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Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

theguardian.com

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Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#541

Post by dotancohen »

duxup wrote: post #274
covercash wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird, pretty sure employees brought this to their attention a few times already… https://apnews.com/article/microsoft-azure-gaza-palestine-is... https://apnews.com/article/microsoft-azure-gaza-israel-prote... https://apnews.com/article/microsoft-build-israel-gaza-prote... https://apnews.com/article/microsoft-protest-employees-fired...

I actually think understanding exactly how your customers do a thing is not an easy thing to be 100% sure of. I've had sales, customer reps, even engineers and customers describe how a customer / they work ... and then I go and look and ... it's not how anyone said they work IRL.

[flagged]

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#542

Post by worik »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #230
sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a funny way to say "they fired staff that vandalized company property, broke into the CEO's office, and used an internal company website to publish and promote anti-company propaganda". That will get you fired from bussing tables or washing dishes, let alone a six-figure job at MS. Edit: Source on the last one; the first two were widely reported on in media: https://lunduke.substack.com/p/fired-microsoft-emplo…

Some people seem to think rioting and vandalism are acceptable behaviors. It's important that people engaging in such activity are dealt with swiftly and justly. Such behavior further encourages violence and destruction as acceptable behaviors in society, which they are not.

Some people think it is ok to do business with genociders

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#543

Post by fahhem »

dotancohen wrote: post #316
buellerbueller wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UN says differently. Should I just take Israel's word for it?

[flagged]

Bad Hasbara copy paste. Not the good kind that mentions Matt Lieb or Daniel Mate either

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#544

Post by BobaFloutist »

dotancohen wrote: post #447
meowface wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel has a legitimate reason to want to try to intercept and detect terrorist activity, but given what they've been doing in Gaza for the past year and a half, they simply can't be trusted. They've lost all credibility and benefit of the doubt. So they can't expect other entities to help them do something they say is legitimate, because no one can trust them to do something in a legitimate and ethical way.

[flagged]

Oh, don't worry, there's plenty of lost credibility to go around. Nobody's coming out of this situation smelling like roses, other than maybe some Israeli and Gazan peace activists.

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#545

Post by hashim »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #436
hashim wrote: post #420

As someone who's been boycotting Microsoft in line with the BDS movement, I welcome this (belated) move, but seeing Bill Gates on stage laughing (maybe nervously) at Ibtihal Aboussad's (now validated) protest still makes me uneasy about a guy who I previously followed and liked to a reasonable extent, and I'll still probably hold off on watching his most recent documentaries. It makes me wonder how comfortable you ha…

> how comfortable you have to be (as a supposed philanthropist, no less) with the deaths of tens of thousands of brown kids to laugh in a situation like that Laughing at someone yelling on stage can be entirely orthogonal to what they’re saying. (And it’s not like that outburst did anything.)

The article you're commenting on quite literally mentions that employee pressure, of which Ibtihal Aboussad's was the most vocal and memorable in the media, played a significant role in the decision.

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#546

Post by notmyjob »

throwaway314155 wrote: post #515
baobun wrote: post #78

All: Please actually read the article before posting conclusions based on the headline or a quick skim. Most of this thread is confused.

This is off-topic, but I'd like to hijack your comment to remind everyone that your comment is _technically_ against the rules. I hope this particular example reveals that the rule against "RTFA" is misguided and should be changed or removed because it creates a culture where people are deliberately misinformed seeking only a summary in the comment section (if that) and some kind of hot take to fume about.

I agree but there are some dodgy links that make it through and a good way to lower risk is being hesitant to click random links, or at least not being the first person to do so.

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#547

Post by dark_mode »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #523
dark_mode wrote: post #235

> The decision has not affected Microsoft’s wider commercial relationship with the IDF, which is a longstanding client and will retain access to other services. The termination will raise questions within Israel about the policy of holding sensitive military data in a third-party cloud hosted overseas. It's worth noting that even after finding out the "most moral" army is conducting mass surveillance, they're still h…

Doesn't every army conduct "mass surveillance"? What do you think all those satellites with cameras are doing orbiting the planet? Wouldn't the opposite be incredibly immoral? Attacking/bombing/etc without large scale surveillance would largely mean increased collateral damage.

> Wouldn't the opposite be incredibly immoral? Attacking/bombing/etc without large scale surveillance would largely mean increased collateral damage.

The concern is who gets to decide what is or isn't a legitimate target? Today's heroes might be tomorrow's victims. I'd rather no one have that much power over others.

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#548

Post by Hikikomori »

flyinglizard wrote: post #432
basilgohar wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you think Israel was formed in the first place? Or is your comment intentionally ironic?

Israel was not formed by displacement. That's a common misconception. Jews bought lands all across Palestine in early 1900's, with bodies such as the JNF. The displacement ("Nakba") came in 1948, during the Israeli War of Independence (started by the Arabs in Palestine and abroad), and even that mostly concerned areas which participated in the war. Areas that remained peaceful integrated into Israel (today's Israeli…

Started by the Arabs is charitable when Jewish terrorists went around massacring villages.

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#549

Post by freeopinion »

efitz wrote: post #473

I think Cloud providers should be common carriers. I don’t think that it is a good thing when a company can make an arbitrary decision and disable functionality that you have put millions of dollars and thousands or tens of thousands of person hours into. I think that the only reasons that a cloud provider should be permitted to use to justify termination of service, are illegal activity (in the country of service),…

The concept of common carriers in not a wartime concept. Should occupied Ukranians keep providing service to their occupiers on principle?

Aside from the common carrier concept, operating a significant war-supporting facility makes you a significant target. And I don't just mean a target for criticism. Datacenters risk a security threat on a whole new level if taking them out is important to war operations.

Would you criticize a commercial port in the Black Sea if it turned away Russian warships? Harboring Russian warships makes it extremely likely that your port could become the target of missile strikes. If you want to remain an innocent bystander, don't harbor combatants.

This is not a statement in support of any side of any war.

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#550

Post by hashim »

baobun wrote: post #78

All: Please actually read the article before posting conclusions based on the headline or a quick skim. Most of this thread is confused.

Articles should probably come with a similar delay that comment replies do, to prevent comments in the first few minutes after it's posted.
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