Edward Snowden says in a blogpost that “an out-of-control Insecurity Industry” is responsible for turning your iPhone into a “potentially lethal threat”.
He has a point. The company he cites in the post, NSO Group, produced software that enabled Saudi Arabia to murder Jamal Khashoggi.
NSO Group claims on their website that:
NSO creates technology that helps government agencies prevent and investigate
terrorism and crime to save thousands of lives around the globe.
I’m not so sure of this claim based on the findings of the Pegasus Project. There is just too much temptation for governments to use a tool like this to suppress dissent.
Although Snowden deviates from his opening thesis, his overall point is solid: the emergence of state sanctioned sophisticated hacking for hire is a destabilizing force in the world rather than a net good. I’m skeptical that anything will be done to curtail this hacking for hire when there is so much money to be made.