[jaycola]

Following in the footsteps of UAE and Saudi Arabia, Lebanon is poised to block Blackberry usage if RIM refuses to allow access to personal coorespondance by the Arab Governments.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6751DG20100806

(Reuters) - Lebanon hopes BlackBerry maker Research In Motion will give the country a program that would allow it to access information used on the smartphone device, the telecommunications minister said.

RIM is facing pressure to open up its super-secure network to government scrutiny with a growing number of countries demanding access to encrypted communications sent through the device, citing national security concerns.

Lebanon's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said on Thursday it would assess security concerns relating to BlackBerry use.

Lebanon's worries over BlackBerry coincide with widespread concern over the integrity of the telecom network following the arrest of three people on suspicion of spying for Israel.

Security sources say there are fears BlackBerrys could be used by Islamist groups or spies, beyond the reach of state monitoring.

"The ministry is studying this file and preparing it for talks with RIM ... with the aim of getting the program that allows a state to access information transferred through this device," minister Charbel Nahhas was quoted as saying in As-Safir newspaper.

Nahhas, who said Lebanon has about 60,000 BlackBerry users, said no decision had yet been taken to restrict the smartphone's services in the country.

He said talks with RIM could take two months.

Two employees at state-owned mobile telecom firm Alfa were charged last month with spying for Israel. A third employee working for fixed-line operator Ogero was arrested last week.

The arrests have sparked debates on how deeply Israel had penetrated Lebanon's telecom and security sectors. Israel and Hezbollah, which operates a private fixed-line communication network, went to war in 2006.

[Odiseizam]

The arrests have sparked debates on how deeply Israel had penetrated Lebanon's telecom and security sectors.

old fear, but just recently was cracked officially by AlJaz ... israeli exploit exported even to its own "enemies" [1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)

According to news reports, NSO Group sells weaponized software that targets mobile phones to governments and has been operating since 2010, according to its LinkedIn page. The Pegasus spyware has existed for a significant amount of time, and is advertised and sold for use on high-value targets for multiple purposes, including high-level espionage on iOS, Android, and Blackberry. [1]

https://youtu.be/lfOgm1IcBd0

In mid-2020, a mobile phone belonging to an Al Jazeera Arabic investigative team was hacked. Over the next few months, reporter Tamer Almisshal and the Canadian research group Citizen Lab investigated Pegasus, the sophisticated spyware used.

Pegasus is manufactured by an Israeli technology company called the NSO Group and is among the most advanced spyware in the world. It can access and infiltrate a smartphone without the owner clicking a link ZeroClick, opening an email or even answering their phone – meaning it can go undetected.

This investigation exposes how Pegasus works, how governments like Saudi Arabia and the UAE have bought the hugely expensive spyware and how it has been used beyond the stated intentions of the NSO Group of “developing technology to prevent and investigate terror and crime” – including to target journalists.

[Deutschmania]

Lebanon isn't the only country to be found using this spyware . https://www.theguardian.com/news/video/2021/jul/19/pegasus-the-spyware-technology-that-threatens-democracy-video Most notably , in India , Modi's government has been accused of using it to spy on his rival Rahul Gandhi . https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/19/key-modi-rival-rahul-gandhi-among-indian-targets-of-nso-client