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

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

#381

Post by sReinwald »

udev4096 wrote: post #377
sReinwald wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue isn't the mere existence of spyware companies globally. The issue is that Israeli companies in particular have cornered the market on selling to the world's worst human rights abusers, with catastrophic consequences. Let's be specific: NSO Group sold Pegasus to Saudi Arabia, who used it to track Jamal Khashoggi's inner circle before his assassination. They sold to Mexico, where it was used to target journal…

I wonder how they find extremely talented exploit developers. The exploits they produce probably takes years to develop at minimum

Short and sweet: Unit 8200.

Unit 8200 is Israel's elite military intelligence cyber unit - think NSA but with mandatory military service. Israelis serve in their late teens/early twenties, the most tech-savvy and promising recruits land in Unit 8200 where they develop world-class offensive cyber capabilities on the state's dime.

When they finish their service, they take those skills directly to companies like NSO, Candiru and Paragon. It's not a secret - these companies are often funded, and actively recruit Unit 8200 alumni. The talent isn't necessarily found, it's manufactured by the state and then handed off to the private sector.

That's why Israeli spyware is so effective. Arguably, it's not commercial R&D - it's military grade capabilities with a profit motive and little, if any, ethics oversight.

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

#382

Post by tomhow »

rainonmoon wrote: post #353
tptacek wrote: post #131

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 compa…

[flagged]

> You are being willfully naive (at best)

Please edit swipes out of comments on HN.

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

#383

Post by bigyabai »

udev4096 wrote: post #377
sReinwald wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue isn't the mere existence of spyware companies globally. The issue is that Israeli companies in particular have cornered the market on selling to the world's worst human rights abusers, with catastrophic consequences. Let's be specific: NSO Group sold Pegasus to Saudi Arabia, who used it to track Jamal Khashoggi's inner circle before his assassination. They sold to Mexico, where it was used to target journal…

I wonder how they find extremely talented exploit developers. The exploits they produce probably takes years to develop at minimum

Just about every single Israeli citizen is required to complete mandatory military service. In effect this means that both the local baker and the stay-at-home programmer have likely worked for the IDF in some capacity.

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

#384

Post by keybored »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #212
keybored wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, and the parent's answer to this was "allies of Western governments are also morally inferior". But I never said that allies of Western governments should have cyber weapons, nor did I make any claims on their moral status. Hence parent's comment not addressing anything I said. First they said that the West did a coup against the Iranian government. Hence according to them they are not morally superior (or rath…

A datapoint does not prove the point though.

It absolutely does test the point[1]. Proving the point in some absolute sense is a completely lopsided requirement since the original commenter did not prove anything in that sense to begin with. You are ready to accept the original commenters non-proofs but not counter-factuals?

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prove , sense number 3

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

#385

Post by hollerith »

Aloisius wrote: post #277
hollerith wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It was this or invade which would have easily resulted in more casualties. There was no need to invade: as long as the naval blockade continued, Japan wouldn't get enough fossil fuels and other resources to threaten anyone. They probably would've been lucky to avoid mass starvation. --and Washington knew that when it decided to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it also knew that the Soviets wanted invade Northern Jap…

There were still millions of Japanese troops outside of Japanese home islands all across Asia and the Pacific. The blockade would have had to be expanded and neither Japanese nor American leadership thought it was sustainable. While there was a very optimistic view within the Navy that the Japanese would soon face starvation and surrender, it doesn't appear to match reality. The food situation wasn't so dire that Jap…

I was guessing about the risk of mass starvation, which I hope my previous comment made clear.

I continue to tend to believe that letting a weakened Japan fight indefinitely would have been preferable to what actually happened (i.e., the nuclear strikes). The US lost a lot of prestige, esteem and trust that day that it has not fully recovered yet.

Most of the troops outside the home islands were in Manchuria, which Stalin was willing to sort out for us. Letting Stalin sort it out would have probably resulted in Stalin's ending up with Manchuria rather than what actually happened, which is that China got Manchuria back, but that supports my assertion that Washington chose to nuke Japan mainly to improve its competitive position against the USSR, not because nuking Japan was the only alternative to invading Japan (to paraphrase the assertion that drew me into this comment thread).

