#spy software for android

[onemonitarsoftware]

Sleek Surveillance: ONEMONITAR, Your Trusted Android Spy Software

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[nando161mando]

"Governments May Spy on You by Requesting Push Notifications from Apple and Google"

The relevant components can be removed from Android devices by the end user if they want to, as Android users can remove any software component they want, then choosing to only install apps that use other push-notification mechanisms than through Google's "Firebase Cloud Messaging" such as for example UnifiedPush (@unifiedpush).

Apple users... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[onemonitar7]

[versaalias]

CHYLDMONITOR Mobile Spy for Android

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[agapi-kalyptei]

crowdstrike: hot take 1

It's too early in the news cycle to say anything truly smart, but to sum things up, what I know so far:

there was no "hack" or cyberattack or data breach*

a private IT security company called CrowdStrike released a faulty update which practically disabled all its desktop (?) Windows workstations (laptops too, but maybe not servers? not sure)

the cause has been found and a fix is on the way

as it stands now, the fix will have to be manually applied (in person) to each affected workstation (this could mean in practice maybe 5, maybe 30 minutes of work for each affected computer - the number is also unknown, but it very well could be tens (or hundreds) of thousands of computers across thousands of large, multinational enterprises.

(The fix can be applied manually if you have a-bit-more-than-basic knowledge of computers)

Things that are currently safe to assume:

this wasn't a fault of any single individual, but of a process (workflow on the side of CrowdStrike) that didn't detect the fault ahead of time

[most likely] it's not that someone was incompetent or stupid - but we don't have the root cause analysis available yet

deploying bugfixes on Fridays is a bad idea

*The obligatory warning part:

Just because this wasn't a cyberattack, doesn't mean there won't be related security breaches of all kinds in all industries. The chaos, panic, uncertainty, and very soon also exhaustion of people dealing with the fallout of the issue will create a perfect storm for actually malicious actors that will try to exploit any possible vulnerability in companies' vulnerable state.

The analysis / speculation part:

globalization bad lol

OK, more seriously: I have not even heard about CrowdStrike until today, and I'm not a security engineer. I'm a developer with mild to moderate (outsider) understanding of vulnerabilities.

OK some background / basics first

It's very common for companies of any size to have more to protect their digital assets than just an antivirus and a firewall. Large companies (Delta Airlines) can afford to pay other large companies to provide security solutions for them (CrowdStrike). These days, to avoid bad software of any kind - malware - you need a complex suite of software that protects you from all sides:

desktop/laptop: antivirus, firewall, secure DNS, avoiding insecure WiFi, browser exploits, system patches, email scanner, phishing on web, phishing via email, physical access, USB thumb drive, motherboard/BIOS/UEFI vulnerabilities or built-in exploits made by the manufacturers of the Chinese government,

person/phone: phishing via SMS, phishing via calls, iOS/Android OS vulnerabilities, mobile app vulnerabilities, mobile apps that masquerade as useful while harvesting your data, vulnerabilities in things like WhatsApp where a glitched JPG pictures sent to you can expose your data, ...

servers: mostly same as above except they servers have to often deal with millions of requests per day, most of them valid, and at least some of the servers need to be connected to the internet 24/7

CDN and cloud services: fundamentally, an average big company today relies on dozens or hundreds of other big internet companies (AWS / Azure / GCP / Apple / Google) which in turn rely on hundreds of other companies to outsource a lot of tasks (like harvesting your data and sending you marketing emails)

infrastructure - routers... modems... your Alexa is spying on you... i'm tired... etc.

Anyway if you drifted to sleep in the previous paragraph I don't blame you. I'm genuinely just scratching the surface. Cybersecurity is insanely important today, and it's insanely complex too.

The reason why the incident blue-screened the machines is that to avoid malware, a lot of the anti-malware has to run in a more "privileged" mode, meaning they exist very close to the "heart" of Windows (or any other OS - the heart is called kernel). However, on this level, a bug can crash the system a lot more easily. And it did.

OK OK the actual hot lukewarm take finally

I didn't expect to get hit by y2k bug in the middle of 2024, but here we are.

As bad as it was, this only affected a small portion of all computers - in the ballpark of ~0.001% or even 0.0001% - but already caused disruptions to flights and hospitals in a big chunk of the world.

maybe-FAQ:

"Oh but this would be avoided if they weren't using the Crowdwhatever software" - true. However, this kind of mistake is not exclusive to them.

"Haha windows sucks, Linux 4eva" - I mean. Yeah? But no. Conceptually there is nothing that would prevent this from happening on Linux, if only there was anyone actually using it (on desktop).

