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EU parliament member hit by Israeli Candiru spyware

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Re: EU parliament member hit by Israeli Candiru spyware

#151

Post by AnimalMuppet »

michaelt wrote: post #123
meowface wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubtful.

Depends how broadly you define it. America literally produces movies about "Captain America", a heroic do-gooder who has superhuman strength, speed and endurance and who wears a flag as an outfit. In these movies he saves the entire planet. America spends like a hundred million dollars every year on that alone.

If by "America" you mean private companies rather than government, by private decision rather than at government direction, and paid for by private citizens voluntarily purchasing the results rather than government contract, then sure.

Re: EU parliament member hit by Israeli Candiru spyware

#152

Post by AnimalMuppet »

dandellion wrote: post #94
meowface wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubtful.

Doubtful how? They have a legal system for it and they do it in the open... They're at 4.26 billions now(*), plus whatever they spend under the table. (*) https://www.statista.com/statistics/257337/total-lobbying-sp...

Domestic lobbying by domestic interests is vastly different than the (foreign) influence operations we were discussing. You can't look at the total spend on lobbying and claim to be making a relevant comparison.

Re: EU parliament member hit by Israeli Candiru spyware

#153

Post by underdeserver »

OhioMan2943 wrote: post #139
Eumenes wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel, despite being a small country, has a very successful tech/IT sector, esp in the security space. Probably IDF acolytes bridging over to the private sector. Israel is widely known to participate in social psyop campaigns as well. It is not farfetched to think they have a pulse on popular tech forums like HN.

Exactly, it's far more likely than not. It's just a question of how much. I wish this influence was catalogued and publicised like russia.

Where is Russian influence catalogued and publicised?

Re: EU parliament member hit by Israeli Candiru spyware

#154

Post by dudeinjapan »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #71
dudeinjapan wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never made that connection. The Palantiri in LOTR were neither inherently good nor evil, they were "seeing stones" with both communication and remote-viewing capabilities, equivalent to a what an iPhone, CCTV cam, or spy satellite can do today. It's an appropriate and cool name for a company whose whole mission is "intelligence gathering". (Yes, it is true that Sauron corrupted Saruman while communicating to him vi…

> The Palantiri in LOTR were neither inherently good nor evil, they were "seeing stones" with both communication and remote-viewing capabilities, equivalent to a what an iPhone, CCTV cam, or spy satellite can do today. Within the context of LOTR's narrative, they were tools that were corrupted by evil and employed to unambiguously evil ends. A weapon such as a warhammer is also just a tool, and Morgoth had his hammer…

Again the Palantiri were communication and surveillance devices used in times of peace. A warhammer by contrast is weapon whose sole purpose is to create violence. (Perhaps a better counterexample here is Palmer Luckey's company Anduril, named for Aragorn's sword, a "weapon clearly for good".)

Yes Sauron hijacked the communication channels, but Sauron also corrupted literally everything he touched--he would have caused the same evil if he was doing morse code on a telegraph.

Re: EU parliament member hit by Israeli Candiru spyware

#157

Post by mardifoufs »

whearyou wrote: post #53
Ozzie_osman wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This piece might be relevant: https://www.leefang.com/p/inside-the-pro-israel-information

It’s a minor effort compared to the hundreds of millions Iran, China, and Russia have spent for a decade on influence operations. Those get little air time in hard progressive or far right spaces since these anti liberal influence operations mostly promote hard progressive and far right perspectives.

How is that relevant in a discussion about Israel enabling cyber crimes and also having a massive propaganda wing that is working over time online?

Also, Russia and China aren't seen as allies by basically anyone in the west. But yeah, sure then we should treat Israel like we do Russia and China though, but I'm not sure you would.

Re: EU parliament member hit by Israeli Candiru spyware

#158

Post by com »

underdeserver wrote: post #153
OhioMan2943 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, it's far more likely than not. It's just a question of how much. I wish this influence was catalogued and publicised like russia.

Where is Russian influence catalogued and publicised?

Well, this site is a bit more general than only Russian disinformation but has a fairly interesting database too:

https://euvsdisinfo.eu/

(It’s from the EU’s diplomatic service so it should be considered geopolitically self-interested)

Re: EU parliament member hit by Israeli Candiru spyware

#160

Post by snapcaster »

pjc50 wrote: post #102
jahfdG wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This applies to any Western government interest group, at least for small submissions or individual comments that relate to those organizations. Large ones like the Assange release cannot be suppressed, but are full of pro-government comments that would not have been made by any software engineer before 2015. So either the engineers have changed fundamentally, or ...

[flagged]

Do you think Iraqis would agree?
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