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Israeli-founded app preloaded on Samsung phones is attracting controversy

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Re: Israeli-founded app preloaded on Samsung phones is attracting controversy

#201
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you increasingly lose the court of public opinion, you resort to this sort of gaslighting. Because the Israeli Hasbara is now failing at this gaslighting strategy, you're leveling ad hominems towards people who see this as what it is - decades of war crimes and a humanitarian crisis. So either come up with a proper argument, or stay quiet. Gaslighting us into thinking we're being biased, or that we're ill inform…

The war crime is when Hamas and Hezbollah fire rockets indiscriminately into Israel to kill innocent civilians. Any and all means are and will always be justified to prevent that.

...and destroying or damaging >2/3rds of all structures in Gaza and killing tens of thousands of civilians with airstrikes isn't?

Obviously yes, Hamas and Hezbollah indiscriminately firing rockets at Israel consistute war crimes. I assume you must agree that Israel's systematic targeting of schools, hospitals, mosques, and refugee camps would also qualify?

Re: Israeli-founded app preloaded on Samsung phones is attracting controversy

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember back when the iPhone came out, this was perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of it, at least to me. We were so used to phones coming with crap on them and tightly coupled to the carrier. If the carrier didn't want something on the phone, it never got there. So Apple comes along and says "Hey, AT&T, we will make you the exclusive carrier for the iPhone iff you leave the entire experience under our control." T…

"I was so happy to get locked into a different eco system" is all I hear.

I would say their comment had a lot more nuance and thought put in to it than yours did.

Re: Israeli-founded app preloaded on Samsung phones is attracting controversy

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which _Israeli_ companies were used for Stuxnet or the 2024 pager attack? NSO is not the same as the company from the article since it's explicitly a cyber company.

The more relevant question is, which Israeli companies are currently not involved in covert military operations? The difficulty in comprehending an answer to this question is precisely why allowing ones military to perform such actions using covert means is so dangerous for a civilian population to support. War is supposed to be fought in the open in order to protect the civilians. I suppose when the distinction betw…

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Re: Israeli-founded app preloaded on Samsung phones is attracting controversy

#204

What’s striking is how often these ‘small’ surveillance tech stories trace back to the same state-aligned ecosystem. When Israel does it, it’s treated as a complex security issue. When another ‘bad’ country does the same thing, we immediately call it espionage. And almost on cue, the discussion drifts anywhere except the uncomfortable fact that it’s the same ecosystem from the same country showing up again.

it’s a tough infosec situation because the tel aviv-haifa corridor in israel has an enormous amount of computer science R&D going on that gives US companies a competitive advantage.

for example, annapurna labs in haifa develops the technology behind AWS’s nitro cards, which run the hypervisor, block storage, and networking in every EC2 server.

Re: Israeli-founded app preloaded on Samsung phones is attracting controversy

#205

What’s striking is how often these ‘small’ surveillance tech stories trace back to the same state-aligned ecosystem. When Israel does it, it’s treated as a complex security issue. When another ‘bad’ country does the same thing, we immediately call it espionage. And almost on cue, the discussion drifts anywhere except the uncomfortable fact that it’s the same ecosystem from the same country showing up again.

I mean, it's literally the same thing that happens when past genocides are bad, but when they happen today from an ally of the west... "it's complicated". Except this time happens on the technological side rather than the humanitarian one

Re: Israeli-founded app preloaded on Samsung phones is attracting controversy

#206
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you increasingly lose the court of public opinion, you resort to this sort of gaslighting. Because the Israeli Hasbara is now failing at this gaslighting strategy, you're leveling ad hominems towards people who see this as what it is - decades of war crimes and a humanitarian crisis. So either come up with a proper argument, or stay quiet. Gaslighting us into thinking we're being biased, or that we're ill inform…

The war crime is when Hamas and Hezbollah fire rockets indiscriminately into Israel to kill innocent civilians. Any and all means are and will always be justified to prevent that.

Agree that is a war crime.

It is also a war crime to carry out what is known as the Nakba - ethnically cleansing and displacing hundreds and thousands of Palestinians. It is a crime illegally occupy land that does not belong to you. It is a crime to maintain an apartheid state. It is a crime to hold 'prisoners' without any charges It is a crime to rape said prisoners. It is also disgusting to have a society that riots when said rapists are called out for their actions. It is a crime to continually bomb and kill Palestinians for just existing. It is a crime to continually kill Palestinians for no reason via 'mowing the grass' exercises It is a crime to crime to kill Palestinians when they peacefully protest It is a crime to indiscriminately bomb Gaza because some Palestinians have had enough of being subjected to sub-human conditions.

So if you say 'any and all means are justified to prevent that', then any and all means should be justified to prevent the above, right?

Re: Israeli-founded app preloaded on Samsung phones is attracting controversy

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally a violation of Common Article 3; GC I Art. 12 & 18; GC III Art. 13; GC IV Arts. 27, 32 & 51; AP I Arts. 48, 51(2–5), 57 & 54; CCW Amended Protocol II Art. 7(2) of the Geneva Conventions. Common Article 3 was breached by carrying out lethal attacks against persons taking no active part in hostilities (including off-duty medics and civilians) without individual assessment; GC I Articles 12 and 18 were violate…

You're really playing up the false narrative that the spicy pagers were indiscriminate, which just isn't factually accurate, they were sold exclusively to terrorists and used exclusively by terrorist organizations for communications, there weren't any non-terrorist affiliated medics that got caught up in the attack from my understanding. Even in cases where they were detonated in populated areas bystanders were essen…

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Re: Israeli-founded app preloaded on Samsung phones is attracting controversy

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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The phrase "dog whistle" is also itself a dog whistle that signals where you stand on discussing particular issues in the open.

Only someone trying to silence any dissent to their position would use platitudes like this rather than addressing why the OP mentioned antisemitism out of nowhere.

Re: Israeli-founded app preloaded on Samsung phones is attracting controversy

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pagers killed a total of twelve people; which included four children. That's a pretty awful ratio.

The pager detonations were weak enough to be effectively nonlethal unless you're especially vulnerable. That's how you end up with such a low death to injury ratio in the first place. So per the KPI metric you've chosen, making it more lethal and more dangerous to bystanders would have been better.

Even among the injuries, you're still looking at an awful ratio, since Hezbollah had mostly migrated these devices out of their combatants in favor of newer models, and they were mainly in the hands of civilians.

And all of this is ignoring the blatant international law violation against booby trapping. This was very clearly a war crime.

Re: Israeli-founded app preloaded on Samsung phones is attracting controversy

#210

What’s striking is how often these ‘small’ surveillance tech stories trace back to the same state-aligned ecosystem. When Israel does it, it’s treated as a complex security issue. When another ‘bad’ country does the same thing, we immediately call it espionage. And almost on cue, the discussion drifts anywhere except the uncomfortable fact that it’s the same ecosystem from the same country showing up again.

When Israel does what, in this case? Write software?
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