If governments don’t focus on strong privacy protections in their COVID-19 contact tracking tools, it could exacerbate domestic abuse and endanger survivors, according to a warning from women’s support charities.



They’ve urged the U.K. government to include domestic abuse and violence against women and girls (VAWG) experts in the development of such initiatives.



Though the U.K. doesn’t yet have a widely available track and trace app, the charities &#8211; including Women’s Aid and Refuge &#8211; are already anxious enough about the current tracing program, where infected people are called up and asked to register themselves online as someone who has contracted COVID-19. They’re then asked to share details on people with whom they’ve been in contact so they too can be informed.



In a joint whitepaper, the nonprofits said they were anxious about contact tracing staff inadvertently leaking contact details of survivors to perpetrators. They also raised fears the program could be turned into a “tool for abuse.” 



“For example, perpetrators may make fraudulent claims that they have been in contact with survivors in order for them to be asked to self-isolate unnecessarily, and in these circumstances survivors will have no means to identify the perpetrator as the original source,” they warned. “Perpetrators or associates may also pose as contact tracing staff and make contact with victims [or] survivors requesting they self-isolate or requesting personal information.”



The paper also claims abusers are already using the coronavirus pandemic for “coercive control,” in some cases deliberately breathing, spitting and coughing in survivors’ faces. As <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2020/05/09/online-child-abuse-complaints-surpass-4-million-in-april-this-is-how-cops-are-coping-despite-covid-19/">Forbes previously reported</a>, the sharing of child abuse material has also spiked during global COVID-19 lockdowns.



As for apps, the report warned they required location services to be switched on. “While the NHS app itself doesn’t collect location data, if a perpetrator has installed spyware onto a survivor’s phone or is able to hack into it, then turning on location services will expose their location.”



Problems with Palantir?



The charities also raised concerns about a number of companies who’d partnered with the U.K. on the contact tracing initiatives. They said Serco, which is handling recruiting for contact tracing staff, “has a significant track record of failings and human rights violations, including running a controversial women’s immigration detention centre where&nbsp;<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/serco-given-yarl-s-wood-immigration-contract-despite-vast-failings-9880772.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">staff have been accused of sexual misconduct</a>&nbsp;and involvement in unlawful evictions of asylum seekers.” Serco also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/20/serco-accidentally-shares-contact-tracers-email-addresses-covid-19" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">recently had to apologize for leaking email addresses</a>&nbsp;of contact tracer staff.



Serco denies that it has any kind of significant track record of failing and human rights violations and that the evictions to which the charities are referring were in Scotland and were ruled legal. It also said that in seven years there had been no substantiated complaints about any sexual wrongdoing at the Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre, where reports had revealed allegations.



“We are proud to be supporting the government’s test and trace programme with our Tier 3 contact centre team working from pre-approved Public Health England scripts. This is important work and we would like to thank all our teams who have stepped forward. In just four week we mobilised many thousands of people, which is a huge achievement, and we are focussed on ensuring that all our people are able to support the government’s programme going forwards,” a Serco spokesperson said.



Palantir, the $20 billion big data crunching business, also raised an eyebrow. The company, which has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2020/03/31/palantir-the-20-billion-peter-thiel-backed-big-data-giant-is-providing-a-coronavirus-monitoring-tool-to-the-cdc/">secured millions of dollars in contracts to help health agencies manage the outbreak</a>, has come in for criticism for assisting U.S. immigration authorities on finding and ejecting illegal aliens.



Palantir hadn’t responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">UK’s delayed COVID-19 app</h2>



The charities’ warning comes as the U.K. announced its contact tracing app would be shifting to the Apple and Google models, which promise stronger privacy protections than the app being tested by the government. The main difference is in where user information goes. In the government’s app, anonymized phone IDs of both the infected person and the people they’ve been near are sent to a centralized server, which determines who to warn about possible COVID-19 infection. In the Apple and Google model, only the phone ID of the infected person is sent to a centralized database. The phone then downloads the database and decides where to send alerts. The latter means the government has access to far less data on people’s phones, pleasing some critics but aggravating the government.



