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Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

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Re: Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

#111
post #31

Last time I suggested on a similar story that there's a disproportionate number of firms in Israel with an explicit focus on subversion, manipulation, spying and malware, seemingly because a large portion of the Israeli population gain a certain expertise in these fields as part of serving in the IDF and working to suppress Palestinians, I got accused of bias because apparently there's many more Israeli startups work…

Selling spyware and 0days is a significant industry in Israel [1]. This includes Pegasus [2][3]. Countries around the world pay Israeli companies to hack the phones of politicians, opposition leaders, union leaders, journalists and basically anyone they don't like. This is actually a common structure for intelligence agencies who are often restricted from spying domestically or on citizens. They simply farm that out to the intelligence agencies of other countries or these spyware companies. Israel has become kind of an extrajudicial cheat code. Saudi Arabia has been a big user [4]. All of this is just objective fact.

No one was officially blamed for Stuxnet years ago but it's widely believed that the US and Israel were responsible [5]. And of course we had the pager operation [6]. If anyone else had done the same, they'd be labelled as terrorists and be under economic and diplomatic sanctions.

As for BlackCore, I guess it's part of the wider story of Israel's extensive influence campaign on foreign elections and politicians. We've seen this get really overt. For example, Thomas Massie's primary was the most expensive in history when AIPAC and AIPAC affiliates spent a combined ~$35M. I actually think it's this extreme and overt because Israel has lost the PR fight and are increasingly desperate.

Another less-talked about example was the character assassination of Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, which was essentiallya Zionist takeover of the Labor Party and, lo and behold, a few years later we're locking up grandmothers indefinitely for holding up signs that say "Palestine Action" [7].

And of course we have the Jeffrey Epstein of it all where it's really obvious that Epstein was an Israeli access agent and likely Ghislaine Maxwell was as well, particularly when you look at the entire history of Robert Maxwell from WW2 to arming Jewish militias pre-1948 and the IDF after that until finally "falling off" his own yacht.

Oh and there are claims that some unidentified hacker breached the FBI's systems in 2023 and accessed files related to Jeffrey Epstein. There are claims that 500TB was destroyed and 400TB of that was recovered [8]. That's so weird.

It's depressing to me how many people support a state that is functionally the Nazi Germany of our times. Like go ahead and find me the functional distinction between Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. But also how impervious Western politicians are to public opinion on this issue, which has drastically switched in the last few years. Opposition movements are suppressed with brutal violence.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfOgm1IcBd0

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)

[3]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/8/what-you-need-to-kno...

[4]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2021/07/the-...

[5]: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-12633240

[6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device...

[7]: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250807-uk-pensioner-...

[8]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47184683

Re: Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know man, never heard about Finnish people decimating a population, starving kids, subverting countries, toppling governments... I’ve been in Finland last year and they’re so nice.

[flagged]

> Must be nice to live in a country where your neighbors don't blame you for killing Jesus and want to exterminate you.

Says a country that's been credibly accused of trying to exterminate its neighbors you mean?

The absolute lack of self-reflection that is on display here is something else.

Re: Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

#113
post #31

Last time I suggested on a similar story that there's a disproportionate number of firms in Israel with an explicit focus on subversion, manipulation, spying and malware, seemingly because a large portion of the Israeli population gain a certain expertise in these fields as part of serving in the IDF and working to suppress Palestinians, I got accused of bias because apparently there's many more Israeli startups work…

There's a lot of offensive security talent, but this has nothing to do with Palestinians. Israeli intelligence is very advanced and is why Israel has been able to eliminate the leaders of Hezbollah and Iran. Not everything in Israel is about or related to Palestinians. The Palestinian bias only exists in circles where every thought regarding Israel is immediately evoking a Palestinian connotation. In reality, most Is…

> There's a lot of offensive security talent, but this has nothing to do with Palestinians. Israeli intelligence is very advanced and is why Israel has been able to eliminate the leaders of Hezbollah and Iran. Not everything in Israel is about or related to Palestinians.

