Beneath the headlines.
Behind the timelines, there is a story no one wants you to find.
Welcome to some unapproved thinking, where forgotten truths, buried patterns, and
invisible systems rise to the surface.
You weren't crazy, you were just early.
Let's begin.
Welcome back, everyone.
Today we're diving into a topic that feels like it's creeping more
and more into our daily lives.
Surveillance.
It's like we're all connected to this digital leash that constantly
pulls us in different directions.
You know, when I first heard about Pegasus, that spyware that can hijack
your phone without any interaction, I was like, oh wait, we're letting this happen.
That's wild.
I mean, accessing messages, microphones, cameras, even our
locations, it's pretty invasive, right?
It starts with a message you never see, no suspicious link,
no strange file, no warning.
Your phone stays in your pocket, your screen never lights up
and nothing looks out of place.
But in that exact moment, your entire digital life may
already be open to someone else.
That's not a theory, that's not a concept, that's a product, and it exists.
I remember the first time I really understood how completely
vulnerable we all are.
I was sitting in a coffee shop.
Watching people around me, everyone staring at their phones, completely
absorbed, completely trusting.
That's when it hit me.
We're all carrying the most sophisticated surveillance device ever created,
and we paid for it ourselves.
The company behind this particular nightmare is called NSO Group.
For years, they've been selling one of the most powerful surveillance tools ever
created to governments around the world.
The software is known as Pegasus.
Tonight we ask when the device in your pocket becomes a window into
your soul, who's really holding the other end of the leash?
Mm. This is some unapproved thinking.
We live in an age where digital surveillance has become so normalized
that we barely notice it anymore.
Your phone tracks your location.
Your apps monitor your behavior.
Your searches are recorded.
Your conversations are analyzed.
We've accepted this as the price of convenience, but what if I told
you there's a level of surveillance so sophisticated, so invasive, so
complete that it makes everything you thought you knew about digital
privacy look like child's play.
I spent years inside corporate systems where we discuss customer
insights and behavioral analytics.
The language was always clinical professional, but what we were really
talking about was surveillance.
If corporations can do this much with your data, imagine what governments
can do with military grade spyware.
The post smartphone world created the perfect surveillance infrastructure.
Everyone carries a device that knows where they are, who they talk to,
what they search for, what they buy, what they read, what they watch.
The infrastructure was already there.
Pegasus just weaponized it.
Pegasus isn't mass surveillance.
It's precision surveillance, targeted, silent surgical.
It doesn't need to watch everyone.
It just needs to watch the people who matter.
The journalists investigating corruption.
The activists organizing resistance, the lawyers defending
dissidents, the politicians asking uncomfortable questions.
Understanding what Pegasus can do isn't just about technology.
It's about recognizing that your phone isn't just a communication device,
it's a surveillance device that can be turned against you by anyone with the
right access and the right motivation.
Let me walk you through what Pegasus actually does, because the reality is more
disturbing than most people can imagine.
Pegasus doesn't need you to click anything.
It doesn't need you to download anything.
It doesn't need you to make any mistakes at all.
These are called zero click exploits.
Vulnerabilities in apps like iMessage or WhatsApp that can be triggered
without any action from you.
One second.
Your phone is yours the next second.
It isn't, and you'll never know the difference.
I've read the technical documentation on how this works.
It's not science fiction, it's operational technology that's been
deployed against real people for years.
Once Pegasus is on your device, it becomes invisible.
It can read your encrypted messages, even from apps that
claim to be completely secure.
It can silently activate your microphone and listen to your
conversations in real time.
It can turn on your camera without the indicator light.
It can track your movements.
With precision.
Oh yeah.
And it leaves almost no trace.
This isn't the kind of surveillance you see in movies where hackers
need to break through firewalls and type furiously on keyboards.
This is point and click spying.
Government agencies can literally purchase the ability to completely
compromise any smartphone on earth.
But here's what makes this truly terrifying.
NSO Group isn't a government agency.
It's a private company.
That means the most sophisticated surveillance technology ever created
is for sale to anyone with enough money and the right connections.
The customer list reads like a who's who of authoritarian regimes, Saudi Arabia,
where journalists get dismembered.
In embassies, Hungary, where the government systematically
eliminates press freedom.
India, where dissidents disappear, Mexico, where reporters
investigating corruption end up dead.
But hold on here.
It's not just authoritarian countries.