Health secretary Matt Hancock said on Thursday that Apple&#8217;s restrictions on third-party apps&#8217; use of Bluetooth may’ve been one reason the government’s own app wasn’t as successful as hoped. Bluetooth is being used to determine whether an infected person has been in close proximity with another person’s phone.



Earlier this week, Amnesty International cybersecurity researcher Claudio Guarnieri&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2020/06/16/covid-19-tracking-apps-a-privacy-trash-fire-as-norway-nixes-its-own/">warned</a>&nbsp;that global rollouts of contact tracing apps were a privacy “trash fire.” After analyzing 11 apps, he found many contained privacy shortcomings. So concerned was Norway that it suspended its tool.



Even with lockdowns easing, those who’re infected are still being advised to isolate. However,  the NHS guidance <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.hpft.nhs.uk/information-and-resources/coronavirus/domestic-violenceabuse-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic/" target="_blank">says</a> that “the household isolation instruction as a result of Coronavirus (COVID-19) does not apply if you need to leave your home to escape domestic abuse.” That message may not have been amplified as much as it should’ve been.



&#8211;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/">Thomas Brewster</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/cybersecurity">Cybersecurity</a>

gettyimages-1221768016-170667a

Warning: COVID-19 Contact Tracing Apps Could Be Turned Into Tools For Domestic Abuse

The escalating safety and security issues in Nigeria raised
the alarm for this innovative entrepreneur.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



Today, organizations not only face escalating risks but also
the certitude that they will face a security breach at any time, if proper
precautions are not taken. Such was the case for Paul Ajibulu when his office
premises were ransacked by thugs in Adeola Odeku, Victoria Island, Lagos. 



“We had just got our office fully furnished with MacBook computers and the whole works. When we came in the next day, we found the locks broken and all the office equipment had been looted. I lost about $20,000 in all that day and that set our business back for a couple of months,” says Ajibulu.



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Executive Protection: Big Bucks, Bullets And Bodyguards (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/featured/2019/05/29/executive-protection-big-bucks-bullets-and-bodyguards/" target="_blank">Executive Protection: Big Bucks, Bullets And Bodyguards</a>



To solve his problems, he reached out to Extreme Mutual
Technique, an automated digital systems solution and renewable energy service
provider. 



The company says it boasts top-tier clients such as MTN, the
Embassy of Sierra Leone, South African Breweries, and Africa Finance
Corporation, amongst many others. 



Akpobome Ojoboh, its founder and Managing Director, is
adamant his systems are a must-have for every organization in Nigeria.



“We initially started the business called Extreme Surveillance Systems limited. Coming from my previous background, we decided to focus on CCTV and digital security. Considering the fact that Nigeria was being terrorized by security mishaps, we decided to [resolve] that,” says Ojoboh.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">Safety and security have never been discussed in Nigeria as they are now. Threats are from everywhere, and at all places. Routine security checking at offices and shopping mall entrances has become the norm. </blockquote>



The idea of preventing crime is an appealing twist in today’s times and although it’s comforting for many to imagine a competent police officer monitoring every camera in Lagos, the question remains whether CCTV systems really do prevent crimes from happening or do they merely help in nabbing a criminal once a crime has occurred. 



In a city like Lagos where you have constant disruptions to
power, the long-term success of these systems presented significant hurdles for
Ojoboh in the early days.



“There are so many limitations to digital security vis-à-vis
the lack of a proper database that even when you have [identified] the
culprits, you cannot find them. Furthermore, there were limitations to how
people took ownership of their equipment because there was [often] no power.
So, you put a system and people say ‘what if there is no power’?”



To combat these challenges, Ojoboh decided to provide
another solution, by moving into the world of inverters. 



