[NPR] Facebook bans 7 'surveillance-for-hire' companies that spied on 50,000 users

- 모르는 단어

- 발음/속도/어조 유의

 

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Seven surveillance firms have been banned from Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The parent company of those apps, Meta, says the surveillance companies abused platforms to target 50,000 unsuspecting people around the world. NPR tech correspondent Shannon Bond has more. And a note - Meta does pay NPR to license NPR content.

 

• surveillance firm; 감시 회사
  correspondent; 1. (특정 지역이나 주제 담당) 기자, 특파원

SHANNON BOND, BYLINE: Meta says these companies are mercenaries who sell their spying services to anyone willing to pay. In a new report, Meta details how these seven firms created fake Facebook and Instagram accounts that let them infiltrate groups, befriend targets and trick them into sharing sensitive information like banking and email passwords. Some used WhatsApp messages to infect people's phones with spyware.

 

• mercenary: 돈을 목적으로 하는
  infiltrate: 침투시키다
  befriend: -의 편을 들다, 친구가 되다

NATHANIEL GLEICHER: We see them targeting journalists, politicians, activists, human rights defenders.

BOND: That's Nathaniel Gleicher, head of security policy at Meta.

GLEICHER: We also see them targeting celebrities and also ordinary people, people who bank online, people who might be party to a lawsuit.

 

• be party to: be involved in
  lawsuit: 소송, 고소

BOND: His team links these seven companies to around 1,500 accounts on Facebook and Instagram.

GLEICHER: We've seen some of these firms, for example, create fake accounts designed to look like journalists so that they could reach out to people or fake accounts designed to look like a grad student or someone they might know, and they'll build trust with them.

BOND: Gleicher says it's not always clear who is hiring these firms, but in some cases, it's governments going after critics and opposition. One of the companies, based in China, was working for Chinese law enforcement to spy on people in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. The crackdown builds on a lawsuit WhatsApp filed in 2019 accusing the Israeli company NSO Group of helping governments hack 1,400 phones through WhatsApp messages. Pressure has been growing on the surveillance industry, with watchdog groups and lawmakers calling for the U.S. government to impose sanctions on companies. John Scott - Railton is a cybersecurity researcher at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab. He says these firms enable human rights abuses.

 

• crackdown: 단속, 탄압
  accuse: 비난하다, 폭로하다
  impose: 부과하다, 떠맡기다
  sanction: 제재, 인과

JOHN SCOTT -RAILTON: Almost every autocrat and dictator around the world is being pitched this kind of technology. And it's really important that we get to a place where there are big global norms and regulations. Otherwise, it's just gas on the authoritarian fire.

• autocrat: 독재자
  dictator: 독재자, 권력자
  norm: 표준, 규범
  authoritarian: 권위주의의, 독재주의의

BOND: Meta says that's why it's making its actions public - to draw attention to a shadowy industry that extends far beyond the companies it's banning today. Shannon Bond, NPR News.