Online ads weaponised to deliver ‘zero-click’ spyware, researchers say: [Israel-based] Discover-Tech’s Controlium software lets clients mass-profile internet users then covertly hack targets, say researchers at University of Toronto

Millions of users worldwide have been served ads by Discover-Tech since 2024, say researchers. Photograph: Sergio Azenha/Alamy

Hacking

Aisha Down

Thu 15 Oct 202

An Israeli advertising agency has been serving millions of online adverts that allow “zero-click” spyware to be used against targets, researchers at a Canadian university have said.

Citizen Lab, a digital investigations research unit at the University of Toronto, said it believed dozens of devices at the Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera had been compromised by spyware delivered through ads run by Discover-Tech, which describes itself as a specialised digital advertising agency.

According to Citizen Lab, Discover-Tech operates a software platform called Controlium that allows its clients to “mass-profile and deanonymise” internet users then covertly hack targets with third-party spyware. Unlike infections that rely on people interacting with links or files, the spyware requires no interaction from the victim to be installed, making it a new delivery technique, Citizen Lab says.

The infections happen without a user’s knowledge, and in a matter of seconds, according to Citizen Lab.

“[The online advertising] ecosystem is being weaponised at a massive scale to profile millions of users, then silently infect targets with zero-click mercenary spyware,” the report says.

According to the report, Controlium is able to harvest a user’s identity and IP address when the user is shown a seemingly benign custom-created ad – for example, for a digital game or a telecoms service. If the user has been selected as a target for hacking, a mercenary spyware firm can then send a malicious code containing spyware to their device, the researchers say.

They say that millions of users worldwide have been served ads by Discover-Tech since 2024, including in Yemen, Brazil, Mexico and Czechia.

Related work by the research group Confiant also suggests that Discover-Tech’s ads have been shown to users of the networks of government entities in Europe and the US, as well as the UN, Nato, the international criminal court and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

“It’s disastrous that major ad vendors and organisations apparently were neither able to detect nor prevent the company’s malicious advertising operations for years,” said Wolfie Christl, a researcher at Citizen Lab. “The way the online advertising ecosystem works today is a security threat for states, the private sector, civil society and everyone else alike.”

According to Citizen Lab, Controlium acts as a “facilitator” for third-party spyware firms that have targeted “government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics and embassy workers”. Citizen Lab claims it can deliver spyware that can access everything on the device of a target, extracting messages, photos and emails, recording calls and secretly activating microphones.

The full extent of the targeting allegedly enabled by Discover-Tech is unknown. Citizen Lab’s findings join mounting evidence that the opaque arrangements underpinning the world of online advertising can be leveraged for surveillance.

“There has been a lot of buzz that... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/oct/15/israeli-firm-digital-ads-enabling-installation-of-zero-click-spyware-researchers-say

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Global Perception Scores 2026 .... ( Most people say the main purpose of democracy is to improve living standards & Most people agree that countries should follow international law)

 Most people say the main purpose of democracy is to improve living standards & Most people agree that countries should follow international law

https://146165116.fs1.hubspotusercontent-eu1.net/hubfs/146165116/DPI%202026.pdf 

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The International Criminal Court (ICC) strongly rejects United States sanctions against the institution..."No one should be punished for serving the cause of justice. History will judge this moment. Future generations, and above all the victims of mass atrocities, will ask how we responded when an institution created to protect them came under attack. They will ask whether the Court held firm and whether the international community defended the principles it proclaimed or allowed them to be abandoned under pressure. "

The International Criminal Court

Press Release: 9 October 2026 

Today, the United States has imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court as an institution. This unprecedented step follows a series of designations against thirteen independent Judges and prosecutors who serve the cause of justice. 

This measure targets an independent judicial institution, created by treaty and entrusted by 125 States Parties with investigating and prosecuting genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. It is an attempt to obstruct the course of justice and to prevent the Court from doing what it was created to do. It is an assault on the rule of law and on the very foundations of the international legal order which strikes at the simple principle that no one stands above the law.

The designation is aimed at disrupting the Court’s operations and at intimidating those who work for or cooperate with the Court. The Court, for its part, will not be deterred. “The Court will continue to fully discharge its mandate, with independence and impartiality, acting only on the basis of the law and the evidence, for the sake of the countless victims of grave crimes” said ICC President Tomoko Akane. 

Yet the Court cannot stand alone. Its fate now rests also in the hands of the States that created it. The Rome Statute is a collective promise that the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole must not go unpunished. That promise is only as strong as the resolve of those who made it. 