“Then again, these inverters run down when there is no power
to charge them so we went into renewable energy called solar to back up our
inverters and digital solutions. That is when we changed the business to
Extreme Mutual Technique Limited,” says Ojoboh.



Security is one of the largest businesses in the world,
according to Ojoboh. 



He has seen an increase in more families opting for peace of
mind by having big brother watching over their loved ones whenever they cannot
be with them. 



“When I first became a mum, I would always worry incessantly about my daughter left alone at home with my nanny. Then, we started noticing strange marks on my daughter and I had heard about people mistreating children they cared for but I never thought it would happen to me. I reached out to a security company to install a camera in the house and lo and behold, I saw the nanny hitting my daughter. My whole world crumbled,” says Rebecca Gyan, a grocery store owner in Accra.



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Pain, Poison And Potential (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/entrepreneurs/2019/06/25/pain-poison-and-potential/" target="_blank">Pain, Poison And Potential</a>



“You have to be prepared because if you are not, then you
almost cannot stop any security breach. It helps you to know some proactive
measures to protect yourself. If you have a CCTV system and you notice there is
a particular group of people visiting your building, you will be able to notice
and react,” says Ojoboh.



As organizations become familiar with probable threats and
vulnerabilities, they will be able to establish both preventive measures and
responsive systems, to decrease the likelihood of intruders and attacks.



Since starting out in 2007, Ojoboh has grown the team to a
40-member business spread across Lagos and Abuja. The company has also moved
into IT and engineering services in the areas of energy infrastructure, home
automation, fire safety and digital security solutions. 



With power still an issue in Nigeria, Ojoboh sees the future
of his business in the area of renewable energy to power his systems to provide
that all-important peace of mind to his clients.&nbsp;

Advances In Nigeria’s ‘Burglar Watch’ Industry

I am currently rereading my investment bible, Security Analysis written by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd. The book is still as relevant as it was in 1933 when it was first written.
What stands out in the book is the need to buy stocks at discounted prices, or those which are undervalued. Such stocks are usually difficult to get these days as investors have more information today than they had in 1933. However, I took a good look at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) and noted that there is more than meets the eye.
The fact is; we are experiencing a bear run.
This year has been a difficult one at the market. The NSE All Share Index (NASI) began the year at 162.9. By the time of writing, it had dropped to 147.6. This was a reprieve considering that, by August 27, the NASI had fallen to 137.5. To date, the market has shed off 9.39% in one of the longest bear runs.
This is in contrast to the 2014 performance where the NASI closed the year with a 19.9% gain, coming second only to Dar es Salaam on the continent.
There are many reasons why the NSE is shedding value. Firstly, the government introduced an unpopular capital gains tax which worked against the market from day one. The tax has since been abolished.
Secondly, and more importantly, the international investment climate is still recovering from the 2009 recession. Investors are still very jittery and, at the slightest provocation, they move their money to safe havens. Internationally, most investors believe the United States (US) is the safest place for their money and so, at the slightest tension, there will be a capital flight to the US.
This year began with uncertainty around the Greek problem and a subdued Chinese economy. These two factors drove foreign investors to believe that they should be cautious and most of them sold their holdings and took their money to the US. This strengthened the dollar, driving the forex rates of other currencies through the roof, the Kenyan shilling included.
If there is bad news in the market, to the effect that a considerable number of investors are selling, other investors will also sell without knowing why. It has a ripple effect. The international pressures caused only half the paper loss, the other half was due to fear and panic by other investors.
Nevertheless, prices of many counters have gone down. It is naturally a loss to many, but is there a silver lining in this dark cloud?
To understand this, one needs to check the best performing industries of last year. The champions of 2014 were the insurance industry and the agricultural sector. In 2015, the major gainers of 2014 are in the red. Britam has shed off 41.5% since January. CIC Insurance, the best price gainer in the sector in 2014, has shed off 26.04% this year. Pan Africa Insurance suffered the most, having lost 45.42% in the year.
There is no doubt that the insurance industry is expanding in Kenya, with the growing middle class requiring a wide array of insurance services. Furthermore, actions by companies like Britam create an investment appetite as the adjustments herald a growing stock. Yet these companies have lost significant value and present a great opportunity to a long-term investor looking for discounted stock.
But the attraction is not only in insurance. Housing Finance, ARM Cement and Total Kenya are all in the red, presenting opportunities for growth.
The end of the year is approaching and many investors are looking for value investments that will make 2015 worthwhile. If Security Analysis is anything to go by, then there is a real opportunity in the Nairobi bear run.
Tellingly, bear runs present investors with a great opportunity to buy choice stocks at prices much lower than the actual value. So while many are making a flight from the bear, embrace it and give it a bear hug, it might make you rich.

