Published in dailyO on 05-11-2019
WhatsApp, a US company, has notified 1,400 users internationally in various nations. Multiple methods of legal recourse will be attempted by the victims in various legal jurisdictions including India, that will have global political and diplomatic repercussions.
The fallout from this scandal might not be containable within Indian officialdom and could throw up details that can embarrass the Government of India and make its security officials vulnerable to foreign blackmail.
Indeed, at a later date, if it comes about that both WhatsApp and NSO collaborated to create an exploitable backdoor and milked security organisations around the world for a few hundred of millions of dollars, while being in a position to materially affect the polity and destiny of nations, it would be the acme of a successful information operation.