Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware • Hacker News Board

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#151

Post by VictorPath » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 3:32 PM UTC

alignItems wrote: post #123

DeathArrow wrote: post #2

Can someone explain the strong ties between US and Israel, and why US stands behind Israel, no matter what?

There are biases on all sides, and it’s often hard to extricate oneself from them to see the facts as they are. You could flip the question and ask why is so much of the world anti-Israel, no matter what? The data on this is that in 2020 the UN adopted 17 resolutions condemning Israel and 6 for the rest of the world. Now it’s possible that Israel is so much worse than the rest of the world, and the US is biased. Or p…

> The data on this is that in 2020 the UN adopted 17 resolutions condemning Israel and 6 for the rest of the world.

> Now it’s possible that Israel is so much worse than the rest of the world

According to Israel itself, it launched 50 bombing raids in Syria in 2020. Many of the UN resolutions condemning Israel were due to those bombings and other actions Israel has taken vis-a-vis Syria. Including Israel's occupation and settlement of Syrian territory since 1967, which the UN condemned then, and upheld in 2020 along with the other resolutions.

The reason the UN condemned Israel in 2020 and not Bhutan, is Israel decided to bomb Syria many times in 2020, and Bhutan did not.

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#152

Post by stef25 » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 3:32 PM UTC

codetrotter wrote: post #24

stef25 wrote: post #15

Slightly OT - Isn't it obvious that NSO must be able to control every "copy" of Pegasus it sells? They wouldn't sell it unless they were absolutely sure it wouldn't be used against its own people and they have no problem selling to their arch enemies. NSO's defense has always been "we just sell the tech and can't be held responsible for what our clients do with it" (this was clear from the Darknet Diaries episode). I…

> They wouldn't sell it unless they were absolutely sure it wouldn't be used against its own people Why not? NSO Group is willing to sacrifice the lives of others for profit, so who’s to say that NSO Group would shy away from that?

If I remember correctly every sale of Pegasus requires an export license and is therefore subject to approval by the Israeli govt. They don't seem to care much for human rights activists and journalists but assuming every unpatched smartphone is vulnerable, it's very unlikely they're going to allow sales if it could just be pointed at any member of the Israeli govt or military.

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#153

Post by raxxorrax » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 3:36 PM UTC

wara23arish wrote: post #142

raxxorrax wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered who nibbled off the foreskins of Americans... But seriously, I somehow expected such an answer and I believe it to be heavily misinformed. It is the old formula, Jews are somehow responsible for it all. Can you give an example for a policy or public influence that was made in favor of Jews? I find them often very disagreeable. 2 Jews in a room can net you 5 different opinions. That is just a stereot…

Does the public policy saying that in order to receive aid due to hurricane harvey you must vow not to boycott israeli products count? https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/texas-city-tells-people-... There are countless many examples like this.

That is indeed quite a weird restriction. Sure that law was made by Jews? I think many would oppose such a move. On the other hand some feel compelled to enact such laws because there are groups tell funny stories about Jews or Israel. Any more examples?

Help for hurricane relief, as weird as it may be, doesn't indicate political influence, although many states have special protections for minorities of all kind.

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#154

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 3:41 PM UTC

justin66 wrote: post #106

guerrilla wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less true today, but historically: “Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier, and is located in a critical region for American national security.” — Alexander Haig (former Secretary of State under Reagan and four-star general.) Today they have a lot of common economic interests and trade, similar to a European country.

> “Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world Alexander "I am in control here" Haig made that statement prior to witnessing Desert Storm and the three decades of conflict to follow. The thing that makes that statement ironic is that we can't really fly much from there, and at times had to actively lobby Israel not to fly attack missions in their own self-defense, because doing so would alienate our…

[deleted]

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#155

Post by newacct583 » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 3:41 PM UTC

Vervious wrote: post #13

To be fair, it is quite murky to what extent groups like Al-Haq are associated with the PFLP (which, with its history of aircraft hijackings and suicide bombings, is undoubtedly a terrorist group). There is plenty of purported evidence of financial and personnel links out there, and I really doubt HN is the right forum to decide either way (unless someone is an expert).

