Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus • Hacker News Board

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#231

Post by jq-r » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 11:28 AM UTC

sharikone wrote: post #96

poisonborz wrote: post #28

If there is one single lasting international effect of Orbán and his party, it's how he demonstrated how EU is completely helpless against rouge states (as well). The delicate political balance of its parliamental politics make it impossible to react to any complex, even if lethal threats. The EU funds and fuels a Belorussian-style regime in its own heartland for a decade now, and all they can do are angry notices an…

It has actually elicited a response. Through many mechanisms now big countries in Europe have gained much more power than before, when the model was very egalitarian. And you can look at it in a very different light if you see it as Hungary becoming a small vassal state of Germany (an autocracy helps it to stay that way, and German manufacturers want the situation to remain like this) rather than a "rogue fascist" st…

If you put it that way, the "war" has already been won by Germany/Austria here in Croatia. There is next to no Italian influence (only in one small region). Everything else is German/Austrian owned. Banks, Telecoms, big business, construction etc. Most of the houses on the coast and islands are theirs as well.

EU needs our country just to be minimally stable. Stable enough so millions of foreigners can come to their villas each summer, and as poor as possible so their money is worth more here. Whatever happens outside summer, that's not their problem. That includes tolerating far right politics, Christian fundamentalists and other lobbying groups, super corrupt politicians (better to say whole governments), huge government incurred debt, no freedom of the press or speech, and pretty much non-existing economy.

I'm sorry to say, but I'm sure that trouble is coming to this part of EU, maybe not in couple of years, but eventually surely will. The seeds of radicalization, corruption and all that nasty "us vs them" mentality were planted 20 years ago already. Only now they are starting to bear fruits.

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#232

Post by deregulateMed » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 11:29 AM UTC

nuker wrote: post #140

iamnotwhoiam wrote: post #102

Does anyone have any idea how Pegasus actually works? I haven't found any teardowns or even a clear description of what the iMessage says. This is some kind of code injection attack that can go through a text message?

iOS iMessage bugs parsing images, I recall

From the Amnesty report shown by another commentator, there were a bunch of compromised Apple services.

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#233

Post by Dah00n » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 11:30 AM UTC

desine wrote: post #8

dstick wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read in the newspaper today that the EU issued an ultimatum to Poland: get rid of the unlawful special court that deems itself above the EU law, or face repercussions. Finally they're growing some teeth. https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/europea... However, after Googling for an online source, I came across this article about another ultimatum for justice reform in 2017, and things only got worse…

How terrible that local laws, written and enacted by the voting population they preside over, take precedent over international laws written and enacted by legislators several times more distantly removed from the population. Hopefully the UN gets enough funding to occupy the roles of state and municipal police soon. Then we can free the common man from the tyranny of local government.

>Hopefully the UN gets enough funding to occupy the roles of state and municipal police soon. Then we can free the common man from the tyranny of local government.

Yeah, then you will all become yanks with government in Washington you can't vote for (why are we suddenly talking about the UN?)

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#234

Post by roenxi » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 11:32 AM UTC

lloydjones wrote: post #217

roenxi wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there is a part of the population that is radicalized and hate rhetoric is used that will destabilize any society. I'm going to point at this as an example of a very traditional, very political example unproductive thinking. One of the lessons people refuse to see in politics is that the people who vote for things they don't like might, potentially, be upset about something. There is a lack of reflection on how…

I'm not sure I agree. In the UK, the lower middle class are (to generalise) materially well-off; they own their own homes, they have a couple of cars, they have large televisions, one partner does not have to work, etc. And through pure boredom/decadence, they were radicalised through years of negative messaging from the populist press into 'caring' about things like Brexit, immigration, welfare claimants, etc. These…

Hasn't the UK's energy availability basically collapsed? I keep an eye on the basic stats [0] and it looked like the situation was pretty grim leading up to Brexit.

Someone is really hurting. Either production is collapsing and people are losing good jobs, or it is directly going to result in household pain.

I suppose it would surprise me if 20% of a country's electricity can disappear, almost half its primary energy production is gone, the population grows by 10% and everyone is cheerful. It looks like a situation ripe for rage, tension and people asking angry questions.

This is basically the pigeonhole principle at work. If energy availability is going down and population is rising, someone is going to be developing some profoundly anti-migrant views.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_Kingdom

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#235

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 11:33 AM UTC

poisonborz wrote: post #28

If there is one single lasting international effect of Orbán and his party, it's how he demonstrated how EU is completely helpless against rouge states (as well). The delicate political balance of its parliamental politics make it impossible to react to any complex, even if lethal threats. The EU funds and fuels a Belorussian-style regime in its own heartland for a decade now, and all they can do are angry notices an…

[deleted]

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#236

Post by Twixes » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 11:35 AM UTC

mlang23 wrote: post #165

hyper_dynamics wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should be expelled, but that's not possible. So the EU is indeed kinda helpless against member states gone rouge

Why, exactly? For not kissing the rainbow flag? Or for opposing illegal immigration? Those are the topics presented through media lately, and the argument is rather weak. In fact, I think many politically centered people dont actually sympathize with this "you are not hip enough, you have to leave"-mentality.

