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US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

reuters.com

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Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#221

Post by MomsAVoxell »

fastball wrote: post #217
MomsAVoxell wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument merely serves to justify murder and is inhumane, in and of itself. Please re-consider your position on the subject of the wanton and willful murder of your fellow human beings. Genocide is not a matter of scale , it is a matter of intent . The definition fits: the people of Palestine are being genocided . The Nazi’s took years to murder 6 million Jews and other classes of humans they deemed undesirable…

Did you actually read what I wrote? I completely agree that genocide is a matter of intent. That is why my comment was about intent , not about scale. in fact I specifically said Israel is killing too many non-combatants, indicating the scale is bad and if scale is what mattered I probably would call it genocide. But as you say, it is not about scale. That is why I made the point that the non-combatant casualties wou…

> the IDF would be happy to oblige

Do you speak for the IDF? How is it then that you can also represent Hamas?

> insist on staging that war entirely in civilian areas.

Gaza is an open-air concentration camp which has suffered under Israeli military control for decades. Where else are they going to fight - specially constructed stadiums built for the purpose? Outside, in the no-mans land between Gaza and Israel? 2.1 million human beings have been uprooted from their homes and herded into a 360km2 area by their oppressors - should they escape the military barriers that surround them and bring the fight elsewhere?

> But Hamas will not do that, because they want the destruction of Palestinian peoples more than Israel does.

This position is duplicitous and preposterous. The Palestinian people want to be free from the oppression they have suffered for decades. Israel, a powerful nation, had many, many chances to make peace happen in Gaza - it didn’t happen because Israeli society is fundamentalist, militaristic and racist, and I challenge you to prove otherwise.

Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#222

Post by MomsAVoxell »

belorn wrote: post #86
MomsAVoxell wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument merely serves to justify murder and is inhumane, in and of itself. Please re-consider your position on the subject of the wanton and willful murder of your fellow human beings. Genocide is not a matter of scale , it is a matter of intent . The definition fits: the people of Palestine are being genocided . The Nazi’s took years to murder 6 million Jews and other classes of humans they deemed undesirable…

It is because genocide is a matter of intent that people in debates will disagree. Just taking a look on the war on terror. Was the intent to grab oil, revenge, fund the military complex, or was it to liberate people? Its been over 20 years and people are still debating the intent of all those wars that occurred after 9/11. Intent is really hard to prove, and that is even if we have proof of policies that defined eve…

> Just taking a look on the war on terror.

The war on terror is a criminal farce, with the purpose of fleecing the Western states of, literally, trillions and trillions of dollars. It has not successfully defeated terrorism - in fact, the architects of the war on terror have only produced more terror, in more places around the world, than ever before.

It is important to define and use the word genocide when it happens because we have international institutions that were built - because of the genocide of the Jewish people in fact - explicitly to prevent the world from experiencing yet another holocaust.

But as we can see, we in the West would rather argue semantics and play tribal politics than hold our own war criminals to account for their heinous crimes.

> Intent is really hard to prove

In the case of the genocide currently happening in Gaza, alas, intent has been very, very easy to prove.

Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#223

Post by MomsAVoxell »

woodruffw wrote: post #168
MomsAVoxell wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other nation besides the USA and its 5-eyes lackeys willfully murders children almost every day in their own ‘self defense’? Got a list of states that murder more people than the USA/5-eyes and Israel right now?

Sudan, Ethiopia/Tigray, and Syria would all be recent (or ongoing) examples of non-primarily-US military conflicts where mass civilian death, including children, has been publicly evidenced. Each of these conflicts has seen one (or all) parties use self-defense as an argument. (This doesn't somehow imply that anything is OK about the US's own role in global war, or anything in particular about the I/P conflict. But i…

> Sudan, Ethiopia/Tigray, and Syria

Yes, but these are not western allies with immense financial and industrial resources, shared among themselves, whose leadership have signaled for decades their intent to create a new world order in the ashes of the wars they have intentionally fought - for decades.

Certainly the genocides in Sudan, Ethiopia, and Syria are atrocities which must be addressed. But they are not the world’s biggest bully thugs. The US and its coalition of willful criminal states, including Israel, are the worlds biggest bully thugs. Sudan doesn’t have a nuclear threat regime which promises to eradicate all life on earth if it doesn’t get its way, politically, across the globe.

> But it's incorrect to treat US/Israel as uniquely competent

I disagree completely. The US and Israel are extremely powerful nations capable of the industrial might required to assemble nuclear weapons. They very definitely should be held to to task - especially since one funds the other, providing immense military power where they could, instead, be using that overwhelming industrial capability to build peace.