I could be wrong though. I'm just saying that I am not yet persuaded by the arguments I"ve seen that Washington had to either nuke Japanese cities or invade the home islands.

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

#386

Post by whodidntante »

edanm wrote: post #380
DSingularity wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is possible to live in peace. Fact: millions of Palestinians displaced by the haganah, Irgun, and the lehi terrorists now live in refugee camps while the Israelis live on their lands and in their houses. Everything else you wrote is just a bunch of propaganda to distract from the central issue. If you have a problem with the Turks take it up with them. The Palestinians however have a problem with you because you c…

I don't agree with your characterization of what happened (you keep saying "stole the land" but that's just not true). But even if I did - why is this the root problem here, and yet not a problem for the millions of other people displaced in the world around the same time, and since then? There have been tens of millions of refugees around the world since 1948, they've all resettled elsewhere and stopped being refuge…

My take on this is that unlike other "refugees", Muslims were in power for 1200 years, and when that was taken away in 1920, they simply could not come to terms that they were now peer level with non-muslims.

50 generations of political, legal, social, and economic supremacy does not go away quickly, and it has only been about 100 years. Imagine if the US as a nation was forcibly disbanded overnight, and the various ethnic groups (Europeans, Mexicans, blacks, native Americans) were all given an area of land to call their own. It does not take much to imagine the wars that would ensue, and the ethnic and racist hatred they would be based on.

It has been 160 years since just part of the US (southern slavery) was ended, and no lands were divided up into nations, and yet, even today, there are still white people who cannot accept that blacks are peers and have equal rights, have been violently opposed to their equality, and would look forward to going to war to address this "crime against nature".

I think it is too optimistic to expect that ethnic hostility would end after only 100 years after 1200 of oppression.

There is hope - 2M Arabs live peacefully in Israel, are treated equally legally, and mostly equally on a practical basis. And they live safe and productive lives. It is the Arabs that did not stay in Israel, those that either left or stayed in what was supposed to be their nation state (Gaza/West Bank) and have been under the indoctrination, for decades, of those who want to bring back the Caliphate that are the problem. They should be wearing green MIGA hats - Make Islam Great Again

And this is what I find so ironic -those in America that would be gleeful if the Native Americans were to somehow get part of their land back and create a sovereign state, even through violence, are the same people that are appalled that Jews have done exactly that for themselves in Israel.

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

#387

Post by bigyabai »

mandmandam wrote: post #341
Intermernet wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen you reference these actors previously. Is there a reason you won't name them? Is this an industry code of silence, or fear of retribution?

This isn't the first of these takes regarding Israel by that poster, where they present themselves as 'not supportive of Israel, just presenting a balanced perspective' (while wildly distorting reality). Since tptacek likes to present themselves as an authority on this kind of stuff, and does indeed have a reputation here, I feel it's important to point out that this isn't the first time they've carried water for Isr…

This is one of the many pitfalls of sharing a collective identity, whether in politics, technology, or even outright jingoist nationalism. You see it on HN all the time; people respond to the tone of a piece rather than what the actual contents are. It's pretty obvious when someone posts a message imbued with that insecurity; it's always about "the other side" and trying to create relative morality. Hasbara, in the Hebrew vernacular. Or "mansplaining" if you're a jaded progressive.

American surveillance is a pretty good example. "Lawful" intercept, geofence tracking, dragnet collection, commercial de-anonymization, America leads the way in a deeply unethical field. Yet, criticize Palantir et. al and people will find ways to argue it's necessary. Usually they create a boogeyman; "we're the good guys because we fight human traffickers and thieves" type of stuff. You don't have to look very closely at the marketing materials for these companies, they're very clear about using it on the "bad guys" to assuage the average insecurity. It's like the dog-and-pony we always see when iOS vs Android security is brought up; "it's not about my phone, it's the relative security of theirs!" When in reality, neither company is ethical or sells a secure product. They're excuses not to think, instead of logical arguments against the claim.