There may be challenges. But, together with its States Parties, the Court has made considerable efforts to ensure the continuity and resilience of its activities. The Court calls upon States to continue taking concrete actions, including to ensure that the Court continues to have the necessary means to continue its work. This is not just about defending a single institution, but about safeguarding the international order grounded upon the rule of law. 

No one should be punished for serving the cause of justice. History will judge this moment. Future generations, and above all the victims of mass atrocities, will ask how we responded when an institution created to protect them came under attack. They will ask whether the Court held firm and whether the international community defended the principles it proclaimed or allowed them to be abandoned under pressure. 

---

For further information, please contact the ICC Public Affairs Unit. You can also follow the Court’s activities on Twitter/X, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Flickr.

 https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/icc-strongly-rejects-us-sanctions-against-institution

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"Zionists have been contemplating the ethic cleansing of the Palestinians ever since Herzl. 750,000 were evicted in 1948; 325,000 more in 1967. Katz & Ben Gvir want to kick out 2m more: "US rejects Israeli suggestions of removing Palestinians from Gaza"" William Dalrymple

 William Dalrymple

@DalrympleWill

 

Zionists have been contemplating the ethic cleansing of the Palestinians ever since Herzl. 750,000 were evicted in 1948; 325,000 more in 1967. Katz & Ben Gvir want to kick out 2m more "US rejects Israeli suggestions of removing Palestinians from Gaza"

 

Palestinians amid the ruins of buildings destroyed by Israeli air raids in Gaza City, August 17, 2026 [Jehad Alshrafi/AP Photo]

US rejects Israeli suggestions of removing Palestinians from Gaza

US State Department tells Al Jazeera that Washington ‘does not support any plan’ for the expulsion of Palestinians.

By Ali Harb

 

Published On 4 Sep 20264 Sep 2026

In a rare public display of disagreement with Israel, the United States has rejected calls by top Israeli officials that the Palestinian population should be removed from Gaza.

Asked about Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz’s call for de-populating Gaza as the only “solution” to the crisis, the US State Department reiterated Washington’s commitment to President Donald Trump’s 20-point “peace plan” that established the “ceasefire” last year.

“As explicitly stated in Point 12 of the President’s plan: ‘No one will be forced to leave Gaza and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return. We will encourage people to stay and offer them the opportunity to build a better Gaza’,” a State Department spokesperson told Al Jazeera in a statement on Friday.

“The United States does not support any plan or proposal for the forced displacement, expulsion, or mandatory transfer of the population of Gaza,” the spokesperson said.

Katz had said that Trump had only “frozen” – not cancelled – his support for removing Palestinians from the territory, a proposal that rights advocates say would amount to ethnic cleansing.

“In the end, there is no real solution for Gaza without this migration,” Katz said on Wednesday.

Israeli officials have been using “migration” as a euphemism for de-populating Gaza.

Katz said the Israeli government is ready to get Palestinians out of Gaza “by sea, by air and by any means to do it” and the idea is still “being discussed all the time”.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir echoed Katz’s statements the following day.

“Instead of illusions of peace now, we need actions of emigration now,” Ben-Gvir said. “Instead of [Palestinians] digging tunnels, it’s time to pack suitcases.”

Arab states, including some close allies of the US, have forcefully rejected any effort to remove Palestinians from their land.... READ MORE  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/4/us-rejects-israeli-suggestions-of-removing-palestinians-from-gaza

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Washington’s imposition of sanctions and travel restrictions on the ICC Prosecutor, judges, and deputy prosecutors due to their work on cases involving US and Israeli officials is a blatant interference in the independence of international justice

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. 7 March 2025. (Bence Árpási via Alamy)

"The United States should stop its efforts to dismantle the Court and lift any financial sanctions and travel restrictions imposed on its judges, prosecutors, and associates. EU member states and other allies need to work together to implement legal, financial, and technical strategies that protect the Court and its personnel from sanctions and political influence, so it can continue to utilise the necessary services and resources to fulfil its responsibilities." 

Successive withdrawals, sanctions, and impunity for wanted individuals drive escalating campaign to undermine ICC 

Geneva — The coordinated actions to dismantle the International Criminal Court (ICC) and hinder its jurisdiction are deeply troubling and signal a dangerous path forward. This trend has become apparent with Venezuela and Chad announcing plans to withdraw from the Rome Statute. This occurs alongside clear US incitement efforts against the Court, including sanctions on its officials, and the European state parties’ lack of substantial action on arrest warrants for Israeli officials.

