[iEpikaira: Explicit descriptions not suitable for under 18s]
Revealed: The cyberweapons a key Israeli company offers its clients in order to corrupt democracies across the globe
Omer Benjakob, Gur Megiddo
“Thank you my love. It was a wonderful night. Waiting for you whenever you come back,” read the note attached to the sex toy hidden inside the Amazon delivery box. It was allegedly sent by Shannon Aiken, a 38-year-old Washington woman, to the home of a politician at the height of an election campaign. His wife received the package. The politician slept in his office for two days. A crew was secretly sent to film him there, and the embarrassing footage leaked online.
Aiken appears real. She is active on Facebook and Twitter, has a real Gmail account and an active WhatsApp, both linked to a real phone number. Her Amazon is connected to a credit card, while real funds from her digital wallet paid for the package purportedly containing a dildo, condoms and lubricants.
However, despite her impressive digital footprint, Aiken is not real. She is an avatar: a complex, fake digital persona built to mimic human behavior and avoid detection – not a bot, but a “cyborg.”
It is impossible to know if her story is true. In one version we were told, the politician returned from a trip to the Gulf prior to receiving the package; in another, from Europe. But that is exactly the point.
Tal Hanan is the man who told us the different versions of Aiken’s story and the person in command of an army of fake social media accounts.
Hanan is the head of a business that offers dark services to the highest bidder: digital surveillance, hack-and-leak smear campaigns, influence operations, disinformation, and election interference and suppression.
Continue reading: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2023-02-15/ty-article-magazine/.premium/hacking-extortion-election-interference-the-toolkit-of-israels-agents-of-chaos/00000186-4aa6-d933-af9e-cbe7aa9c0000
