Talk:NSO Group

A fact from NSO Group appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 16 September 2016 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Israeli software company NSO Group has been identified as the possible developer of the iOS spyware Pegasus?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2016/September. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/NSO Group.

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Q[edit]

The infobox stated that a former name of the company is "Q". But there is only one source that states so, with every other source I could find not even mentioning it (except for one other source in hebrew, which obviously copied from this source).

When writing that the company had a former name, it means that it was registered under a different name. I have information that the name it was first registered in, and the current name, are identical, so I find it unlikely that the company officially changed its name and then did it again. To the very least, one news article is not enough evidence. It could also very well be that what the article was refering to was a change in the name it market itself, but not an official change of name. Orielno (talk) 15:35, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is incorporation paperwork available online in Israel like they are in the US? Brandon (talk) 01:06, 27 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If it was traded in TASE then I could get that from its public reports. Since it is not, such infomation requires an official request and some payment to get the information. I don't think it worths the trouble, since it seems that "Q" was only a name supposed to be used for marketing (and not an official name), and also for a very short time. Orielno (talk) 06:10, 27 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I managed to find a way to check it out, not for free but for a very small price. My findings: NSO was registered by the name "N.S.O. GROUP TECHNOLOGIES LTD" in 25/01/2010, and hasn't changed its name ever since. Orielno (talk) 10:33, 30 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for doing the legwork to confirm this and updating the correct date of foundation! Brandon (talk) 21:33, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

2012 coverage in Hebrew, native speaker needed[edit]

The NSO Group and their Pegasus software has been covered in this 2012 journal article: יש לנו מאזין על הקו. Could some native speaker please use it to improve this article? --bender235 (talk) 17:19, 28 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Undue weight for self-description in lead[edit]

I have removed most of the company's self-description from the lead. Such details should be about the company from independent sources, not from the company. When these assertions are verified by reliable sources (beyond a mere quotation of the company's own statement), they could be included. GermanJoe (talk) 22:22, 28 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Funding from unit 8200[edit]

Regarding this edit - It is not my personal opinion, it is based. Units in the IDF don't fund PRIVATE companies (there are collaborations sometimes, but not funding). Anyone who knows a little about the way the IDF and militarty industries in Israel work knows that (if it is true that 8200 used its own budget to fund a private firm, it is probably a case of corruption... if the army can in any way fund a private firm, it must be using budgets meant for that directly from the Israeli Ministry of Defense). Also, it is quite bizzare that none of dozens of articles in Hebrew (nor in English) stated so, if it is really true, while they did mentioned funding from other sources.

Also, and that is more important than everything else - the article says: "likely", in other words - it is a pure speculation of the reporter! He himself never checked it! So why do we need to add an opinion, a speculation of some reporter? If at all, we can write: "Dave Lee speculated that some of the funding came from unit 8200".

So this sentence, which is based purely on some reporter's speculation, should be deleted. Orielno (talk) 17:29, 29 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Another thing - as I said above, since the reporter himself says "likely", it means he doesn't really know, and that's enough to decide not to add this speculated information. But moreover - now I looked again at the article and found out that the reporter thinks that Unit 8200 is "an Israeli military-funded scheme for start-ups"... So the reporter proved, in the same sentence, that he really understands nothing about the topic he refers to, and so make speculations to fill-up missing information.

Also, he didn't mention the fundraising of 1.6 million dollars from private investors mentioned in many many other articles, which means that he probably speculated about the funding because he was unaware of that fundraising. Orielno (talk) 18:21, 29 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree this should be removed, albeit for different reasons... The highly speculative and unsourced (not even a claim of a source) opinion of a single reporter undermines the factual nature of the article. Personally I'm absolutely positive the Israeli government had something to do with the company, as the US Intelligence Community often does with these types of companies in the US, I just think we'd be best off not speculating until the sources come up with more conclusive evidence. Brandon (talk) 23:53, 29 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Francisco Partners holds 70%[edit]

Regarding my edit - sources in hebrew:

An article from TheMarker (it also says that the 70% that were bought include the 30% of the group of investors headed by Eddi Shalev)
An article from Calcalist
An article from pc.co.il
An article from Mizbala

There are also more sources in Hebrew to the start-up funding in the sum of 1.8/1.6 million, but since I found one in English I guess that's enough. Orielno (talk) 06:08, 1 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have restored this recently removed information. But of course it can be discussed here, if the deleting IP editor has any concerns and can provide independent reliable sources for such changes. GermanJoe (talk) 22:20, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

nso murcia spain[edit]

nso similar technology tek is already part of many online social apps like snapchat whatsapp and google plus..off the shelf spies are legally yet unaware to user ..installed in alot of social apps..NSO software might be completely without user awareness but many facebook users are unaware of what facebook or google does in their phones. .no body reads the small print...

so nso does illegally what face google and others do legally by using fast pass small print..Here the controversy is not the spy..it is the illegality.most face users dont know there is a so called good spy in their download. (rov tadot).So here we are not worried about big brother but about illegal activities..93% of murcia spain people dont know they clicked :accept: and allowed a good spy to live in their phones.its legal but they are unaware..nso victims are also unaware but its illegal.so are we worried about spies in our phones? i think not..we really dont care we are numb to it all . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.139.193.163 (talk) 09:07, 4 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Human Rights activists , What is their real crime? and Yahoo concerned about privacy?!?[edit]

One man's "human rights activist" is another's terrorist or terrorism supporter. This article specifically refers to Ahmed Mansour as a "human rights activist." He has been alleged to be a Muslim Brotherhood (MB) supporter and, currently, consideration is being given in the US to offically desgnating the MB as a terrorist organization. Many historians and social commentators have publicly condemned the MB as terrorists for years. Claiming the moon is made of cheese does not make it so and, likewise, calling people "human rights activists" does not make that so. Applying that sobriquet has been a convenient way of disguising terrorists and terrorist supporters for decades. Let's see a list of the ones NSO has supposedly targeted so we can judge.

