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Comment by nsajko | Hacker News Reader

The Citizen Lab reports (one linked from this article) about the Israeli NSO Group's Pegasus spyware have been really scary for a few years now already.

This is a frightening 8-part series about the abuse of "Pegasus" in Mexico 2017-2019: https://citizenlab.ca/2017/02/bittersweet-nso-mexico-spyware...

Here's a category of articles on the citizenlab.ca web site described as "Investigations into the prevalence and impact of digital espionage operations against civil society groups": https://citizenlab.ca/category/research/targeted-threats/

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NSO Group is owned by Novalpina Capital, a British company.

"NSO Group Technologies (NSO standing for Niv, Shalev and Omri, names of company's founders) is an Israeli technology firm whose spyware called Pegasus enables the remote surveillance of smartphones. It was founded in 2010 by Niv Carmi, Omri Lavie, and Shalev Hulio. It employed almost 500 people as of 2017, and is based in Herzliya, near Tel Aviv." --Wikipedia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSO_Group

It's owned by a British holding firm.

Because it is an Israeli company? that's what the parent comment showed.

fortran77 appears to be correct. London-based Novalpina is a major owner of NSO since 2019.

https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-novalpina-capital-and-fou...

But...why does this change anything about what was described?

I don't think it changes anything, but is additional correct information.

Edit: For reasons that are extremely unclear, someone is downvoting people who are saying this.

To make it clear why this information is important: If you run a startup and a potential investor is this British group I think it's important to know what else they invest in.

Thank you.

>NSO Group is owned by Novalpina Capital, a British company. Wy do you call it "Israeli?"

I assume because it was founded by three Israeli citizens, in Israel, and the HQ and staff almost all work near Tel Aviv.

And while Novalpina Capital provided funding, that was only in a partnership with two of the original founders, as a buy-out.

Buying something is the same as making it yourself right?

>Buying something is the same as making it yourself right?

No.

And I didn't claim anything of the sort.

"Israel classifies Pegasus as a weapon and must approve any exports of the technology." - https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/spyware-techno...

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