The Case of the Bumbling Spy: A Watchdog Group Gets Him on Camera

> They also seemed to be trying to provoke the Citizen Lab researchers into making anti-Semitic or otherwise offensive comments [...] He held the cards in one hand, while in the other he held and awkwardly pointed a pen that appeared to contain a video recorder, Mr. Scott-Railton said.

Ah interesting. The tried and true tactics, bait them into making offensive comments, then blackmail them to withdraw reports with the threat of exposure.

> In a phone conversation, he had told Mr. Scott-Railton that he had a son about his age. When they met, he said the child was a daughter.

Someone needs to take more "basic tradecraft" courses I think.

All in all I think Citizen Lab did pretty good job identifying and thwarting this attack. It would a bit harder, as they found out, for whoever sent the fake "Michel Lambert" to keep sending him, he was already recognized at least once. It's back to a desk job for them I suppose.

I wonder if the Israeli government will end up creating their own enemies? Surely at some point some of these spies will defect (money, blackmail, etc) and this creates a blind spot for them?

Since NSO so emphatically denies any connection to this activity, who else would be willing to pay money to investigate Citizen Lab's work into exposing NSO?

If there are no plausible alternative candidates...

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19006477