Regarding the alleged activities of NSO Group - if everything claimed is true, what crime have they actually committed? Espionage is something every nation and many other organizations engage in on a daily basis and they'd be foolish not to. When people are spied on, obviously their privacy is invaded. However, if it is justified by their activities and associations, their privacy becomes of secondary or tertiary concern compared to national interests - particulary national security.

Finally, it's almost amusing a company owned by Yahoo is suing over privacy violations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:ED0:325A:4F00:3C7F:60E0:DE75:9E5 (talk) 10:21, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Please read WP:NOTFORUM and WP:NOR. The description of Mansoor seems consistent with the cited RS and the article Ahmed Mansoor. Regards, HaeB (talk) 18:26, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Article is ready to have Pegasus section moved into the Pegasus article[edit]

I cleaned up the chronology of the article, and separated non-Pegasus information out of the Pegasus section. As per the notice that the Pegasus section could be moved into the Pegasus article, it is now ready to be done if there is no disagreement on the matter. 2604:3D08:497F:F430:8D00:6697:25B9:D52B (talk) 04:54, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That's not how it is done, see WP:SUMMARY. The notice talks about merging the content rather than moving it out of this article into the Pegasus article. Since Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:44, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Pegasus section also provides extremely important information to understand what this company does. If an well written an adequate summary is not provided it should absolutely not be merged. 62.248.185.44 (talk) 00:25, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with 62.*. Zero^talk 01:15, 4 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Merger proposal: merge Pegasus (spyware) into the appropriate section of NSO Group[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was not to merge . Brandon (talk) 17:32, 25 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion has been disrupted by block evasion, ban evasion, or sockpuppetry from the following user:

Trying to reconnect (talk · contribs · block log · spi · lta)

Comments from this user should be excluded from assessments of consensus.

The scope of Pegasus (spyware) is obviously completely encompassed by the NSO Group scope; while NSO Group, on the other hand, has truly little scope outside the Pegasus spyware (even in the NSO lead we define NSO through Pegasus). Even if NSO created another brand of spyware or another kind of cyberweapon, we could still accommodate everything on this page.

The current situation necessitates much duplication (we already have some duplication, but more complete coverage would mean even more duplication).

Relevant: this is how Google researchers describe NSO: "specializing in the creation and sale of software and infrastructure for targeted attacks".^[1] Notrium (talk) 21:54, 25 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

~~yes, i could go for that. Trying to reconnect (talk) 22:52, 17 July 2020 (UTC)~~[reply]

Support merge to stop duplication. Let's try not to lose any content when merging. ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 22:10, 20 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose merge, one is a company, the other is a program; totally different things. If there is duplication, the answer is off course simply to rm the duplication, Huldra (talk) 20:25, 16 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Rich Cannings; Jason Woloz; Neel Mehta; Ken Bodzak; Wentao Chang; Megan Ruthven. "An investigation of Chrysaor Malware on Android". Android Developers Blog.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Typo "costumer" in corporate profile > founding[edit]

See heading Saedes (talk) 23:35, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed, thanks! Brandon (talk) 02:44, 14 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Typo 'procucts" in corporate profile[edit]

In the 10th paragraph it says "procucts", rather than products. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.180.31.43 (talk) 13:10, 14 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed it. Thanks. TolWol (talk) 01:22, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Article claims to know events which “happened” in the future[edit]

The article contains this line:

“in December 2022, a group of NSO creditors described NSO as insolvent in a letter to NSO's majority shareholders.[35]”

Needless to say, December 2022 has not happened yet. The cited article is locked behind a paywall, further obfuscating what the intended meaning was. Necrossady (talk) 01:56, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It pretty obviously means 2021, I fixed it. The paywalled material can be accessed through a paywall remover and I confirmed with the source that it is, indeed, December 2021. ASpacemanFalls (talk) 09:46, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Shalev Hulio[edit]

If Shalev Hulio left the NSO Group in August 2022, why hasn't this supposedly "encyclopedic" article yet mentioned that fact as of January 2023, five months after this significant change in the company's leadership? 76.190.213.189 (talk) 01:02, 13 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Provide a reputable source and feel free to insert that information into the article. Wikipedia is open to all, you can make the change yourself. ASpacemanFalls (talk) 09:08, 13 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Corporate history AND history sections?[edit]

Seems a bit duplicative to have corporate history and history of the corporate in separate sections, no? Most major corporate history details will be key general history events too, and the sections don't seem that well segregated anyway. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:33, 3 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ownership[edit]

I'm looking at this article, and it appears that the ownership of the group changed. The report currently says that A Luxembourg-based holding company controlled by Lavie called Dufresne Holdings is listed as the sole shareholder of NSO’s parent company, according to corporate filings, so I think we can change the infobox to reflect that, but I'm not fluent enough in the language of European bankruptcy litigation to actually translate the article's broader points about who now owns the company into the article text. Is anybody able to help here? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 04:00, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Request to make a minor fix to Corporate Profile#Relationship with the Israeli state[edit]

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

In the aforementioned section, it says "Israel has used Pegasus sales in its diplomatic efforts to forge a united front against Israel, thus clearing the sale of the spyware to Azerbaijan, Morocco, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia." The second mention of "Israel" should be replaced with "Iran". Redmin (talk) 14:30, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done M.Bitton (talk) 18:27, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Rich Cannings; Jason Woloz; Neel Mehta; Ken Bodzak; Wentao Chang; Megan Ruthven. "An investigation of Chrysaor Malware on Android". Android Developers Blog.

[1]