I mean, I still pay for my proton VPN and feel guilty every time I use Google to search for something, but even so, if the government wants to see what you’re up to, they can just send you a text and gain access to your phone, including encrypted messages, without you even clicking on a link.
Spyware delivered by text
In August, the Trump administration revived a previously paused contract with Paragon Solutions, an Israeli-founded company that makes spyware. A Paragon tool called Graphite was used in Europe earlier this year to target journalists and civil society members, according to The Citizen Lab, a research group based at the University of Toronto with expertise in spyware.
Little is known about how ICE is using Paragon Solutions technology and legal groups recently sued DHS for records about it and tools made by the company Cellebrite. ICE did not respond to NPR’s questions about its Paragon Solutions contract and whether it is for Graphite or another tool.
Graphite can start monitoring a phone — including encrypted messages — just by sending a message to the number. The user doesn’t have to click on a link or a message.
“It has essentially complete access to your phone,” said Jeramie Scott, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a legal and policy group focused on privacy. “It’s an extremely dangerous surveillance tech that really goes against our Fourth Amendment protections.”
It is software created by a private company, so technically isn’t the government already the 3rd party? Honestly at this point, I am not sure I could trust anyone to have that kind of surveillance overreach any less than the Nazis running the federal government.
Not to say that I would trust a private company any more. Just to clarify everything is fucking garbage and society is on the brink of complete collapse, and once that happens I guess it really doesn’t matter who has access to my SSN, banking information, health conditions, or embarrassing browser history.
Likely Palantir and our self appointed Lord and savior Peter Thiel will arrange to have all of that information available on everyone with one convenient click of a button for anybody who can pay for it. Like those reports you can buy online about people’s public records, except it includes everything we used to consider protected information back in olden times. Before we started making all this progress.
I mean, I still pay for my proton VPN and feel guilty every time I use Google to search for something, but even so, if the government wants to see what you’re up to, they can just send you a text and gain access to your phone, including encrypted messages, without you even clicking on a link.
https://www.npr.org/2025/11/08/nx-s1-5585691/ice-facial-recognition-immigration-tracking-spyware
Gonna be fun when a third party gets ahold of that one.
It is software created by a private company, so technically isn’t the government already the 3rd party? Honestly at this point, I am not sure I could trust anyone to have that kind of surveillance overreach any less than the Nazis running the federal government.
Not to say that I would trust a private company any more. Just to clarify everything is fucking garbage and society is on the brink of complete collapse, and once that happens I guess it really doesn’t matter who has access to my SSN, banking information, health conditions, or embarrassing browser history.
Likely Palantir and our self appointed Lord and savior Peter Thiel will arrange to have all of that information available on everyone with one convenient click of a button for anybody who can pay for it. Like those reports you can buy online about people’s public records, except it includes everything we used to consider protected information back in olden times. Before we started making all this progress.