A Bear Hug That Could make you rich

Elections in Africa tend to be associated with security and political risks. This year has seen a number of important national elections in sub-Saharan Africa. As several African countries take turns to go to the polls, individuals and organizations cannot afford to ignore the investment risk that comes with it.
For investors, political risk can simply be defined as the risk of loss due to changes that occur in a country’s government or regulatory environment. This could arise from the expropriation of assets, a new president or prime minister, a change in the country’s ruling party, or change in existing legislation or introduction of new laws.
It is well known that political stability is a prerequisite for economic stability; without it, policy initiatives and structural reforms can stagnate, decision-making becomes sluggish at best, and investor confidence begins to ebb as investors naturally seek safe havens for their investments.
Where there are high levels of unemployment, currency devaluation, an air of insecurity and political uncertainty, it is easy to become discouraged and anxious. Even though some of these situations are uncontrollable, you can be proactive about taking charge of your financial life and putting measures in place to minimize your risk.
To navigate the uncertainty that political risk presents, especially when important elections are coming up, try to familiarize yourself with the candidates, their political parties and their economic policies and plans. These may have a direct impact on your personal finances.
During periods of uncertainty, the natural tendency is to sit on the sidelines and stay out of the markets. Yet, uncertain times and volatile markets usually present opportunities for those who are well positioned to take advantage of them. For example, asset values, including stock, and real estate may sell below their true value as a country experiences capital flight.
Diversification is a tried and tested method for mitigating the effect of political risk. As the old adage ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ reminds us, if you put all your money in one investment, your return will depend solely on the performance of that investment. Diversification spreads your risk across various asset classes, including cash, money market accounts, stocks and real estate as they tend to respond to market vagaries and financial conditions differently.
Beyond diversification across asset classes, consider diversifying assets across jurisdictions. Limit your exposure to single country risk by having a mix of domestic and international investments; that way even if the measures you have put in place to reduce your exposure to political risk prove to be inadequate, you have a better chance of limiting the damage to your portfolio.
It is not possible to avoid political risk altogether. Whether you manage your financial affairs by yourself or use the services of a professional, you are still susceptible to risk as all forms of investing come with a degree of uncertainty. You do need to familiarize yourself with the various risks associated with the markets in which you invest so that you can reduce your exposure by adjusting your investments as appropriate. Ultimately, you are responsible for your money.
For those that crave a level of certainty and predictability, the need for having a sound long term financial plan in place becomes more glaring than ever, and is key to financial security. If you stay focused on your goals, you are less likely to be swayed by market hype, volatility, inflation, devaluation, insecurity and political uncertainty and more likely to come out relatively unscathed when the climate begins to change.
&nbsp;
For more personal finance tips, follow Money Matters With Nimi on Twitter: @MMWITHNIMI and Facebook: MoneyMattersWithNimi

