Why All Of Us Should be Afraid Of The Group 'The Hacking Team'

David Kushner, Foreign Policy: Fear This Man

To spies, David Vincenzetti is a salesman. To tyrants, he is a savior. How the Italian mogul built a hacking empire.

As the sun rose over the banks of the Seine and the medieval, half-timbered houses of Rouen, France, on July 13, 2012, Hisham Almiraat opened his inbox to find “Denunciation” in the subject line of an email. “Please do not mention my name or anything,” wrote the sender, Imane. “I do not want any trouble.”

The editor and co-founder of Mamfakinch, a pro-democracy website created in Morocco during the Arab Spring, Almiraat was one of his country’s most outspoken dissidents and someone accustomed to cryptic emails: Moroccan activists faced jail time for their views and risked their jobs, or even their lives, for speaking out against their government. From Normandy’s capital city, where Almiraat was in medical school, the bespectacled 36-year-old spent his time — in between classes and hospital shifts — mentoring, coaching, and editing more than 40 citizen journalists. The group covered the roiling unrest back in Almiraat’s homeland, where he would soon return after completing his studies. (Almiraat contributed to Foreign Policy in 2011.)

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WNU Editor: When Foreign Policy posts a news story that is not behind it's firewall .... you know it is important. And in this case .... it is. It is a long read .... but it impacts all of us. On a side note .... The Hacking team pales when compared to this group .... Russian Researchers Discover America's Crown Jewel In Cyber Spying And This Spyware Is On All Computers.