The latest bombshell that the Israeli – designed Pegasus spyware has been used by some 40 states of an authoritarian tendency to undermine thousands of critics, journalists, human rights activists – in fact anyone deemed by any latter day Nero to be an enemy of the state – can come as no surprise. In many respects the latest reports – eye watering though they may be – from Amnesty International Labs’ investigations, the French NGO Forbidden Stories and the Guardian, backed by its colleagues at the Washington Post, are news hidden in plain sight for some time now.