This case is different in that the NSO sold the tech to a government of a (supposedly) democratic country, EU & NATO member.
Do they sell the tech or the service? A business modelo where NSO decides for themselves whether a victim merits hacking seems more defensible than one where they imagine they can tell that a government will never do wrong if it owns the tool.
"On November 25, the Times of Israel reported that the Israeli government has banned the sales of Pegasus to autocratic regimes, as well as to the governments of Poland and Hungary. The list of countries to which Israeli surveillance companies can sell their spyware has been reduced from 102 to 37. Among others, the blacklisted states now include the United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco. In the EU, it is Poland and Hungary."
We have a meme - "when there is a pandemic and you don't know whether to close schools or cementaries, so you close Giertych". It is almost a tradition at this moment - cases are rising? Quick, arrest him! Okay, on a serious note - this won't change anything. Poland is very polarised right now politically. PiS voters won't care as long as the state gives them money, and the rest already won't vote for them no matter…
As a Pole, it frustrates me to no end as the 90s and 2000s were the time of incredible optimism and opportunity, then the country joined the EU in 2004 you could see *everything" improving very very quickly, huge level of growth and opportunities for everyone, country slowly becoming more and more progressive too, and then PiS got elected and everything went to shit, 6 years down and I don't recognize this country or…
I have no hope anymore. It won't get better.
If people want 500 zł monthly and are willing to sell themselves and the country for that - let them...
We have a meme - "when there is a pandemic and you don't know whether to close schools or cementaries, so you close Giertych". It is almost a tradition at this moment - cases are rising? Quick, arrest him! Okay, on a serious note - this won't change anything. Poland is very polarised right now politically. PiS voters won't care as long as the state gives them money, and the rest already won't vote for them no matter…
As a Pole, it frustrates me to no end as the 90s and 2000s were the time of incredible optimism and opportunity, then the country joined the EU in 2004 you could see *everything" improving very very quickly, huge level of growth and opportunities for everyone, country slowly becoming more and more progressive too, and then PiS got elected and everything went to shit, 6 years down and I don't recognize this country or…
Agreed it is super frustrating. I still have a ton of ties with Poland and the level of disillusion among my contacts there is absolutely overwhelming. Brexit has caused a lot of Polish people that had set up shop abroad between a rock and a hard place: some of them were planning to move back but those plans are now on hold forever. And the ones remaining in Poland that were trying their hardest to move the country forward are now also thinking of abandoning the country because they feel the current slide down will not be arrested for a long time.
As a Pole, it frustrates me to no end as the 90s and 2000s were the time of incredible optimism and opportunity, then the country joined the EU in 2004 you could see *everything" improving very very quickly, huge level of growth and opportunities for everyone, country slowly becoming more and more progressive too, and then PiS got elected and everything went to shit, 6 years down and I don't recognize this country or…
I have no hope anymore. It won't get better. If people want 500 zł monthly and are willing to sell themselves and the country for that - let them...
That's nice in theory but when you are personally dragged down right along with them then that it becomes a very practical problem.
Israel banned Poland from using NSO spyware after this: https://wyborcza.pl/7,173236,27895266,israel-bans-polish-int... "On November 25, the Times of Israel reported that the Israeli government has banned the sales of Pegasus to autocratic regimes, as well as to the governments of Poland and Hungary. The list of countries to which Israeli surveillance companies can sell their spyware has been reduced from 102 to 37.…
We have a meme - "when there is a pandemic and you don't know whether to close schools or cementaries, so you close Giertych". It is almost a tradition at this moment - cases are rising? Quick, arrest him! Okay, on a serious note - this won't change anything. Poland is very polarised right now politically. PiS voters won't care as long as the state gives them money, and the rest already won't vote for them no matter…
As a Pole, it frustrates me to no end as the 90s and 2000s were the time of incredible optimism and opportunity, then the country joined the EU in 2004 you could see *everything" improving very very quickly, huge level of growth and opportunities for everyone, country slowly becoming more and more progressive too, and then PiS got elected and everything went to shit, 6 years down and I don't recognize this country or…
It will take an enormous amount of effort and money to fix everything they brought down. But I believe in Poles - they rebuilt their capital from ruins after WW2, they made an enormous progress after they became a democracy, so no doubt they will also manage to fix everything the populists are destroying right now. But as you say - it's a pity Polish people lost a few years and lots of opportunities.
As a Pole, it frustrates me to no end as the 90s and 2000s were the time of incredible optimism and opportunity, then the country joined the EU in 2004 you could see *everything" improving very very quickly, huge level of growth and opportunities for everyone, country slowly becoming more and more progressive too, and then PiS got elected and everything went to shit, 6 years down and I don't recognize this country or…
I have no hope anymore. It won't get better. If people want 500 zł monthly and are willing to sell themselves and the country for that - let them...
Well, look at it this way: how bad it must have been for those people to prefer the 500zł instead?
I'd say that's what the previous government missed completely: that the old state of affairs simply didn't work for many people.
Do they sell the tech or the service? A business modelo where NSO decides for themselves whether a victim merits hacking seems more defensible than one where they imagine they can tell that a government will never do wrong if it owns the tool.
They sell the service, as evidenced by the fact that Poland got banned from using it, which would not be possible if they sold the "tech" as a reusable pack of 0-days: https://wyborcza.pl/7,173236,27895266,israel-bans-polish-int...
Carefull with that conclusion. The article linked by you says “Israeli surveillance companies have been refusing to service and support spyware used by Polish intelligence agencies”
That sounds more like the NSO is not sending them updates anymore, rather than that they got “banned”.
As a Pole, it frustrates me to no end as the 90s and 2000s were the time of incredible optimism and opportunity, then the country joined the EU in 2004 you could see *everything" improving very very quickly, huge level of growth and opportunities for everyone, country slowly becoming more and more progressive too, and then PiS got elected and everything went to shit, 6 years down and I don't recognize this country or…
It will take an enormous amount of effort and money to fix everything they brought down. But I believe in Poles - they rebuilt their capital from ruins after WW2, they made an enormous progress after they became a democracy, so no doubt they will also manage to fix everything the populists are destroying right now. But as you say - it's a pity Polish people lost a few years and lots of opportunities.
Destroying is a bit of an overstatement. Unfortunately we live in a political climate, not only in Poland, that whenever left-wing candidates lose an election, it's populism and backsliding on democracy. But if the candidate that was supposed to win, wins, companies are all foreign owned and NGOs control all spheres of life, then it's freedom and democracy.