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Enough is enough

nsogroup.com

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Re: Enough is enough

#121

Post by fmajid »

TOMDM wrote: post #16

>NSO will continue its mission of saving lives, helping governments around the world prevent terror attacks, break up pedophilia, sex, and drug-trafficking rings, locate missing and kidnapped children, locate survivors trapped under collapsed buildings, and protect airspace against disruptive penetration by dangerous drones. If NSO group truly cared about that mission statement, they'd be more than happy to continue…

I’m pretty sure at a minimum $25K per target, the software is only used for cases where a higher-up is heavily motivated, i.e. his own ass is on the line. Thus whistleblowers, journalists, political opposition and untrustworthy underlings. Possibly terrorists if they are thought likely to attempt an assassination on the said higher-up. Pedophiles? Don’t make me laugh.

Re: Enough is enough

#122

Post by dragonwriter »

evilotto wrote: post #57
notafraudster wrote: post #22

Pretty embarrassing response, honestly. If you specifically work in an area that can be used for sensitive purposes, you have a moral responsibility as to who you choose to sell to and what you choose to enable them to do. Moreover, if you're going to engage in moral indignation -- we can't possibly be responsible for what our customers do!!! -- then you can't end with a paragraph about how you're a league of superhe…

> you're a league of superheroes saving the world from all its evils. Never mind that every authoritarian regime labels its opponents as "terrorists". Thanks, "War On Terror" for enabling this!

> Never mind that every authoritarian regime labels its opponents as "terrorists". Thanks, "War On Terror" for enabling this!

Um, the British in Ireland started this within a few years after the words “terrorism” and “terrorist” referring initially specifically to the acts of the Jacobin revolutionary regime in France, and the perpetrators of those acts, were coined, and its been pretty common since. Blaming the US’s early 21st Century War on Terror for the trend is... inaccurate.

Re: Enough is enough

#124

Post by dredmorbius »

soheil wrote: post #117
dredmorbius wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jamal Khashoggi was married three times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamal_Khashoggi

It’s unusual to call his ex-wives his widows?

It is. That's not the aspect I was addressing. The number of former wives of Khashoggi is, however, trivial to research.

The accepted definition of a widow is a woman who was married to person at the time of that person's death:

https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/widow

(The definition specifies "husband", though I suspect with the rise in gay marriages, a female survivor of an intact legal union will be considered a widow regardless of the deceased spouse's gender.)

There's also the peculiarity of Western (predominantly Christian) tradition to unquestioningly accept serial polygamy, but not simultaneous, despite at least the sexual elements the latter itself being a widespread practice.

I can't speak for notafraudster's intent, though their usage isn't an accepted one.

Re: Enough is enough

#125

Post by Nevermark »

dredmorbius wrote: post #88
zpeti wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While broadly I can agree with you, a corporation is still made up of people, and is lead by people. It’s perfectly possible for someone with a backbone to lead a corporation in a moral way.

In which case, it's the people and not the corporate structure itself which are providing that moral guide.

Organizations can be moral in two ways:

1. As you note: They are made up of people, usually only a few with the ultimate power. Whatever the legal or organizational structures, human morality is inherited from the decision makers.

2. But also: Aside from the individuals, decision making structures within any organization (or mechanism for that matter) can be set up to align with morality or not. I.e. incentives, metrics, business model alignment, transparency, codes of conduct, etc., can all have significant moral implications.

For instance, governments can be designed to be more or less moral. I.e. democracy vs. autocracy.

Human's are not a special moral creation. We would not be surprised by aliens with a moral component, even if they are built very differently than us. Look inside a human and you will also find non- or sub-moral components whose configuration enables moral, immoral, or amoral behavior.

