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India's Ratan Tata takes slice of phone maker Xiaomi
India's Ratan Tata takes slice of phone maker Xiaomi
Xiaomi CEO says the investment from Ratan Tata (above) "is an affirmation of the strategy we have undertaken in India so far." Harold Cunningham/Getty Images
One of the most prominent businesspeople in India now owns a small stake in one of the hottest smartphone makers in the world.
Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, the holding company for India-based conglomerate Tata Group, has made an investment in Xiaomi, the China-based handset maker announced Monday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Xiaomi closed a $1.1 billion funding round in December at a $45 billion valuation. Given the valuation, it's unlikely that Tata's investment was sizable enough to give him a large equity stake in the company.
"Xiaomi is one of the fastest-growing companies in the world," Ratan Tata said in a statement. "It has brought its innovative business model and high-quality products to India with huge success."
His investment could be more important from a public relations perspective than from a cash perspective. Indeed, Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Jun eschewed all mention of what the company would do with the cash, saying instead that Tata's investment "is an affirmation of the strategy we have undertaken in India so far."
Last week, Xiaomi unveiled a flagship smartphone for India, called the Mi 4i. The device, which comes with a 5-inch screen and octa-core processor, is widely viewed as a key first step in Xiaomi's self-professed plan to become the most dominant smartphone maker in the emerging India market. At the end of the fourth quarter, Xiaomi was ranked the fifth-largest smartphone maker in India. Samsung was tops.
The Tata name carries significant weight in India, and having Ratan Tata on Xiaomi's side could help the company and its smartphone gain more traction in the country.
Tata Group, which had $103.3 billion in revenue last year, is a massive conglomerate. The company, which has over 581,000 employees, competes in a range of industries, including communications, technology, engineering, steel and chemicals. It's one of the most well-known companies in India and a prominent player in several industries globally.
India is a crucial country for nearly all handset makers. It has a fast-growing middle class and is adopting technology at a rapid rate. With the potential to target hundreds of millions of people, India represents a massive opportunity for all companies, including those like Xiaomi that have been successful in emerging markets where there is an appetite for higher-end devices priced at a level that budget-conscious shoppers would find appealing.
Even before the Tata announcement was made, Xiaomi attracted customers to its Mi 4i. Xiaomi said in a statement Monday that over 225,000 India customers have registered to buy the Mi 4i. The device launched last week, but due to excessive demand for its products, Xiaomi often uses a registration model to provide customers products on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Whatever the company is doing, it's working. Xiaomi said in January that its pre-tax sales in 2014 topped 74.3 billion yuan ($12.1 billion), up 135 percent from 2013. Xiaomi sold 61 million handsets in 2014, an increase of 227 percent compared to the prior year. Xiaomi is now the third-largest smartphone maker in the world behind Apple and Samsung, despite only selling to a relatively small number of markets, including China, Indonesia and India.
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WhatsApp fights fake news with Indian newspaper ads
WhatsApp fights fake news with Indian newspaper ads
WhatsApp took out newspaper ads to combat fake news in India on Tuesday, after rumors sparked the lynching of five men.
WhatsApp
The full-page ads, which ran in English, Hindi and other languages in daily papers, include tips for spotting fake news messages on WhatsApp.
Readers are advised to check if a message has been forwarded -- WhatsApp is rolling out a new feature to help people identify forwarded messages. Beyond that, the ad urges readers to double check facts, links and photos. There's also a warning about viral messages.
"Do not pay attention to the number of times you receive the message," it reads. "Just because a message is shared many times, does not make it true."
"This morning we are starting an education campaign in India on how to spot fake news and rumors. Our first step is placing newspaper advertisements across the country in English, Hindi, and several regional languages. We will build on these efforts going forward," a spokesperson for WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, said a statement.
India is WhatsApp's largest market, with more than 200 million users sending a billion encrypted messages each day.
Five people were lynched in the western city of Dhule on July 1, after WhatsApp was used to spread a rumor that they were child kidnappers.
Last week, India's justice and information technology minister of India, Ravi Shankar Prasad, tweeted that WhatsApp must focus on "security related aspects" of its operations in the country.
Updated Tuesday 11 July at 00:28 a.m. PST: Adds WhatsApp comment.
WhatsApp, fake news and gadgets : 5 interesting trends in digital news.
Fake news on WhatsApp provokes lynchings in India : Five men murdered when a village thinks a video warning against child abduction shows a real kidnapping.
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WhatsApp fights fake news with Indian newspaper ads
WhatsApp fights fake news with Indian newspaper ads
WhatsApp took out newspaper ads to combat fake news in India on Tuesday, after rumors sparked the lynching of five men.
WhatsApp
The full-page ads, which ran in English, Hindi and other languages in daily papers, include tips for spotting fake news messages on WhatsApp.
Readers are advised to check if a message has been forwarded -- WhatsApp is rolling out a new feature to help people identify forwarded messages. Beyond that, the ad urges readers to double check facts, links and photos. There's also a warning about viral messages.
"Do not pay attention to the number of times you receive the message," it reads. "Just because a message is shared many times, does not make it true."
"This morning we are starting an education campaign in India on how to spot fake news and rumors. Our first step is placing newspaper advertisements across the country in English, Hindi, and several regional languages. We will build on these efforts going forward," a spokesperson for WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, said a statement.
India is WhatsApp's largest market, with more than 200 million users sending a billion encrypted messages each day.
Five people were lynched in the western city of Dhule on July 1, after WhatsApp was used to spread a rumor that they were child kidnappers.
Last week, India's justice and information technology minister of India, Ravi Shankar Prasad, tweeted that WhatsApp must focus on "security related aspects" of its operations in the country.
Updated Tuesday 11 July at 00:28 a.m. PST: Adds WhatsApp comment.
WhatsApp, fake news and gadgets : 5 interesting trends in digital news.
Fake news on WhatsApp provokes lynchings in India : Five men murdered when a village thinks a video warning against child abduction shows a real kidnapping.
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How the mining industry is using Minecraft to get into kids' heads
How the mining industry is using Minecraft to get into kids' heads
In the UK, "Tufty" the squirrel taught kids about road safety. In the US, McGruff the Crime Dog encouraged children to "take a bite out of crime" by locking their doors.