Democratic governments have been customers too.
Yeah.
The technology is so powerful, so tempting that even countries with strong
civil liberties and traditions can't seem to resist the urge to use it.
And let's be clear here, the targeting isn't random.
Pegasus has been used against journalists investigating government corruption,
human rights lawyers, defending political prisoners, opposition politicians,
challenging authoritarian rule.
Family members of dissidents who pose no threat to anyone except by association.
Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist who was murdered in the Saudi
consulate in Istanbul had associates who were reportedly targeted with
Pegasus before his assassination.
That's not just surveillance, that's intelligence gathering
for assassination planning.
The most chilling aspect is how this technology eliminates the concept
of private communication entirely.
Every text message, every phone call, every email, every photo, every document
on your device, all of it can be accessed remotely, silently, continuously.
Your phone becomes a bug in your pocket.
Your most private conversations become intelligence reports.
Your personal relationships becomes surveillance targets your digital life
becomes an open book for anyone with the access and the motivation to read it.
And the worst part.
Mm. You'll never know what's happening.
Ah, Pegasus is designed to be completely invisible.
No performance issues, no battery drain, and no suspicious behavior.
Your phone works exactly the same way it always has, except now
everything you do is being recorded and transmitted to people who want to
control or perhaps even eliminate you.
This isn't theoretical.
This is happening right now to real people and in real time.
Journalists, activists, lawyers, politicians, anyone who poses a
threat to power can be completely compromised without ever
knowing they're being watched.
This pattern of using surveillance technology to eliminate
political opposition isn't new.
Nope.
But the scale, ah, and sophistication of Pegasus represents a quantum
leap in the ability to monitor and even control populations.
The East German Stassi built the most comprehensive surveillance
state in history with one in three citizens serving as informants.
But back then, even the Stassi needed human agents, physical surveillance, and
massive bureaucratic infrastructure to handle this Pegasus well, Pegasus does
what the Stassi could only dream of.
Total surveillance that's automated, invisible, and
scalable to millions of targets.
Have you studied how surveillance states operate throughout history?
The pattern is always the same.
Identify threats, monitor their communications, gather intelligence
on their activities, then eliminate them through legal,
social, or even physical means.
Pegasus just makes this process faster, cheaper, and far more effective.
The FBI's COINTELPRO operations in the 1960s and seventies used surveillance
infiltration and disruption to destroy civil rights organizations
and the anti-war movements.
But cointelpro, like the Stasi, required massive human resources,
physical surveillance, and even the risk of exposure.
Meanwhile, Pegasus eliminates all of those limitations.
The Soviet KGB pioneered many of the surveillance techniques
that modern intelligence agencies still use to this day.
But KGB operations were limited by technology, limited by geography,
and limited by human resources.
Pegasus transcends all of those limitations.
Yep.
Just jumps over them.
In a single bound, it can monitor anyone, anywhere, anytime without
human agents or any physical presence.
What makes Pegasus historically unprecedented is how it combines the
reach of mass surveillance with the precision of elite targeted operations.
Previous surveillance systems had to choose between watching everyone
poorly or watching just a few people.
Very well.
Pegasus can watch specific individuals with complete thoroughness while
remaining completely invisible.
The privatization of surveillance technology represents yet
another historical shift.
When surveillance capabilities were limited to government agencies,
there was at least theoretical oversight and accountability.
Huh?
But when those same capabilities are sold by private companies to any government
with enough cash, even the appearance of oversight disappears, and that
accountability just becomes impossible.
Then there is the global nature of Pegasus operations, which means
that surveillance is no longer limited by national boundaries.
A journalist in Mexico can be monitored by technology sold by an Israeli
company to the Mexican government.
An activist in India can be tracked using software developed in Tel Aviv
and deployed from servers in Europe.
This creates a surveillance ecosystem that operates beyond the reach of any single
country's laws or oversight mechanisms.
The technology transcends borders, but the accountability
remains trapped within them.
Let me show you the recurring mechanisms of surveillance technology
and how Pegasus represents the perfection of the very techniques
that have been developing for decades.
The pattern always begins with surveillance technology being
developed for quote unquote legitimate security purposes, like fighting,
terrorism, preventing crime, and protecting national security.
Pegasus was originally marketed as a tool for law enforcement to
track criminals and terrorists.
Sounds fair.
Right?
But surveillance technology like this never stays limited to
its original purpose, does it?
