Cảnh báo iPhone 'mơ hồ' gây ra những cáo buộc nghiêm trọng về hoạt động gián điệp ở Ấn Độ

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More than a dozen iPhones across India buzzed with the same message earlier this week. Each notification (thông báo) sounded its own little alarm, but was amplified (khuếch đại) many times over when the targets (mục tiêu) identified (tự xác định) themselves publicly. Most were prominent political opponents (đối thủ chính trị nổi bật) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party.

The warning on their phones, sent by Apple on Monday, seemed stark: “State-sponsored attackers (kẻ tấn công) may be targeting your iPhone,” it said in part. But these so-called threat notifications could, by Apple’s own admission, be a false alarm, and Mr. Modi’s government dismissed (bác bỏ) allegations (cáo buộc) that it was spying (theo dõi) on the opposition (phe đối lập), journalists (nhà báo) and critics, as some speculated.

Now in power for nearly a decade (nắm quyền gần một thập kỷ), Mr. Modi and his government have consolidated power (củng cố quyền lực) by cracking down on free speech (đàn áp quyền tự do ngôn luận), undermining the independent press (phá hoại báo chí độc lập) and silencing dissenting voices (bịt miệng những tiếng nói bất đồng chính kiến), including those in the opposition.

...Rahul Gandhi, the foremost (thủ lĩnh) opposition leader, said many of his confidants (người thân tín) in the Congress Party received the notification. Mr. Gandhi added that he takes illegal surveillance (giám sát bất hợp pháp) by the government for granted.

...Apple started sending the threat notifications in 2019, after the widespread use of Pegasus, a spyware program (phần mềm gián điệp) developed by NSO, an Israeli cyber-intelligence (trí tuệ nhân tạo) company, became public. NSO’s clients included governments around the world who used Pegasus to sneak into (lẻn vào) the phones of dissidents and opponents. One of those customers, The Times reported last year, was India. Pegasus was a centerpiece of a $2 billion defense package that it bought from Israel in 2017.

source: nytimes,