By Do Je-hae
Foreign "white-hat" hackers exchanged opinions with Korean experts and lawmakers in a teleconference organized by the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD), Thursday.
The party said Citizen Lab, a group of ethical hackers from the University of Toronto, Canada, and the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) joined the conference to raise awareness of illegal surveillance on people by spy agencies worldwide.
Citizen Lab first revealed spyware deals between the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and Hacking Team, an Italian firm, which it discovered through hacking in 2012. It also released the Italian firm's spyware transactions in 20 other countries.
The conference came as the Park Geun-hye administration and the NIS are facing growing calls to address surveillance allegations surrounding the spy agency.
During the conference, held at the National Assembly, Bill Marczak, a researcher at Citizen Lab, said that many of the 21 countries found to have purchased the RCS technology were "repressive states," such as Ethiopia, Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.
According to Hacking Team's e-mail correspondence viewed by Citizen Lab, a Hacking Team official visited Korea to meet an NIS agent. The NIS is said to have inquired about the Remote-Controlled System's (RCS) capacity to intercept dialogue on Kakao Talk, the country's most popular messaging app.
The researcher also said that the e-mails revealed that NIS had shown interest in monitoring mobile phones through telecommunication firms, such as SKT.
RCS is spyware sold exclusively to governments. Recently, Citizen Lab found it being used by the Ethiopian government against domestic and international journalists.
Current or former government users of the spyware are: Azerbaijan, Colombia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Panama, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, and Uzbekistan.
Marczak said it found other cases in Ethiopia and Dubai where the RCS had been used to monitor journalists and civilians.
The ruling Saenuri Party has criticized the NPAD for blowing the incident out of proportion, saying that Korea is the only country out of RCS users where the use of this particular spyware is controversial.
Citizen Lab said that so far, there are no traces of North Korea purchasing RCS.
Nate Cardozo, a staff attorney at the EFF discussed surveillance by intelligence agencies in the U.S. at the conference. The EFF is an international non-profit digital rights group.
The NIS has been engaged in illegal surveillance of civilians using RCS since its purchase by a NIS officer in 2012, according to Citizen Lab.
The NIS has maintained that the potent spyware was used exclusively in relation to North Korea and other terrorist organizations.
In a statement, the Saenuri Party described the conference as a "show to exaggerate the allegations against the NIS."
Foreign "white-hat" hackers exchanged opinions with Korean experts and lawmakers in a teleconference organized by the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD), Thursday.
The party said Citizen Lab, a group of ethical hackers from the University of Toronto, Canada, and the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) joined the conference to raise awareness of illegal surveillance on people by spy agencies worldwide.
Citizen Lab first revealed spyware deals between the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and Hacking Team, an Italian firm, which it discovered through hacking in 2012. It also released the Italian firm's spyware transactions in 20 other countries.
The conference came as the Park Geun-hye administration and the NIS are facing growing calls to address surveillance allegations surrounding the spy agency.
During the conference, held at the National Assembly, Bill Marczak, a researcher at Citizen Lab, said that many of the 21 countries found to have purchased the RCS technology were "repressive states," such as Ethiopia, Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.
According to Hacking Team's e-mail correspondence viewed by Citizen Lab, a Hacking Team official visited Korea to meet an NIS agent. The NIS is said to have inquired about the Remote-Controlled System's (RCS) capacity to intercept dialogue on Kakao Talk, the country's most popular messaging app.
The researcher also said that the e-mails revealed that NIS had shown interest in monitoring mobile phones through telecommunication firms, such as SKT.
RCS is spyware sold exclusively to governments. Recently, Citizen Lab found it being used by the Ethiopian government against domestic and international journalists.
Current or former government users of the spyware are: Azerbaijan, Colombia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Panama, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, and Uzbekistan.
Marczak said it found other cases in Ethiopia and Dubai where the RCS had been used to monitor journalists and civilians.
The ruling Saenuri Party has criticized the NPAD for blowing the incident out of proportion, saying that Korea is the only country out of RCS users where the use of this particular spyware is controversial.
Citizen Lab said that so far, there are no traces of North Korea purchasing RCS.
Nate Cardozo, a staff attorney at the EFF discussed surveillance by intelligence agencies in the U.S. at the conference. The EFF is an international non-profit digital rights group.
The NIS has been engaged in illegal surveillance of civilians using RCS since its purchase by a NIS officer in 2012, according to Citizen Lab.
The NIS has maintained that the potent spyware was used exclusively in relation to North Korea and other terrorist organizations.
In a statement, the Saenuri Party described the conference as a "show to exaggerate the allegations against the NIS."
