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Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon
101–110 of 832 posts
Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know if it's "legal" or not and by who's laws, but it certainly seems like terrorism to me (i.e. intentionally creating a state of terror). I think if Lebanon found a clever way to assassinate the top 45 military commanders in Israel the same people who are defending this wouldn't be calling it a "Legal act of war".
I think this was a brilliant operation and perfectly lawful. I also think that if Lebanon (not Hezbollah) were in a state of war with Israel, yes, that would (depending on proportionality and target discrimination) be perfectly legal, too.
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Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
There might be some potential legal defense in terms of proportionality of collateral damage but it's so thin here as to be absurd. Regardless, given the number of war crimes this army has been found guilty of, this is somewhat moot. What's another war crime in the grand scheme of things.
there is 0 war crimes that IDF has been found guilty of by any legal authority.
There's no central enforcement of international war crime law, so this thread on legal technicalities isn't particularly relevant in real terms, but there is at least an arrest warrant out for the (former) Minister for Defence & Prime Minister in 124 countries, so there's not a lot of room for ambiguity here.
Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of the arguments I've seen supporting this attack focus on the idea that it's fine to kill and maim civilians including children as long as you will probably get some combatants. It's a little bit open to interpretation, I guess, and I'm not a legal expert so fine, ok. But booby trapping mundane daily objects accessible to non-combatants is a clear violation of international law. No real room for leeway or interp…
It's not really a "mundane daily object" though. It's a communications device that's issued to people on the Hezbollah private communications network. It's only accessible to non-combatants if they are (1) in the Hezbollah hierarchy in a non-combatant role, or (2) the person with the pager was exercising poor operational security and letting someone else handle their pager.
> letting someone else handle their pager
I guess you've never given your phone to your toddler for 2 minutes to watch a video while you pooped in a public bathroom, huh?
Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
The intended targets of the exploding papers weren't civilians. Very few actual civilians ended up hurt by the detonations, much fewer than attacks by conventional weapons. It's about as targeted an attack as one can achieve from a distance. As an act of warfare, Israel did a splendid job on this. Thoroughly impressive work.
You're telling me that the 2,800 injured were mostly Hezbollah operatives? Was this sourced and verified anywhere? What is the rate of combatant to non-combatant casualties is this instance compared to "conventional weapons"?
These pagers weren't purchased in stores by civilians. You see, Hezbollah had a problem: Their phone network was totally compromised. Israel was using operatives' phones as tracking beacons. So Hezbollah purchased a few thousand pagers through specialty channels (which we now know had been compromised by Israel) to distribute to their commanders. They believed this would improve their security, because unlike the two-way radios in cell phones, pagers use a one-way broadcast radio, and there is no need to know or report the pager radio's location.
Given this context: A limited number of specialty electronics, acquired and distributed by Hezbollah as a means of military command and control, and subsequent to this operation Hezbollah's C2 was demonstrably neutered--you believe that the majority of injuries were innocent civilians?
Basic logic indicates that the vast majority of those killed and injured were, in fact, nodes in Hezbollah's command and control structure.
Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon
#106> Palantir ended up having to rent a second-floor building that housed its Tel Aviv office, to accommodate the intelligence analysts who needed tutorials Has anyone here tried using their software? It's salesforce-level fucked. They did a great job spewing lofty concepts, with their ontologies and their kinetic layers, but in the end it all ends up being a giant wormy ERP. There might be one good idea in there (artic…
you have to wonder, if they weren't the only tech firm willing to engage w/ DOD, would they survive in a more competitive atmosphere?
Funny you think they are the only tech firm willing to engage with the DOD.
Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
The intended targets of the exploding papers weren't civilians. Very few actual civilians ended up hurt by the detonations, much fewer than attacks by conventional weapons. It's about as targeted an attack as one can achieve from a distance. As an act of warfare, Israel did a splendid job on this. Thoroughly impressive work.
> Very few actual civilians ended up hurt by the detonations, much fewer than attacks by conventional weapons. The reports are 4,000 wounded and 12 killed unintended targets in order to kill 42 targets. On what planet is that “very few actual civilians”? I think you knew full well before posting that’s a ridiculous claim which is why you did it anonymously.
"The reports" are that 12 were killed total, not that 12 civilians were killed. Only 2 of the killed were civilians as far as I can tell. Several of those who people on Twitter tried to claim were civilians, including a doctor, were admitted by Hezbollah to be Hezbollah members and given Hezbollah funerals.
I've never heard of "42 targets", and given 12 people died total, obviously 42 targets were not killed.
You should provide some sourcing for your numbers.
Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon
#108[flagged]
Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know if it's "legal" or not and by who's laws, but it certainly seems like terrorism to me (i.e. intentionally creating a state of terror). I think if Lebanon found a clever way to assassinate the top 45 military commanders in Israel the same people who are defending this wouldn't be calling it a "Legal act of war".
Targeted attacks against military/militia leadership is not terrorism - almost by definition. If it was just random devices exploding, then sure, that could be considered terrorism. But it wasn't random devices, it was communication devices procured by Hezbollah and directly given by Hezbollah to their own members for their own purposes.
Two things
Firstly, generals, like anybody else can be terrorized.
Secondly, even if you only kill generals, that doesn't mean you didn't cause terror for everybody else. Imagine for example that Hezbollah found a way to poison the food for Israel's top X military personnel. It would cause a state of emotional terror for many people in Israel about their food safety for decades most likely, even if they weren't in the military themselves.
Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
95% of flagged comments don't break guidelines in any given discussion. flagging been used forever to silence "inconvenient facts" and "dissenting opinions" as example, just below there is reply to you saying that flagging been abused, been flagged
> 95% of flagged comments don't break guidelines in any given discussion That number is much too high IMO, so I assume we interpret the site guidelines very differently. > as example, just below there is reply to you saying that flagging been abused, been flagged I assume you mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46221396 ? No, you'd see "[flagged]" if that were the case. The comment is [dead], but it was killed…
Can expound on what software did this on its own?