"But really, Windows should have a better protection" - yes? no? This is a very difficult, technical question, because for kernel drivers the whole point is that 1. you trust them, and 2. they need the super-powerful-unrestrained access to work as intended, and 3. you _need_ them to be blazing fast, so babysitting them from the Windows perspective is counterproductive. It's a technical issue with no easy answers on this level.

"But there was some issue with Microsoft stuff too." - yes, but it's unknown if they are related, and at this point I have not seen any solid info about it.

The point is, in a deeply interconnected world, it's sort of a miracle that this isn't happening more often, and on a wider scale. Both bugfixes and new bugs are deployed every minute to some software somewhere in the world, because we're all in a rush to make money and pay rent and meet deadlines.

Increased monoculture in IT is bad for everyone. Whichever OS, whichever brand, whichever security solution provider - the more popular they are, the better visible their mistakes will be.

As much as it would be fun to make jokes like "CrowdStroke", I'm not even particularly mad at the company (at this point - that might change when I hear about their QA process). And no, I'm not even mad at Windows, as explained in the pseudo-FAQ.

The ultimate hot take? If at all possible, don't rely on anything related to computers. Technical problems are caused by technical solutions.

[gamerbearmira]

For the Android AU (the one where Luisa gains sentience):

Isabela was made for decoration purposes. Sit still, look pretty, and maybe hold flowers if you're good. She got bored, however, and ran away from her mistress for a new life. Now, she either makes weapons that look like ornamental stuff (fans with razor tips, lasers hidden in brooches, a metal rose with thorns that hold poison) or grows plants for her greenhouse. Maybe she does both.

Dolores is a spy android who doesn't want to invade anyone's privacy, so she tries to find a way out. Eventually, she finds out about the "Gentle Giant" and the "Rosebud Mechanic" (Rosebud is Isabela's brand of android) so she slips away to find them. As a spy robot, nobody notices or cares that she's gone.

Camilo is a jester android, able to modify his features to look like anybody for entertainment. His mistress is caught in the crossfire between two androids, so he tries to join them. Luckily, one of the two was Dolores, and she welcomes him to find his calling.

Mirabel is an android that had been thrown out because of a glitch she had. Nobody's entirely sure what sort of android she was before (SPOILER: SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A NANNY BUT THE FAMILY DIDN'T LIKE HER), but it soon became clear: it wasn't a glitch, it was a benefit. Rather than only focusing on one thing, she's a jack-of-all-trades. She can embroider, sing, dance, and more!

Antonio is Isabela's pet project, literally. She originally wanted to make a robotic animal, but she found that putting the software in a humanoid shell was more helpful. To pay homage to her original idea, she made Antonio a robotic jaguar companion. They have been inseparable from the day Antonio was booted up.

Android brand names:

Isabela: Rosebud

Dolores: Eyewall

Luisa: Donkytonk

Camilo: Shifta

Mirabel: Mariposa

WOAHHHH OK. Loving all the types of androids and what they do. Honestly Mirabel being a jack of all trades is so real. She was probably trying to do the job of other androids rather than just babysitting/watching kids and they thought it was a glitch. Shout out to Isabela for dipping when she had the chance, same with Camilo. Dolores and Luisa for helping everybody (better than Marcus did...) ❗❓also Antonio. Very cool. Humanoid she’ll probably came from one those android models, you know like how Alice was a kid model??? Probably one of those. Also Parce mentioned‼️‼️

Also the names are so silly. But like in a good way.

[bocceclub]

Cell-site simulators mimic cell towers to intercept communications, indiscriminately collecting sensitive data such as call metadata, location information, and app traffic from all phones within their range. Their use has drawn widespread criticism from privacy advocates and activists, who argue that such technology can be exploited to covertly monitor protestors and suppress dissent.

The DNC convened amid widespread protests over Israel’s assault on Gaza. While credentialed influencers attended exclusive yacht parties and VIP events, thousands of demonstrators faced a heavy law enforcement presence, including officers from the US Capitol Police, Secret Service, Homeland Security Investigations, local sheriff’s offices, and Chicago police.

Concerns over potential surveillance prompted WIRED to conduct a first-of-its-kind wireless survey to investigate whether cell-site simulators were being deployed. Reporters, equipped with two rooted Android phones and Wi-Fi hotspots running detection software, used Rayhunter—a tool developed by the EFF [Electronic Frontier Foundation] to detect data anomalies associated with these devices. WIRED’s reporters monitored signals at protests and event locations across Chicago, collecting extensive data during the political convention.

...According to the EFF’s analysis, on August 18—the day before the convention officially began—a device carried by WIRED reporters en route a hotel housing Democratic delegates from states in the US Midwest abruptly switched to a new tower. That tower asked for the device’s IMSI and then immediately disconnected—a sequence consistent with the operation of a cell-site simulator.

