Pegasus - the winged horse from Greek mythology who inspired the spyware

Pegasus - the winged horse from Greek mythology who inspired the spyware

Nirmalya DuttaUpdated: Thursday, October 31, 2019, 06:27 PM IST
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Pegasus and Dragon | WikiMedia Commons

The term Pegasus was writ large on websites and will dominate headlines tomorrow, thanks to it being the name of the spyware used to hack WhatsApps of people across the globe, ostensibly designed by an Israeli firm called NSO.

Named after the mythical Greek horse, perhaps the software’s name was decided based on the horse’s ability to go to terrain that was unreachable for other mortals.

Here’s the myth behind winged horse whose name is writ large. He was best known for his association with Greek hero Bellerophon.

The horse’s parentage is even more fascinating. He’s the love child of Poseidon the Greek god of sea and horses and Medusa. While we remember Medusa the Gorgon as a snake-haired monster, she was a beautiful maiden with flowing hair who slept with the Sea God. Unfortunately, the hara-kiri happened in Athena’s temple and furious goddess changed Medusa into a snake-haired monster who’d turn men into stones, reminding us that even in myths, the burden of sexual sin was always on the woman, not the man

Later on, when hero Perseus decapitated Medusa, both Pegasus and the warrior Chrysaor sprang from dead form.

Pegasus flew from his mother’s dead body to Mount Helicon in Boeotia, where he created a spring of water by striking his hoof on a rock.

While some myths describe Pegasus as Perseus’ steed, he was actually Bellerpophon’s ride. Together they killed the monstrous Chimera. When Bellerophon tried to fly Pegasus up to Olympus to join the gods, Bellerophon couldn’t quite complete the journey even though Pegasus went all the way, which is an interesting riposte to Yudhisthir and Yama (the dog)’s trip to heaven.

Zeus would use the horse for a while and then added him to the constellations, only to have him live on in popular Western culture.

In WW II, the insignia of Bellerophon mounted on Pegasus was adopted by UK’s para-troops and others would follow suit.

Ecuador has a satellite named Pegaso, while Turkey has a low-cost airlines named Pegasus Airlines. Even Mobil Oil used it as a company logo in the 1930s.

However, going forward, for all future generations, the mythical creature’s name will forever be synonymous with the spyware used to track activists and journalists on WhatsApp, not to mention playing a role in the brutal killing of Jamal Khashoggi.

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