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US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

apnews.com

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Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#131

Post by tptacek »

This is my irritating reminder that there is a whole marketplace of implant/CNE products, most of which you have never heard of, produced in basically every jurisdiction in the world.

It used to be NSO Group that got all the press, now it's Paragon, and I think it's all for the good that the spotlight gets shone on these companies, but do keep in mind that this is not an "Israeli" phenomenon. There are American companies selling tooling that is more effective than "Graphite"; they're just more careful about publicity. Wherever it is you live that you feel is morally superior to America and Israel on commercialized CNE, you're likely to end up surprised.

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#133

Post by tehjoker »

edanm wrote: post #124
tehjoker wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genocidal comment. It is well known the stats are an undercount due to the genocidal starvation, disease, and deprivation, collapsing buildings on people that are never counted, and the many videos of e.g. Israelis burning children alive in tents. "True death toll from conflict in Gaza is 41% higher than reported, study estimates" https://www.bmj.com/content/388/bmj.r73

What makes the comment "genocidal" exactly?

"most are combatants" serves to justify the ongoing genocide when the opposite is true in reality. The reality is most combatants are underground so Israel bombs civilians. This is in line with its war goals of ethnically cleansing Gaza so there is no contestation of its colonial claims.

Currently, Israel and the United States are luring starving Gazans with a pittance of aid into kill boxes using the intelligence front "Gaza Humanitarian Foundation". It's sick and depraved.

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#135

Post by amarcheschi »

To give more context copy pasting my comment from a similar thread

I would like to add that Paragon disagrees with COPASIR: (article in italian) https://www.fanpage.it/politica/paragon-smentisce-il-copasir... They offered to give some information about who was surveilled by whom, but not surprisingly the Italian government refused (it was used by 2 secret service agencies in italy). At this point, Paragon stopped giving its access to Italian agencies (spying on journalists is forbidden by Paragon'S tos). COPASIR say they are the ones who stopped the commercial relationships though, so it is clear as water that at least one party isn't telling the truth

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#136

Post by giraffe_lady »

hersko wrote: post #82
coliveira wrote: post #10

Just a small part of the biggest spy network ever invented, which is woven into practically all software and tech infrastructure we use in the West and backed by large corporations with ties to that small country.

So if a company in country A sells military arms to country B, country B is now part of country A's military network. Is that how this works now?

It certainly has some explanatory power so depending on what you're trying to understand about these hypothetical entities, yes.

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#137

Post by keybored »

breppp wrote: post #4

It's amazing that US and Israel are the only countries mentioned in the headline While the story itself is about Italy spying on a journalist in another EU country But I guess news sites needs them clicks

The article itself contains a lot of text about the company. There isn’t much about Italy.

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#138

Post by keybored »

breppp wrote: post #12
kennywinker wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Headlines are written by the publisher not the author. They’re written to maximize readership. The fact that spying happened in italy by italians is mostly only interesting to italians. The fact that the US backs an israeli company that sells spying tools is interesting to many more people. You can see the selling clicks, but because they’re not twisting the truth or saying something misleading - in this case I mostl…

However, the fact that companies sell offensive cyber warfare software to governments is not new, and that specific company isn't either. There's also nothing inherently wrong with selling intelligence tools to a western government, Italy is not Iran or Zambia. And fighting terror or crime using software is valid. The only thing that surprises me is that a western government might attack journalists, and what I'd lik…

> There's also nothing inherently wrong with selling intelligence tools to a western government, Italy is not Iran or Zambia.

Yes, because Western ones are the good governments (looking at Meloni).

> And fighting terror or crime using software is valid. The only thing that surprises me is that a western government might attack journalists, and what I'd like to know from this article was what was their motivation

Huh, it’s surprising that Western governments would spy on journalists. But they are the good guys? What was their motivation.

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#139

Post by myth_drannon »

tehjoker wrote: post #133
edanm wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes the comment "genocidal" exactly?

"most are combatants" serves to justify the ongoing genocide when the opposite is true in reality. The reality is most combatants are underground so Israel bombs civilians. This is in line with its war goals of ethnically cleansing Gaza so there is no contestation of its colonial claims. Currently, Israel and the United States are luring starving Gazans with a pittance of aid into kill boxes using the intelligence fr…

Nazi ideology is popular in Gaza and they learned many lessons from its chief propagandist Goebbels. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden

"a new leaflet with photographs of two burned children was released under the title "Dresden—Massacre of Refugees", stating that 200,000 had died."

"doctored with an extra zero to increase [the total dead from the raid] to 202,040"."

Israel-Palestine war will be notorious not for the mass casualties but for the massive, well preparared propaganda war. This will be studied for generations. Israel truly failed to counter this threat (among others) and is totally unprepared.

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#140

Post by ThinkBeat »

v5v3 wrote: post #46
coliveira wrote: post #10

Just a small part of the biggest spy network ever invented, which is woven into practically all software and tech infrastructure we use in the West and backed by large corporations with ties to that small country.

Yes. Surprised they allowed a zero click exploit to be exposed for what appears to be low value targets.

That means they have a big bin of zero click exploit ready for use. This one was probably getting old so someone finding it wouldn't mean much.
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