Good Morning! It’s worth reminding you that Jeffrey Bezos will fly into space around 9:00 a.m. ET tomorrow, with the broadcast beginning earlier. Even without Bezos (and his brother and other paying passengers) on board, it will be an unforgettable event when Blue Origin launches a rocket into space to give non-astronauts a view of the globe from a distance.

Security story of the year:

Siri is listening Stock Photo 1

NSO Group, an Israeli surveillance company, has powerful hacking software called Pegasus and an important report in The guard, in collaboration with 16 other media organizations, including Amnesty International, has shown that it is, of course, completely abused.

What is Pegasus:

NSO’s malware can infect both iPhones and Android smartphones with zero-click deployments, including the latest iPhones running iOS 14.6.
It basically offers full access: once installed, it can “extract messages, photos and e-mails, record calls and secretly activate microphones”. That’s even the case with WhatsApp or Signal, as there is no need to decrypt messages.
But everything is fine because NSO insists that it is only intended for government intelligence, law enforcement and the military to use against “criminals and terrorists”.
This is how Pegasus works (WashPo, $).

And of course it is abused.

The allure of almost foolproof hacking is, of course, too strong. The human instinct is hardly unknown at this point:
The Big Bomb Report says that the relatively unlimited clandestine power of NSO technology is not just used to monitor real security interests.
Instead, all kinds of people were monitored; a 2016 list of 50,000 names includes: “Hundreds of leaders, religious figures, academics, NGO workers, union officials and government officials, including cabinet ministers, presidents and prime ministers.”
“The list also includes the number of close family members of a country’s ruler, suggesting that the ruler may have instructed his intelligence services to investigate the possibility of monitoring his own relatives.”
“180 journalists are listed in the data, including reporters, editors and executives of the Financial Times, CNN, The New York Times, France 24, The Economist, Associated Press and Reuters. “
To give you an idea, a sample of 67 phones used by “journalists, human rights defenders and lawyers” had the attack software installed in a sample from Amnesty’s security lab 37.
But the number could be higher: since some phones had switched and Android phones don’t keep activity logs like iPhones do.
Either way, this will be a hot topic during the week as the names become known. Read the first announcement and today’s reveal(The guard) a number of people targeted – such as French human rights attorney Joseph Breham, who was allegedly targeted by the Moroccan government: “There is no possible justification for a foreign state to listen to a French attorney. There is no legal, ethical or moral justification, ”he said.
Wonderful. Reporting is also done through many other collaborating outlets.

Sum up

Apple could give the iPhone 13 an always-on display and thus catch up with Android (Android authority).

Enjoy the first real recordings of the upcoming QuietComfort 45 headphones from Bose, which have now passed the FCC (Android authority).

The Huawei P50 series, which is said to contain a much larger image sensor, finally has a start date: July 29th July (Android authority).

Nintendo denies the report that OLED Switch will have a higher profit margin. It is significant that Nintendo has denied this, as the untruth of listed companies can result in fines: “In order to ensure a correct understanding between our investors and customers, we want to make it clear that the claim is false.” (The edge).

Samsung’s huge 1,000-inch MicroLED-The-Wall display has improved colors and a thinner design. It’s probably a lot of money too. Millions, at least. (The edge).

“Why the Steam Deck doesn’t flop like Valve’s Steam Machines,” which is a bold opinion as the device is pretty much unknown at the moment, but some compelling thoughts here, including why the price is pretty great. As always, I’m more cautious when it comes to pre-orders … (The edge).

Tesla is now offering its “Full Self-Driving” subscription for $ 199 per month, a much easier way to try out the driver assistance feature than the one-time upgrade price of $ 10,000 (Electrician).

Amazon-backed Rivian is delaying production by two months until September, citing problems in the supply chain (Blumenberg, $).

Zoom to buy Five9, a cloud call center company, for $ 14.7 billion. Five9 offers “Contact Center as a Service” and I hadn’t heard much about it, nor that just one player would be worth $ 14.7 billion! (Engage).

Hackers got around Windows Hello by tricking a webcam (Ars-Technica).

Collectors are as confused as you are by this $ 1.56 million Super Mario 64 sale (Ars-Technica).

The Curiosity Rover could sit near microbial “burps” on Mars (Engage).

How F1 cracked the data for its new racing car for 2022 (TechCrunch).

The Dark Side of Chess: Buying Games to Become a Grandmaster (New York Times, free link).

“What’s cheap now, but going to be expensive in the near future?” Vanilla surprised me, but used cars that were expensive at the moment didn’t! (r / askreddit).