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U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#311

Post by pstuart »

markus_zhang wrote: post #150

This is a typical "shadow government" symptom. You have forces working within the government that 1) have their own agendas; 2) have connection to international communities, usually military-intelligence ones; 3) have almost zero regulation; 4) even many high ranking government officials don't know about them because they are brotherhood-like closed circles. This reminds me of Operation Gladio or Propaganda Due but d…

5) many high ranking government officials do nothing about this because they're being blackmailed by the spooks.

Tinfoil hat territory? Sure. Plausible and possible? Sure.

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#312

Post by krapp »

OminousWeapons wrote: post #295
Eelongate wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The public's elected representatives being easily blackmailable is obviously of great concern to the public, I don't know why you're downplaying this.

Everyone has dirty laundry they would prefer not be aired, and if they don't then their friends, family, or partners do. I don't think we want to live in a world where absolute moral purity (as determined by the most vocal, biased critics of a given person) is required to hold public office.

>I don't think we want to live in a world where absolute moral purity (as determined by the most vocal, biased critics of a given person) is required to hold public office.

Don't worry, you live in a world where a man with a well documented decades-long laundry list of scandals and faux-pas can brag on tape about how he can get away with molesting young women because of how rich he is and still get elected President.

I'm actually wondering what you could effectively blackmail an American politician with, given how little Americans seem to care about the morality of their leaders. Maybe just the eponymous "dead girl or live boy," but then you have the Kennedys...

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#313

Post by adamrezich »

walrus01 wrote: post #221
deathhand wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you personally upset about the clear intelligence failures and extrfiltration of protected information? I've grown up watching this unfold and I'm shocked that the power groups seem to be so ineffectual at times that it's laughable(but that may be by design...)

It's an absolute shitshow from top to bottom. The people who know what they're doing in intelligence/counter-intelligence agency infosec/netsec (and within major DoS and DoD contractors) have been fully aware and ringing the alarm bells for years. The technologically unsophisticated politicians have been mostly ignoring it.

how much of the ignorance is willful?

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#314

Post by klabb3 »

fabianhjr wrote: post #38
redman25 wrote: post #17

> NSO Group said in a statement on Thursday that it did not have any indication their tools were used but canceled the relevant accounts and would investigate based on the Reuters inquiry. Why would they cancel accounts without knowledge of wrongdoing?

And simultaneusly: - not have any indication their tools were used - canceled the relevant accounts Which "relevant" accounts if NSO's tools weren't used?

Shrödinger's moderation. NSO has this magical zero-knowledge technology that:

- When questioned about a specific malevolent client misusing their data, they cannot be held accountable because the client is running the ops and NSO has no access.

- When asked how they ensure that clients in general don't go rogue and misuse (i.e. human rights & international law abuse) their service, they assure you they monitor them and turn off their access.

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#315

Post by catlikesshrimp »

vorpalhex wrote: post #277
Eelongate wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think the iceberg is coincidentally only as deep as what we've presently heard? That we didn't have the full story yesterday, but today we definitely do? Well I hope you're right, but I don't think you are.

Well how do you know the NSO hasn't replaced the sitting US President with a very convincing android? I mean, they are a very skilled set of engineers. You seem to grant them being able to hold onto very powerful secrets and use them for active blackmail. You even believe they've been operating actively against the US government for several years. If they can do all that, then replacing the sitting US president with…

I can believe that a foreign hacking group, who can zeroclick the most widely used personal device to obey a remote control center, who sells this service to totalitarian regimes and to corrupt governments, has exfiltrated as much data as they can. They are careful enough to cover their tracks as part of the service.

What I cannot believe is you dismiss concern over ongoing security risks, however exagerated, by suggesting a head of state might have been replaced by an android. Please don't troll.

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#316

Post by albatross13 »

jack_riminton wrote: post #290
albatross13 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oy vey what an antisemtic statement, assuming Israeli forces are incapable of knowing friend from foe.