Political Risk And Personal Reward

She walks into the room with great confidence, wearing a full black suit. Although she is on holiday, she has made time to meet FORBES WOMAN AFRICA – that is just the type of person she is. She reaches out her hand, introduces herself and apologizes for being late. It is hard to believe that this poised figure is Thuli Madonsela, whose name is being kicked around the political scene like an empty tin can.
The fight between her and the South Africa government is all about Nkandla – the private home of South African President Jacob Zuma. It sits on a vast amount of land and cost over R200 million ($18.3 million) of, reportedly, taxpayers’ money to upgrade security. The president claims to have taken out a R800,000 ($73,200) loan for the purposes of the renovations. Besides the thatched huts built for his family and the beautiful landscape of KwaZulu-Natal province, one of its features is a so-called ‘fire pool’. It has been explained away by his spin doctors, for it is not a recreational swimming pool, but a water reservoir in case of fire.
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Who would be bold enough to investigate these allegations against the head of state? That woman is public protector, Thuli Madonsela.
“I don’t see it as me versus the government, it’s my team versus maladministration. For any government, if they want to govern in perpetuity, maladministration is an enemy because your ability to govern, or the authority people give you to govern, is withdrawn one piece at a time if there is maladministration.”
It all began in December 2011 when a citizen lodged a complaint to the public protector’s office regarding how the country was spending its money. A few months later, another citizen lodged a complaint against the president, under the Executive Members’ Ethnics Act, accusing him of using money to which he was not entitled. Madonsela had 30 days to respond.
“Firstly, when the complaint was made, I didn’t think that it was going against the president because procurement is not a presidential matter. So, at no stage did I think there would be any direct involvement with the president.”
The public protector’s office compiled information provided by several ministers, some of whom were also under investigation. Her team began asking harder questions, which raised red flags.
“The minister of police said he was going to give us information, so we were expecting it. Then, he said when he comes back from his honeymoon, he will give us the necessary information. When he came back, he wrote us a letter saying that he doesn’t understand why we were doing this investigation because as ministers they have everything under control and they are investigating [the matter].”
The ministers and security cluster opposing the investigation took Madonsela to court on the charge that the investigation would compromise the security of the president. Meanwhile, in December 2013, the 12,000-page provisional Nkandla report was published on the Mail and Guardian. Madonsela, a member of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), was accused of being underhanded. Some called her a heroine, while ANC loyalists hissed that she was a traitor.
At the time of writing, Madonsela could not comment on the findings of the final report. President Zuma was presented the findings in two capacities, as president of the country and the accused.
But there is more to her job than what appears in the media.
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“In reality most of the cases that take our time on a day-to-day basis are from ordinary people, who are just grappling with being denied one or another service. Usually, people who are struggling with an ID or permanent residence, people who are struggling with a grant and also people who have been unfairly treated in employment situations in government and who can’t go to the CCMA, or can’t go to the public service commission, or who would go to those but the service processes take forever.”
The frenzy has put Madonsela in the public eye. Many people expect her to be a loud and aggressive woman but are surprised by her soft-spoken nature.
“Some man once saw me and he seemed almost disappointed in meeting me, we were doing a walkabout in the mall and he said to me, ‘Oh aunty you’re just a little girl, I thought you were taller.’ Then I said to my team, ‘He always made me feel guilty that I’m not taller,” she laughs.
In her spare time, when she is not flexing her muscles, she enjoys reading women’s magazines  and listening to classical music. At home, she jokingly admits her children often remind her that she is not the ‘PP’, but simply a mom. She never fears for her safety or that of her children saying that, “I think other people fear for my family more than I do. My view on it, and this is the view my team takes, is that if anyone wanted to do anything wrong to me they would have done it at the early stages of this investigation. You don’t let the investigation complete and then you want to do something to someone because what would that achieve?”
Looking back, Madonsela has few regrets but there are things she would do differently with the Nkandla report.
“I should never have given the ministers a provisional report with the findings. And my team warned me against it because you are giving a provisional report for security filtering to someone who is one of the investigated…”
After her term in office, Madonsela has set her sights on writing another couple of hundred pages.
“When I finish, for a year or two, I would like to focus on writing, writing about the potential of this office [of the public protector], not just for South Africa, but for Africa and the world. It has enormous potential, but it’s not fully known, understood and exploited because it’s an office that has potential for transformative work.”
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Madonsela also wants to go back to the bar, this time as an advocate, where she will continue her fight against injustice. Clearly we haven’t heard the last of Madonsela.