This isn't even a politics issue, either. These comments are a mirror reflection of one's character and their internal (often irrational) justification for an illogical stance. Often these comments aren't even rooted in a form of rhetoric, they just want to deflect the blow a little bit to cover their own ass emotionally. In the tech industry, I've noticed this happen a lot when people are embarrassed by their own work being discovered "in the wild" by peers.

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

#388

Post by edanm »

DSingularity wrote: post #358
edanm wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there is literally nothing you can credit Israel for? It hasn't even achieved peace in your eyes - despite signing at-the-time historic peace agreements that ended decades-long wars with its neighbors - because that's just with "the government" and not with the people. As if this is a standard applied to any other situation anywhere else in the world. If Israel ever signs a peace deal with Palestinians, but the Pa…

I think at this point we have reached Israel needs to stand down and take a long view of things. Is this working? Israel stole the land. Israel got away with the murder of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Israel has the upper hand but its policy of violent repression and aggressive expansion has created for itself millions of enemies. Will this stand the test of time? Logic says no. So abandon this course while…

> I think at this point we have reached Israel needs to stand down and take a long view of things.

If you're referring to the war in Gaza, I completely agree. I think the goals of the war are legitimate and correct, but the way the war is being conducted is morally wrong, and we've long since passed the point where the length of the war makes sense. (Like many Israelis, I suspect the war is at least partially continuing because that benefits Netanyahu personally, even as it hurts Israel.)

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

#389

Post by Swenrekcah »

linotype wrote: post #60
Swenrekcah wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People want the US to ensure peace. The problem is that the US has in recent months turned away from that and is instead promoting unrest, both home and abroad.

What has the US done in recent months to promote unrest abroad?

Reduced support for Ukraine and sympathised with Russia, empowering Putin and increased risk of conflict in Europe.

The US has interfered with elections in Europe, supporting far-right movements that are more prone to violence.

There are more things but those are most relevant for my area.

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

#390

Post by edanm »

DSingularity wrote: post #352
lan321 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just admit it and then it becomes possible to find a solution that doesn’t require murdering tens of thousands of Palestinian children to ethnically cleanse Palestinians that won’t give up their right to return. Out of curiosity, what would that be? From what I've seen, you'd either have to build a wall/externally enforced border, hoping they get over it after forced peace for X years, or force migrate one of them.

I met an old Palestinian man who still works manual, hard labor. Both his sisters were killed by Israeli Air Force bombing. His family was displaced from Haifa during the nakba. Most his elder brothers were kicked out of Palestine decades ago due to their resistance. Do you know what he spent most of his time in discussion complaining about? How his best friend hurt him years ago and caused him lots of frustrating ha…

As you allude to in your story, Palestinians being friends with Israelis was the norm thirty years ago - there was less separation and Israelis and Palestinians more freely interacted.

But you seem to blame Israel for the situation no longer being this way. You say:

> People move on if you let them

So why is the situation worse now than it was before?

The reason, from an Israeli perspective, is that Israel started a peace process with the Palestinians in which it tried to arrive at a reasonable solution, but the Palestinians eventually refused every offer, including very generous offers, and walked away. Not only that, they launched the second intifada, the deadliest wave of terror attacks on Israel.

Israel tried a different way with Gaza - we can't reach a deal, so fine - we'll just leave Gaza completely. It uprooted all Jewish citizens of Gaza, dismantled all settlements, and left. Gaza then proceeded to elect Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, and started almost immediately shooting rockets at Israel.

So as an Israeli liberal - I absolutely prefer peace and want to get to a peaceful resolution with the Palestinians. But it's honestly unclear to me that we have any partner on the Palestinian side that is willing to live side-by-side with Israel.

>And when a Palestinian militant group tries to resist with violence again don’t start murdering civilians. Just treat with them.

You know that this is precisely what Israel did with Hamas - just dealt with them with them. This is what many people are now criticizing Israel for.

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