{"id":46284,"date":"2013-05-13T15:53:37","date_gmt":"2013-05-13T14:53:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=46284"},"modified":"2013-05-13T15:53:37","modified_gmt":"2013-05-13T14:53:37","slug":"global-coalition-of-ngos-call-to-investigate-and-disable-finfishers-espionage-equipment-in-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=46284","title":{"rendered":"Global coalition of NGOs call to investigate and disable FinFisher\u2019s espionage equipment in Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are a consortium of NGOs and individuals\u2014\u00a0ARTICLE 19<\/a>, \u00a0Association For Progressive Communications<\/a>,\u00a0Access Now<\/a>,\u00a0Bolo Bhi<\/a>,\u00a0Centre For Democracy & Technology<\/a>,\u00a0Centre For Peace & Development Initiatives<\/a>,\u00a0Christopher Parsons<\/a>,Chunri Chuopaal<\/a>,\u00a0Digital Rights Foundation<\/a>,\u00a0Electronic Frontier Foundation<\/a>,\u00a0Free Press<\/a>,\u00a0Global Voices Advocacy<\/a>,\u00a0Index On Censorship<\/a>,\u00a0Intermedia Pakistan<\/a>,\u00a0Individual Land Pakistan<\/a>,\u00a0Jacob Appelbaum (The Tor Project)<\/a>,\u00a0Leila Nachawati,<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Privacy International<\/a>,\u00a0Reporters Without Borders<\/a>,\u00a0Renata Avila (Human Rights & IP lawyer)<\/a>, \u00a0Simon Davies (Privacy Surgeon)<\/a>,\u00a0Institute for Research Advocacy and Development Pakistan<\/a>,\u00a0The Internet Democracy Project India<\/a>, and\u00a0Nawaat<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 committed to respecting user privacy and promoting freedom of expression and access to information.<\/p>\n

We express our dismay and condemnation over the presence of a FinFisher Command and Control server on a network operated by the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTLD\u2019s). FinFisher, developed by a UK-based company Gamma International, has been used to target activists in Bahrain. Privacy International is currently engaged in a lawsuit over the export of FinFisher, and has also filed a complaint with the OECD.<\/p>\n

In February 2012, alongside an\u00a0international coalition of civil society groups<\/a>, we actively campaigned to stop the impending nation-wide firewall and to inform the government and international surveillance companies of the repercussions of the firewall would have on academia, businesses, trade, and civil society. As a result,\u00a0five major international companies<\/a>\u00a0known to sell surveillance, filtering, and blocking systems publicly committed not to apply for the government\u2019s call for proposals last year.<\/p>\n

In March 2013 the Ministry of Information Technology\u00a0made a commitment<\/a>\u00a0to shelve their plans for acquiring the technology for URL filtering and blocking. \u00a0With the Citizen Lab report we have now learnt that servers at PTLD, one of the largest ISPs in the country, are hosting a command and control server for FinSpy. Based on the report, there are two possibilities: (1) elements of the Government of Pakistan are deploying FinFisher trojans or (2) a foreign government is using a server inside Pakistan for a digital espionage campaign. \u00a0Either one of these possibilities is highly troubling, and the findings warrant immediate investigation. \u00a0Moreover, given that a Pakistan Telecommunications Authority\u2019s representative has admitted in court that PTCL has acquired a traffic filtering system, we feel that this acquisition and surveillance capability represents a further threat to the free flow of information, user rights, freedom of expression and privacy in Pakistan.<\/p>\n

As members of Pakistan\u2019s civil society and organizations committed to ensuring the government upholds democratic principles in Pakistan, and with concerns about restrictions on privacy as well as access to information, we strongly urge PTCL to immediately investigate the existence of FinFisher Command and Control Servers and to publicly disclose their findings. \u00a0PTCL to should follow the example of the\u00a0Canadian ISP SoftCom<\/a>\u00a0that investigated and\u00a0then disabled the FinFisher<\/a>\u00a0server on its networks that was similarly identified by Citizen Lab in March 2013. \u00a0By keeping their users in the dark any further PTCL would harm open and secure access in Pakistan. PTCL should under no circumstances allow FinFisher or other remote intrusion or filtering tools within their network, as their presence directly violates user\u2019s rights and privacy, as well as threatening Pakistan\u2019s network security.<\/p>\n

If PTCL wants to further support business, innovation, entrepreneurship, trade, international investment, academia and human rights, it should immediately investigate and disable this \u00a0espionage equipment on its network.<\/p>\n

Signed:<\/p>\n

ARTICLE 19<\/a>, \u00a0Association For Progressive Communications<\/a>,\u00a0Access Now<\/a>,\u00a0Bolo Bhi<\/a>,\u00a0Centre For Democracy & Technology<\/a>,\u00a0Centre For Peace & Development Initiatives<\/a>,\u00a0Christopher Parsons<\/a>,Chunri Chuopaal<\/a>,\u00a0Digital Rights Foundation<\/a>,\u00a0Electronic Frontier Foundation<\/a>,\u00a0Free Press<\/a>,\u00a0Global Voices Advocacy<\/a>,\u00a0Index On Censorship<\/a>,\u00a0Intermedia Pakistan<\/a>,\u00a0Individual Land Pakistan<\/a>,\u00a0Jacob Appelbaum (The Tor Project)<\/a>,\u00a0Leila Nachawati,<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Privacy International<\/a>,\u00a0Reporters Without Borders<\/a>,\u00a0Renata Avila (Human Rights & IP lawyer)<\/a>, \u00a0Simon Davies (Privacy Surgeon)<\/a>,\u00a0Institute for Research Advocacy and Development Pakistan<\/a>,\u00a0The Internet Democracy Project India<\/a>, and\u00a0Nawaat<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are a consortium of NGOs and individuals\u2014\u00a0ARTICLE 19, \u00a0Association For Progressive Communications,\u00a0Access Now,\u00a0Bolo Bhi,\u00a0Centre For Democracy & Technology,\u00a0Centre For Peace & Development Initiatives,\u00a0Christopher Parsons,Chunri Chuopaal,\u00a0Digital Rights Foundation,\u00a0Electronic Frontier Foundation,\u00a0Free Press,\u00a0Global Voices Advocacy,\u00a0Index On Censorship,\u00a0Intermedia Pakistan,\u00a0Individual Land Pakistan,\u00a0Jacob Appelbaum (The Tor Project),\u00a0Leila Nachawati,\u00a0\u00a0Privacy International,\u00a0Reporters Without Borders,\u00a0Renata Avila (Human Rights & IP lawyer), \u00a0Simon Davies (Privacy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[4061],"tags":[5530,7351],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46284"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46284"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46285,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46284\/revisions\/46285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}