The government calling people subhuman simply because of what gender they prefer or feel like is far more twisted than some "not kissing the rainbow flag", and that's what's happening in Hungary or Poland receiving huge EU subsidies.

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#237

Post by tome » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 11:36 AM UTC

wrnr wrote: post #31

bwb wrote: post #11

I always am amazed by how many people value their nation over larger groups of human beings who are just like them... isn't it time to up our game as humans and start thinking bigger? Why not abolish nations within the EU and just become the EU with different provinces? Nationalism is an ancient mentality, get rid of it and start moving into larger groups who can do more. I keep reading about the North American Allia…

Lets merge all soccer clubs into one, then there will no longer be a need for matches since one club just has all the players they don't even need to be the best. Nationalism is a very recent affair, the idea that people and not just the nobility have nations is a 19 century concept.

> Nationalism is a very recent affair, the idea that people and not just the nobility have nations is a 19 century concept.

Is that right? Sounds like the opposite to me. The English King, German Kaiser and Russian Tsar during WWI were cousins.

https://www.history.co.uk/articles/the-kaiser-the-tsar-and-k...

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#238

Post by mcosta » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 11:36 AM UTC

poisonborz wrote: post #28

If there is one single lasting international effect of Orbán and his party, it's how he demonstrated how EU is completely helpless against rouge states (as well). The delicate political balance of its parliamental politics make it impossible to react to any complex, even if lethal threats. The EU funds and fuels a Belorussian-style regime in its own heartland for a decade now, and all they can do are angry notices an…

EU can't do anything because many other countries are doing the same.

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#239

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 11:39 AM UTC

Hokusai wrote: post #60

poisonborz wrote: post #28

If there is one single lasting international effect of Orbán and his party, it's how he demonstrated how EU is completely helpless against rouge states (as well). The delicate political balance of its parliamental politics make it impossible to react to any complex, even if lethal threats. The EU funds and fuels a Belorussian-style regime in its own heartland for a decade now, and all they can do are angry notices an…

> EU is completely helpless against rouge states There is a point where politics depend on good intent. It does not matter if it is the EU, USA or China. If there is a part of the population that is radicalized and hate rhetoric is used that will destabilize any society. The main defense against this situation is that it does not work to improve citizens lives. It only benefits a small part of society and it will mak…

[deleted]

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#240

Post by ipatec » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 11:39 AM UTC

saiya-jin wrote: post #114

ipatec wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those 3b are such a simplistic narrative. How much money do Western companies make in Hungary due to EU? The reality is that EU is mostly a neo-colonial project where the East Europe is depleted of resources (especially human capital) and treated as nothing more than a marketplace for W European products.

What a load of bullcrap to be polite. I hear this from various eastern far right wing supporters quite a bit, and it isn't based on any facts, just some wishful thinking. Hungary is a net receiver of direct money subsidies. The fact is most of it is stolen by government-aligned forces within economy, this is a well-oiled machine in place for a long time. Western companies come to Hungary because its cheap force, desp…

>Western companies come to Hungary because its cheap force, despite being generally lower quality than west

I doubt the average Hungarian is of "lower quality" than the average Belgian (I live in Belgium and I lived in Romania and UK as well) - when it comes to people doing manufacturing jobs you refer to I'd say that E Europe has a more solid and reliable human capital.

>in the east, there aren't enough big domestic companies that would be successful and employ people

Before the collapse of communism E Europe was perfectly capable to keep all their population in employment. Sure those companies were not prepared to compete in an open market and were decimated by their Western counter-parts. Today E Europe cannot strong competitors (although that is changing in sectors like IT) primarily due to the open market (impossible to compete with somebody that has 10x your capital; even when some promising E European actor appears, gets acquired by some W European company before it manages to pass a certain size)

But besides the point, check the unemployment rate in any E European country and most fair way better than their Wester coutner-parts.

> Eastern Europe, like many other poor places in the world, is depleted of human capital because its simply such a crappy place to live.

Quite a broad unsubstantiated statement. What is crappy? The fact that most people are able to own a house while in countries like Belgium is getting impossible to buy anything for young people? The nature? The job opportunities that are plenty due to continuous and fast growth? I don't recall last time a new large corporation entered Brussels in the past 10 years.

The main issue is that there is a salary gap. A middle class salary in Hungary gives you a similar standard of living and lifestyle as a middle class salary in Belgium. But working in Belgium temporarily and planning a return to let's say Hungary... gives you an even better potential lifestyle. That is the issue. The gaps were too big to have an open market and there's little focus on closing the gaps.