Thuli Madonsela vs. The Government

One morning in mid-August, seven months into the Arab Spring protests and government crackdowns in which thousands have been killed, something strange happened on Syria’s Internet. As users aimed their Web browsers at Google and Facebook, they instead saw a page of white Arabic script scrawled across a black background.
“This is a deliberate, temporary Internet breakdown. Please read carefully and spread the following message,” it read. “Your Internet activity is monitored.”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-350" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/FO011612_044.jpg" alt="" width="963" height="768" />
Then the page switched to a white screen filled with instructions on using free encryption and anonymity software like Tor and TrueCrypt to evade surveillance and censorship. Emblazoned above the text was a round, mysterious symbol: a star inside an omega, hovering over a pyramid surrounded by lightning bolts. Below it were written the words: “This is Telecomix. We come in peace.”
Telecomix, a loose-knit team of international hacktivists, had been scanning the Syrian Internet in a massive sweep, dividing 700,000 target connections among its members in Germany, France and the U.S., probing for hackable devices with software tools like Nmap and Shodan. They compromised vulnerable Cisco Systemsproduced network switches to find other devices’ passwords, snooped on open cameras revealing street scenes and even officials’ desks, and at one point retrieved the log-in credentials for 5,000 unsecured home routers, which they used to insert the above-mentioned surveillance warning into browsers across the country.
As the globally distributed hackers combed Syria’s networks and posted their findings in a crowd-sourced document, one American member of the group, who uses the handle Punkbob, spotted a Windows FTP server filled with data he recognized: logs from a Proxy SG 9000 appliance built by the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company Blue Coat Systems. In Punkbob’s day job at a Pentagon contractor, he says, the same equipment had been used to intercept traffic to filter and track staff behavior. The Syrian machine’s logs showed the Internet activity of thousands of users, connecting the sites they attempted to visit and every word of their communications with the IP addresses that pointed directly to their homes. In short, he had discovered American technology being used to help a brutal dictatorship spy on its citizens.
“At first we were just poking around, but when I saw that, I had this feeling of dread,” says Punkbob, who requested that FORBES not use his real name. “To see exactly what Syria was tracking and who was providing the technology to do it.…That was when it felt real.”
Since Telecomix published 54 gigabytes of those logs, the resulting attention has forced Blue Coat to admit that its gear had been used by Syria, a potential violation of international sanctions against that country. The company didn’t respond to FORBES’ request for an interview, citing an ongoing internal review and a related Commerce Department probe. (Note that the investigation didn’t deter private equity firm Thoma Bravo and the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan from a recent deal to take Blue Coat private for $1.3 billion.)
The disclosure of Blue Coat’s gear in Syria has touched off revelations that hardware from other U.S. firms, including NetApp and HP, was also used by blacklisted regimes. The industry now faces tough new questions about tech firms’ responsibility for how their products are used—and by whom.
Telecomix sees its Blue Coat discovery as a turning point in the group’s mission: Founded to fight for free speech, it now aims to also expose those who fight against that ideal, including any Western tech firm aiding the wrong side. “I hope that the Blue Coat thing was the start of something much bigger,” says Chris Kullenberg, a lean and lip-pierced Swedish political science grad student at the University of Gothenburg and a Telecomix founder. “The goal is to put political pressure on these companies. It started with rage and frustration. What can we do? Well, we can hack a few boxes and expose this to the world. That’s the motivation that drives hackers deeper and deeper into the networks.”
Telecomix likely broke Syrian law. But some more traditional advocates appreciate their work. “It crosses a line we wouldn’t be comfortable crossing,” says Brett Solomon, president of the digital human rights group Access Now.
“But sometimes it takes someone like Telecomix to put a spanner in the works.”