Re: Enough is enough

#126

Post by JohnFen »

cbsmith wrote: post #115
gonehome wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the details - given that, they could have written a real response to the allegations rather than this blog post they posted and it would have come across better. This blog post comes across very defensive somewhat clueless, doesn't inspire confidence. I get why they'd not want to engage with the media (media writers are often useless at best, if not actively/intentionally harmful with regard to this kind o…

The tough thing about being attacked in the press with misinformation is it is very difficult to respond in a way that comes across well. As you can see from the Post's publication of the correspondence from NSO ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2021/07/18/nso... ), they did try to inform the media about the technical nuance, but it's hard to get between a journalist and what looks like a great story. I…

It's also tougher when you're an organization that blew its credibility before this latest thing even happened.

Re: Enough is enough

#127

Post by penguin_booze »

zpeti wrote: post #79
StreamBright wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations do not have any moral at all. It is always virtue signaling when they pretend they do have.

While broadly I can agree with you, a corporation is still made up of people, and is lead by people. It’s perfectly possible for someone with a backbone to lead a corporation in a moral way.

Often, the share holders will make sure that is not the case, at least not for long.

Re: Enough is enough

#128

Post by smsm42 »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #21

They state: " NSO is a technology company. We do not operate the system, nor do we have access to the data of our customers " Yet they also state: " The list is not a list of targets or potential targets of Pegasus. " How do they know it is not a list of targets if they don't have access to their customer's lists of targets? None of this is trustworthy and neither are NSO.

That's a wrong take. Of course they can't claim the list does not include targets or potential (!!) targets at all - if they don't know the potential targets. What they are claiming is that they didn't have such list, and nobody else can plausibly have such list (as they never compiled it, and nobody else had any way to compile it without being able to access data of all clients - which is pretty unlikely), so whatever this list is, it's not what it is claimed to be.

It's like I tell you "I hacked your computer and stole the list of all people you know" - and you say "no you didn't, because on my computer there was no such list, so whatever list you have it's not that". Of course it's theoretically possible I watched you for your whole whole life and compiled such list independently - but that's not likely and that's not what I am claiming anyway.

Of course, they could be lying and in fact they could have such list (which could then be stolen), but arguing that them claiming they don't have the list contradicts the argument the list is not what it's claimed to be makes no sense. There's no contradiction.

Re: Enough is enough

#129

Post by dredmorbius »

Nevermark wrote: post #125
dredmorbius wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which case, it's the people and not the corporate structure itself which are providing that moral guide.

Organizations can be moral in two ways: 1. As you note: They are made up of people, usually only a few with the ultimate power. Whatever the legal or organizational structures, human morality is inherited from the decision makers. 2. But also: Aside from the individuals, decision making structures within any organization (or mechanism for that matter) can be set up to align with morality or not. I.e. incentives, metr…

In the "can be" vs. "is" argument, a point that's frequently neglected is what's the prevelance of the circumstance argued?

How many commercial business corporate entities are explicitly structured with a moral focus as their principle organising principle?

Would that even stand up under corporate law in most jurisdictions (e.g., Delaware, where the state supreme court has pretty much upheld the Friedman "shareholder value" mistake)?

Because that's what really matters here.

I don't follow your final paragraph. Are you arguing that humans are not moral, or that morality isn't a strictly human phenomenon? I'd disagree with the first, generally, and agree with the second. For the second, experiments with animals show innate senses of "fair" and "unfair" as well as group alignment of behaviours, which may not be a moral code, though they seem to me the evolutionary basis of one.

Re: Enough is enough

#130

Post by rhizome31 »

zpeti wrote: post #79
StreamBright wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations do not have any moral at all. It is always virtue signaling when they pretend they do have.

While broadly I can agree with you, a corporation is still made up of people, and is lead by people. It’s perfectly possible for someone with a backbone to lead a corporation in a moral way.

Once upon a time, I was in a situation to stand against a project which I judged morally unacceptable. Colleagues actually reacted more harshly than management. "What are you doing!? This is work!", I was told, as if moral considerations had no room in the work place. Reaction from management was smoother: "We're glad everyone can express their opinions here. But we'll do it anyway." (luckily for me in the end they didn't get the contract)
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