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NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies

reuters.com

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Re: NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies

#151

Post by [deleted] »

smeyer wrote: post #91
blotter_paper wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's reasonable, I suppose I'm lucky to have a friend group that universally prefers open source sorftware to good UX -- there was never really a question for us.

It's a little eye opening to me that anyone could have a friend group that "universally prefers open source software to good UX". I have and use Signal with some friends, but there are also loads of people I communicate with who couldn't even tell you what open source software is, let alone articulate a preference for it over good UX. Are all of your friends software engineers and/or technophiles?

[deleted]

Re: NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies

#152

Post by 01010001 »

jonplackett wrote: post #104

What are Israel doing to get so good at this and chip design and weapons making and everything else they seem to be really good at? There’s only about 8 million people in the whole country. There are plenty of cities with more people than that. How come they punch so far above their weight?

Do they?

Re: NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies

#153

Post by radicalbyte »

filoleg wrote: post #146
beokop wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s only about 10 million people in Sweden and we’ve produced Saab, Ericsson, Volvo, IKEA, H&M, Spotify, Skype, MySQL to name a few. I don’t think it’s that uncommon.

Well, Sweden is indeed one of the known tech powerhouses. But this just seems to prove the parent point, as there are many places in the world with similar population/quality of life/etc., but none of them come even close to Sweden/Israel/Bay Area in terms of tech.

It depends on how you define tech. The Netherlands are small (16m people) and world leaders in Agritech. We've got some decent tech companies in general (Philips, Booking, NXP, TomTom) and of course Shell / Unilever.

You can probably say something similar about Finland or Ireland.

Re: NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies

#154

Post by [deleted] »

smeyer wrote: post #91
blotter_paper wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's reasonable, I suppose I'm lucky to have a friend group that universally prefers open source sorftware to good UX -- there was never really a question for us.

It's a little eye opening to me that anyone could have a friend group that "universally prefers open source software to good UX". I have and use Signal with some friends, but there are also loads of people I communicate with who couldn't even tell you what open source software is, let alone articulate a preference for it over good UX. Are all of your friends software engineers and/or technophiles?

[deleted]

Re: NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies

#155

Post by hanniabu »

blotter_paper wrote: post #16

Which is hilarious and hypocritical, since the government keeps talking about making end-to-end encryption apps illegal to distribute without backdoors. Now they're using an encryption app with a backdoor,* and they're upset about it? I thought this is what they wanted! *I know, I know, this probably wasn't done with a backdoor -- it's just funnier to lie in this context.

How else do you expect them to conduct illegal activities?

Re: NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies

#156

Post by CamperBob2 »

colordrops wrote: post #141
dependenttypes wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume that most people will disagree with this but I believe that it is related to Jewish people on average being generally smarter than a non-jewish person. Consider for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_Nobel_laureates > "Nobel Prizes[note 1] have been awarded to over 900 individuals,[1] of whom at least 20% were Jews, although the Jewish population comprises less than 0.2% of the world's po…

Its a dangerous path - saying that one race is smarter directly implies that another race is dumber. That sort of dialogue is completely taboo at least in the US.

The problem is, because some misguided prejudiced people made up the bogus concept of "race" and used it to justify various forms of discrimination, we're no longer allowed to criticize the very real concept of "culture."

The people with the greatest influence over our language have succeeded in merging the two concepts, walling them both off from polite discourse for reasons known only to themselves.

Re: NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies

#157

Post by wp381640 »

blotter_paper wrote: post #27
cloudyo wrote: post #5

Sometimes you just feel like using Signal instead

I mean, Signal is open source and not owned by Facebook, so I'm not sure why anybody uses WhatsApp instead.

You don't understand why people use a communications app with 1.6 billion users as opposed to one with likely less than a million?

It's network effects

In my own anecdotal experience Signal ranks way below Viber (popular with migrants + expats), Wickr (popular with people doing illegal things and corporate executive scheming), Telegram (popular in crypto, scammers and terrorists)

The only real broad use of Signal i've seen is amongst journalists - and even there i'm not certain how much they actually use it or if it's just the "i'm crypto aware" version of a blue checkmark for their Twitter profiles

Re: NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies

#158

Post by wp381640 »

JohnFen wrote: post #122
stjohnswarts wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people actually worry about these spy agencies? If a state actor wants you or your information they'll just pull up in a black van and take you and use a $5 wrench to beat it out of you.

> How many people actually worry about these spy agencies? I don't really worry about the spy agencies themselves -- I am not of any interest to them. However, I worry a lot about the likes of NSO and the tools they produce. They are likely to end up being used, in one form or another, by criminals and corporations.

These tools keep authoritarians in power and indirectly impact hundres of millions of people. It's like saying you don't care about pacific ocean plastic because you live on the east coast.

Re: NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies

#159

Post by jacquesm »

3pt14159 wrote: post #92
denzil_correa wrote: post #7

> Sources familiar with WhatsApp’s internal investigation into the breach said a “significant” portion of the known victims are high-profile government and military officials spread across at least 20 countries on five continents. Welp!

I know a military contractor working on stuff for non-Nato airforces. These guys use WattsApp for everything. It blew my mind.

I sincerely hope you are joking but from what I've seen myself it would not surprise me at all.

Re: NSO hacked WhatsApp to spy on top government officials at U.S. allies

#160

Post by jacquesm »

teekert wrote: post #66
godelski wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, can you expand on some of these? Like ProtonMail and CreditKarma?

Wait, what?! This invalidates the entire list for me if there is no further proof...

Ditto leaseweb. From what I know about them there is no way they would cooperate with something like that. If this is true it is major league news.
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