On 8 July, WikiLeaks published more than a million emails of Hacking Team teams. The Italian IT company develops and markets to monitoring software GOVERNMENTS. Among his interlocutors, Moroccan institutions. Nearly a thousand emails were exchanged with Moroccan interlocutors between 2010 and 2015.
This is either officials directly or private consultants who act on behalf of a client, institution. Discretion is advised. Soon after first making contact with Hacking Team, stakeholders signed a confidentiality agreement. The mails are often encrypted, those who are not exercise restraint, cites only few names and never names the end user of the software. Amid these many conversations, Telquel.ma managed to identify an exchange that runs from March to August 2014, which shows the interest of the RCMP for an ultra powerful and intrusive software. Code name? Galileo.
At the center of trade, a man, Omar Guessous. He runs the GenMed company based in Casablanca. His company sells and advises its customers with security solutions. We take the bandwagon, March 18, 2014. In his email to Marco Bettini, sales manager of Hacking Team, Omar Guessous, speaks for the first time the interest of the RCMP for software Italian society:
” Dear Marco,
As we discussed yesterday I did a small presentation at one of my clients: the Royal Mounted Police (Service of Judicial Police). This is the equivalent of your Carabinieri. They are very interested in your products, especially for mobile. They would have a demo in Morocco beginning or end of April. With the demo, I’m sure we can push for other products. I tried to call you, but your office said you are in a meeting. I’ll call you later.
Sincerely,
Omar Guessous “
Reached by Telquel.ma Omar Guessous refuses to mention namely its customers. “ I have confidentiality agreements, so I obviously can not tell you about my clients. But it’s much the state. , “says one who says he discovered the leaks of these mails in the media. If it happens to the state to use intermediaries, this is for obvious reasons of discretion. But not only. “ We operate in trade fairs, we have partners worldwide and we are a technology watch, so we are often better informed than the force of developments. , “says the director of General GenMed.
In response to his email, Omar Guessous is related with Emad Shehata, key account manager at Hacking Team. The latter asks him the same day to sign a non-disclosure agreement and stands ready to organize a demonstration in Rabat
Appointment is taken April 23, 2014 for a demonstration of the Gendarmerie teams in Rabat. Meanwhile, Omar Guessous Hacking Team presented the products at the Judicial Police who shows too interested. The trade will make two things at once during their visit to Morocco and meet with the Directorate of Technical and Scientific Police and the administrative and judicial police service of the RCMP. The meeting will now take place on 27 May, to allow Italian teams make their Easter holidays. An associate of Omar Guessous take care to recommend two hotels Casablanca to Italian business, Le Palace D’Anfa and Val d’Anfa.
To prepare this demonstration and resolve practical details, Emad Shehata gets in direct contact with Laghmari Cherkaoui and captains of the gendarmerie of Rabat. This is the first meeting between Emad Shehata and Omar Guessous. The two seem to get along very well, since now Guessous Omar began his emails to its Italian partner with “Habibi”.
A week after the meeting, Hacking Team sent a quote for a total 550 000 to the RCMP.
The following exchanges does not explicitly mention that the Force did sign a contract license with Hacking Team for use of one of their software. However, the email below Emad Omar Shehata Guessous reveals that following the first estimate, Hacking Team sent a second more competitive quotation in Chibi Colonel of the gendarmerie of Rabat and including a maintenance contract.
Moreover, this mail between Omar and Emad Shehata Guessous reveals the name of an attachment which confirms that the software in question is indeed although Galileo.
Finally, a source close to the case confirms on condition of anonymity that the Force has acquired licenses Galileo at the time.
Such a tool in the hands of the gendarmerie raises the question of its use. Mail, SMS, chat, web browsing … With Galileo, nothing is secret. Everything is accessible, almost like a book. Even encrypted exchanges can be analyzed. The software also enables the microphone and video from a smartphone or computer. If this software was installed on the device you are using to read this, you have very little chance to detect as it is discreet. In August 2012, it is a software of this ilk and signed Hacking Team is found on the computers of journalists Mamfakinch. The software had been transmitted by a simple Word document attached to an email room.
The law itself maintains ambiguity. If Article 24 of the 2011 Constitution guarantees the right to protection of privacy, it provides that “ only justice may allow, under the conditions and in the manner under the law, access to their content (private communications, Ed) their total or partial disclosure or invocation to charge anyone. “However, the Code of Criminal Procedure makes no mention of computer surveillance, be it as wiretapping. Asked about his role as legal advisor to the RCMP at the time of linking with Hacking Team, Omar Guessous ensures that the question does not arise
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