“This is extremely suspicious behavior that normal towers do not exhibit,” Quintin [a senior technologist at the EFF] says. He notes that the EFF typically observed similar patterns only during simulated and controlled attacks. “This is not 100 percent incontrovertible truth, but it’s strong evidence suggesting a cell-site simulator was deployed. We don’t know who was responsible—it could have been the US government, foreign actors, or another entity.”

[joviantwelve]

What are “current” androids like in XYZoul, out of curiosity? I noticed that Carmichael was a bit out of date around the time the story starts, so I wonder what newer models are like. Are there any aesthetic differences, things of that sort?

(Totally not rotating the idea of my own robobutler in this setting, if that’s okay of course)

fun question! I'm using them as a device to comment on where I feel modern tech is going, so the "rapid evolution of the tech" early adoption period is over in present canon. base system capabilities are still similar as they were from years back. the AI they come equipped with still learns things at similar paces, still has similar conversational functionality, etc, but since this is also satire, the newer ones also have more bloatware, harder to hack walled garden-style OSes, subscription-based update cycles, harder to open/repair, or internet-connected spying features no one asked for. LMAO

other improvements would be more or less what you expect from the endless forward march of technology, like faster connection speed, more storage, wider customization options, more fluid/realistic movements and responses to terrain, larger batteries and more convenient ways to charge them, etc.

the notable thing for Carmichael specifically is that he still has a mostly "mechanical"-looking body with joints and such. the only places with synthetic skin are his neck/face, hence why he's fully clothed. it was a cost-cutting measure in-universe, so that sort of tech is more feasible now.

I really like to think of "sentient robotic life" as being similar to computers, so that's the angle I take. so for Carmichael, he came from a small forward-thinking manufacturer that since went out of business, so he'd be like. the kind of computer you hear about 20 years after it was discontinued as like an Interesting Tech Oddity that's only really appreciated by Hobbyists nowadays. dshjkfhsdf

Carmichael's manufacturer had an emphasis on human form before it became more feasible in-universe, so at the time of purchase he was seen as fancy but also expensive, form over function, a bit costly in comparison to what you got features-wise but Ivanna wanted a funny little butler bot SO HEY! in that sense she got everything she wanted.

note about "butler bot"--manufacturers also vary on what purposes they create their androids for. some of them are generalist/hobbyist focused but others come equipped with software and hardware for specific industries, usually service. Carmichael's function is "personal assistant" at the base, and he's technically more like a valet or a concierge, but yknow. it's the post-apocalypse 2100s no one knows what an early 1900s butler is like anymore nor do they care. it's all in the presentation.

aesthetics would be down to the manufacturer and the buyer's preferences--since they're a very expensive consumer product, most of them are customizable and built to order. if you just wanted an in-home robot helper, or a robot to help with industry automation, there are capital-R Robots for that, streamlined for those purposes and thus not human at all. androids don't get made for hard labor because it's a waste of resources; they're specifically to replace humans in human-facing jobs, or to be Rich People's Personal Assistants. customization is more or less the highlight, and I imagine the manufacturer's suite of available styles factors into a prospective buyer's decision. there are some that look fully human, but others still that play up a robot look deliberately, with no synthetic skin at all. please, imagine with me a gamer LEDs-style android. thank you.

as for your parenthetical, I certainly don't hold any copyright over the concept of androids, or butlers, or android butlers. if the character's design and story context are different beyond those two factors, then there are no toes stepped on 👍

[odinsblog]

(source)

In June 2019, three Israeli computer engineers arrived at a New Jersey building used by the F.B.I. They unpacked dozens of computer servers, arranging them on tall racks in an isolated room. As they set up the equipment, the engineers made a series of calls to their bosses in Herzliya, a Tel Aviv suburb, at the headquarters for NSO Group, the world’s most notorious maker of spyware. Then, with their equipment in place, they began testing.

The F.B.I. had bought a version of Pegasus, NSO’s premier spying tool. For nearly a decade, the Israeli firm had been selling its surveillance software on a subscription basis to law-enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world, promising that it could do what no one else — not a private company, not even a state intelligence service — could do: consistently and reliably crack the encrypted communications of any iPhone or Android smartphone.

Since NSO had introduced Pegasus to the global market in 2011, it had helped Mexican authorities capture Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the drug lord known as El Chapo. European investigators have quietly used Pegasus to thwart terrorist plots, fight organized crime and, in one case, take down a global child-abuse ring, identifying dozens of suspects in more than 40 countries. In a broader sense, NSO’s products seemed to solve one of the biggest problems facing law-enforcement and intelligence agencies in the 21st century: that criminals and terrorists had better technology for encrypting their communications than investigators had to decrypt them. The criminal world had gone dark even as it was increasingly going global.