Cute mascots have always been useful educational tools, teaching life skills in an easily digestible manner. But in 2014, children in the Mackay region of Queensland, Australia, were confronted by an eldritch horror abomination of a mascot: Hector, the human-size lump of coal.
Hector, with his hard hat, yellow hi-vis and gap-toothed smile, was the brainchild of Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal, a company responsible for exporting 60 million tons of Australian coal in 2013.
Hector attended sports events and visited schools and libraries like regular mascots. He also had his own TV slot on one of Australia's major free-to-air stations, teaching kids how to save energy, water and -- crucially -- how to most effectively brush their teeth.
He was part of an attempt by the mining industry to weave itself into the consciousness of school children in Queensland, a state with a mining industry worth nearly $28 billion. School trips, sponsorship of local sports teams, after-school programs... the mining industry has tried it all. The short-term goal is branding, but the mining industry was also playing the long game: Children who grew up brushing their teeth with Hector the lump of coal could end up working in the mining industry.
But nowadays, mascots aren't going to cut it. Thanks to a growing resentment of the fossil fuel industry and its part in the climate crisis, the mining industry is in the throes of a potentially damaging labor shortage.
A younger generation of students, inspired by Greta Thunberg, are pounding the pavement in school strikes. In October, more than 3,000 students marched for the cause in Brisbane, Queensland's capital city. These young people don't want to work for industries they believe contribute to one of the planet's biggest existential threats.
"The youth climate movement is very genuinely freaking out the fossil fuel industry in Australia," says climate analyst Ketan Joshi.
The mining industry's solution? Video games.
Starting this year, the Minerals Council of Australia -- the mouthpiece for the mining industry in Australia -- has gotten into video games. In August, it announced two games designed and built for the school curriculum. Games designed to "build awareness of opportunities in the modern technology-driven Australian minerals industry."
"We are unashamed of our ambition to employ more Australians and promote careers in mining to all Australians," Tania Constable, CEO of the Minerals Council, said in a statement sent to CNET. She said the Australian mining industry employed 256,000 people, with wages 54% higher than the industry average.
Supported by Australian mining company BHP, one of the planet's biggest polluters, with 9.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide emitted since 1965, a pilot program using these games is running in 57 primary and secondary schools across Australia. BHP didn't respond to multiple requests for comment.
The effort is more subtle than an adult-size lump of coal in a hard hat, but the goal is the same: Embed the mining industry in the minds of children as early as possible and potentially plant the seeds of skills required to counter an ever-expanding labor shortage.
Others believe it's the proverbial canary in the coal mine. A last-gasp gambit to convince a growing generation of young people that the mining industry has any part to play in a future where limiting the effects of climate change is top priority.
Old as Dirt
Google any derivative of "mining + young people" and you'll be bombarded with think piece after think piece, reflecting an anxiety surrounding a looming skills shortage in the mining industry.
"Young people increasingly don't believe fossil fuels are part of their future," Ian Davies, director of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association and CEO of Senex Energy, said at a conference in 2019.
And he's right.
A recent survey by the Red Cross indicated that 80% of people ages 10 to 24 were either concerned or extremely concerned about the threat of climate change. When asked for potential solutions, transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy was top of the list. In a recent poll by the UN, 69% of people ages 14 to 18 agreed that climate change is a global emergency. One global study reported that two-thirds of young people reported feeling sad, anxious and afraid about climate change.
A climate protest, in Melbourne, in November while the COP26 conference was taking place.
William West/AFP via Getty Images
In other words, children and teenagers have developed an increasingly negative perception of mining, particularly when it comes to coal or any type of fossil fuel. To the next generation of young people coming into the workforce, the industry is part of the problem.
The mining industry is hoping video games can sway the tide. Two games, to be precise.
The first is Resource, Respond, Rescue, a game built using the Minecraft Education Edition platform, targeting 11- to 12-year-olds. The second is Old as Dirt, a game designed to explain the "pit to port journey of iron ore" to 13- to 14-year-olds in high school.
(Microsoft, which purchased the Minecraft intellectual property for $2.5 billion in 2014, declined to comment on this story.)
Should industry bodies like the Minerals Council of Australia have this kind of access to children through the school curriculum? Jeremy Moss, a professor at UNSW Sydney and a co-author of the book Climate Justice and Non-State Actors, says no. He believes campaigns like this are "egregious."
"I really don't think the education department should be approving this kind of thing," he says.
'I don't think this is about STEM'
When reached for comment, education departments across Australia were mostly tight-lipped. The ones that did respond spoke not of promoting mining, but science and engineering.
"We are supportive of schools using programs that encourage students to take an interest in STEM subjects from an early age," says Martin Clery, executive director of statewide services in Western Australia's Department of Education.
School staff made decisions about the resources used in teaching and used tools and programs that best suit the needs of their students, he says.
The Minerals Council used similar language, stating that its ultimate goal was the promotion of STEM subjects in schools across Australia.
Minecraft, one of the most popular video games ever made, is used extensively in education.
Mojang
"It is hoped that students will select STEM subjects in later years of study to preserve pathways to high-paying and highly secure STEM careers," says Constable, the Mineral Council's CEO.
Moss thinks otherwise. He says projects like this have little to do with the promotion of STEM and everything to do with the promotion of the mining industry, which is in increasingly desperate need of future employees.
"Last time I checked, they already taught science and maths at school," he says. "And I'm sure they already do a good job.
"I don't think this is about STEM. This is really about promoting the mining industry."
Documents reviewed by CNET show the mining industry is wrestling with a problematic labor shortage. Young people are showing less and less interest in mining as a career path. The number of graduates in mining engineering subjects has declined from a high of 333 in 2015 to 104 in 2020.
In a submission to an Australian curriculum review in July, the MCA openly railed against proposed changes to the Earth sciences curricula it believed would impact "the future success of the minerals sector."
In that document, it revealed plans to fund video games designed for Australian schools to help stem the tide and, in the long term, drive university graduates back to mining. It openly discussed a strategy that involved school trips to mines to "demonstrate the contribution of the resources sector to the Australian economy, local communities, and the importance of extracted minerals to everyday life."