Actively hacking networks is a new game for Telecomix’s Web revolutionaries, who call each other “agents” or “Internauts.” But unlike the hacker group Anonymous, which began with juvenile pranks before attacking Scientologists, opponents of WikiLeaks and defense contractors, Telecomix was born political. The group was created at a Gothenburg conference in 2009 to oppose the European Union’s so-called Telecoms Package, industry-influenced laws that would have cut Internet access for anyone repeatedly downloading copyrighted files. “In a sense, corporations have always been the enemy,” says Kullenberg.
The hackers dug up and published the phone numbers of every EU Parliament member, then convinced the copyright-flouting Swedish download site the Pirate Bay to post a link on its home page, which received 20 million monthly visitors. The Parliament’s phones were jammed for days, and the statute was eventually dropped.
The populist uprisings of the Arab Spring brought Telecomix’s goals—and its enemies—into sharper focus. A few days into the Jan. 25 protests in Egypt Hosni Mubarak shut down all but one of his country’s Internet service providers. “Telecomix members consider themselves citizens of the Internet,” says one American Telecomix hacker who goes by the nickname the Doctor. “So we took that as a personal affront.” Agents arranged with the hacker-friendly Internet provider French Data Network to fire up modem banks and give users free dial-up connections. Then the group faxed thousands of leaflets to Egyptian universities, offices and cybercafes, explaining how to skirt the blackout.
Telecomix’s scanning of the Syrian Net began as reconnaissance to prepare for an Egypt-style Internet shutdown. Stumbling onto the Blue Coat logs was a fateful fluke. When the hackers realized what they’d found, they downloaded close to 100 gigabytes of data, using the Tor anonymization network to cover their tracks. The process took weeks. In October Telecomix released hundreds of millions of lines of text listing hundreds of sites the Syrian government was blocking, from porn to Facebook to Chat- roulette, along with enough users’ communication logs to show that the regime was using their Blue Coat gear to not only filter but also monitor dissidents’ activities.
Blue Coat’s scandal demonstrates the complexity of regulating surveillance technology. The firm claims it hadn’t known about its devices in Syria, arguing they must have found their way into the country through a reseller in the United Arab Emirates. “Blue Coat is mindful of the violence in Syria and is saddened by the human suffering and loss of human life that may be the result of actions by a repressive regime,” it wrote in a statement. “We don’t want our products to be used by the government of Syria or any other country embargoed by the United States.” But critics like cryptography guru Bruce Schneier and Tor developer Jacob Appelbaum point out that Blue Coat devices link back to its servers for licensing and updates, implying the company may have turned a blind eye to its Syrian users.
Some Telecomix agents say they’ve also spotted equipment sold by Fortinet in Syria. Fortinet responds that it “has in place a policy prohibiting shipping its product to countries where shipment is embargoed.” And what about resellers who pass it on to those countries? “At that point it’s out of our hands,” a spokesperson says. Hazy as the line may be, it’s clear some companies have crossed it. Marketing documents published by Wiki Leaks show 160 firms advertising surveillance gear, often in Arabic as well as English. British firm Gamma International brags that it can spy on users of Gmail, Skype and iTunes; its sales pitch was found in the files of the Egyptian government after Mubarak fled.
Telecomix is determined to remain a watchdog against Western firms aiding foreign Big Brothers. Two Swedish members, Chris Kullenberg and Jonatan Walck, have registered a site called Internaut.cat where they plan to publish future disclosures of the group’s findings, using Sweden’s strong media laws to shield their sources. “We’re at a point now where Internet users are becoming aware of what’s being done to them,” says the Doctor. “Companies that sell gear designed to track people should expect to be outed.”

Tag: Security

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Warning: COVID-19 Contact Tracing Apps Could Be Turned Into Tools For Domestic Abuse

Advances In Nigeria’s ‘Burglar Watch’ Industry

A Bear Hug That Could make you rich

Political Risk And Personal Reward

Thuli Madonsela vs. The Government

Web Vigilantes