It’s not in the least bit anti-semitic and to suggest so is inflammatory

You suggesting me pointing out antisemitism online being inflammatory is actually deeply antisemtic and a white supremacist dog whistle.

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#317

Post by rafale »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #207
markus_zhang wrote: post #150

This is a typical "shadow government" symptom. You have forces working within the government that 1) have their own agendas; 2) have connection to international communities, usually military-intelligence ones; 3) have almost zero regulation; 4) even many high ranking government officials don't know about them because they are brotherhood-like closed circles. This reminds me of Operation Gladio or Propaganda Due but d…

Implying that Israeli spying on the US is some fringe "shadow government" sub-group of the Israeli government is strange given a long, long history of high profile Israeli spying incidents against the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Franklin_espionage_sc... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben-Ami_Kadish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons_(rocket_engineer…

Israel even sinked a US navy ship and got away with it.

It gives you an idea how powerful their lobby is.

NSO should be declared a terrorist organization.

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#318

Post by sgregnt »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #207
markus_zhang wrote: post #150

This is a typical "shadow government" symptom. You have forces working within the government that 1) have their own agendas; 2) have connection to international communities, usually military-intelligence ones; 3) have almost zero regulation; 4) even many high ranking government officials don't know about them because they are brotherhood-like closed circles. This reminds me of Operation Gladio or Propaganda Due but d…

Implying that Israeli spying on the US is some fringe "shadow government" sub-group of the Israeli government is strange given a long, long history of high profile Israeli spying incidents against the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Franklin_espionage_sc... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben-Ami_Kadish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons_(rocket_engineer…

Wow should this comment belong to HN?

To me it looks like your comment is very biased and misrepresenting. While you say:

> Then there's the time they slaughtered several dozen US navy and NSA personnel with repeated attacks on an unarmed vessel because they didn't like that we were watching them"

At the same time the wikipedia article that you linked says:

"Both the Israeli and U.S. governments conducted inquiries and issued reports that concluded the attack was a mistake due to Israeli confusion about the ship's identity"

The sentiment of this part of your comment seems to be so openly and blatantly full of unsubstantiated hatred towards Israel, that my hope is it will be heavy downvoted.

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#319

Post by runarberg »

pstuart wrote: post #311
markus_zhang wrote: post #150

This is a typical "shadow government" symptom. You have forces working within the government that 1) have their own agendas; 2) have connection to international communities, usually military-intelligence ones; 3) have almost zero regulation; 4) even many high ranking government officials don't know about them because they are brotherhood-like closed circles. This reminds me of Operation Gladio or Propaganda Due but d…

5) many high ranking government officials do nothing about this because they're being blackmailed by the spooks. Tinfoil hat territory? Sure. Plausible and possible? Sure.

I think it is more likely that 5) many high ranking government officials have sympathetic views with said forces and don’t mind the “occasional incident” as long as said forces are working towards their common goal (whatever that goal might be; but it is probably Islamophobia, settler colonialism and exploitative capitalism).

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#320

Post by jancsika »

Spooky23 wrote: post #279
jjeaff wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can believe there are shadow organizations that lack oversight. In fact, it seems likely. But that these shadow organizations are maintaining power by surveiling and blackmailing congress people is a whole other ballgame and seems highly unlikely to me. For one, it's likely that not every Congressperson has some deep dark secret that makes them blackmail-able. And pissing off the only group of people that could cut…

Politics is a funny business. I have spent alot of time dealing with political people ranging from staffers to actual officials. Many are very well meaning public servants, others careerists, some are… insane on various scales. Politics is a business with uncertain outcomes where “friends” are important and personal stakes are high. From a blackmail perspective, you have people like the bartender turned member of con…

> From a blackmail perspective, you have people like the bartender turned member of congress who got their GED to run who are obvious puppets with a wheelbarrow of odious behavior behind them.

I'd like to visit the Museum of Counterproductivity in the area of your brain that downgraded Bobert from business owner to bartender.

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