 Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup with People's Dispatch where we bring you some of the top stories from across the globe. Let's take a look at today's headlines. Politicians and activists among those targeted by Israeli spyware Pegasus Approved dignities Gabriel Borek wins Chile's presidential primary election Protesters demand better access to vaccines and pandemic relief in Thailand Politicians activists and journalists have been targeted by governments using hacking spyware this software called Pegasus is developed by Israeli surveillance company NSO Group. These findings are part of an investigation by the Guardian and 16 other organizations into a massive data leak. It contains a list of over 50,000 numbers belonging to people believed to be targeted since 2016. The list was first accessed by Paris based non-profit Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International. The presence of the spyware has been confirmed in 37 instruments so far the NSO Group has claimed that Pegasus is only intended for use against terrorists and criminals. As reported by the Guardian the Israeli Defense Minister regulates NSO and Pegasus is sold exclusively to government agencies. The malware allows operators to access messages, photos, emails, record calls and even activate cameras and microphones. The investigation has revealed that the numbers of over 180 journalists and editors were part of the list. These include people working at Reuters, The New York Times, The Wire and the Associated Press among others. Over a thousand people across more than 15 countries have been identified so far at least 10 countries are believed to be clients of the NSO Group. These include Morocco, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Rwanda and India. At least two accounts used by the leader of India's main opposition party Rahul Gandhi were listed. These were among the over 300 Indian numbers considered to be of interest. The phone of Kild saw the journalist Jamal Khashoggi's fiance was infected and two other people close to him were targeted. Hundreds of NGO workers, lawyers, heads of state and academics are on the list. However, it is not certain if all the numbers mentioned were hacked. When more names to be revealed this week here is Praveer Purkayasar to talk more about the technical aspects of Pegasus. We've all heard about malware and spyware in various contexts but Pegasus is something quite different and we've been hearing about it for a couple of years now. They've been reports of activists being targeted and this is considered the motherload of information on this so to speak. So, could you maybe first take us through what exactly Pegasus is? Well, that's a good question but you'll have to ask NSO for that rather than me. We can only talk about what we know about Pegasus software. It is the flagship of NSO because more than three-fourth of the revenue of NSO comes from this and now it's more than this company is worth more than a billion dollars. So, it's reached big league. Israeli companies. Israeli companies reached big league. It also works very closely with the US Defense Department because it has to be licensed if it has to be sold outside Israel and the Defense Minister or the Defense Ministry has to give it the clearance. So, it seems to be very much a part of the larger strategic infrastructure of Israel itself because it has a role in its foreign policy. Now, coming to what you're asking, what does Pegasus do? You know, we have been talking about computer viruses and also computer malware. That's how we normally talk about malware that it is basically comes to your computer, to the internet, when you go to certain sites, you click certain things or the more what is commonly called as phishing, that it's something comes to you, you click and then the malware is installed in your system. Pegasus is basically has two things. Once it is targeting, essentially smartphones. Now, smartphones are much more commonly used and of course, they're also, they go with us wherever we go and Pegasus not only infects the phone and will come to that later, but what it does, it also gets access not only to your data, but also to the mic on the phone and also the camera. That means even if you are not doing anything with the phone, it can actually record a conversation if the phone is there. So, that's the level at which it is able to monitor. So, as I said, not only data, but it can be also used to record, activate the camera, record what the video is and also activate the microphone and record the conversation. And then of course, what is called exfiltrate, we send it out to what would be called the Pegasus service, which is generally deployed by the agency which buys the software. So, this is the structure on which it works. The second dangerous part of the Pegasus software is unlike other examples that we gave, phishing meaning that you click something and the malware gets installed, you've visited certain sites, you've clicked certain thing there, then of course your computer gets infected. This particular thing is supposed to be what is called zero-click installation. That means something has been sent to your phone. You have not done anything. You have not looked at it. You have not clicked anything. Even then it's able to install itself on the phone. And normally the belief was the iPhone was a safe phone. iPhone has also been cracked. And in fact, iPhone has, as we know, people who believe that iPhone would give them some security have found to their horror that iPhone also has been infected. I'm not going to details into how it has been infected or what are the weaknesses that iPhone had to permit this kind of hacking of their systems. But essentially, whether it's an Android or it's an iPhone, both have been compromised. iPhone has one advantage