This seems like an attempt at misdirection. In a lawful society, the reason for surveilling suspected terrorists is because you actually suspect them of terrorism, not because they're currently your political opponents.

If you ran with a gang in your 20's, that doesn't give the government permanent access to a wire tap when you start doing social justice advocacy in your 40's.

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#156

Post by Quanttek » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 3:43 PM UTC

pythonlion wrote: post #124

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact based claim is that the Israel government haven’t provided evidence to their claims and therefore the claims are unsubstantiated. Any discussion of conspiracy can be put to rest with some proof.

but since when governments need to provide evidence and to whom? the world government? Can I go to random governments around the world and ask them to show evidence about their security issues to my organization?

Any state abiding by the rule of law, human rights, and democracy needs to provide evidence proving such allegations beyond a reasonable doubt and enabling the victims to challenge such administrative decisions in court. If Israel wants to drop the pretense of democracy, so be it. But human rights and the rule of law are universal obligations under international law.

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#157

Post by FridayoLeary » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 3:43 PM UTC

This is the perfect example of such technology being used for the good. Despite the misleading title, these organisation are probably terrorist groups. The wonderful thing about palestinian terrorist is that they can rely on well meaning fools to white wash their image for them. In this case it's the presumptously named "front line defenders". There are no shortage of such people who will twist facts and ignore evidence and mislead the public in order to create the image of Israeli opression and palestinian victimhood. Their goal of course is to help the palestinian people but their methods are reprehensible. Ironically it's the palestinians who lose out the most by being kept in a state of perpetual victimhood. It's curious to note that the average life expectancy in the West Bank and Gaza improved dramatically during periods of Israeli occupation. Calling out human right abuses is all well and good, but to do so selectively is in fact abuse itself. I have rather generously described such people as useful idiots, and i honestly think this is true for most of them. But the obsession of so many organisations like this one on Israel, the only Jewish country in the world, to me hints at anti semitism in their upper ranks.

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#158

Post by zibzab » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 3:46 PM UTC

friehe wrote: post #126

zibzab wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "the fappening", xghost and NSO have already clearly demonstrated that mobile security is just PR.

According to Wikipedia "the fappening" was a phishing attack. I don't think that is a mobile specific problem.

That is not correct.

It was actually a distributed campaign with multiple hackers with different methods but the main leaks were due to the following problems:

1. Bug in some Apple services allowed unlimited login attempts

2. Bug in Apple backup restoration function allowed bypassing multi-factor authentication (or was it confirmation email?)

This is all from memory, I might be wrong about the details. Anyway, that Apple initially blamed this on weak passwords and now phisihing clearly demonstrates what kind of PR circus this field is.

Just think about this: when Apple closed these holes (silently), attacks had been going on for 1-2 years. Towards the end there were fairly cheap and reliable hack-my-exs-iphone services on the darknet.

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#159

Post by q1w2 » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 3:48 PM UTC

stef25 wrote: post #15

Slightly OT - Isn't it obvious that NSO must be able to control every "copy" of Pegasus it sells? They wouldn't sell it unless they were absolutely sure it wouldn't be used against its own people and they have no problem selling to their arch enemies. NSO's defense has always been "we just sell the tech and can't be held responsible for what our clients do with it" (this was clear from the Darknet Diaries episode). I…

> "we just sell the tech and can't be held responsible for what our clients do with it"

This should not be put in quotes - as it is not a quote.

Also, they issued a statement saying the opposite - that they review the uses of the tech, and sign agreements with nations buying it that they will act in a certain way.

Enforcement those agreements is obviously complicated.

Re: Six Palestinian organizations hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware

#160

Post by mattnewton » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 3:48 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #141

qwerty456127 wrote: post #3

I dunno anything about these particular organizations so can't judge who is right here but the fact any country government can declare anybody they don't like a terrorist or another kind of criminal and have them cancelled or hunted in the whole world has long baffled me.

One major function of a government is the monopoly on "cancelling" or really the use of force. The nice thing about western countries is that they require due process of law. ...which was followed in this case.

Due process is great but it isn’t magic; in a democracy it’s still a tool a majority can use to persecute a minority. It’s certainly possible that’s what is happening here.