But by the time the company’s engineers walked through the door of the New Jersey facility in 2019, the many abuses of Pegasus had also been well documented. Mexico deployed the software not just against gangsters but also against journalists and political dissidents. The United Arab Emirates used the software to hack the phone of a civil rights activist whom the government threw in jail. Saudi Arabia used it against women’s rights activists and, according to a lawsuit filed by a Saudi dissident, to spy on communications with Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, whom Saudi operatives killed and dismembered in Istanbul in 2018.

(continue reading)

[onemonitarsoftware]

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[vishal6x]

WhatsApp Spy Features for Child Safety

Going that extra mile and protecting your children is top-most priority for every parent. With great exposure to smartphones and technology, there is an obvious feeling of concern for parents to know what their child is up to.

With the help of a good parental control app you can track every move of your child. These apps were secretly to spy on phones and keep you updated with all the activities of your child. A phone spy app is one great way of keeping up with your child. 

Kids online can come across all types of content and it could also include some inappropriate content which can be addictive as well as dangerous for your little one. A good phone spy app can help you to monitor your child’s device, giving you all the information. 

Can a phone spy app help ?

A good spy app can make it simple and easy for you to keep your child safe against violating content and unwanted security threats. In today’s time, kids have a smartphone and internet access, being underage and having restrictions to certain activities is now merely a law but once you have easy access to the phone and internet there is every sort of content online. 

Today, even social platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp are also full of violating content, spammers and bots. But you can rely on a good mobile spy app to ease your concern. You can keep track of your loved ones’ device and ensure that they do not engage with any inappropriate content. 

We recommend that firstly if you witness your loved one engaging in any activity that is harmful for them or for your relationship with them, it’s better to have understanding and open communication with them. Especially with kids, if you try to impose any restrictions on them without a valid reason or in some cases even if your concern is valid, your loved one would be frustrated. 

To avoid a challenging situation like this, you can try a spy app for android phone that not only gives you all the information you need but is also fully secure. 

Which spy app to go for?

Let us give you a few insights of the app which is loved and recommended by parents. Onemonitar parental app is tried by not only parents but also people who want to ensure the safety of their loved ones in general. This spy phone application has 50+ features and we’ll highlight the most popular ones for you. 

Onemonitar gives you options to listen to the calls through its hidden call recorder which provides high quality of audio. You can track the real-time location of the target device and know the whereabouts of your child, this ensures that they are not lying to you and even if they are, you know where they are remotely. 

Talking about social media tracking, you can check the accounts of your child across all major social media. You can check their WhatsApp with the help of WhatsApp spy software, you can check their chats, calls and any media that is being exchanged with others. You can scroll through the Instagram and Facebook accounts and who they are interacting with, this will ensure that you are aware of if they are not interacting with any person that could be of danger to them. 

Things to remember!

A spy app can be very helpful when you want to control or supervise the activities of your loved ones. With broader usage and multiple features, regardless of who your target is, a spy phone app is now welcomed and has come in use across the globe. 

These solutions provide you 100% data protection and security and with a phone spy app like Onemonitar only you have the access to your control panel and nobody other than you can see your personal information. Also, their 24*7 support team is available for your assistance through live chats and calls.

You can use the spy app and ensure high security and safety for your dear ones. Happy monitoring with Onemonitar!

[onemonitar7]

[sorasare]

How to Know If Your Cell Phone Has Been Hacked?

What are the significant signs that are used to find out that someone’s phone has been hacked and its information stolen by other people? This question and all similar questions are the common concern of many smartphone users, and considering that the phone is a versatile tool for most people, important information is also stored in it, so hacking the phone and stealing it Losing its information can cause a lot of damage. In order to know whether your smartphone is being spied on or not, follow this article and the security solutions mentioned here.

2 signs that someone is spying on your phone

There are lots of important physical and hardware signs that show your phone is being hacked. In order to find out, continue with us in this part of the article.

You are receiving unusual messages

If you receive unrelated and incomprehensible messages that have never happened before, for example, messages that contain a large number of characters and numbers, you are probably under control. These messages are similar to the codes that are sent to track the location of people. 

AnyControl is the best phone call monitoring app that can track every incoming, outgoing and missed phone call on the target device even if the call log is deleted with its advanced tracking features.

Another way that can reveal the signs of espionage from a software point of view are anti-spyware programs and apps. An example of these apps is Anti Spy Mobile. iPhone phones are usually more secure than Android phones (if they are not jailbroken or unlocked), so if your phone is an iPhone, you can be sure of its greater safety; Because installing spyware requires physical contact with the device.