I've watched this same expansion in corporate settings where monitoring
tools introduced for productivity measurement inevitably get used for
employee control and or even elimination.
The same dynamic applies to government surveillance.
Tools introduced for security always seem to expand into political control tools.
Then there's the targeting which follows predictable patterns that reveal the
true purpose of surveillance technology.
If Pegasus were really about fighting terrorism and crime, it would be used
against terrorists and criminals.
Right?
Of course.
Instead, it seemed to be consistently used against journalists, activists,
lawyers, and even political opponents, all people who threaten power through
information, not through violence.
The privatization of surveillance creates a market dynamic that
incentivizes expansion and abuse.
When surveillance technology is sold by private companies, the goal
becomes maximizing sales, certainly not protecting civil liberties.
NSO group profits from selling Pegasus to as many customers IE governments
as possible, regardless of how those governments plan to ultimately use it.
The international nature of surveillance technology creates
additional accountability gaps that protect both the companies that sell
it and the governments that use it.
When an Israeli company sells surveillance technology to a Mexican
government that uses it against Mexican journalists, which country's laws apply?
Hmm.
Well, the correct answer is often none of them.
The invisibility of modern surveillance technology eliminates the deterrent effect
that visible surveillance once provided.
When people knew they were being watched, they could modify
their behavior accordingly.
When surveillance is invisible, people can't protect themselves because
they don't even know their targets.
The most insidious pattern in all this is how surveillance technology
creates self-censorship without ever requiring actual real enforcement.
When journalists know that their communications might be monitored, they
stop investigating certain stories.
When activists know their phones might be compromised, they stop
organizing certain activities.
The surveillance doesn't even need to be used.
The knowledge that it exists is enough in many cases to change behavior.
The integration of surveillance technology with assassination and
elimination operations represents the ultimate evolution of political control.
Pegasus isn't just used to gather intelligence.
It's used to plan and execute operations against the people being surveilled.
The technology becomes part of a kill chain that starts with surveillance and
ultimately can end with elimination.
The pattern reveals that surveillance technology like
Pegasus isn't really about security.
It's ultimately just about control.
It's not about protecting society.
Nope.
It's about protecting power, and it's not about fighting crime.
It's about eliminating the opposition in the most effective
and efficient way possible.
Now, not everyone has accepted the normalization of total
surveillance like this.
Around the world, individuals and organizations have recognized the threat
that programs like Pegasus represent and have chosen resistance over resignation.
Some countries have banned or restricted the use of surveillance
technology like Pegasus, recognizing that the threat to civil liberties
outweighs any security benefits.
They understand that a technology that can be used against anyone can
eventually be used against everyone.
The Pegasus Project, a consortium of international journalists exposed the
global scope of NSO group's operations.
Despite facing the very surveillance they were investigating, their work
revealed that the threat to press freedom posed by Pegasus is existential.
When journalists can be completely monitored, investigative
journalism becomes, IM.
Some people have changed their communication habits, their technology
choices, and their operational security practices because they understand
that digital surveillance has reached a level that makes traditional
privacy protections obsolete.
Cybersecurity researchers have reverse engineered Pegasus to understand how
it works and how it might be detected.
Their work provides the technical foundation for defending against such
surveillance technology, even when that defense is difficult and imperfect.
Some technology companies have improved their security practices in
response to the Pegasus revelations, recognizing that their platforms are
being weaponized against their users.
While perfect security may be impossible, better security can at least make
surveillance more difficult and expensive.
Legal advocates have challenged the use of such surveillance technology and
courts around the world arguing that the right to privacy is fundamental,
and that technologies like Pegasus violate these basic human rights.
Their work faces enormous obstacles, but it establishes legal precedence for
protecting privacy in the digital age.
Civil liberties organizations have documented the use of Pegasus against
journalists, activists, and dissidents, creating a public record of how
surveillance technology is actually used versus how it's supposed to be used.
Their work reveals the gap between the marketing claims and
the actual operational reality.
The most important resistance comes from people.
Like you and me who understand that total surveillance is incompatible with basic
human freedom and who continue to refuse to accept that privacy is obsolete.
Just because technology makes surveillance possible, US outliers demonstrate that the
surveillance state enabled by technologies like Pegasus isn't inevitable.
Every person who maintains operational security, every organization that
documents surveillance abuse.
