“Israeli Company Uses Thousands of Fake Accounts to Fix Elections”

An Israeli company was found guilty of spreading disinformation and interference in elections. This is the conclusion reached after long research by a team of more than a hundred journalists from different countries. The British newspaper The Guardian and the ZDF were among those involved.

For the investigation, three journalists – two Israelis and one French – disguised as a “ghost company” that is not officially registered anywhere in Israel. They posed as consultants to a businessman who allegedly wanted to rigged elections in an African country.

Tal Hanan, the owner of the company, who describes himself as “Jorge”, told reporters that his organization tried to influence 33 presidential elections, 27 of which were “successful”.

Researchers have not been able to confirm whether this claim is true and what exactly is behind this success. Therefore, it is clear that Hanan’s company, along with the discredited American data company Cambridge Analytica, secretly interfered in the 2015 presidential election in Nigeria.

Photo used by Dutchman

Tal ‘Jorge’ Hanan’s flagship product is software that allows his company to create over 30,000 fake social media profiles. The program allows it to create an online identity in a few clicks, including a photo, name, date of birth, email address, and sometimes even a phone number, credit card or Airbnb account.

Fake accounts are active on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Telegram and Instagram, among others. The Israeli company used a photo of Dutch Tom van Rooijen for one of its fake Twitter profiles with the username Canaelan.

Twitterbot Canaelan publishes news from the BBC, among other things. The timeline also includes tweets about Taylor Swift and the price of a KitKat.

But according to The Guardian, Canaelan was mainly part of a campaign to discredit the UK data protection regulator ICO. The fake account speaks negatively about this organization in one of its tweets, just like many other bots in Hanan’s company. It is not clear who the customer is and what he wants to achieve with the campaign.

“The fun is different,” replies Tom van Rooijen, whose photo was used for the fake account. The 25-year-old Dutchman, who ironically gave workshops to students about fake news and online troll factories, among other things, found it rather strange to see his photo on another account.

“I know this can happen. I even teach, but apparently you can be a victim too,” she says. Van Rooijen has since reported the fake account on Twitter, but he has to prove his identity to show that his photo was stolen. “I need to upload an ID for this, but I’d rather not do that.”

Gmail and Telegram hacked

According to The Guardian, Van Rooijen is just one – possibly tens of thousands – of unaware internet users whose photo was included in Hanan’s software. According to investigative journalists, besides this type of fraud, his company is also guilty of hacking.

For example, he managed to hack into the online accounts of a political adviser from Kenya in front of undercover journalists. The Guardian clicked on the consultant’s emails and messages on Gmail and encrypted messaging service Telegram.

At least one Telegram message Hanan sent in this way on behalf of the consultant was later found on the recipient’s phone by journalists.

“do nothing wrong”

It is not known exactly who the customers of the Israeli company are. In any case, it will affect commercial companies, political parties and security services.

Concerned journalists reported that Hanan did not want to comment on the content of the research team’s results. He says he needs to get “permission” from someone else, it’s unclear who it is. “But to be clear, I didn’t do anything wrong,” he says.

His brother and business partner deny that the company is breaking the rules. “I have worked in law all my life.”

Source: NOS