Like China does, for example.

Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#224

Post by MomsAVoxell »

SahAssar wrote: post #175
MomsAVoxell wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, extrajudicial murder justified by labeling the victim “terrorist” is illegal and should not be accepted in a free and open society. The ‘terrorist’ label was invented as a means of abrogating human rights by governments who felt they were encumbered by the obligation to protect human rights. “Terrorist” labeling is a totalitarian-authoritarian apparatus to avoid culpability for its actions when a govern…

Do you not think that terrorism exists, that the label has been co-opted for other purposes, that terrorists cannot be treated as combatants, that non-declared-war conflicts should not have deliberate strikes or something else? It seems to me like terrorism has a pretty plain definition: Using violence against civilians/non-combatants to further a ideological goal, primarily via fear. It's often misused as an excuse,…

Every single nation state in the context of this discussion has murdered civilians/non-combatants to further an ideological goal and are thus guilty of acts of terrorism - in the case of the US, for example, terrorism is official doctrine used for regime change across the world. The US literally funds, arms and supports terrorist groups whenever its ruling military determine that their domestic population has no stomach for outright war - in most cases, in fact, terrorism is how the US gets its regime change designs implemented.

As citizens of nations which use terrorism as a tool for their political purposes, it is long since past the point we let ourselves be bullied by terminology and started instead to enforce the legislation required to rid our own ranks of war criminals - who are factually terrorists.

Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#225

Post by stavros »

3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #195
stavros wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are link previews a problem? Presumably I only generate previews for links I've vetted.

It seems like most of the exploits come down to blowing up a parser of one data format or another. Myriad from which to choose, they are written in C for historical reasons, and probably play fast and loose with validation in the name of performance.

True, I guess you're right.

Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#226

Post by stavros »

Scoundreller wrote: post #197
stavros wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why was this dead? If anything, Thomas' reputation here should at least entitle him to being heard.

My fellow showdeader, Click the time on the dead post and press “vouch”

I did.

Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#227

Post by sangnoir »

tredre3 wrote: post #181
sangnoir wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why hasn't any evidence of such client-side interception ever been surfaced? Reversing apps and software has been done since forever, and has been used to discover things the app-makers don't want made public - such as unannounced new products, but this happens perennialy with Apple & OS updates, and upcoming features in apps that are behind flags.

> Why hasn't any evidence of such client-side interception ever been surfaced? In such scenario only the target of the wiretap would receive the modified client application. Both google and apple allow pushing updates to small subset of users. It's not unthinkable that they also have the (internal) ability to push a specific update to a specific user. But I guess now you'll move the goalpost to ask "Why hasn't any Go…

> It's not unthinkable that they also have the (internal) ability to push a specific update to a specific user.

So the lack of evidence is itself evidence of another layer of nefarious activity? Are Apple in on it too (since they approve updates control the app store roll-outs)? I have no stomach for debates over unfalsifiable scenarios - your position is clearly set in stone.

Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#228

Post by kindeyooweee »

after spending time with pegasus / that group of tools for a few years can honestly say if you have family, friends etc the damage isn't that bad

if you are a refugee or fleeing with ambiguous rights etc it could lead to death but that is mitigated by the fact the people buying may not necessarily be able to get deep into the weeds to figure out how it works most get the leaked source follow a playbook etc

so most western journalists should be safe unless they incurred the wrath of five eyes or something at which point running would be futyl :)

Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#229

Post by kindeyooweee »

tptacek wrote: post #102
MomsAVoxell wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few companies’ work results in outright murder of the targeted victims. If you know of any other cyber criminal organizations like the NSO, where governments use their tools to select and murder targets, please describe them.

The previous commenter's point is that NSO is simply the firm in this space that you happened to have heard of. There are many more.

so many more i love being on HN for the same reason i live marvel movies everyone believes in rights n shit lol

once you meet your first transnational human trafficking ring with full fledged dev teams etc NSO seems very ethical among its ilk if you hear about it in the news its the tip of the iceberg

Re: US judge finds NSO Group liable for hacking journalists via WhatsApp

#230

Post by dudeinjapan »

Bilal_io wrote: post #66
dudeinjapan wrote: post #44

You have to be really bad if Meta are somehow the good guys in the article.

The victims are the good guys. Meta is just not happy that their platform was exploited. Even if you consider them to be the bad guys, they needed to sue to curtail the bad PR

You’re right. That’s the right way to look at it.
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