According to Ketan Joshi, the climate analyst, initiatives like these are absolutely about fixing the skills shortage. "Graduates from fossil fuel-focused subjects are dropping, and they are desperate to try and reverse this," Joshi says.
But even if students study the relevant subjects required to fill the skills gap, young people simply don't want to work in the fossil fuels industry.
"Teenagers nowadays want to work in tech," says Dan Gocher, director of climate and environment for the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility. "It's just more exciting."
'Don't be scared'
Scott Morrison, the prime minster of Australia, has been a huge target for young protesters.
William West/AFP via Getty Images
When it comes to the fossil fuel industry, Australia isn't necessarily like other countries.
This is a country where the prime minister, Scott Morrison, once brought a literal lump of coal into Parliament and waved it at fellow members, proclaiming "don't be scared."
A country where Gina Reinhardt, a mining magnate and Australia's richest woman, with an estimated wealth of $22 billion, can make speeches at Australian schools and tell students to guard themselves against the "propaganda" of climate change.
A country where Morrison's chief of staff is John Kunkel, formerly the deputy CEO of the Minerals Council of Australia. The same Minerals Council that's funded, developed and created mining-focused video games for the Australian school curriculum.
In Australia, the government and the mining industry are uniquely connected in multiple problematic ways. From 1999 to 2019, Moss said, the mining industry donated over $130 million to Australian political parties.
"These groups not only donate substantial funds to political parties, but there is also a revolving door of appointments," Moss says.
"If I was the Minerals Council and someone asked me, 'Am I happy with the representation of the mining industry in government?' I would be delighted. I would be orgasmic."
After the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, in November, when China and India controversially forced a coal-related language change from "phase out" to "phase down," elected representative Matt Canavan -- whose Twitter profile features a photo of his face smeared with coal -- appeared on national television, in front of a screen saying "GLASGOW: A HUGE WIN FOR COAL."
He called the language change a "green light" for Australia to build "more coal mines."
In the context of Australia's inextricable links between the mining industry and government, do video games even matter? Not really, says Gocher, from the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility. The ease with which the Minerals Council was able to inject video games it funded into the school curriculum is the real issue. And that issue has deep roots in the foundational culture of Australia as a nation.
"That's more dangerous than the Minecraft stuff," he says.
Ultimately, both Gocher and Moss are optimistic. Not because of the situation, not because of the minor progress made at conferences like COP26, but because of the resilience of the audience the Minerals Council of Australia is targeting with these video games. Both were resolute: Regardless of any efforts to sway public opinion, the next generation of workers is far too savvy and too invested in the future well-being of this planet to be impacted by something as simple as a video game.
"I don't think it'll work," Moss says. "I think it's a rather desperate attempt to change the overwhelmingly negative perception of the fossil fuels section of the mining industry.
"That is something that, really, they're fighting an uphill battle against."
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How the mining industry is using Minecraft to get into kids' heads
How the mining industry is using Minecraft to get into kids' heads
In the UK, "Tufty" the squirrel taught kids about road safety. In the US, McGruff the Crime Dog encouraged children to "take a bite out of crime" by locking their doors.
Cute mascots have always been useful educational tools, teaching life skills in an easily digestible manner. But in 2014, children in the Mackay region of Queensland, Australia, were confronted by an eldritch horror abomination of a mascot: Hector, the human-size lump of coal.
Hector, with his hard hat, yellow hi-vis and gap-toothed smile, was the brainchild of Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal, a company responsible for exporting 60 million tons of Australian coal in 2013.
Hector attended sports events and visited schools and libraries like regular mascots. He also had his own TV slot on one of Australia's major free-to-air stations, teaching kids how to save energy, water and -- crucially -- how to most effectively brush their teeth.
He was part of an attempt by the mining industry to weave itself into the consciousness of school children in Queensland, a state with a mining industry worth nearly $28 billion. School trips, sponsorship of local sports teams, after-school programs... the mining industry has tried it all. The short-term goal is branding, but the mining industry was also playing the long game: Children who grew up brushing their teeth with Hector the lump of coal could end up working in the mining industry.
But nowadays, mascots aren't going to cut it. Thanks to a growing resentment of the fossil fuel industry and its part in the climate crisis, the mining industry is in the throes of a potentially damaging labor shortage.
A younger generation of students, inspired by Greta Thunberg, are pounding the pavement in school strikes. In October, more than 3,000 students marched for the cause in Brisbane, Queensland's capital city. These young people don't want to work for industries they believe contribute to one of the planet's biggest existential threats.
"The youth climate movement is very genuinely freaking out the fossil fuel industry in Australia," says climate analyst Ketan Joshi.
The mining industry's solution? Video games.
Starting this year, the Minerals Council of Australia -- the mouthpiece for the mining industry in Australia -- has gotten into video games. In August, it announced two games designed and built for the school curriculum. Games designed to "build awareness of opportunities in the modern technology-driven Australian minerals industry."
"We are unashamed of our ambition to employ more Australians and promote careers in mining to all Australians," Tania Constable, CEO of the Minerals Council, said in a statement sent to CNET. She said the Australian mining industry employed 256,000 people, with wages 54% higher than the industry average.
Supported by Australian mining company BHP, one of the planet's biggest polluters, with 9.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide emitted since 1965, a pilot program using these games is running in 57 primary and secondary schools across Australia. BHP didn't respond to multiple requests for comment.
The effort is more subtle than an adult-size lump of coal in a hard hat, but the goal is the same: Embed the mining industry in the minds of children as early as possible and potentially plant the seeds of skills required to counter an ever-expanding labor shortage.
Others believe it's the proverbial canary in the coal mine. A last-gasp gambit to convince a growing generation of young people that the mining industry has any part to play in a future where limiting the effects of climate change is top priority.
Old as Dirt
Google any derivative of "mining + young people" and you'll be bombarded with think piece after think piece, reflecting an anxiety surrounding a looming skills shortage in the mining industry.
"Young people increasingly don't believe fossil fuels are part of their future," Ian Davies, director of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association and CEO of Senex Energy, said at a conference in 2019.
And he's right.