After sending, a lot of information will be displayed. Pay more attention to URLs. If you have been spied on, many copies of the email you have sent will be sent to different IPs that are different from the IP of your Internet service provider. You can search the term IP lookup on the Internet to distinguish the IP of your ISP from other IPs.

Your data usage has been checked by phone

Through smartphones, you can check the internet usage under the phone's network usage. The spy softwares that is installed in the devices for spying perform their activities by sending and receiving data, which is actually the same as using the Internet. If you see significant changes in your phone's internet usage, there is a possibility that your device is being tapped and its information is being spied on.

[mariacallous]

Meduza's The Beet: Dogged and determined reporters: How journalism persists in Turkmenistan

Hello, and welcome back to The Beet! 

I’m Eilish Hart, the editor of this weekly newsletter from Meduza covering Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. This week, I’m pleased to welcome back journalist Sher Khashimov, who previously reported on Tajikistan’s doxxing problem for The Beet. This time around, he’s introducing us to the dogged and determined reporters covering one of the most closed-off and censored countries in the world. But first, a brief detour to the Caucasus. 

As I was publishing The Beet’s report on Azerbaijan’s cowed anti-war movement last Thursday, the digital-rights group Access Now broke a story revealing that Pegasus spyware was used to hack civil-society figures in Armenia. Notably, these infiltrations took place against the backdrop of the conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh — making this investigation’s findings the first documented evidence of Pegasus spyware being used in the context of an international war.

For those of you who have never heard of Pegasus, buckle up. Developed by the Israeli firm NSO Group, this frighteningly sophisticated piece of hacking software is capable of infecting both iOS and Android devices through so-called “zero-click” attacks. In other words, it can worm its way into your phone — often by exploiting vulnerabilities that the manufacturer has yet to find and fix — and you’d be none the wiser. Once installed, Pegasus grants total access to your device, allowing the hacker to not only view your messages, emails, and photos, but also track your phone’s location, record calls, and use the camera and microphone to capture what’s going on around you. “Basically the attacker gets control of the settings and has even more control than you yourself have over your device,” Natalia Krapiva, a tech-legal counsel at Access Now, told me in an interview for a forthcoming episode of Meduza’s The Naked Pravda podcast. 

The NSO Group maintains that its only clients are governmental agencies that use Pegasus spyware to counter major threats, like terrorism and crime. But investigative journalists and digital-rights experts have painstakingly documented dozens of cases around the world where Pegasus was used to target activists, dissidents, journalists, and opposition politicians. “We have found this technology to be the go-to tool for dictators and authoritarians who want to silence the opposition, retaliate and spy on journalists and activists who are exposing corruption, governmental abuse, [and] investigating human rights abuses,” Krapiva said. 

In the case of Armenia, Access Now and its investigative partners identified at least 12 individuals targeted by Pegasus attacks between October 2020 and December 2022. Many of the infections coincided with the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War and the corresponding peace talks, Armenia’s ensuing political crisis, and successive escalations of the conflict — including the Lachin corridor blockade. Among the victims are a United Nations official, five journalists (two of whom work for RFE/RL’s Armenian service), as well as activists, an academic, and ex-Armenian officials Anna Naghdalyan, a former Foreign Ministry spokesperson, and Kristinne Grigoryan, the country’s former human rights ombudsperson. 

“Each and every one of them had some connection to the [Nagorno]-Karabakh conflict,” Krapiva underscored. “Either they had some kind of knowledge about it or they were critical of the [Armenian] government.” Naghdalyan, whose foreign ministry position put her at the heart of the ceasefire negotiations, was hacked at least 27 times over the course of 10 months. The former official told Access Now that she had “all the information about the developments during the war on [her] phone.” 

Researchers weren’t able to trace the infections back to a specific governmental operator. However, the report suggests that both the Azerbaijani and Armenian authorities could be behind the attacks. As part of the joint investigation, the Canadian Internet watchdog Citizen Lab pinpointed two suspected Pegasus operators based in Azerbaijan, one of which appeared to be monitoring targets both domestically and in Armenia. The 2021 Pegasus Project investigation previously implicated Azerbaijan, as well, with journalists identifying 245 individuals whose Azerbaijani phone numbers were on a list of potential targets. As for the Armenian government, Access Now noted its “possible interest” in spying on the identified targets, as well as reports that Armenia is a likely user of another notorious hacking software called Predator. 

That said, the investigation found no technical evidence suggesting that Armenia is a Pegasus user. 

NSO Group, meanwhile, claims to have “rigorous” internal human rights policies and has consistently denied reports linking its spyware to abuses (even after the United States added the company to a federal blacklist in 2021). Following the latest revelations, NBC News quoted an NSO Group spokesperson as saying that the company “will investigate all credible allegations of misuse.” But Krapiva expressed skepticism over the firm’s boilerplate response. “At this point it’s highly disingenuous for them [NSO Group] to be making these statements about human rights policies because their actual conduct shows that they just don’t care,” she said. “They have no regard for human rights.” 

