It Could Happen Here ICE Partners with Israeli Phone Hacking Spyware
10 snips
Sep 10, 2025 
Garrison talks with Cooper Quinton, a Senior Staff Technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who digs into the troubling implications of Paragon’s Graphite spyware. They discuss how this technology invades the privacy of activists and journalists, the misinformation surrounding its capabilities, and the ethical concerns of government contracts with surveillance firms. Practical digital security measures are shared, emphasizing the need for enhanced protection in an age of invasive technology.
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Graphite's Real Threat Model
- Paragon's Graphite mainly reads messages from apps after they are decrypted for the user, rather than breaking encryption itself.
- Treat Graphite as a focused message-extraction tool, not a full device takeover like Pegasus.
Graphite Is Not Pegasus
- Graphite is less feature-rich than NSO's Pegasus and lacks many invasive capabilities reported in some press.
- Overstating Graphite's powers risks amplifying Paragon's brand and spreading misinformation.
Keep Software Up To Date
- Keep your phone fully updated to force attackers to use costly zero-day exploits.
- Patching changes the economics and makes targeting you far less likely.
