A doctor of computer science, Jonathan Scott is a world-renowned and recognized enthusiast of the detection of malicious programs and in particular espionage. He is the founder of Hacktree.org. This “slogan” written in large at the opening of this specialized site says a lot about its creator: “Defend the truth and instil security throughout the world”.
It is in this spirit that Jonathan Scott has been interested in the Pegasus affair since its outbreak with the one and only goal, he underlines, of bringing to light the truth. After sifting through the computer data on which Citizen Lab relied to accuse Morocco of espionage through the use of Pegasus software, the internationally renowned expert concludes that “the absence of scientifically reproducible evidence of digital crimes” . In his 25-page report, he explains, with supporting evidence, that Morocco has been unfairly defamed by its accusers. As a result, Jonathan Scott that the kingdom should be supported by the States having ratified the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime instead of being attacked by the European Parliament representing the majority of ratifying countries.
As a reminder, the Convention referred to by the expert was originally drawn up by the Council of Europe before being subsequently ratified by more than sixty countries around the world.
“All the members of the European Parliament who voted for the resolution against Morocco have violated this international Convention”, tweeted the author of the analysis entitled “Exonerating Morocco – Disproving the spyware”. published in the site bringing together scientific researchers from different disciplines Researchgate.net.
The American analyst is surprised by what he calls “persecution” against Morocco in the “Pegasus affair”. Above all, he argues, Morocco as an accused country has constantly demanded fair evidence from its accusers, to no avail.
Unsurprisingly, the expert himself was attacked for having exposed the Citizen Lab, supposed to be the thinking organ of Amnesty International. In response, still via tweet, Jonathan Scott challenges his defamers to contradict him with scientific evidence and not with hate speech. “My report has no political motivation, it is based on facts and science. All of its content is sourced, as shown in its footnote and references,” he says.
Key Findings From Jonathan Scott
The first accusations of espionage targeting Morocco date from 2012, when Citizen Lab accused the Moroccan government of having spied on the activists of the “Mamfakinch” collective, via the “Remote control system” spyware, developed by the Italian firm ” Hacking team”. This Canadian lab reported an IP address. This element is insufficient to establish the guilt of the accused in any jurisdiction.
The “leaked document” put forward as technical proof of this hack was available on the official website of the Italian company for commercial reasons.
In 2015, “Citizen Lab” again accused Morocco of espionage, via the “Finfisher” software, designed by the German company “Gamma Group”, with a report acknowledging that they had failed to find evidence linking the Moroccan government to this company, but, again, only an IP address that allowed them to conclude to “possible espionage”.
Regarding the “Pegasus” affair, Amnesty International and Citizen Lab continued to put pressure on the Moroccan government with new accusations of espionage, highlighting, this time, the case of Omar Radi, with objective of pushing for his release by presenting a report devoid of evidence, based on theories.
The director of the “Amnesty Tech” laboratory, Claudio Guarnieri and his team had developed a tool to track “Pegasus” called “MVT” (Mobile Verification Toolkit) without providing its technical mode of operation. This tool led to false positive results for the cases of Radi and Claude Mangin, wife of Naama Asfari, adding that these results were normal processes used by the operating system of the Iphone (Iso), error having been quietly silenced by Amnesty Tech.
In the total absence of legal oversight, some organizations present vague accusations without conclusive evidence that undermine the credibility of the computer security research field and cause diplomatic tensions in international relations between countries, Morocco is an example.
Beyond the technical aspects, Amnesty International and Citizen Lab is impartial and lacks credibility being both funded by the same American foundations, namely MacArthur Foundation (Chicago) and “Ford Foundation (Michigan).
This article is originally published on lobservateur.info