So why am I telling you all this? Well, as Krapiva underscored during our conversation, the fact that governments across Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia appear to be using highly-advanced spyware to target the likes of journalists and rights advocates is cause for concern. Especially since proper investigations into the human rights abuses these technologies enable are few and far between. “I hope that our investigation will lead to more investment and capacity building, and also interest from journalists, NGOs, and so on, to really uncover, investigate, and bring to light these abuses,” Krapiva urged. “And I'm sure it's just the tip of the iceberg,” she added.

Dogged and determined reporters: How journalism persists in Turkmenistan

By Sher Khashimov

In April, a delegation from Ashgabat met with U.N. officials in Geneva to discuss ongoing strategic partnerships between Turkmenistan and the United Nations. A dry official statement from Turkmenistan’s Foreign Ministry described rather routine meetings about copyright protections, collaboration in the information sphere, and disarmament. According to The Beet’s sources, however, the Turkmen officials were privately forced to respond to a 2021 investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (an international network of investigative journalists, also known as OCCRP), that uncovered how, amid widespread food shortages, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov granted his nephew a $25.7-million contract to import state-subsidized staples. 

The OCCRP investigation offered an unprecedented look at how the president and his family members — beginning under the aforementioned Berdimuhamedov senior, who ruled over Turkmenistan from 2006 to 2022 before transferring power to his son Serdar — control the country’s economic assets. A short documentary that accompanied the OCCRP investigation has almost 199,000 views on YouTube and is currently blocked in Turkmenistan.

“During those meetings [in Geneva], several U.N. officials expressed concerns over how state contracts are handed out to the president’s relatives,” said journalist Ruslan Myatiev, who coauthored the investigation. “The Turkmen delegation denied the allegations, of course.” 

Myatiev is the editor of Turkmen.News, an independent media outlet based in the Netherlands. The son of prominent Turkmen journalists, Myatiev worked as a sports reporter for a local newspaper as a teenager and went on to study journalism at the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek. Upon graduating in 2008, however, he had to rule out going home to work as a journalist due to the rapidly deteriorating human rights situation in Turkmenistan. 

“After it came to light that my parents were working as independent journalists, they were fired from their jobs. My father was attacked in the streets. Somebody threw rocks at our apartment at night,�� Myatiev told The Beet over Zoom from the Netherlands, where he and his family have lived since receiving political asylum in 2010. “My parents faced threats and the likelihood of imprisonment on trumped-up charges, so we left.”

‘Like Soviet propaganda run through the circus’

Unfortunately, the circumstances that drove the Myatievs to flee Turkmenistan are not unique. Journalists around the world have been facing increasing censorship, harassment, and death threats for years. More than 900 journalists have been murdered since 1993 — the vast majority with complete impunity for the perpetrators. Reporters Without Borders classified the press freedom situation as “very bad” in a record 28 countries in 2022, with another 42 classified as “difficult” and 62 as “problematic.” 

Non-democracies in particular have seen a significant uptick in repressions, but wars, the coronavirus pandemic, and economic instability have in recent years eroded or stagnated press freedoms in democratic countries, as well. Dictators and criminal enterprises, meanwhile, see journalists as an existential threat and seek to discredit, diminish, or destroy their work.

But even in this context, Turkmenistan stands out. Today, the country ranks at the bottom of the most prominent democracy, corruption, and press freedom indexes. Elections are rigged, the Berdimuhamedov family dominates political and economic institutions, corruption is systemic, and there is zero tolerance for political dissent. The government also maintains tight control over the information space; major media outlets, including the news agency TDH, the newspapers Turkmenistan and Neytralny Turkmenistan, and the TV channel Altyn Asyr, are state-owned and broadcast government propaganda. Criticism of the president and other government officials is strictly prohibited. Journalists who defy the rules are prosecuted, imprisoned, tortured, and even killed. 

“The media environment in Turkmenistan is abysmal,” said Bruce Pannier, a long-time Central Asia analyst and a former Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) journalist. “The government doesn’t want you to listen to anything but state media. And their state media is like Soviet propaganda that’s been run through the circus. The government suppresses all criticism of its policies and actions, leaving citizens fearful and distrustful of independent information sources.”

“The Turkmen regime has ruled the country with an iron fist, not allowing any independent media to grow in the country,” explained Gulnoza Said, the Europe and Central Asia program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“The authorities subject many citizens, including journalists, to physical and digital surveillance,” she continued. “Currently, [journalist] Nurgeldi Halykov is serving a four-year prison term simply for sharing a photo [of World Health Organization representatives in Turkmenistan] during the first year of the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Journalists can also be barred from traveling abroad, as happened with veteran journalist Soltan Achilova.”

