Congress govt acquires more weapons for snooping on Opposition

The Congress-led Telangana government is facing scrutiny over its alleged use of advanced cybersecurity tools for political surveillance. Devices like Talkwalker, Cellebrite Inseyets and Innsight, originally meant for cybercrime detection, are reportedly being used to monitor opposition leaders, social media activity and private communications.

Hyderabad: Living up to Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy‘s recent statements that ‘all governments tap phones’ and that ‘tapping is not illegal if permissions are obtained’, the Congress government appears to be strengthening its arsenal for political spying, and in the process, turning the State Police into its private snooping agency.

Using the pretext of fighting cybercrime, the government is getting the cybersecurity wing to acquire spying gadgets, digital forensic tools and software, some of which it claims are already in use with officials claiming that various security agencies across India and the Centre have adopted similar tools.

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These tools include the Talkwalker gadget, the Cellebrite Inseyets tool/software and a Cyber Forensic Hub tool/software to mention a few.

According to digital experts and available information, Talkwalker is like a digital radar that tracks what people are saying online about a brand, political party or even a government policy. BRS observers feel that since the gadget is being used by the Congress government to monitor social media, including hashtags like #CongressFailedTelangana posted by social media warriors of the BRS and other opposition parties, identifying who is actively campaigning online.

It is also allegedly being used to keep an eye on news sites, blogs, forums and even print media with any news site writing positively about irrigation projects built during the BRS term, being tracked with the Congress instantly planning counter write-ups.

Talkwalker also uses AI to detect whether online posts are positive, negative or neutral. It also has image and video recognition capabilities, using which the Congress can silently map the opposition party, from social media warriors to local leaders. Even when people don’t openly mention a party online, they can be silently mapped and targeted, digital experts opine.

The tool is ideal for tracking fake news or crisis management, but can be misused for political spying, and the Congress can keep track of speeches of opposition leaders, local WhatsApp groups and supporters’ networks to suppress their voices.

As for the Cellebrite Inseyets tool/software, a powerful forensic software used by investigation agencies to unlock phones, extract deleted data, and monitor private information even if the device is locked or encrypted, the Congress can use it in multiple ways against opposition parties.

It can be used to break into Android phones and Apple’s iPhones, no matter the PIN, password, or fingerprint, experts say, stating that the government can use it to unlock the phones of social media warriors and leaders of opposition parties and also those of activists arrested in false cases to see their contacts and communication like X (Twitter), WhatsApp etc and more.

Even if the target deletes WhatsApp groups or Telegram chats about strategy meetings, this tool can recover them for surveillance. It has a Brute-Force Unlock capability, trying all possible PIN/password combinations at high speed, which helps the government access opposition members’ phones by brute force to steal internal campaign discussions.

It works even on advanced Apple iPhone/Samsung encryptions, experts say, adding that it can also pull backups from Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, WhatsApp backup etc. It also can pick specific apps like WhatsApp or Signal, which means the Congress can quietly target only BRS-related or BJP-related communication apps (WhatsApp groups run by social media warriors).

It can also unlock hidden folders (Samsung Secure Folder, Huawei Private Space, Oppo/Vivo second space), with even erased campaign photos/videos being recoverable.

Using this software, the Congress can combine data from phones, laptops, SIM cards and WhatsApp backups to build a complete picture of opposition networks as well. This could be misused to silence or intimidate opposition supporters by exposing private chats/photos too, experts say, warning that the Congress could thus turn lawful forensic software into illegal spying machines against political opposition.

The Cyber Forensic Hub Tool/Software is a powerful digital forensic platform that can analyze computers, hard drives, USBs, mobile backups, and online data, recovering deleted files, tracing footprints and generating legal-style reports.

This is allegedly to extract data from any storage secretly, without the opposition even knowing and exact copies being created as evidence. It can also analyse messages for tone and intent, which means, if the Cyber Forensic Hub is misused, it can be used for digital harassment.

The Innsight tool, meanwhile, is a super search engine and digital detective tool that tracks online activity across platforms, detects hidden connections and summarizes large-scale conversations.

This can be used to infiltrate Opposition WhatsApp groups or Telegram channels of social media users to collect every conversation and strategy plan. It has multiple analysis features like Sentiment Analysis, Behaviour Profiling and Trend Detection, in short, if hashtags like #CongressFailedTelangana or #RevanthFailedCM starts trending, the Congress will immediately know and launch counter-narratives.

Digital experts say it will help the Congress identify key BRS/BJP influencers on Twitter/X by mapping who shares and amplifies leaders’ speeches, and selectively target them with cases. It can also help the Congress IT Cell create fake avatars to join BRS/BJP activist groups, scrape all content, and later harass members.

Innsight also has Case Management and Collaboration capabilities, enabling the Congress to open a case called “Anti-Congress Campaign” to track all opposition-driven social media attacks in one dashboard.

The tool also preserves content for legal or political action, enabling the Congress to archive tweets, FB posts and WhatsApp forwards from opposition party supporters and later frame them.

In short, these cybersecurity devices and software tools, acquired to fight cybercrime, stand every possibility of being used as political weapons against opposition voices.