STATE OF THE MEDIA REPORT QUARTER 4, 2020 cybercriminal purchasing SS7 access, or a surveillance firm running a fake phone company) can send commands to a subscriber’s “home network” falsely indicating that the subscriber is roaming. These commands allow the attacker to track the victim’s location, and intercept voice calls and SMS text messages. Such capabilities could also be used to intercept codes used for two-factor authentication sent via SMS. It is challenging and expensive for telecommunications operators to distinguish malicious traffic from benign behaviour, making these attacks tricky to block. Such reports of alleged call and text interception are reminiscent of another study conducted in Zambia by the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) and Strathmore University’s Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law (CIPIT) during the 2016 general elections37. The study ran network tests aimed at identifying middle boxes capable of performing internet censorship. Out of a total of 1,303 websites that were tested for censorship as part of the study following the 2016 general election period, only ten presented signs of DNS, TCP/IP and HTTP 38 interference, while previously blocked news outlets appeared to be accessible throughout the duration of the testing period. There is, therefore, need for government to clarify the allegations as well as dispel any fears of possible human rights and privacy abuses especially in view of many threats against online users deemed to be dissenting. Admittedly, the legal regime particularly through the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act No. 21 of 2009, the Information and Communication Technologies Act No. 15 of 2009 and other security-related Acts allows for interception of communication albeit following due process with authorisation only when there is probable cause. Journalists are likely to become targets of such spyware in view of their frequent interaction with politically exposed persons and other influential individuals, whistle-blowers and https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/19/ss7-hack-explained-mobile-phone-vulnerabilitysnooping-texts-calls#:~:text=SS7%20is%20a%20set%20of,travelling%20in%20a%20foreign%20country. 37 See https://ooni.org/post/zambia-election-monitoring/#key-findings 38 Read more about the Domain Name Server and other related terminologies TCP/IP and HTTP at https://www.easyredir.com/blog/how-http-dns-work-together-to-make-url-redirects-happen/ P a g e 37 | 56