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U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#181

Post by jimbob45 »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #179
jimbob45 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in agreement with you. I don't see any indication that the Israelis specifically made this weapon to target US interests, nor do I see any indication that the Israelis are discriminating between the US and any other nation, nor do I see anything that leads me to believe that we aren't potentially using this ourselves against other nations. Fuck NSO, for sure. But I'm just not sure Israel should be held accountabl…

The Israeli state regulates the export of NSO Group's software. So yeah, they do have some responsibility here. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/tech-news/israel-will-re...

If it's specifically, then I'd agree with you. If it's just broadly (such as how the US unilaterally doesn't trade with countries currently in the midst of war), then I'm not so sure.

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#182

Post by montblanc »

Tronno wrote: post #83
montblanc wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Israel is ostensibly a Western ally, yet they sell weapons that are used to attack Western nations and their citizens. Can you see why some people might consider that a problem? Your accusations of anti-semitism are unwelcome and without merit.

You are being a demagogue here. It's 8 phones that were hacked, by someone in Uganda - a friendly country to the U.S, with NSO probably not knowing and Israel as a state definitely not knowing. Was any of the 8 Americans harmed physically btw?

I don't care if it's unwelcome to you...I call it as I see it and you're not doing a great job convincing me otherwise.

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#184

Post by [deleted] »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #64
maltalex wrote: post #46

I don't understand the focus on NSO in these stories. If U.S State Department personnel in Uganda were shot from an M-16, would the headline mention "an American arms manufacturer"? No, because it's ridiculous. For better or worse, NSO's product is a weapon. How is it any different from an M-16? Where is the outrage towards the people who used this weapon against the State Department?

> don't understand the focus on NSO in these stories. If U.S State Department personnel in Uganda were shot from an M-16, would the headline mention "an American arms manufacturer"? No, because it's ridiculous. No, because it isn't novel, it's not wide reaching, it's not at arm's length and it cannot be stopped. Stuxnet, a novel American-Israeli cyber weapon, purpose built to hit Iran, was absolutely billed as such.…

[deleted]

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#185

Post by sangnoir »

maltalex wrote: post #46

I don't understand the focus on NSO in these stories. If U.S State Department personnel in Uganda were shot from an M-16, would the headline mention "an American arms manufacturer"? No, because it's ridiculous. For better or worse, NSO's product is a weapon. How is it any different from an M-16? Where is the outrage towards the people who used this weapon against the State Department?

NSO doesn't "sell" cyberweapons - they lease them and provide logistical support (including running the cloud infrastructure). This confers a lot more knowledge on where and how the weapons are used, and adds a lot more culpability.

The situation is less "M-16 and rounds sold once-off", and more of a turnkey armed drone (or surveillance drone, if you're charitable) service provided to governments, where the missiles, fuel, and airbases are provided by a private party on an ongoing basis. It's more of a tailored service, than a sale of goods.

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#186

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

FredPret wrote: post #16

Seems like not-the-smartest move for Israel to mess with one of the few powerful entities that desires its continued existence

Or the smartest move. They probably own more politicians than the NRA, the pharma ind, and and the aerospace ind combined.

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#187

Post by dqpb »

markus_zhang wrote: post #150

This is a typical "shadow government" symptom. You have forces working within the government that 1) have their own agendas; 2) have connection to international communities, usually military-intelligence ones; 3) have almost zero regulation; 4) even many high ranking government officials don't know about them because they are brotherhood-like closed circles. This reminds me of Operation Gladio or Propaganda Due but d…

> 3) have almost zero regulation;

What would shadow government regulation look like?

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#188

Post by bjourne »

jimbob45 wrote: post #169
bjourne wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "oh, but everyone is doing it!" argument. I don't for a second believe that other countries install spyware on foreign diplomats and other peoples phones. What NSO and the Israeli government is doing is rotten to the core and unless you have evidence of the contrary you cannot assert that other actors are doing the same thing.

I know you're joking but for anyone that's not in on the joke: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24690055

Wow! You found one instance of the US spying on a friendly government. That totally justifies NSO leasing spyware to authoritarian third world regimes! Carry on folks, nothing to see here.

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#189

Post by mjamil »

Is anyone working on a microkernel design for privacy-sensitive devices (like phones) that would prevent outright this class of kernel-level arbitrary code execution exploits? We're stuck with iOS and Android for the foreseeable future, but is there hope that we'll get this right some day?

Actually, would a microkernel design even be sufficient? Given that hackers exploit deserialization, memory safety, and variable type confusion issues, there's still plenty of avenues for data corruption and data leakage.

Re: U.S. State Department phones hacked with Israeli company spyware

#190

Post by becuz99h »

redman25 wrote: post #17

> NSO Group said in a statement on Thursday that it did not have any indication their tools were used but canceled the relevant accounts and would investigate based on the Reuters inquiry. Why would they cancel accounts without knowledge of wrongdoing?

They canceled them because “How about this weather, Janet?

That’s right, Bob! It’ll be a cold one this week. Sportsball is next.”

What weasel words?

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