the previous CEO was funding all of these PHD researchers to challenge climate science research in the early 2000s. They were quite successful at it too.

Fortunately when Rex Tillerson (current Secretary of State), who was trained as an engineer, took over ExxonMobil he stopped the company from taking a climate denial position and took some minor steps to reverse that position, such as investing in some green tech companies. This was largely due to the fact they got a bad name from doing it and they otherwise had a very rigid clean cut image. So it's important to call these companies out when they do it. Despite what people think corporations do respond to bad press.

Especially companies run by engineers and scientists, they can be persuaded to stop being anti-science. Now if only we could get more STEM people into politics on the right... One thing lawyers aren't known for is an affinity for numbers and science.

canistr• 9 years ago

Here is the original report from Citizen Lab:

https://citizenlab.org/2017/02/bittersweet-nso-mexico-spywar...

ourmandave• 9 years ago

"Government-grade spyware" reminded me of the deleted scene from Napoleon Dynamite.

"Do you want to die Napoleon?"

"Yeah right. Whose the only one here who knows illegal ninja moves from the government."

https://youtu.be/IdAZJNEYuEs?t=20s

Government-grade spyware hits Mexican advocates of soda tax

Related Stories