A recent survey by the Red Cross indicated that 80% of people ages 10 to 24 were either concerned or extremely concerned about the threat of climate change. When asked for potential solutions, transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy was top of the list. In a recent poll by the UN, 69% of people ages 14 to 18 agreed that climate change is a global emergency. One global study reported that two-thirds of young people reported feeling sad, anxious and afraid about climate change.
A climate protest, in Melbourne, in November while the COP26 conference was taking place.
William West/AFP via Getty Images
In other words, children and teenagers have developed an increasingly negative perception of mining, particularly when it comes to coal or any type of fossil fuel. To the next generation of young people coming into the workforce, the industry is part of the problem.
The mining industry is hoping video games can sway the tide. Two games, to be precise.
The first is Resource, Respond, Rescue, a game built using the Minecraft Education Edition platform, targeting 11- to 12-year-olds. The second is Old as Dirt, a game designed to explain the "pit to port journey of iron ore" to 13- to 14-year-olds in high school.
(Microsoft, which purchased the Minecraft intellectual property for $2.5 billion in 2014, declined to comment on this story.)
Should industry bodies like the Minerals Council of Australia have this kind of access to children through the school curriculum? Jeremy Moss, a professor at UNSW Sydney and a co-author of the book Climate Justice and Non-State Actors, says no. He believes campaigns like this are "egregious."
"I really don't think the education department should be approving this kind of thing," he says.
'I don't think this is about STEM'
When reached for comment, education departments across Australia were mostly tight-lipped. The ones that did respond spoke not of promoting mining, but science and engineering.
"We are supportive of schools using programs that encourage students to take an interest in STEM subjects from an early age," says Martin Clery, executive director of statewide services in Western Australia's Department of Education.
School staff made decisions about the resources used in teaching and used tools and programs that best suit the needs of their students, he says.
The Minerals Council used similar language, stating that its ultimate goal was the promotion of STEM subjects in schools across Australia.
Minecraft, one of the most popular video games ever made, is used extensively in education.
Mojang
"It is hoped that students will select STEM subjects in later years of study to preserve pathways to high-paying and highly secure STEM careers," says Constable, the Mineral Council's CEO.
Moss thinks otherwise. He says projects like this have little to do with the promotion of STEM and everything to do with the promotion of the mining industry, which is in increasingly desperate need of future employees.
"Last time I checked, they already taught science and maths at school," he says. "And I'm sure they already do a good job.
"I don't think this is about STEM. This is really about promoting the mining industry."
Documents reviewed by CNET show the mining industry is wrestling with a problematic labor shortage. Young people are showing less and less interest in mining as a career path. The number of graduates in mining engineering subjects has declined from a high of 333 in 2015 to 104 in 2020.
In a submission to an Australian curriculum review in July, the MCA openly railed against proposed changes to the Earth sciences curricula it believed would impact "the future success of the minerals sector."
In that document, it revealed plans to fund video games designed for Australian schools to help stem the tide and, in the long term, drive university graduates back to mining. It openly discussed a strategy that involved school trips to mines to "demonstrate the contribution of the resources sector to the Australian economy, local communities, and the importance of extracted minerals to everyday life."
According to Ketan Joshi, the climate analyst, initiatives like these are absolutely about fixing the skills shortage. "Graduates from fossil fuel-focused subjects are dropping, and they are desperate to try and reverse this," Joshi says.
But even if students study the relevant subjects required to fill the skills gap, young people simply don't want to work in the fossil fuels industry.
"Teenagers nowadays want to work in tech," says Dan Gocher, director of climate and environment for the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility. "It's just more exciting."
'Don't be scared'
Scott Morrison, the prime minster of Australia, has been a huge target for young protesters.
William West/AFP via Getty Images
When it comes to the fossil fuel industry, Australia isn't necessarily like other countries.
This is a country where the prime minister, Scott Morrison, once brought a literal lump of coal into Parliament and waved it at fellow members, proclaiming "don't be scared."
A country where Gina Reinhardt, a mining magnate and Australia's richest woman, with an estimated wealth of $22 billion, can make speeches at Australian schools and tell students to guard themselves against the "propaganda" of climate change.
A country where Morrison's chief of staff is John Kunkel, formerly the deputy CEO of the Minerals Council of Australia. The same Minerals Council that's funded, developed and created mining-focused video games for the Australian school curriculum.
In Australia, the government and the mining industry are uniquely connected in multiple problematic ways. From 1999 to 2019, Moss said, the mining industry donated over $130 million to Australian political parties.
"These groups not only donate substantial funds to political parties, but there is also a revolving door of appointments," Moss says.
"If I was the Minerals Council and someone asked me, 'Am I happy with the representation of the mining industry in government?' I would be delighted. I would be orgasmic."
After the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, in November, when China and India controversially forced a coal-related language change from "phase out" to "phase down," elected representative Matt Canavan -- whose Twitter profile features a photo of his face smeared with coal -- appeared on national television, in front of a screen saying "GLASGOW: A HUGE WIN FOR COAL."
He called the language change a "green light" for Australia to build "more coal mines."
In the context of Australia's inextricable links between the mining industry and government, do video games even matter? Not really, says Gocher, from the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility. The ease with which the Minerals Council was able to inject video games it funded into the school curriculum is the real issue. And that issue has deep roots in the foundational culture of Australia as a nation.
"That's more dangerous than the Minecraft stuff," he says.
Ultimately, both Gocher and Moss are optimistic. Not because of the situation, not because of the minor progress made at conferences like COP26, but because of the resilience of the audience the Minerals Council of Australia is targeting with these video games. Both were resolute: Regardless of any efforts to sway public opinion, the next generation of workers is far too savvy and too invested in the future well-being of this planet to be impacted by something as simple as a video game.
"I don't think it'll work," Moss says. "I think it's a rather desperate attempt to change the overwhelmingly negative perception of the fossil fuels section of the mining industry.
"That is something that, really, they're fighting an uphill battle against."
Pegasus Spyware and Citizen Surveillance: Here's What You Should Know
Pegasus Spyware and Citizen Surveillance: Here's What You Should Know
For digital spying technology, it's a doozy of a case. Security researchers have revealed evidence of attempted or successful installations of Pegasus, software made by Israel-based cybersecurity company NSO Group, on phones belonging to activists, rights workers, journalists and businesspeople. They appear to have been targets of secret surveillance by software that's intended to help governments pursue criminals and terrorists, and as the months go by, more and more Pegasus infections are emerging.
