Monthly Archives: February 2023

Arts, Books, Government, National Security, Society

Book Review: Pegasus

LITERARY REVIEW

Intro: The reporting of the world’s most powerful spyware program should teach us that no one is safe from such systems. But will it?

EDWARD SNOWDEN’S infamous leaks in 2013 from the US National Security Agency triggered a global debate around state surveillance – but even he couldn’t quite believe the scale of the story described to him in the summer of 2021.

Whistle-blowers had handed French investigative journalists Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud a list of 50,000 mobile phone numbers. These belonged to people flagged for attack by a cybersurveillance software package called Pegasus.

The investigation that followed is the subject of Pegasus: The story of the world’s most dangerous spyware, a non-fiction thriller and a must-read for all, not just those interested in cryptography and communications. As the authors warn: “Regular civilians being targeted with military-grade surveillance weapons – against their will, against their knowledge, and with no recourse – is a dystopian future we really are careening toward if we don’t understand this threat and move to stop it.”

Pegasus offers a fascinating insight into how journalism is coping with a hyper-connected world. Eyewitnesses and whistle-blowers have better access than ever to sympathetic campaigning journalists worldwide. But this advantage is shared with the very governments, corporations and organised crime networks that want to silence them.

To drag Pegasus into the light, Richard’s ‘Forbidden Stories’ consortium choreographed the activities of more than 80 investigative journalists from 17 media organisations working across four continents and in eight languages. The consortium’s mission is to continue and publish the work of other journalists facing threats, prison or murder.

Its Pegasus investigation commenced in March 2021, knowing full well that it had to conclude by June that year. By then, NSO – the Israeli company that created Pegasus in 2016 – was bound to twig that its brainchild was being hacked.

The bigger the names linked by the consortium to that list of phone numbers, the harder it would be to keep the investigation under wraps. Early on, the name of a journalist called Jorge Carrasco cropped up. He led one of the consortium’s cross-border collaborations, which aimed to finish the investigations of murdered Mexican journalist Regina Martinez. Then things got silly: the names of half the French cabinet appeared. Then president Emmanuel Macron.

The narrative of Pegasus is a pulse-accelerating account that is never afraid to delve into well-crafted technical detail. The authors explain how Pegasus gains free rein on a mobile device without ever tipping off the owner to its presence. It turns out to have evolved out of software designed to serve consumers waiting in queues on tech support call lines.

Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie, two of the founders of NSO, cut their teeth developing programs that allowed support technicians to take charge of a caller’s phone.

Before long, a European intelligence service came calling. Eventually, Pegasus was sold to more than 60 clients in over 40 countries. It was the first software to give security services an edge over terrorists, criminal gangs and paedophiles – and over whistle-blowers, campaigners, political opponents, journalists and at least one Emirati princess struggling for custody of her children.

The book is detailed but it isn’t a diatribe against the necessary business of government surveillance and espionage. It is about how, in the contest between ordinary people and the powerful, software is tilting the field wildly in the latter’s favour.

The international journalistic collaboration that was the Pegasus Project sparked the biggest global surveillance scandal since Snowden. It led to a European Parliament inquiry into government spyware, legal action from major tech companies, government sanctions against NSO and countless individual legal complaints.

Yet, the authors spend little time sitting on their laurels. Demand for such systems is only growing. Certain governments are making offers to certain tech firms that add zeroes to the fees NSO once enjoyed. Nor do the authors expect much from the public debate sparked by their investigation: “The issues… might have been raised,” they concede, “but the solutions are not even in the works.”

– Pegasus by Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud is published by Macmillan

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Arts, Christianity, Culture

1 & 2 Timothy: The Pastoral Letters

NEW TESTAMENT

IF you read only Acts, you might think that the early church was one big happy family (once they had sorted out a bit of racial tension, Acts 6:1-8, 15:1-6). Generous sharing, daily praying, hundreds being converted, miracles of healing and deliverance, with only the odd arrest to hinder the flow of the Spirit at revival level.

Well, it wasn’t like that all the time; Acts is like a newspaper, it focuses on “news”: the unusual rather than the normal. And it certainly didn’t last. The sensual excesses of Corinth (Paul’s letters to them spare no blushes) highlighted the fact that the church was made up of human beings who, by biblical definition, are prone to more errors than a crashing computer.

And so by the mid-60s the first generation of Christians was being superseded by the next, and familiar problems were sprouting everywhere like weeds after a rain shower. The three “pastoral letters” (two to Timothy and one to Titus) are effectively manuals for the pair of troubleshooters to use as they sort out problems in Ephesus (Timothy) and Crete (Titus).

