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Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

politico.com

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Re: Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

#131

Post by kstenerud »

tracer4201 wrote: post #118
kstenerud wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel and Saudi Arabia are America's eyes and ears into the Middle East. It could have been any nation (indeed, America tried to get Iran as well, but was... less than successful). These kinds of relationships require a fair bit of quid pro quo, and of course for a country like Israel whose very national security depends upon a cozy relationship with America, it's perfectly understandable that they'd be spying on Am…

It’s unfortunate we would rely on either of these countries to be our eyes and ears. Both are corrupt. Saudi appears worst to us in the west because their daily way of life isn’t so compatible with western values, especially with respect to religion in government (or freedom of, rather) and general human rights and women’s rights. Israel appears to be democratic but discriminates heavily and are also driven to a grea…

This is nothing new; The game of geopolitics is a dirty one, and you need sharp elbows to get your way. America's obsession with the Middle East was originally to counter the USSR, then later a quest to control oil prices so that their own producers wouldn't suffer. It's always played like a zero-sum game, which means that those in power will deal with unsavory characters if it means getting ahead.

The "anti semite" fears are an American thing; outside of America, nobody cares. And that's to be expected... Israel gets no help from anyone else, so why should she care what they think? America, however, is a mind to be guarded, to ensure that her protection remains in the future. And this is a perfectly reasonable tactical stance to take for someone in Israel's precarious position.

Obviously it's not so simple as this in reality. You have idealists and zealots and hardliners all jockeying for control within any given government. But the primary driving force is that of state security.

Re: Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

#132

Post by dahart »

Miner49er wrote: post #31
dahart wrote: post #17

> The miniature surveillance devices, colloquially known as “StingRays,” mimic regular cell towers to fool cell phones into giving them their locations and identity information. I realize that roaming is a thing, and I don’t know how cellular protocols work, but I am curious why at this point phones don’t connect to towers anonymously, authenticate towers by default, encrypt identity, etc..? Surely the phone could be…

Even if it is possible, why would it ever be implemented? The vast majority of users don't care about this. And even if they did, it's not like there's any real competition in cellular carriers, so there still wouldn't be incentive for carriers to implement this. On the flip side, there is lots of demand from law enforcement for them _not_ to. Law enforcement uses stingrays and would certainly pressure carriers to no…

Isn't that a bit like asking why HTTPS would ever be implemented, and saying that the vast majority of users don't care about internet privacy, and law enforcement would very much prefer we don't use encryption? The reason I see it being implemented is to prevent StingRay from being a thing.

Re: Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

#133

Post by shrimp_emoji »

ur-whale wrote: post #123
kryogen1c wrote: post #8

> The U.S. government concluded within the last two years that Israel was most likely behind > But unlike most other occasions I don't know if im spoiled by Wikipedia, or jaded from age, or wisened by age, or rightfully lost trust in the media, or wrongfully lost trust in the media, but i find myself entirely unwilling to accept to accept claims like this. Citation. Needed. In order to believe this article, i need to…

Do a startup that puts news on the blockchain. Include SHA512 of pictures and video of eyewitnesses of said piece of news.

What if a deepfake got in your blockchain?

Re: Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

#134

Post by wallace_f »

pessimizer wrote: post #61
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #28

What does the US get out of the special relationship with Israel? Anti-Israel sources mostly talk about the strong Jewish lobbies, while pro-Israel sources mostly cite being the only democracy in the region. Both seem misleading at best. What's the US's argument from self-interest for tolerating this kind of thing?

It's important to remember that "foreign aid" is actually domestic aid, i.e. is not money given from one country to another to purchase things, but things from particular vendors in a particular country given to another country, paid for by tax dollars. That massive aid to Israel (and Egypt, and wherever else) creates a block of insider companies in the US that need to lobby for Israeli belligerence (and promote the…

This is an interesting framework and it seems apparent to sadly hold truth. The other framework is that it is nothing more than simply of course as anyone can easily see Jewish and pro-Israeli politicians, technocrats, billionaires, industry-leaders and lobbying groups frankly exist in such extreme disproportion to any other ethnic group in elite America that it would be surprising if they didn't have a special, privileged relationship. It is so easy to become a pariah just for simply stating this blatantly obvious state of affairs, or worse instantaneously lose your career for saying something like get out of Palestine such as how Helen Thomas did. One of my parents is Jewish, but I frankly despise racism, nepotism and nationalism and do care about living in a free and honest society and this topic clearly is one example where extreme cognitive dissonance, political correctness have made it into frankly Wrongthink. AFAIK there are only two countries to have openly attacked the US Navy and both received nuclear weapons though not delivered in the same way. AIPAC openly interferes with US elections. I'm not sure what good comes out of all of this, but if there is some I would like to at least know.

