Today, Wednesday 5 February, Luca Casarini, leader and among the founders of the Mediterranean NGO, said that January 31, with an official communication, destination, the company owned by the messaging service WhatsApp, informed him that his phone had been violated by a high -level “spyware” operationthrough the use of a software called “among the most sophisticated in the world”.
The same company owner of the messaging social network advised to change the cell phone immediately and to contact their consultants, A research team based at the University of Toronto, “The Citizen Lab“. Almost simultaneously tested and international journalistic agencies, they gave the news of the violation of WhatsApp security systems, which involved 90 “targets” all over the world, in particular civil society activists and journalists.
The software used to carry out the spyware infiltration is called “paragon” and is developed by the Israeli company “Paragon Solution”who declared that he had provided it “to the US government and other government agencies of intelligence of allied countries”. The experts of The Citizen Lab are carrying out in -depth searches about Luca Casarini’s phone and in the next few days it will be possible to know how long this operation had lasted. In addition to identifying what features he had in stealing messages, contacts and audio, video and photographic material.
“We are already aware of other cases, in Italy and abroad, involving human rights defenders, activists and investigative journalists. We also know that as regards Luca and others, the rescue activity at sea, and help to the people locked up in Libyan or deported in the desert, are at the center of the attention of the Italian secret services, in particular the Aise that operates in Libya and Tunisia. But we will certainly know something more, after the conclusion of the civil investigations that we are leading thanks to the support of specialized teams », they say from Mediterranea. Where do they also ask: “Has the Italian government authorized such an operation? Are the Italian secret services use the paragon software? Meanwhile, to those who think they are afraid, through the message that in the name of the “reason of state” everything is allowed, we respond with the serenity of those who have nothing to hide: we try in every way to save the lives, unlike whom Instead it lets thousands of people die at sea or in the desert. We have no relationships with torturers and traffickers of human beings, on the contrary instead of those who protect them from international capture mandates for crimes against humanity. At the state of fear, of the violation of human rights, of ferocity against the weakest, we disobey to be “yeast of hope and germ of a new world”based on solidarity and human fraternity. We will also use this yet another test to learn to organize ourselves better and to continue with the last of the world, the path of “conspiracy of the good” ».
The spyware in Casarini’s phone allows you to access all the data of the device in which it infiltrates, and also manages to read the messages exchanged on apps like WhatsApp, considered – unlike Telegram – very safe as protected by inviolable encryption systems end-to-end. The government has never responded to requests to media requests, on the possibility that it is a paragon customer. Today the Verdi and left alliance has announced a parliamentary question on the case.