In laying down the law, Paul has given us a timeless set of guidelines for church leadership. He expects leaders to have exemplary lives and orthodox beliefs; and he expects his own colleagues to labour tirelessly and sacrificially. Along the way he gives some valuable truths memorably expressed about God and the Scriptures.

They apply especially to anyone in church leadership today. But it isn’t just aimed at the pastorate, there are clear guidelines for everyone in what they should be praying and looking for.

DON’T GET SIDETRACKED

– A narrative on 1 Timothy 1,4,6

THE human mind has a huge capacity for learning and remembering. Most of us only use a fraction of it, yet the world is an infinite source of information. However, what can be known is far greater than anyone can take in.

Theology – the knowledge of God revealed through the Scriptures, interpreted by successive generations of believers and applied to our lives by the Spirit – is no exception to the rule. There is always more to discover, and more than one mind can take in.

Paul encouraged his readers to learn the Scriptures and be mindful of healthy, right-minded doctrine (1 Timothy 4:6, 5:7, 6:3; 2 Timothy 3:14) but warns against fruitless speculation which leads us away from the gospel.

The false teachers in Ephesus had done just that. Some scribes have associated them with later heresies and thus questioned Paul’s authorship. But there are hints of similar problems elsewhere (Colossae, for example). The details are vague which makes them widely applicable. We should avoid excessive interest in legends (1:4), not to be fascinated by genealogies for theological reasons or personal status, not delighting in controversies arguing for the fun of it, and to avoid an interest in the occult (4:1-2).

The net effect is “envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction” (6:4,5). All this destroys fellowship. We are to be wise and to remain so.

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Arts, Mental Health, Psychology, Science

Positive emotions create additional personal resources

POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

In Scripture, we read: ‘A joyful heart is good medicine.’ – Proverbs 17:22

Positive psychology’s leading researcher in the field of positive emotions is Barbara Fredrickson. She has devoted her academic career to investigating the nature and purpose of positive emotions and testing out her theories under laboratory conditions. We’ve all come across the “fight-or-flight” response which accompanies negative emotions. This automatic response mechanism has the effect of narrowing down our thoughts and behaviours to very specific, self-protecting actions; in the case of anger it’s to fight, and in the case of fear, to run. But positive emotions are relatively under-researched and not as well understood. There are thousands of academic psychology papers devoted to the experience of fear, for example, and only hundreds on the subject of positive emotions such as compassion.

Fredrickson’s goal has been to find out if positive emotions have a purpose apart from making us feel good. Her “broaden and build” theory suggests that, in contrast to negative emotions which focus us, positive emotions lead to more expansive and creative thoughts and behaviour which create additional personal resources over time. These are identified in four main categories:

. Intellectual – for example, developing our problem solving skills

. Physical – for example, developing our physical strength and cardiovascular health

. Social – such as facilitating the quality and quantity of our friendships and other relationships and connections

. Psychological – Developing resilience and optimism.

In short, the experience of positive emotions creates “upward spirals” of thought and action which prepare you for future challenges.

Other psychologists suggest that experiencing positive emotions also allows you to seek out and work towards new goals.

Fredrickson’s research shows that positive emotions don’t just feel good, they do us good too.

. Positive emotions good, negative emotions bad?

No one should fall into the trap of thinking that positive emotions are always good and that negative emotions are always bad, as this is simply not the case. For example, getting angry at an injustice can spur you into action. Recent research in positive psychology has started to stress the importance of understanding context.

In the early days positive psychologists were excited by Fredrickson and Losada’s discovery of the so-called “3:1 Positivity Ratio”, that is the ratio of positive to negative emotions above which flourishing occurs, and below which we languish. However, more recent research at the University of East London have demonstrated that the science on which the Positivity Ratio was based is flawed, much to the disappointment of many positive psychologists. All we can say at the moment is that positive emotions are generally more fleeting whereas negative emotions are more “sticky”, experiencing more positive emotions is better (but we cannot put a number on it) and that the frequency of positive emotions is more important than their intensity.

(Podcast ends)

LET’S now think of ways in which we can increase the number of positive emotions we experience. Psychologist Michael Frisch suggests creating a playlist of all the activities which interest you and which you’ve enjoyed in the past. His work lists over 200 simple activities including writing poetry, singing or dancing by yourself, getting up early in the morning, playing board games, and doing something outside.

You might also like to consider keeping a well-being journal noting down when you were creative, when you didn’t worry, where you have learned something new or contributed to your community. Recording your most positive experiences, in particular those which give you a boost, will greatly help as you develop your “upward spirals”. These are crucial for positive emotional stability.

– Good luck to Scotland in the Six Nations tournament 2023 which begins today
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