The most recent revelation is that Pegasus infected the phones of at least 30 Thai activists, according to a July report from Citizen Lab, a Canadian security organization at the University of Toronto. Apple warned those with infected phones in November.
To try to thwart such attacks, Apple has built a new Lockdown Mode into iOS 16, its iPhone software update due to arrive later in 2022, and into its upcoming MacOS Ventura.
The US government is one of the most powerful forces unleashed against Pegasus — even though the CIA and FBI were Pegasus customers, as reported by The New York Times in January. The US Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation, The Guardian said in February, after a whistleblower said NSO Group offered "bags of cash" for sensitive mobile phone data from a US tech firm, Mobileum. The spyware was found on the phones of at least nine State Department officials who were either based in Uganda or involved in matters associated with the African country, Reuters and The New York Times reported in December.
Pegasus is the latest example of how vulnerable we all are to digital prying. Our phones store our most personal information, including photos, text messages and emails. Spyware can reveal directly what's going on in our lives, bypassing the encryption that protects data sent over the internet.
Pegasus has been a politically explosive issue that's put Israel under pressure from activists and from governments worried about misuse of the software. In November, the US federal government took much stronger action, blocking sale of US technology to NSO by putting the company on the government's Entity List. NSO has suspended some countries' Pegasus privileges but has sought to defend its software and the controls it tries to place on its use. NSO Group didn't respond to a request for comment, and the Justice Department declined to comment.
Here's what you need to know about Pegasus.
What is NSO Group?
It's an Israel-based company that licenses surveillance software to government agencies. The company says its Pegasus software provides a valuable service because encryption technology has allowed criminals and terrorists to go "dark." The software runs secretly on smartphones, shedding light on what their owners are doing. Other companies provide similar software.
Hulio co-founded the company in 2010. NSO also offers other tools that locate where a phone is being used, defend against drones and mine law enforcement data to spot patterns.
NSO has been implicated by previous reports and lawsuits in other hacks, including a reported hack of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2018. A Saudi dissident sued the company in 2018 for its alleged role in hacking a device belonging to journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who had been murdered inside the Saudi embassy in Turkey that year.
New Yorker coverage details some of NSO Group's inner workings, including its argument that Pegasus is similar to military equipment that countries routinely sell to other countries, the company's tight ties to the Israeli government and its recent financial difficulties. It also revealed that NSO employees posted on the wall a detailed Google analysis of one Pegasus attack mechanism that concludes its NSO's abilities "rival those previously thought to be accessible to only a handful of nation states."
In the case of the Thai activists, NSO Group didn't comment specifically but told the Washington Post, "Politically motivated organizations continue to make unverifiable claims against NSO."
What is Pegasus?
Pegasus is NSO's best-known product. It can be installed remotely without a surveillance target ever having to open a document or website link, according to The Washington Post. Pegasus reveals all to the NSO customers who control it — text messages, photos, emails, videos, contact lists — and can record phone calls. It can also secretly turn on a phone's microphone and cameras to create new recordings, The Washington Post said.
General security practices like updating your software and using two-factor authentication can help keep mainstream hackers at bay, but protection is really hard when expert, well-funded attackers concentrate their resources on an individual. And Pegasus installations have employed "zero click" attacks that take advantage of vulnerabilities in software like Apple Messages or Meta's WhatsApp to silently install software.
Pegasus isn't supposed to be used to go after activists, journalists and politicians. "NSO Group licenses its products only to government intelligence and law enforcement agencies for the sole purpose of preventing and investigating terror and serious crime," the company says on its website. "Our vetting process goes beyond legal and regulatory requirements to ensure the lawful use of our technology as designed."
Human rights group Amnesty International, however, documents in detail how it traced compromised smartphones to NSO Group. Citizen Lab said it independently validated Amnesty International's conclusions after examining phone backup data and since 2021 has expanded its Pegasus investigations.
In September, though, Apple fixed a security hole that Pegasus exploited for installation on iPhones. Malware often uses collections of such vulnerabilities to gain a foothold on a device and then expand privileges to become more powerful. NSO Group's software also runs on Android phones.
Why is Pegasus in the news?
Forbidden Stories, a Paris journalism nonprofit, and Amnesty International, a human rights group, shared with 17 news organizations a list of more than 50,000 phone numbers for people believed to be of interest to NSO customers.
The news sites confirmed the identities of many of the individuals on the list and infections on their phones. Of data from 67 phones on the list, 37 exhibited signs of Pegasus installation or attempted installation, according to The Washington Post. Of those 37 phones, 34 were Apple iPhones.
The list of 50,000 phone numbers included 10 prime ministers, three presidents and a king, according to an international investigation released in mid-July by The Washington Post and other media outlets, though there's no proof that being on the list means an NSO attack was attempted or successful.
The episode hasn't helped Apple's reputation when it comes to device security. "We take any attack on our users very seriously," Federighi said. The company said it'll donate $10 million and any damages from the lawsuit to organizations that are advocating for privacy and are pursuing research on online surveillance. That's a drop in the bucket for Apple, which reported a profit of $20.5 billion for its most recent quarter, but it can be significant for much smaller organizations, like Citizen Lab.
In addition to Mangin, two journalists at Hungarian investigative outlet Direkt36 had infected phones, The Guardian reported.
A Pegasus attack was launched on the phone of Hanan Elatr, wife of murdered Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi, The Washington Post said, though it wasn't clear if the attack succeeded. But the spyware did make it onto the phone of Khashoggi's fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, shortly after his death.
Seven people in India were found with infected phones, including five journalists and one adviser to the opposition party critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, The Washington Post said.
And six people working for Palestinian human rights groups had Pegasus-infected phones, Citizen Lab reported in November.
What are the consequences of the Pegasus situation?
The US cut off NSO Group as a customer of US products, a serious move given that the company needs computer processors, phones and developer tools that often come from US companies. NSO "supplied spyware to foreign governments" that used it to maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics and embassy workers. These tools have also enabled foreign governments to conduct transnational repression," the Commerce Department said.
