We missed this earlier: Around mid-January 2023, an anonymous whistleblower leaked the phone forensics software and its documentation of Cellebrite, a company involved in selling surveillance software. The information was first shared by Distributed Denial of Secrets on Substack. What is Cellebrite? As per its website, Cellebrite offers a complete end-to-end Investigative Digital Intelligence (DI) Platform to allow the collection and reviewal, analysis and management of a range of digital evidence sources, including mobile phones, computers, cloud-based evidence and open-source information. As per the Substack article, the whistleblower, with Enlace Hactivista, co-published phone forensics software and documentation from the Israeli company and its Swedish competitor, MSAB. According to the whistleblower, these companies sell it to police and governments around the world who use it to access information on the phones of journalists, activists, and dissidents. “Both companies' software is well documented as being used in human rights abuses,” said the publishers, referencing Access Now, CPJ and The Intercept reports. Why it matters: Among the documents released by the whistleblower are some relating to Cellebrite's UFED4PC, a surveillance software that is already used by Delhi police. The leaked zip files are titled “Nokia Lumia Windows Phone Extractions,” “Phone Detective,” “User Lock Code Recovery Tool” among others. These datasets being available to the police is a glimpse into the extent of the Indian government's surveillance capabilities and the potential to undermine the data and privacy protections of citizens. This makes having a robust data protection law important, which India doesn't have yet.…