Re: Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

#135

Post by onetimemanytime »

kryogen1c wrote: post #8

> The U.S. government concluded within the last two years that Israel was most likely behind > But unlike most other occasions I don't know if im spoiled by Wikipedia, or jaded from age, or wisened by age, or rightfully lost trust in the media, or wrongfully lost trust in the media, but i find myself entirely unwilling to accept to accept claims like this. Citation. Needed. In order to believe this article, i need to…

No citation I think in such cases, unless Israel makes fools of USA and they leak what they have.

Re: Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

#136

Post by mistermann »

habnds wrote: post #127
mistermann wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see what you're saying but I don't agree that they were presenting the officials opinion as fact I don't think you really see what I'm saying. As literally written, they were presenting that particular section as fact. You may remark that I'm being excessively pedantic and that they were just writing a little sloppily, and you may be right, but at the end of the day the result is the same: each individual's menta…

Maybe I don't understand you. Exactly which sentence is presenting an opinion as a fact? I don't think they do so.

> “The reaction ... WAS very different than it WOULD HAVE BEEN in the last administration,” this person said. “With the current administration, there ARE a different set of calculations in regard to addressing THIS.”

> The former senior intelligence official criticized how the administration handled the matter, remarking on the striking difference from past administrations, which LIKELY would have at a very minimum issued a démarche, or formal diplomatic reprimand, to the foreign government (INCLUDING ISRAEL) condemning its actions.

I capitalized the key words, as well as changed something from implicit to explicit.

The article states that the last administration WOULD HAVE handled this situation different. This statement is epistemically flawed in a variety of ways, one major one being being it requires not just top secret but omniscient knowledge.

People have a hard enough time deducing what's actually going on even based on first hand and far simpler interpersonal interactions in their own daily lives, it's no wonder so many people are confused when hundreds of leading articles like this are printed and consumed every day. People already "hallucinate reality", we shouldn't be making it worse.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2128725-a-guide-to-why-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_coding

EDIT: Perhaps this is where we're not seeing eye to eye: you may be judging/evaluating (see what I did there) this article based on your presumption of the _intent_ of the author, whereas I am talking about the impact of this kind of narrative-over-facts writing style on people's perception of reality, regardless of underlying intent?

Re: Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

#137

Post by dahart »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #33
dahart wrote: post #17

> The miniature surveillance devices, colloquially known as “StingRays,” mimic regular cell towers to fool cell phones into giving them their locations and identity information. I realize that roaming is a thing, and I don’t know how cellular protocols work, but I am curious why at this point phones don’t connect to towers anonymously, authenticate towers by default, encrypt identity, etc..? Surely the phone could be…

> why phones don’t connect to towers anonymously Since the GSM era, law enforcement all over the world has appreciated being able to tie cell phone signals to individual devices. IMEI etc is part of the standard for a reason.

While I appreciate law enforcement wanting to do it's job, there's zero technical reason to require compromised privacy and/or protocols that allow for malicious third parties to impersonate legitimate service providers, right?

There is no reason that the phone can't first check that the tower is legitimate before providing identity, and that the tower then checks whether the phone is legitimate before providing any service.

Law enforcement can have what they want without forcing the public to be subject to hacking or identification by anyone at all with an agenda or a few bucks to spare. Right?

Given the increased public awareness of internet security and privacy recently, I'd guess that increased public awareness of mobile security is either already happening or about to happen. I'm just curious how far along we are.

Re: Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

#138

Post by flyinglizard »

tracer4201 wrote: post #118
kstenerud wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel and Saudi Arabia are America's eyes and ears into the Middle East. It could have been any nation (indeed, America tried to get Iran as well, but was... less than successful). These kinds of relationships require a fair bit of quid pro quo, and of course for a country like Israel whose very national security depends upon a cozy relationship with America, it's perfectly understandable that they'd be spying on Am…

It’s unfortunate we would rely on either of these countries to be our eyes and ears. Both are corrupt. Saudi appears worst to us in the west because their daily way of life isn’t so compatible with western values, especially with respect to religion in government (or freedom of, rather) and general human rights and women’s rights. Israel appears to be democratic but discriminates heavily and are also driven to a grea…

Before you accuse Israel of discrimination, you should consider that 20% of Israelis are Arabs (compare that to 12% of Americans being black) and that Arabs had legal equality in Israel decades before blacks did in America.

The relationship between Israel and its Arab minority is much more nuanced than you think. I’d call it passive aggressive, going both ways.

Re: Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

#139

Post by partialrecall »

Udik wrote: post #125
nradov wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the point. If the UK gets caught spying on the US president then they're out of Five Eyes. That would be a much greater loss than anything they could gain through such spying. Germany has much less to lose.

And Israel has nothing to lose from the US? (Apart from the fact that you're obviously trying to change what you said here, as you wrote "the UK has no need to spy".)

> "And Israel has nothing to lose from the US?"

Honestly? Probably not. Obviously they get a lot from the US, but given past outcomes what are the chances they lose that support no matter what they get caught doing? A huge proportion of Americans have an unflinching fondness for Israel. For some evangelicals, support for Israel is even seen as a religious imperative.

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