Apple sued NSO Group in November, seeking to bar the company's software from being used on Apple devices, require NSO to locate and delete any private data its app collected, and disclose the profits from the operations. "Private companies developing state-sponsored spyware have become even more dangerous," said Apple software chief Craig Federighi. That suit came after Meta's WhatsApp sued NSO Group in 2019.
French President Emmanuel Macron changed one of his mobile phone numbers and requested new security checks after his number appeared on the list of 50,000 numbers, Politico reported. He convened a national security meeting to discuss the issue. Macron also raised Pegasus concerns with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, calling for the country to investigate NSO and Pegasus, The Guardian reported. The Israeli government must approve export licenses for Pegasus.
Israel created a review commission to look into the Pegasus situation. And on July 28, Israeli defense authorities inspected NSO offices in person.
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said if the allegations are verified, that Pegasus use is "completely unacceptable." She added, "Freedom of media, free press is one of the core values of the EU."
The Nationalist Congress Party in India demanded an investigation of Pegasus use.
Edward Snowden, who in 2013 leaked information about US National Security Agency surveillance practices, called for a ban on spyware sales in an interview with The Guardian. He argued that such tools otherwise will soon be used to spy on millions of people. "When we're talking about something like an iPhone, they're all running the same software around the world. So if they find a way to hack one iPhone, they've found a way to hack all of them," Snowden said.
What does NSO have to say about this?
NSO acknowledges its software can be misused. It cut off two customers in recent 12 months because of concerns about human rights abuses, according to The Washington Post. "To date, NSO has rejected over US $300 million in sales opportunities as a result of its human rights review processes," the company said in a June transparency report.
However, NSO strongly challenges any link to the list of phone numbers. "There is no link between the 50,000 numbers to NSO Group or Pegasus," the company said in a statement.
"Every allegation about misuse of the system is concerning me," Hulio told the Post. "It violates the trust that we give customers. We are investigating every allegation."
In a statement, NSO denied "false claims" about Pegasus that it said were "based on misleading interpretation of leaked data." Pegasus "cannot be used to conduct cybersurveillance within the United States," the company added.
Regarding the alleged infection of State Department phones, NSO Group didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. But it told Reuters it canceled relevant accounts, is investigating, and will take legal action if it finds misuse.
NSO will try to reverse the US government's sanction. "We look forward to presenting the full information regarding how we have the world's most rigorous compliance and human rights programs that are based the American values we deeply share, which already resulted in multiple terminations of contacts with government agencies that misused our products," an NSO spokesperson said.
In the past, NSO had also blocked Saudi Arabia, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and some Mexican government agencies from using the software, The Washington Post reported.
How can I tell if my phone has been infected?
Amnesty International released an open-source utility called MVT (Mobile Verification Toolkit) that's designed to detect traces of Pegasus. The software runs on a personal computer and analyzes data including backup files exported from an iPhone or Android phone.
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Vivo's new V15 Pro is a mixed bag of mostly good tricks
Vivo's new V15 Pro is a mixed bag of mostly good tricks
In a bold move, Vivo's introducing its newest flagship, the Vivo V15 Pro just hours before Samsung will officially unveil its highly anticipated Galaxy S10. Based in China, Vivo is hoping to one-up the Korean giant, and from where I stand, there's a chance it'll actually do it, maybe not in sales, but in terms of making a more covetable phone with some standout features.
Clad in a shimmery blue chassis, the V15 Pro is a looker. I liked it from the get-go, and not just because of its crazy specs, which include a 32-megapixel pop-up selfie camera, and triple rear cameras, one of which is a massive 48 megapixels.
And that's not all, despite its status as more of a midrange device, the phone includes a in-screen fingerprint scanner. However it houses only a Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 chip as its CPU.
While it's no Snapdragon 845 or 855, the V15 Pro has more than enough power to keep your games running smoothly, such as Asphalt 8 or Marvel Strike Force. Further, the 3,700mAh battery packed enough juice to keep things chugging through the whole day. It also has fast charging, so you can recharge it quickly when the battery's dry.
It will go on sale in India first, as well as other markets in Asia, for about $400. Don't expect this to be available in US, UK or Australia anytime soon though. Vivo's pushing to get larger market share in India, currently the second-largest smartphone market in the world, and the V15 Pro looks like it has what it takes.
Of course if this all sounds good, well, here's the head-scratcher. It comes with all the bells and whistles that you'd find in a flagship, but skimps on the charging port, using a micro-USB instead of USB-C. It boggles the mind why this is the case, but the usual explanation I get from other Chinese phone-makers is that they're catering to those who are still stuck with micro-USB cables, but this doesn't make sense to me, since a Type-C cable isn't an expensive upgrade in China.
What does make sense though, is that it probably costs more to use Type-C ports for now, but that's expected to dip in the future, and future Vivo phones will likely switch to the more modern port.
Despite its cool features such as in-screen fingerprint sensor and a pop-up camera, the phone still uses a micro-USB port.
Aloysius Low/CNET
I've been using the V15 Pro for a few days now, and if there's one thing that bugs me, it's the poor design of the user interface (UI). It's still using the same old iOS-inspired features, such as a swipe-up control panel, and it has no app drawer, much like the button-based iPhone. But there's something quite off about it, and unlike Oppo and OnePlus, both of which have worked hard on polishing their UI, the V15 Pro still feels stuck in the past despite its modern trappings.
I suppose it's adequate for the average user in China or India where this phone will launch first, who probably don't mind it as much if they the phone does what they need it to do. But having used phones with much better UI, I just find it a shame that it isn't better.
But if you can get past that though, you'll be impressed with triple rear shooters, a 48-megapixel main, a 8-megapixel wide, and a 5-megapixel depth cameras, which I took quite a lot of shots with. The wide-angle really helps capture a lot more, and it also takes great shots that pop on the 6.4-inch display.
The rear triple camera setup features a 48-megapixel main, an 8-megapixel wide-angle and a 5-megapixel depth camera.
Aloysius Low/CNET
Like the Vivo Nex of last year, the V15 Pro comes with a pop-up selfie camera, this time with 32 megapixels of goodness. I'm not sure if it really helps me take better selfies though, and honestly, I'm less than convinced you'll need 32 megapixels when the pictures don't feel and look any different compared with, say, those taken with the iPhone XR's front 7-megapixel camera. It does come with a beauty mode, which I had fun playing with bigger eyes and thinner noses, cheeks and chins.