that at least you can find the logs of iPhone. And therefore, if you check, for instance, the phone and see whether it has been installed or not, you will know the suspicious logs, same certain things being common. You'd know that most probably, or with the almost near certainty that this phone has been compromised. Android is more difficult because Android does not maintain these kind of logs. So this is the part of why Pegasus is so dangerous, because it takes control of your phone and then acts as a spy, you have a spy in your pocket, so to say, which can track you where you go as well as track what you are saying. And at an extremity, also able to record videos of whom you're meeting where you are and so on. So this is a highly dangerous piece of software. And honestly speaking, the security experts were asked, what can we do to protect ourselves against this? And the answer was virtually nothing. That means we as individuals, we cannot do it. The real issue is, and this we can talk later, is that only if a societal protection is sought, which means we decide that certain things should not be done, and should be internationally forbidden, both under treaty provisions as well as companies who work in jurisdictions, because all companies are in some jurisdiction or the other. So it's a sovereign state which have to accept that hacking is not okay. And this is something which has been talked about earlier as well, that countries are now hacking on a mass scale. And that is far more dangerous because you're putting 500,000 highly trained software people to develop this kind of quote unquote weaponized software. And that poses enormous dangers to everything that we have. So it might seem very attractive for a state to say, okay, we'll spy on the people we don't like. And at the moment, this government, for instance, in India might do that. But the larger danger is that anybody who has access to this can do it to anybody. And that opens a panterous box, which I think is very dangerous for society. Absolutely. In our next story, we go to Chile, which held its presidential primary elections on July 18th, former student leader, Gabriel Borek Fong will now be the candidate for the left wing approved technique coalition, a member of the broad front party. He has been serving as deputy for the Magalene's and Chilean Antarctic region since 2014. Borek Fong, the 60.43% of the votes in Sunday's election followed by Daniel Jadoo, who received 39.57%. Jadoo is the leader of the Communist Party and his service as the mayor of Santiago's regulator municipality. Borek's victory on Sunday was unexpected, given that Jadoo had led in opinion polls, leading up to the primaries. Under his leadership, regulator has a municipal municipality run pharmacy, bookstore and an optical shop. His government has also set up an opening university and a real estate project based on profit. Following the results of Sunday's election, Jadoo issued a statement congratulating Gabriel Borek. Meanwhile, Sebastian Sachel Ramirez will be the candidate from the right wing Chilevamos coalition. Sachel previously served as the minister of social development and was also the president of the state bank until December 2020. He won Sunday's election with 49.08% of the vote, defeating Joaquin Lavine, who came in second with 31.3%. Both candidates had helped post in the government of right wing President Sebastian Piniera. Voting at Sachel will now contest the presidential elections scheduled for November 21st. Sunday's primaries were the fifth election held in Chile this year. Millions of people voted in May to elect a constitutional convention to replace the dictatorship era constitution. Independent and progressive candidates have secured over 100 seats in the 125 member body. The convention is also being led by indigenous Mapuche professor Elisa Loncón. Members are seeking to broaden access to housing, health, education, and to improve gender and labor rights. And finally, we go to Thailand where mass protests were held in the capital of Bangkok on July 18. Nearly 2000 people gathered to demand vaccines and better funding for pandemic relief. The demonstration was normalized by several civil society groups, including free youth. Protesters marched from the democracy monument to the government house while several others joined in caravans of cars and motorbikes. People carried dozens of FSGs and fake body bags with red paint the protests were held despite the imposition of the emergency decree banning public gatherings hundreds of armed police officers were deployed in the area. And by evening, they began to violently disperse the crowd. Tear gas rubber coated bullets and water cannons reportedly also containing tear gas were also deployed. Three journalists were injured by rubber bullets despite wearing clearly visible identification as per local reports at least 12 people were arrested on Sunday. Normals of several protesters were also raided and the vehicles were intercepted by police. Thailand has been witnessing a surge in COVID-19 infections or there were 10,000 daily infections recorded on July 17 and 18. Moreover, the government has only administered around 13 million vaccine doses so far. This amounts to only about 5% of Thailand's population. Protesters are demanding that the government procure vaccines with higher efficacy. They have also demanded that the budgets allocated to the monarchy and military be cut down and I want you to pandemic aid. Thailand's Prime Minister Prayyuth Chanocha has also been facing calls for resignation as part of the country's pro-democracy struggle. And that's all the time we have for this episode of the National Daily Roundup. For more such stories and videos, visit our website, PeopleSysPy.org, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Thank you for watching.