Pegasus-maker NSO slams journalistic methodology by snoopgate authors; replies to Republic

After the unravelling of the 'Pegasus Project' report created quite a ruckus within and outside the Parliament, Republic Media Network on Monday wrote to the maker of the Pegasus software, Israeli-based NSO Group, which in its reply systematically exposed the lack of journalistic methodology in making allegations of phone-tapping. Quoting the report of one of the lead papers of the international consortium behind the 'Pegasus Project', the firm highlighted - 'the purpose of the list could not be conclusively determined' and the list does not 'identify who puts the numbers on it or why'. The firm further added, in the report,  it is mentioned that 'how many of the phones were targeted or surveilled was unknown'. The list being referred to allegedly contained 50,000 phone numbers which has been linked to snooping using Pegasus, from which certain numbers purportedly belonged to persons in India, thereby kicking up controversy on these shores as well.

'The NSO-Pegasus story has been flimsy since day 1': NSO 

“This list is an equivalent of opening the WhitePages, choosing randomly 50,000 numbers, and drawing headlines from it," the NSO Group said in its reply to Republic Media Network, proceeding to tear into the journalistic methodology employed. Underlining that the editors contacted it last week after spending months 'researching rumors and innuendos', the firm affirmed that the claims made were 'sensational, and imaginary'.

"They originally claimed that the 50,000 numbers were found on an NSO server. After realizing that it’s impossible since Pegasus has never been licensed that many numbers, and because NSO servers do not have such kind of data, the editors quickly turned their story into a massive ‘what if’, only not to ruin a good headline", the Israeli-firm stated. “Now the new claim is that these 50,000 numbers exist on an unfamiliar list with no ties whatsoever to NSO. Yet, somehow, the editors decided to run with this story, even after it became clear that their unidentified sources had misled them, most likely intentionally," it added in the reply.  The group accused media firms of misleading readers using twists and turns to distract from the 'truth', instead of admitting that there is no major plot. 

"Our technology was not used to listen, monitor, track, or collect information regarding him or his family members mentioned in your inquiry," it concluded, pointing out that its products, sold to vetted foreign governments, cannot be used to conduct cyber surveillance within the United States. It added that no foreign customer has ever been granted technology that would enable them to access phones with U.S. numbers.

Report alleges Indian govt spied on citizens; IT Minister calls it illogical

A report by sixteen media houses claimed that 300 verified Indian mobile telephone numbers were allegedly spied upon using Israeli surveillance technology firm Pegasus - which only has 36 vetted governments as its clients. As per a 'leaked' database, numbers of those allegedly spied upon include over 40 journalists, three major opposition figures, one constitutional authority, two serving cabinet ministers, current and former heads, and officials of security organizations and businessmen. The target also includes the eight activists currently accused of the Bhima Koregaon case. The report claimed that the leaked numbers mainly belong to ten countries - India, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Newly inducted IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw categorically called the Pegasus Project report and the uproar over it as "sensationalism".Citing a clarification issued by the NSO group earlier, he said that the list of countries shown using Pegasus is incorrect. 'Many countries mentioned are not even our clients. Most of our clients are western countries.' It is evident that NSO has clearly rubbished the claims in the report.