Every country that restricts surveillance technology helps preserve the possibility
of privacy and freedom in the digital age.
I can already hear some of you saying, okay, so what?
Well, I think that understanding the capabilities of Pegasus and similar
surveillance technologies should change everything about how you think
about digital privacy, communication, security, and the relationship
between technology and your freedom.
Every smartphone becomes a potential surveillance device.
When you understand that zero click exploits can compromise any device
without your knowledge or action, the convenience of your always connected
devices comes with the risk of that always on surveillance that you can't
detect or currently can't even prevent.
The phrase, if you have nothing to hide, really becomes meaningless when you
understand that surveillance technology like Pegasus is used primarily against
people who are doing nothing wrong.
Journalists, activists, lawyers, and political opponents whose only crime is
threatening power through information.
Encrypted communication takes on new significance when you realize
that Pegasus can read encrypted messages by compromising the
devices that send and receive them.
Encryption only protects data while in transit, but it can't protect
data on compromised devices.
The importance of operational security increases dramatically when you
understand that traditional privacy protections are inadequate against
military grade surveillance technology.
Protecting yourself from Pegasus level surveillance requires
changing not just your technology choices, but your entire approach to
communication and information security.
Overall, international travel becomes a security risk when you realize
that crossing borders with electronic devices means potentially exposing
yourself to surveillance technology deployed by foreign governments.
Your phone becomes a liability that can compromise not just you, but
everyone else that you communicate with.
The value of good old analog alternatives increases as digital communication
becomes more and more compromised.
Face-to-face meetings, written notes, and other non-digital communication
methods become essential for anyone who needs to communicate privately.
Most importantly, you realize that the surveillance capabilities that
exist today represent a fundamental threat to human freedom that goes
beyond individual privacy concerns.
When anyone can be completely monitored without their knowledge, the
possibility of dissent, investigation and political opposition disappears.
Look, the goal here isn't to become paranoid about technology
or to retreat from the digital communication landscape entirely.
Nope.
The goal is to understand the risks so you can make informed choices
about technology use and recognize that privacy and freedom require
active protection in this digital age.
They turned your phone into the most sophisticated surveillance
device ever created and convinced you to pay for it yourself.
They made total surveillance, invisible, automated, and even profitable.
They created a world where privacy doesn't exist, and they
got you to call it progress.
I've traced this story from corporate boardrooms to intelligence
agencies, from technology companies to assassination plots.
The digital leash isn't metaphorical, it's operational.
It's already around your neck.
Pegasus represents the perfection of surveillance technology.
Zero click exploits that require no action from you.
Invisible monitoring that leaves no trace.
Complete access to every aspect of your digital life.
The ability to turn your most personal device into a weapon and turn it
against you, but it's not just the technology that's terrifying.
It's who has access to it?
Authoritarian regimes that murder journalists, democratic governments
that spy on their own citizens, private companies that sell surveillance
to anyone with enough cash.
The technology that was supposed to protect us from terrorists
is being used by terrorists.
Um, they just happen to have government badges.
Jamal Khashoggi Associates were monitored with Pegasus before he was murdered.
Journalists investigating corruption have been tracked and eliminated.
Activists organizing resistance have been identified and disappeared.
The technology doesn't just violate privacy.
It effectively enables assassination.
Your phone isn't just a communication device, it's a surveillance device that
can be turned against you by anyone with the right access and the wrong intentions.
Every text message, every phone call, every photo, and every
location, all of it can be monitored, recorded, and used against you.
But here's what they can't monitor your awareness.
Once you understand that total surveillance is operational,
you can't be surprised by it.
Once you recognize that your phone is a potential weapon against you, you can
make informed choices about how to use it.
The official story is that surveillance technology like Pegasus is used to fight
terrorism and protect national security.
The real story is that it's used to eliminate journalists, activists,
and anyone else who threatens power through the power of information.
The digital leash is real.
It's invisible, and it's already connected to the device in your pocket.
The question is, are you ready to recognize the leash or will you
keep pretending it's just a phone?
When the device in your pocket becomes a window into your soul,
privacy becomes a revolutionary act.
The question is, are you ready to be a revolutionary?
Tracy out
if this story didn't sit right with you.
Good.
You are not here to be comforted.
You are here to see what others overlook.
Thanks for exploring some unapproved thinking.
Learn more@someunapprovedthinking.com.
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And next time we're going deeper.