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US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

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191–200 of 450 posts

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#191
post #130

Who cares at this point? If you're a journalist and you don't have basic OPSEC for cyber stuff, there is no point in doing sensitive work. Nobody is really accountable for those kind of things anyway.

This type of comment I find very peculiar, it attempts to normalize the intimidation and censorship of truths when we know that isn't the consensus nor desired. Overall, very disappointing to come on HN and find any thread critical of this one country results in mass flagging, censorship and hasbara EVERY SINGLE TIME

> , it attempts to normalize the intimidation and censorship of truths

Very muddying statement. The normalization of intimidation and censorship has already happened by those in power, a comment can only acknowledge the reality of it.

> when we know that isn't the consensus nor desired.

by who? Crearly a lot of very powerful people desire it very very much.

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#192
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charles III is the king of Canada, which is part of the Commonwealth.

The fact that they share a head of state is irrelevant? If it was relevant, you could equally make the claim that Britain is under the "stewardship" of the Canadians. I think the British would be surprised to hear that!

Fine:

"Also by floating proposals that the Danish *state* and British *monarch* cede their stewardship of Greenland and Canada to the USA."

Yes, one still can be tedius and argue that the Throne's veto over Canadian legislation doesn't qualify as 'stewardship' (since it is supposed to be symbolic)

The point of my comment (which I maintain) is that Britain has strong ties with Canada, and so Trump butting in, pushing for Canada to abandon the Commonwealth to become a state, comes across as hostile.

Canadians may find the threat more alarming than Britons, but it's welcomed by neither people.

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#193
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that US removed the democratically elected government in 1953 in CIA-led coup that overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Then the US government kept the Shah in power. He repressed the population and led to the 1979 revolution. Who's the one evil again? Those countries in the middle east that US considers an ally are not democratically elected either and they enforce reli…

Unfortunately I don’t think he is capable of what you are asking him to do. Remember that the majority of the Israeli population think Israel hasnt gone far enough in Gaza. Yes that’s after starvation and murdering over 30k women and children. On top of that most Israelis see no problem with the Nakba which is the origin of the problem as it displaced the majority of Palestinians turning them into scattered refugees…

I would greatly appreciate if you didn't just assume things about me with absolutely no reason for it.

Or do you also want people to assume everything about your views based on the average views of people in your country?

> Such mindsets would never allow for achieving peace with neighbors through any strategy that isn’t built around dominance through violence.

Just for the record, Israel has managed to achieve peace with many of its historic enemies like Jordan and Egypt, and more recently the UAE and is (was) on the way to achieving relations with Saudi Arabia. The peace in Egypt included giving back land that is 4x the size of all of Israel.

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#195
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that does not necessarily mean she is herself a fascist, but rather that she was a member of various organizations that were originally founded by fascists then later moderated (roughly similar to the French FN/RN). Inane.

Why?

It's just like how joining the hitler youth makes you a nazi

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#196
post #190
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that US removed the democratically elected government in 1953 in CIA-led coup that overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Then the US government kept the Shah in power. He repressed the population and led to the 1979 revolution. Who's the one evil again? Those countries in the middle east that US considers an ally are not democratically elected either and they enforce reli…

I don't know why you think anything you said contradicts anything I said. I didn't say that allies of the US were morally superior. > Turn off the tv and learn about the history of topics you want to shoot your mouth off in public about before you make a fool of yourself. This kind of personal attack is beneath the level HN aspires to.

You’re in a thread arguing that it’s ok for “western governments” to have cyber weapons but not Iran because Iran is morally inferior. If you don’t believe that then admit it and apologize for the confusion. Don’t try to move the goalposts.

>This kind of personal attack is beneath the level HN aspires to

Sophistry is also beneath that level.

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#197
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Israel has been conducting genocide against Palestinians for decades? That's simply preposterous. There's zero reason to think so, and many, many reasons to think it's not true. > since decades before its for for-show semi-diseengagement from Gaza So when Israel does do what Palestinians supposedly want - completely remove all its citizens from the territory and hand it over to Palestinians to control - then it's…

> So when Israel does do what Palestinians supposedly want - completely remove all its citizens from the territory and hand it over to Palestinians to control They didn't actually do that; they continued to assert a set of layered security exclusion zones within Gaza where Gazans were forbidden to enter except under limited conditions, and continued to shoot unarmed civilians across the border within and beyond those…

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Israel kept a small buffer zone around the border, but other than that, I'm not sure what "layered security exclusion zones" you mean.

And Israel didn't just randomly shoot at unarmed civilians, it shot at people approaching the border. Given that Gaza was controlled by a terrorist organization with a stated goal of carrying out attacks on Israel, and given what happened on October 7th, I think it's hard to say Israel wasn't justified in guarding its border to the extent it did. Had it guarded it better on October 7th, a whole lot of bloodshed on both sides could've been saved.

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#198
post #171

I feel like anyone serious about doing actual journalism needs to start with a decent Cyber Security 101 course. Does anyone know of one?

I mean what can you feasibly do against these zero-click exploits? There's only really two things you can do: 1. keep your phone's identifiers secret, as they must target the devices in some way (like phone number/email/whatever) or 2. don't own a phone

Own two phones?

Phone 1 - with sim and is exploited, no data or apps. Phone 2 - different OS, no sim, uses portable hotspot from phone 1 and has all the apps and data.

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#199
post #171

I feel like anyone serious about doing actual journalism needs to start with a decent Cyber Security 101 course. Does anyone know of one?

I mean what can you feasibly do against these zero-click exploits? There's only really two things you can do: 1. keep your phone's identifiers secret, as they must target the devices in some way (like phone number/email/whatever) or 2. don't own a phone

I'm curious to know how many successfully targeted individuals were using features like Apple's Lockdown Mode.

Re: US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists

#200
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An incredible self awareness for you to write “There's also nothing inherently wrong with selling intelligence tools to a western government, Italy is not Iran or Zambia”. I wonder how Iran or Zambia feel about the west? The overthrow of their democracy. The colonial exploitations. Are those legit grievances in your eyes? Or are you a “take up the white mans burden” kind of person?

If you're claiming that Iran's government is somehow morally equivalent to Italy's, you're massively wrong. It's not about "the white mans burden", whatever that means. It's about Iran's government not being democratically elected, being massively unpopular with its own populace that can't do anything about it cause it's not a democracy, enforcing religious laws on people that often don't want them, not respecting mi…

The West supported or instigated (which was it?) a coup against the Iranian government in order to install the authoritarian Shah. When he was overthrown in a revolution in 1979 and replaced with a relatively authoritarian theocratic regime the West/US didn’t like it. It didn’t like it because the revolution was done on behalf of some subset of Iranians; it was no longer a Western puppet. That’s why the US is anti-Iran. End of.
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