Halykov, who previously contributed to Turkmen.News anonymously to protect himself from government reprisals, was imprisoned on dubious fraud charges. According to Turkmen.News, the prison administration has placed Halykov in a punishment cell on at least three occasions. Achilova, whom the police previously arrested, physically assaulted, and threatened over her work for RFE/RL’s Turkmen service, was prevented from leaving Turkmenistan in 2019. At the time, she was freelancing for The Chronicle of Turkmenistan, a Vienna-based outlet whose founder, the famous Turkmen human rights advocate Farid Tukhbatullin, once suffered a similar fate.

“The government used an alleged assassination attempt on President [Saparmurat] Niyazov as a pretext to arrest a whole bunch of opposition-minded folks, including my father,” said Ruslan Tukhbatullin, Farid’s son and the current editor of The Chronicles of Turkmenistan. “He was held for four months and was let go only due to pressure from the international community but was banned from his advocacy [work].” Tukhbatullin immediately left to join his family in Russia and later accepted a political-asylum offer during a human rights conference in Austria.      

That said, Turkmen journalists aren’t entirely safe abroad either. Instances of transnational repression targeting opposition figures and independent journalists are growing more frequent around the world. And Turkmenistan’s regime is no stranger to engaging in such tactics. In 2021 alone, the National Security Ministry repeatedly harassed and threatened the relatives of Rozybai Jumamuradov and Devlet Bayhan, two exiled journalists who report for The Chronicles of Turkmenistan, in an effort to silence them or pressure them to return to Turkmenistan.

“The threats have died down a bit in the last year or two, but there were several instances in the past when we had to ask Austrian police for protection,” recalled Tukhbatullin. The Tukhbatullins and the Myatievs are too high profile to hide their names anymore, but the rest of their teams are forced to work anonymously to avoid threats and harassment, to protect their loved ones, and to shield their sources. 

“Our distant relatives in Turkmenistan were forced to disown us because my work puts them in an anxious position,” admitted Myatiev. “Sometimes there are menacing comments under my articles that say, ‘Think of your relatives, of what could happen to them.’ These are the realities of our work.”   

‘The authorities block things, left and right’

Operating in exile also means trading away any ease of reporting. For one, working remotely requires relying on a clandestine network of on-the-ground reporters and sources who are increasingly harder to recruit and contact, given the security risks. The dangers to their reporters and sources are so great that all of the independent Turkmen journalists The Beet interviewed flat out refused to reveal any details of how they communicate with their teams. 

“We all face the ethical dilemma of balancing the inherent security risks with the value of on-the-ground reporting. There are no days when answering this dilemma is easy; even the smallest editorial decisions could get someone arrested or tortured,” explained an independent Turkmen journalist and activist based in Turkey, who asked to remain anonymous.

Delivering uncensored information and independent reporting to people living in Turkmenistan is even more difficult. Turkmenistan’s government operates one of the most prohibitive Internet firewalls in the world, which is reportedly blocking more than 2.5 billion IP addresses and 122,000 domains, including those of RFE/RL’s Turkmen service, Turkmen.News, The Chronicles of Turkmenistan, and the opposition-founded Gundogar. Technical and regulatory restrictions make Turkmenistan’s Internet service the slowest and most expensive in the world. While 80 percent of Turkmenistan’s citizens had cell phones as of 2020, only 26 percent used the Internet and just one percent had social media accounts. The use of VPNs, encrypted messengers like Signal and Telegram, and protected email services like Proton is treated as a punishable offense. And the authorities even use flawed content moderation and copyright policies to block independent reporting on social media sites.

“[These restrictions] make it extremely difficult [for sources in Turkmenistan] to send us even a photo, much less a video,” Myatiev lamented. “Even with the widespread use of smartphone cameras that can capture events on the ground, people just lack good [enough] Internet access to inform us.”

The only entities that have unrestricted Internet access in Turkmenistan are government agencies and a handful of foreign embassies and commercial companies. “At any given moment, whenever I check our website analytics, there’s a handful of people reading us from IP addresses in Turkmenistan. We think these are the security services keeping tabs on us,” said Myatiev.

To reach readers in Turkmenistan, independent outlets are forced to rely on a patchwork of communications methods, ranging from social media and messaging apps to mirror sites. Such methods are what made Turkmen.News a success story; Myatiev started working independently in 2010, aggregating news about Turkmenistan in an email-blast that he sent out to 300 people in his contacts. People then started reaching out to him and asking to be added to his mailing list. Within a year, Myatiev had amassed a subscriber base of 3,000 people. A couple of years later, he turned his newsletter into a media outlet using nothing but his own savings.