These actions risk undermining the international criminal justice system and depriving victims of international crimes of one of the few remaining accountability mechanisms, thereby entrenching impunity for perpetrators and providing political and legal cover for ongoing grave violations of international law.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor expresses deep concern over the Chadian government’s announcement that it has begun the process of withdrawing from the ICC. This comes shortly after Venezuela notified the United Nations of its withdrawal, following similar notifications from Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. These actions indicate a concerning trend of countries moving away from the Rome Statute, both within and outside Africa... READ MORE https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/7086/Successive-withdrawals,-sanctions,-and-impunity-for-wanted-individuals-drive-escalating-campaign-to-undermine-ICC

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The United States is destroying itself - The daily news can’t adequately convey the administration’s sabotaging of our government, economy, alliances and environment

‘Every department, every branch, every bureau and function of the federal government is being fatally corrupted or altogether dismantled or disabled.’ Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Rebecca Solnit 

Sun 12 Apr 2026

The United States is being murdered, and it’s an inside job. Every department, every branch, every bureau and function of the federal government is being fatally corrupted or altogether dismantled or disabled. All this is common knowledge, but because it dribbles out in news stories about this specific incident or department, the reports never adequately describe an administration sabotaging the functioning of the federal government and also trashing the global economy, international alliances and relationships, and the national and global environment in ways that will have downstream consequences for decades and perhaps, especially when it comes to climate, centuries.

Across the branches of government, the services that are supposed to protect us – nuclear stockpile monitoring, cybersecurity, counter-terrorism – are being undermined, understaffed or trashed. A different kind of protection that consists of public health, vaccination programs, food safety, clean air and water, social services, civil rights and the rule of law is also under attack. The federal government that serves us is being starved while the federal government that serves the Trump agenda and the oligarchy is glutting itself on taxpayer money, including the grotesque sums dumped on the Department of Homeland Security and the US military now being warped into Pete Hegseth’s twisted vision of a ruthless mercenary force. Hegseth has reportedly stood in the way of promotions for more than a dozen Black and female officers.

It is striking that the Trump team’s constant refrain is that we cannot afford to protect the vulnerable or provide for the people, which is why the richest person in the world, Elon Musk, atop Doge, destroyed USAID last year, which has already resulted in tens of thousands of deaths from starvation and preventable disease. The Iran war is creating a fertilizer crisis in Europe, Africa and Asia that may also result in widespread famine. Meanwhile, the former head of homeland security Kristi Noem spent more than $200m on an ad campaign starring herself before she was fired.

Although there are far worse things about the utterly gratuitous and literally unjustified war on Iran, the fact that it burns through billions a day is striking, given that huge cuts are being made to environmental protection and national parks, and the forest service is being effectively sabotaged, while public lands are being offered up to fossil fuel companies and mining interests. The forest service headquarters are being moved across the country, which will probably cause many resignations, like the similar move of the Bureau of Land Management in Trump’s first term. More than 50 forest service research stations are being cut, meaning more loss of irreplaceable ongoing research, data, facilities and staff.

Trump said in his droning dullard speech last week: “We can’t take care of daycare. We’re a big country ... We’re fighting wars ... It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.” Your money, our money, our public lands, our kids. Trump even bribed the builders of offshore windfarms almost a billion dollars to stop, just because he has a personal vendetta against the clean energy systems. The US used to lead the world in scientific research, including medical research, which had led to important breakthroughs in disease treatment and health, but all that has been slashed to the bone and beyond. This is murder.

The old aphorism about how long it takes an aircraft carrier to turn around might be why the nation seems relatively stable... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/12/united-states-trump-destruction

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"The war launched against Iran by the United States and Israel is a war of choice and of hubris. There is scarcely even the pretence that it was compelled by evidence of an Iranian dash for a bomb or an imminent attack. Such claims do not survive scrutiny; they barely withstand repetition. We are witnessing the realisation of a long-cherished ambition, a neoconservative fever dream that Benjamin Netanyahu has lobbied for, in one form or another, for decades." Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi

 3 March 2026

The dry and the wet burn together

Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi

The aftermath of an airstrike near Ferdowsi Square in central Tehran, 2 March 2026 (Hamid Vakili / Parspix / Abaca Press / Alamy)

‘The dry and the wet burn together’ is a Persian expression invoked when a fire spreads without discrimination. Once the blaze begins, distinctions collapse: between the combustible and the damp, the guilty and the innocent, perpetrators and victims.