Check out the shots below.
The wide-angle lens allows you to capture a lot more, though the colors seem to be a tad over-saturated.
Aloysius Low/CNET
The normal shot is a lot tighter, though colors are still oversaturated.
Portrait mode works great, and the background blur isn't too artificial.
Aloysius Low/CNET
The front selfie camera has plenty of tricks, including making you look a lot slimmer (as well as giving you a smaller nose). Check below for the non-beauty enhanced mode. If there's one thing I noticed though, it's that the images from the seflie camera are a lot less warm and feel a bit overexposed.
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Amid War in Ukraine, Should Ordinary Russians Be Banned From Trading Crypto?
Amid War in Ukraine, Should Ordinary Russians Be Banned From Trading Crypto?
This story is part of War in Ukraine, CNET's coverage of events there and of the wider effects on the world.
As Russia's war on Ukraine intensifies, the US and its allies have continued to increase their economic pressure on the Russian government, to isolate the country further from the global financial system and debilitate its military capacity. Western allies have frozen Russian assets abroad, removed Russian banks from international banking networks and even banned all gas and oil imports, among other unprecedented penalties. But there's still growing concern that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his supporters might turn to cryptocurrencies to avoid economic sanctions.
With their ability to operate as alternatives to the traditional financial system, cryptocurrency exchanges -- digital marketplaces where you can buy and trade digital currencies -- have become an effective option both for Ukraine supporters to raise funds for relief efforts and for ordinary Russians to seek financial shelter from the economic sanctions imposed on their country.
That's why both the Ukrainian government and advocates for even further economic penalties against Russia have become increasingly vocal about the role crypto exchanges can play in the conflict. Hundreds of Western businesses, such as oil companies Shell and BP and tech players Netflix and Microsoft, have scaled back or halted their dealings in Russia since the beginning of the war. And some people argue that similarly stopping crypto operations in the country could significantly weaken Putin's hold on Russia's economy and its citizens.
"I'm asking all major crypto exchanges to block addresses of Russian users," Ukraine's vice prime minister and minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, tweeted Feb. 28. "It's crucial to freeze not only the addresses linked to Russian and Belarusian politicians but also to sabotage ordinary users."
Fedorov also sent letters to eight cryptocurrency exchanges, including two of the largest by volume, Coinbase and Binance, asking them to stop offering service to Russian users out of concern digital currencies are being used to evade sanctions.
The response was swift.
"We are not preemptively banning all Russians from using Coinbase," CEO Brian Armstrong tweeted March 3. "We believe everyone deserves access to basic financial services unless the law says otherwise." And hours after getting Fedorov's letter, a Binance spokesperson told CNBC, "We are not going to unilaterally freeze millions of innocent users' accounts. Crypto is meant to provide greater financial freedom for people across the globe. To unilaterally decide to ban people's access to their crypto would fly in the face of the reason why crypto exists."
But the CEOs of several exchanges, including some that got Fedorov's letter, said that though they'll continue to offer access to ordinary Russians, they're complying with US law in regard to sanctions. On March 7, Coinbase reportedly said that to facilitate sanctions enforcement, it had blocked more than 25,000 wallet addresses related to Russian individuals or entities thought to have engaged in illicit activity and had reported them to the US government.
Ukraine's request for an all-out ban on Russian users, and the unequivocal rejection from most regulated crypto exchanges, has sparked a debate about the responsibilities digital currency platforms have in an international conflict. As a growing number of Western companies decide to stop conducting business in Russia, should crypto exchanges follow suit and go beyond what they're required to do by law? And even if they did, would banning all Russian users from crypto exchanges make a difference in slowing down Russia's invasion of Ukraine?
Some crypto specialists interviewed by CNET, including executives from crypto companies and public officials working to prevent Russia from using digital assets to sidestep economic sanctions, said a full Russian ban from crypto platforms could do more harm than good in regard to ordinary Russians. And some said the volume of the whole crypto market is still too small to really help Putin's government counter the impact of Western economic penalties, even if it tried.
But other experts on the role the private sector can play in global conflicts said bringing the Russian economy to a standstill is the one nonmilitary way to thwart Putin's advance on Ukraine, and that crypto exchanges can contribute to that only if they stop operating in Russia altogether.
Cryptocurrencies are digital assets that are recorded on a blockchain, a distributed digital ledger that can't be altered. They usually aren't backed by an underlying asset, such as fiat currency. That's why they could be an ideal safe haven amid a wave of economic sanctions.
Why crypto exchanges won't budge on Russia
In refusing to kick ordinary Russians off their platforms, cryptocurrency exchanges argue that the move would further hurt Russian citizens who are suffering from the economic impact of the war and who might consider buying cryptocurrencies as a way to protect their financial standing.
"We all saw those photos of runs on ATMs from Russian citizens -- lines around the block in Moscow," said Todd Conklin, counselor to the deputy secretary of the US Treasury Department. "One would suspect ordinary citizens may have been looking for an alternative to the ruble." Conklin made the remarks during a March 4 webinar hosted by blockchain analytics company TRM Labs about the possibility Russia could use cryptocurrencies to avoid economic sanctions.
The ruble, Russia's national currency, has lost nearly 50% of its value against the US dollar since the start of the year, according to Reuters. Other parts of Russia's financial system have also been impacted by the West's pressure on the country to stop its aggression on Ukraine. Digital payment services such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay aren't available in Russia any longer. Visa, Mastercard and PayPal also halted operations in the country. Ordinary Russian citizens, worried that economic sanctions will devastate the Russian economy even further, have flocked to ATMs and banks, seeking to withdraw as much cash as possible before it might be too late.
"Some ordinary Russians are using crypto as a lifeline now that their currency has collapsed," Armstrong, the Coinbase CEO, tweeted. "Many of them likely oppose what their country is doing, and a ban would hurt them, too."
As long as US crypto businesses are complying with US laws in ensuring that sanctioned individuals or entities aren't using their platforms, "crypto could be a vital lifeline for ordinary Russians to preserve their savings [and] receive familial remittances," Michael Parker said in an email. Parker is a former federal prosecutor who's now head of anti-money laundering and sanctions practice at Ferrari & Associates, a Washington, DC-based law firm.