But such scrappiness is costly. Operating multiple communications channels, maintaining websites and their mirrors, defending against cyberattacks, and being based in Western countries with higher living costs exacerbates the financial toll for independent Turkmen outlets. As a result, these newsrooms operate on shoestring budgets and with small teams.

“We exist mostly on international grants as revenue sources are very limited to us,” Tukhbatullin told The Beet. “There’s no ad revenue. Those who read us in Turkmenistan either lack the technical means of donating to us or are afraid to do so. Those who read us from abroad are students or labor migrants who can’t afford to support us financially either.”

“My team is made up of three and a half people,” Myatiev added with a bitter smile.

‘This work is like a rollercoaster’

Despite being forced out of their country, lacking funding, and facing threats, harassment, and the challenges of reporting on a country with a highly regulated information space full of unwritten rules and gray areas, Turkmen independent journalists have plenty of successes to boast. 

Myatiev’s Turkmen.News is the first and only organization from Turkmenistan to join the OCCRP network — an honor bestowed upon only the most rigorous and dogged investigative outlets around the world. Since 2021, Myatiev has co-authored several detailed investigations into corruption and nepotism in Turkmenistan, and he’s also an active member of the Cotton Campaign, which fights against state-imposed forced labor in Central Asia. “Each of our investigations grows our followers base and the number of sources we have in the country,” Myatiev told The Beet. 

Tukhbatullin’s Chronicles of Turkmenistan, meanwhile, has been patiently and meticulously documenting human rights abuses in the country for more than 15 years. The outlet has amassed more than 107,000 subscribers on YouTube, putting it on par with other notable Central Asian media outlets like Asia Plus and Kloop that operate in the relatively less hostile media environments of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, respectively.

Both Tukhbatullin and Myatiev (who, in addition to sharing a first name and passion for journalism, were classmates in high school) show immense pride in their defiant work, although they admit that it takes an emotional toll. “This work is like a rollercoaster,” Tukhbatullin laughed somberly when asked why he works in journalism. “The pressure, the stress — it all builds up, it can be very difficult. But it’s important work. When [my father and I] started out, there were very few who reported on Turkmenistan. I’m happy there are more of us now.” 

“It can be tough, especially when my reporters get arrested. But there are more days when I’m happy and proud to do this work,” Myatiev said. 

Asked if he has any hope for Turkmenistan, the journalist took a pensive pause. “All my thoughts and all my dreams are connected to my country. All I want is to be useful to Turkmenistan,” Myatiev replied. “I’ve lived in many countries and there are so many positive, constructive lessons I could bring back to help improve Turkmenistan. And I hope someday I will finally return.” 

That’s all for this week!

Remember to stay tuned to The Naked Pravda for my full interview with Access Now’s Natalia Krapiva about the use of Pegasus spyware in the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. Until next time,

Eilish

[sapphira-mydnyte]

Your phone's browser has a DESKTOP mode built into it, USE THE FUCKER & TURN THIS SHIT OFF! I have Firefox on my phone, but the Android phones are getting updated to have Gemini on it, so you really want to be careful with what you keep in your phone too. You've no idea what they're scrapping off your phone, but you can turn the sensors off on the Galaxy phones. (Yes, Firefox has a mobile version & you should be using it.)

Now, how to do you kill your phone from spying on you? Here's the list.

1. Go to your phone's settings, scroll to "About Phone" which should be at the bottom.

2. Go to "Software Information" & tap the "Build Number" 7 to 9 times, it'll unlock the "Developer Mode" menu.

3. Find the "Quick Settings Developer Tiles" option in the Developer Menu list & turn on the "Sensors Off" feature. That kills your microphone, camera & other crap that's running in the background. That's how facebook & google are tracking your ass & throwing ads at you!! They're listening & watching through your phone!

4. Also, there's a "Don't keep activities" switch in there too, so go ahead & turn that on so they can't track your activities.

5. You can check the services running on your phone in the "Running Services" menu & shut down what you don't want, but be mindful... b/c some of the stuff in that area is needed to run the phone normally.

Hey everyone, I know it's going to be a busy day for a lot of people, but Google enrolled everyone over 18 into their AI program automatically.

If you have a google account, first go to gemini.google.com/extensions and turn everything off.

Then you need to go to myactivity.google.com/product/gemini and turn off all Gemini activity tracking. You do have to do them in that order to make sure it works.

Honestly, I'm not sure how long this will last, but this should keep Gemini off your projects for a bit.

I saw this over on bluesky and figured it would be good to spread on here. It only takes a few minutes to do.

[fromdevcom]

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