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Times of Oman
12 hours ago
- Business
- Times of Oman
Your new best friend is your ultimate betrayer
In the summer of 1999 — at the dawn of the digital age — world leaders gathered at the Millennium Assembly on IT and Knowledge with a bold vision: governments must go digital, and wealthy nations would help the rest achieve it. As a member of Oman's delegation, I watched as the idealism of 'global cooperation' overshadowed a darker reality. 'Once we embrace e-government, privacy disappears,' I warned our delegation head. 'Our data won't belong to us anymore.' He dismissed it as paranoia. Two decades later, that warning has become prophecy — and Israel, with its deep ties to Western tech and intelligence, sits at the heart of this surveillance empire. The Backdoor Revolution The post-9/11 era erased any illusions. The U.S. government compelled American tech giants to embed surveillance backdoors in their exports — officially for 'national security,' but effectively a global license to spy. Israel, America's closest intelligence-sharing ally, gained indirect access to this data through agreements like ECHELON and joint cyber units. 'Israel doesn't just benefit from U.S. surveillance — it actively shapes it,' says Avi Meyer, a former Israeli cybersecurity official who spoke on condition of anonymity. 'When the NSA or FBI demand backdoors from Apple or Google, Israel's intelligence agencies are rarely far behind in accessing the same pipelines.' From Pegasus to Exploding Pagers Israel's cyber warfare capabilities reached terrifying new heights in September 2024, when dozens of pagers carried by Hezbollah operatives simultaneously exploded across Lebanon. This unprecedented attack proved that modern surveillance doesn't just monitor — it can physically eliminate targets using their own devices. The pager explosions demonstrated Israel's ability to: * Weaponise ordinary electronics by remotely triggering battery explosions * Compromise supply chains by implanting lethal capabilities during manufacturing * Escalate cyber warfare into the physical realm with deniable precision strikes Combined with Israel's Pegasus spyware — used against journalists and activists worldwide — and AI-powered tracking in conflict zones, this marks a complete evolution of warfare. 'First they read your messages through Pegasus. Then they detonate your devices,' says Avi Cohen (pseudonym), a former cyber defence official. 'The Hezbollah pager attack was Israel showing the world there are no limits anymore.' Hypocrisy in the Tech Cold War While Israel and the West weaponise technology, they wage a relentless campaign against Chinese tech firms, branding Huawei a 'spying tool' and TikTok a 'data pipeline to Beijing.' Yet Western-made operating systems (Windows, iOS, Android) and platforms (Facebook, X, Google, WhatsApp) dominate global infrastructure — with no scrutiny of how Israel exploits them. The 5G rollout exposed the double standard: 2019: Huawei pioneers affordable 5G. Western media floods with warnings of 'radiation risks' and 'Chinese brainwashing.' The U.S. pressures allies to ban it. 2024: Western firms like Ericsson and Nokia deploy 5G. The health warnings vanish. The Stakes: Digital Colonialism or Sovereignty? The 1999 dream of e-government has metastasised into a global surveillance grid controlled by a U.S.-Israel tech-intelligence axis. The Hezbollah pager attacks proved that even basic electronics can be turned against their users. Three steps to reclaim control: 1. Build Sovereign Tech – Develop domestic alternatives to foreign operating systems and hardware. 2. Secure Supply Chains – Create national standards for critical tech components. 3. Assume Compromise – Treat all foreign tech as potentially weaponised until proven otherwise. The Ultimate Spy — and Assassin We stand at a crossroads: Continue to depend on hostile technologies, or follow China's lead in building sovereign digital infrastructure. The pager attacks weren't just a warning—they were a preview of our vulnerable future. But the most dangerous spy isn't a pager. It's the smartphone in your pocket. Your phone, smartwatch, smart ring, or band knows everything about you: * Your habits, routines, and movements * What you eat, when you sleep, and when you wake * Who you meet and what you discuss (via microphone access) * Your health data, financial activity, and biometrics This, I believe, is how Israel assassinated Iran's top officials last week. No human spies — just the targets' phones betraying them. Every foreign-made device in your home isn't just spying — it's a sleeper agent awaiting activation. The pager explosions were merely the opening scene. Tomorrow's assassinations won't be delivered by human hands — but through the glowing rectangle that never leaves your side. Your phone doesn't love you. It's just biding its time.
Telegraph
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
London's latest immersive extravaganza is mind-scrambling – and not in a good way
It's hard to fault the intention behind London's latest immersive extravaganza – and given it's the pet project of the Georgian billionaire TV mogul Liana Patarkatsishvili one can certainly assume no expense has been spared. In its sights is the viral spread of misinformation and the algorithmic nature of knowledge in the digital age: both increasingly critical, and rich with immersive potential. But within about 20 minutes of this show – set inside a cavernous disused warehouse (formerly the paper store for News International) in Deptford – it's clear Storehouse has a cognitive crisis of its own. Have the creators been afflicted by a case of information overload, unable to discern precisely what their own project is about? Has a rogue chatbox been given access to the script? You have to wonder as the audience experience of Storehouse rapidly starts to resemble the slightly panicky, headachy feeling of being lost in a Reddit thread, buffeted by tangentially related but disparate plot strands that refuse to satisfyingly coalesce. The team behind it – which includes a staggering six co-writers – promises one of the most artistically ambitious large-scale theatre events to have ever been staged in the UK. Yet the show's scope and set-up will be familiar to anyone who has seen any of the numerous immersive shows that have sprung up in the last 15 years in the wake of Punchdrunk. Divided into groups, audiences are led inside the honeycombed interior of the eponymous Storehouse – a vast archive which, we are informed, was established in 1983 by four enigmatic visionaries to provide an analogue record of every post, meme, tweet and fact published on the internet. The hope of these founders – voiced, disappointingly intermittently, by Toby Jones, Kathryn Hunter, Meera Syal and Billy Howle – is that the archive will synthesise the morass of printed knowledge into a single noble truth about humanity. Yet the archive itself is under threat from unknown forces and the task of the audience is to find a way of preserving its ideals for future generations. At least I think that is the idea. Even the actors, which for my group included a bumbling book-binder and a suave sort of leader in perky striped trousers, at times didn't appear sure of what story they were meant to be telling. As is often the case with these shows, far more attention has been paid to the aesthetic experience than the dramatic execution. Alice Helps's set design is certainly impressive, featuring various tunnelled spaces that resemble the roots of trees or caves crammed with stalactites. There are rooms lined with old books, coloured lanterns that reveal 'truths' written onto the walls and whispering voices. There is a brief tantalising flirtation with an escape room-like puzzle involving books stained by a mysterious pattern, and an excellent wheeze involving those lanterns which, had anyone had the vision to do so, could have been developed into something richly pertinent to the show's own themes. Yet the audience has no real purpose. And the issues at stake are unclear: the plot involves a conspiracy that makes no sense, and it ends with an appeal to the audience to decide on what most gives them hope and to work towards a world full of that instead. Love, said someone. The touch of grass, another replied. Or, one might have added, a rigorous artistic response to one of the most pressing subjects of our age. Until Jun 29. Tickets: 0203 925 2998;