The war launched against Iran by the United States and Israel is a war of choice and of hubris. There is scarcely even the pretence that it was compelled by evidence of an Iranian dash for a bomb or an imminent attack. Such claims do not survive scrutiny; they barely withstand repetition. We are witnessing the realisation of a long-cherished ambition, a neoconservative fever dream that Benjamin Netanyahu has lobbied for, in one form or another, for decades. What sanctions could not achieve, what covert action, assassinations and cyber-warfare failed to deliver, direct military force would now accomplish, with the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as its centrepiece.

Trump and Netanyahu made their maximalist aims clear at the outset. This would be about ‘regime change’. What kind of regime would follow was left opaque, for the rest of the world to speculate on with trepidation. It’s a destructive and failed policy that Trump once vowed to retire for good. Like his mendacious pledges to restore dignity to the American working class, the promise was jettisoned as soon as he assumed office.

In a farcical re-enactment of the Iraq War script... READ MORE  https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/march/the-dry-and-the-wet-burn-together 

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WHO statement on notification of withdrawal of the United States: As a founding member of the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States of America has contributed significantly to many of WHO’s greatest achievements, including the eradication of smallpox, and progress against many other public health threats including polio, HIV, Ebola, influenza, tuberculosis, malaria, neglected tropical diseases, antimicrobial resistance, food safety and more. WHO therefore regrets the United States’ notification of withdrawal from WHO – a decision that makes both the United States and the world less safe.

As a founding member of the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States of America has contributed significantly to many of WHO’s greatest achievements, including the eradication of smallpox, and progress against many other public health threats including polio, HIV, Ebola, influenza, tuberculosis, malaria, neglected tropical diseases, antimicrobial resistance, food safety and more.

WHO therefore regrets the United States’ notification of withdrawal from WHO – a decision that makes both the United States and the world less safe. The notification of withdrawal raises issues that will be considered by the WHO Executive Board at its regular meeting starting on 2 February and by the World Health Assembly at its annual meeting in May 2026.

 

WHO takes note of statements from the government of the United States that say WHO has “trashed and tarnished” and insulted it, and compromised its independence. The reverse is true. As we do with every Member State, WHO has always sought to engage with the United States in good faith, with full respect for its sovereignty.

 

In its statements, the United States cited as one of the reasons for its decision, “WHO failures during the COVID-19 pandemic”, including “obstructing the timely and accurate sharing of critical information” and that WHO “concealed those failures”. While no organization or government got everything right, WHO stands by its response to this unprecedented global health crisis. Throughout the pandemic, WHO acted quickly, shared all information it had rapidly and transparently with the world, and advised Member States on the basis of the best available evidence. WHO recommended the use of masks, vaccines and physical distancing, but at no stage recommended mask mandates, vaccine mandates or lockdowns. We supported sovereign governments to make decisions they believed were in the best interests of their people, but the decisions were theirs.

 

Immediately after receiving the first reports of a cluster of cases of “pneumonia of unknown cause” in Wuhan, China on 31 December 2019, WHO asked China for more information and activated its emergency incident management system. By the time the first death was reported from China on 11 January 2020, WHO had already alerted the world through formal channels, public statements and social media, convened global experts, and published comprehensive guidance for countries on how to protect their populations and health systems. When the WHO Director-General declared COVID-19 a public health emergency of international concern under the International Health Regulations on 30 January 2020 – the highest level of alarm under international health law – outside of China there were fewer than 100 reported cases, and no reported deaths.

 

In the first weeks and months of the pandemic, the Director-General urged all countries repeatedly to take immediate action to protect their populations, warning that “the window of opportunity is closing”, “this is not a drill” and describing COVID-19 as “public enemy number one”.

 

In response to the multiple reviews of the COVID-19 pandemic, including of WHO’s performance, WHO has taken steps to strengthen its own work, and to support countries to bolster their own pandemic preparedness and response capacities. The systems we developed and managed before, during and after the emergency phase of the pandemic, and which run 24/7, have contributed to keeping all countries safe, including the United States.

 

The United States also said in its statements that WHO has “pursued a politicized, bureaucratic agenda driven by nations hostile to American interests”. This is untrue. As a specialized agency of the United Nations, governed by 194 Member States, WHO has always been and remains impartial and exists to serve all countries, with respect for their sovereignty, and without fear or favour.

 

WHO appreciates the support and continued engagement of all its Member States, which continue to work within the framework of WHO to pursue solutions to the world’s biggest health threats, both communicable and noncommunicable. Most notably... READ MORE  https://x.com/WHO/status/2015159943096091055

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