I would suggest to you that the focus on Iran is because Iran is perceived as being an obstacle to Israeli hegemony in the region and thus undisputed Israeli rule over Palestinian territory.

Iran also justifies its actions in terms of standing up for Palestinians.

So yes, it's very much related.

Re: Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

A Dutch commentator said something incredibly profound that stuck with me: Israel is a Middle Eastern country instead of an outpost of European civilization.

Interesting idea, considering that the European civilization tried to exterminate the Jews in Europe not so long ago.

Re: Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't say that he's hypocritical Say rather that he's apolitical "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department!" says Wernher von Braun

This is fantastic. This is what I'm going to say next time I work on military tech.

It's from the old Tom Lehrer song, "Wernher von Braun."

Re: Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

#116

Another entry in the 'Black' villain line, along with BlackStone, BlackRock, BlackWater etc ... really makes you think the world is run by a thinly veiled cult of evil comic style villains.

Also Black Cube: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Cube

Re: Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

#117
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israeli here - I'll try to write this the least political as I can since I on one hand disagree strongly with the government and on the other my experience has been getting antisemstic (yes, not anti-zionist) comments whenever this gets discussed a lot (and likely downvotes but who cares I've been here 10 years and have more fake points than is important anyway). Israel has several "cores" of technology. The military…

Your PM Netanyahu is a disaster. Your religious hardliners seem to love him. Even someone neutral to sympathetic can’t help but look on in disgust at your PM and his supporters. Edit: The point being that it tarnishes everything that Israel does, and makes fault-finding way too easy.

Let's not pin it all on Netanyuhu, he is a good representation of his society.

Re: Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

#118
post #44
post #31

Last time I suggested on a similar story that there's a disproportionate number of firms in Israel with an explicit focus on subversion, manipulation, spying and malware, seemingly because a large portion of the Israeli population gain a certain expertise in these fields as part of serving in the IDF and working to suppress Palestinians, I got accused of bias because apparently there's many more Israeli startups work…

Regardless of what good things other Israeli companies might be doing, it's clear that the Israeli government doesn't have a problem with these malware / spyware companies.

They actively export it. See Pegasus

Re: Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

#119
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my experience has been getting antisemstic (yes, not anti-zionist) comments whenever this gets discussed a lot I appreciate your experience. I have no doubt there's indeed been an increase in such comments. I think it's important to note that the Israeli government does work very hard to conflate Zionism with Judaism, (which itself seems antisemitic to me), making it harder for some to separate the two. > There are…

> I think it's important to note that the Israeli government does work very hard to conflate Zionism with Judaism, (which itself seems antisemitic to me), making it harder for some to separate the two. Yes, they are trying their hardest with their actions to fuel a new way of antisemitism. Turns out if you are a religious fundamental colony that occupies territory based on the bible, that gives bad rap to the whole r…

Except Zionism is not religious. It is a modern secular nationalist ideology rooted in ethnicity, shared ancestry, history, culture, and language. Indeed, socialism dominated Zionism for a long time.

Many if not most Israelis are not religious, and traditionally, religious Jews (especially the Orthodox; an extreme case is Neturei Karta) oppose Zionism and the State of Israel as a secular ersatz, believing that they must wait for the Messiah to restore Israel.

Of course, in the last few decades, a faction of Zionists have commandeered the messianic for political purposes, but this is not the origin.

Re: Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes

#120
post #31

Last time I suggested on a similar story that there's a disproportionate number of firms in Israel with an explicit focus on subversion, manipulation, spying and malware, seemingly because a large portion of the Israeli population gain a certain expertise in these fields as part of serving in the IDF and working to suppress Palestinians, I got accused of bias because apparently there's many more Israeli startups work…

There's a lot of offensive security talent, but this has nothing to do with Palestinians. Israeli intelligence is very advanced and is why Israel has been able to eliminate the leaders of Hezbollah and Iran. Not everything in Israel is about or related to Palestinians. The Palestinian bias only exists in circles where every thought regarding Israel is immediately evoking a Palestinian connotation. In reality, most Is…

Everything is israel is and always will be related to palestinians in some sense because it's being done on their land
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