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Title: Four Convicted Over Spyware Affair That Shook Greece

Link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/02/26/22422...

A Greek court has convicted four individuals linked to the marketing of
Predator spyware in the wiretapping scandal that shook the country in 2022.
The BBC reports: In what became known as "Greece's Watergate," surveillance
software called Predator was used to target 87 people -- among them
government ministers, senior military officials and journalists. The four who
had marketed the software were found guilty by an Athens court of
misdemeanours of violating the confidentiality of telephone communications
and illegally accessing personal data and conversations. The court sentenced
the four defendants to lengthy jail sentences, suspended pending appeal.
Although they each face 126 years, only eight would be typically served which
is the upper limit for misdemeanors. One in three of the dozens of figures
targeted had also been under legal surveillance by Greece's intelligence
services (EYP). Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who had placed EYP
directly under his supervision, called it a scandal, but no government
officials have been charged in court and critics accuse the government of
trying to cover up the truth. The case dates back to the summer of 2022, when
the current head of Greek Socialist party Pasok, Nikos Androulakis - then an
MEP - was informed by the European Parliament's IT experts that he had
received a malicious text message containing a link. Predator spyware,
marketed by the Athens-based Israeli company Intellexa, can get access to a
device's messages, camera, and microphone. Its use was illegal in Greece at
that time but a new law passed in 2022 has since legalised state security use
of surveillance software under strict conditions. Androulakis also discovered
that he had been tracked for "national security reasons" by Greece's
intelligence services. The scandal has since escalated into a debate over
democratic accountability in Greece.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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