Jesse Powell, co-founder and CEO of Kraken Exchange, another crypto platform, tweeted that though he understood the rationale behind Ukraine's request to remove all Russians from crypto exchanges, Kraken "cannot freeze the accounts of our Russian clients without a legal requirement to do so."
"I would guess that the vast majority of crypto holders on @krakenfx are anti-war," Powell tweeted. "#Bitcoin is the embodiment of libertarian values, which strongly favor individualism and human rights."
Given the anti-authority libertarian streak that fuels so much of the cryptocurrency sector, the refusal from crypto exchange executives to stop operations in Russia isn't surprising, said Yale University professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, who's the president of the Chief Executive Leadership Institute, a nonprofit focused on CEO leadership and corporate governance.
Crypto executives don't like "being told what to do," Sonnenfeld said. "And yet, there's a striking naivete [in] that they are working in support of [Putin], the greatest autocrat alive today, the most restricted world leader, [who] they are tacitly supporting by enabling a bypass, if it's even for the cognoscenti, for elites and for oligarchs, if it was as limited as some claim."
Sonnenfeld said that the reason more than 300 Western companies have pulled out of Russia so far isn't that the government told them to do so. "It's the maverick streak of these CEOs who pulled out and started this thundering herd," he said, "courageous CEOs who had the moral character to pull out."
What a full ban on Russia would and wouldn't do
Some specialists said that blocking all Russians from crypto would not only potentially inflict damage on millions of innocent citizens, but it would also do little to amplify the West's sanctions on Russia's economy. The reason? Russia doesn't have the digital infrastructure to tap into crypto assets at a level required to outmaneuver the economic penalties already imposed by the US and its allies.
"You can't flip a switch overnight and run a G20 economy on cryptocurrency," Conklin said during the webinar hosted by blockchain intelligence company TRM. He explained that in recent years, Russia has worked to bolster the ruble and build up its reserves, instead of laying the rails needed to support crypto. That's why US economic sanctions have been focused on preventing Russia from accessing the reserves it keeps overseas. "Big banks in an economy need real liquidity," Conklin said. "Conducting large-scale transactions in virtual currency is likely to be slow and expensive."
Anthony Citrano, founder of Los Angeles-based NFT platform Acquicent, pointed to crypto prices as a clue to what's going on. "If the Russian government really were using crypto as a major piece of their international finance strategy, you'd expect to see absolutely explosive growth in prices of major crypto [currencies]," he said, "which we have not seen. Time will tell, but for now there is zero evidence this is happening."
Former federal prosecutor Ari Redbord, who's now head of legal and government affairs at TRM, said the economic sanctions levied so far have been so "serious and so draconian in their measures" that Russia would need much more than crypto assets to counterbalance them. "We're talking about [the] potential loss of, or no access to, hundreds of billions of dollars in frozen [Russian] Central Bank assets. We're talking about $1.5 trillion in potential trade losses," he said. "The entire crypto market cap doesn't approach what ultimately Russia would need to prop up a G20 [economy] government and fight what is going to become a more and more costly war."
But that doesn't mean the Russian government or Putin's supporters won't try to use crypto to circumvent economic sanctions. "Russian actors are very adept at money laundering and have been for a long time," Redbord said. In the case of crypto, they'll be looking for "noncompliant exchanges in order to move those funds."
Such exchanges include platforms like Suex, which was blacklisted by the Biden administration in September for allegedly helping launder ransomware payments. TRM has identified about 340 exchanges that are either in Russia or Russia-related and don't have compliance controls in place, "and that is where illicit actors will look to move on as on-ramps and off-ramps for crypto," Redbord said.
Those digital platforms are already operating outside the law, though. For any US business, including businesses in the crypto industry, "there is still a full compliance obligation to not deal with sanctioned parties or interests in blocked property," said Parker, from Ferrari & Associates. "US crypto businesses must, and largely do, institute robust compliance programs, including advanced analytics software, to ensure legal compliance with US sanctions."
Bringing Russia to a standstill
Yale's Sonnenfeld argues that it's beside the point whether Putin and his supporters can actually get their hands on enough digital assets to offset the impact of Western sanctions. He said that by halting all operations in Russia, crypto exchanges could contribute to putting even more pressure on Putin's government, until it reaches a tipping point.
"Government-ordered sanctions have limits," Sonnenfeld said, even if they're a coordinated effort between multiple international actors, including the US, the EU, the UK, Australia, Japan and the UN. "They work best when voluntary efforts of the private sector rally."
That's what happened in South Africa in the late 1980s, Sonnenfeld said, when international pressure contributed to putting an end to apartheid, a system of institutionalized racial segregation that had ruled the country for more than 40 years. Economic sanctions imposed by the US government had an effect only when dozens of major private companies joined in. "It brought civil society to a stop/standstill," he said.
Sonnenfeld and his research team at Yale compiled a list of companies that continued operating in Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. After the publication of a Washington Post story that mentioned that McDonald's and Starbucks were on the list, both chains announced plans to stop operating in Russia. Since the list was created and made public, it now shows "over 330 companies [that] have announced their withdrawal from Russia in protest" of the Ukraine war.
For Sonnenfeld, paralyzing Russia's economy is the only nonmilitary option the West has against Putin's advances on Ukraine.
"The humanitarian thing to do is to not go with bombs and bullets, and to strangle civil society" and dissolve Putin's image of being a totalitarian with full control over all sectors, he said. "If you can show him to be truly impotent over the economy, that he doesn't have control over civil society, then he and the oligarchs fall flat on their face, and that's what cryptocurrency mavericks can do" should they decide to halt operations in Russia. "They can be really helpful here."
Allowing ordinary Russians to have access to digital assets through crypto exchanges is "not doing anything humanitarian," Sonnenfeld said. "People should be thrown out of work, they should be out on the street" due to an economic collapse brought on by government-ordered sanctions and to private companies denying Russian citizens access to services, goods and money. "Is that cruel?" Sonnenfeld said. "No, it is better than shooting them, than bombing them -- and that's the stage we're at right now."
