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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

#271

Post by Eelongate »

vorpalhex wrote: post #270
Eelongate wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle, America could drop Hellfire R9X sword missiles through the cars of every NSO employee. In practice, would American politicians have the nerve to go to war with NSO, when NSO probably infected all their phones years ago? How much dirt do they have on American politicians?

So you think because NSO breached a few state department phones that they have the deep dirt on every sitting congress member?

You think the iceberg is coincidentally only as deep as what we've presently heard? That we didn't have the full story yesterday, but today we definitely do?

Well I hope you're right, but I don't think you are.

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

#272

Post by diebeforei485 »

s_dev wrote: post #26
boomboomsubban wrote: post #10

>In a public response, NSO has said its technology helps stop terrorism and that they've installed controls to curb spying against innocent targets. For example, NSO says its intrusion system cannot work on phones with U.S. numbers beginning with the country code +1. So the point is to stop terrorism and to do that they've immediately ruled that all Americans aren't terrorists. That doesn't seem like a good metric of…

So I just have to buy a US phone to evade detection from NSO? And why didn't that logic work for US State Dept phones? I'm honestly of the opinion there is nothing that NSO can say that isn't outright lying. This isn't a normal company in anyway.

> And why didn't that logic work for US State Dept phones?

These were Foreign Service officers stationed in Uganda, so their phones had local Ugandan phone numbers. Some of them were working out of DC but - given the nature of the State Department (which is like America's foreign affairs department) - probably traveled very frequently and so maintained a Ugandan phone number as well, to save on roaming fees when making calls in Uganda (saving money for the taxpayer) and also so Ugandan officials can contact them easily.

This is not unlike Apple hardware engineers who travel frequently to China and have a Chinese number in addition to their main US number, so people in the factory can communicate with them easily.

> So I just have to buy a US phone [number] to evade detection from NSO?

This is NSO's claim. Presumably because they want to make it difficult for anyone to sue them in a US court. It's plausible but I don't necessarily believe them either.

I want this company bankrupted out of existence, personally. Apple's lawsuit against them may well result in that outcome.

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

#273

Post by vorpalhex »

DaveExeter wrote: post #250
galimaufry wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignorant question: is Israel literally an ally of the US? I know they are not in NATO or 5 Eyes, and I don't think they have some other close agreement, like US and Japan.

Israel is a client state of the USA. They are America's enforcers in the Middle East.

That's factually wrong. Israel is it's own full state.

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

#274

Post by gunfighthacksaw »

cwkoss wrote: post #228
throaway46546 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine all the dirt the NSA has on congress.

Imagine how much society would improve if all the dirt got aired. Hiding this information is trading the wellbeing of the country for the NSA's own internal goals and power.

Dangerously based and you’re-about-to-commit-suicide-with-two-gunshots-to-the-head pilled

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

#275

Post by turings »

I would not be surprised if it's an Israeli company behind using NSO to steal it.

There's Lusha too and it's stealing info in plain sight. It's basically stealing information and completely violating any GDPR or Californian law. Here is a good spiel of the whole thing tying their founder to all the apps that steal information: https://wwws.nightwatchcybersecurity.com/2020/02/20/another-...

And they just raised $200M to continue spying. The investors probably have no clue https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/10/lusha-a-crowdsourced-data-...

If we don't penalize crap like this, you encourage. And then it booms somewhere else.

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

#276

Post by arthur_sav »

jjeaff wrote: post #242
linschn wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe stop funding them, for a start? Congressional oversight used to be a thing. Snowden showed the NSA lied to congress. No heads rolled.

I can believe there are shadow organizations that lack oversight. In fact, it seems likely. But that these shadow organizations are maintaining power by surveiling and blackmailing congress people is a whole other ballgame and seems highly unlikely to me. For one, it's likely that not every Congressperson has some deep dark secret that makes them blackmail-able. And pissing off the only group of people that could cut…

> But that these shadow organizations are maintaining power by surveiling and blackmailing congress people is a whole other ballgame and seems highly unlikely to me.

Why is it so hard to believe that a few powerful indivisuals at the top, with common interests and agendas, are banded together?

There's no official organization but a few indivisuals that streer things their way because they can.

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

#277

Post by vorpalhex »

Eelongate wrote: post #271
vorpalhex wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you think because NSO breached a few state department phones that they have the deep dirt on every sitting congress member?

You think the iceberg is coincidentally only as deep as what we've presently heard? That we didn't have the full story yesterday, but today we definitely do? Well I hope you're right, but I don't think you are.

Well how do you know the NSO hasn't replaced the sitting US President with a very convincing android?

I mean, they are a very skilled set of engineers. You seem to grant them being able to hold onto very powerful secrets and use them for active blackmail. You even believe they've been operating actively against the US government for several years.

If they can do all that, then replacing the sitting US president with a very convincing android isn't much harder! It is just as likely as the situation you propose.

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

#278

Post by willcipriano »

autoexec wrote: post #266
jjeaff wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can believe there are shadow organizations that lack oversight. In fact, it seems likely. But that these shadow organizations are maintaining power by surveiling and blackmailing congress people is a whole other ballgame and seems highly unlikely to me. For one, it's likely that not every Congressperson has some deep dark secret that makes them blackmail-able. And pissing off the only group of people that could cut…

> For one, it's likely that not every Congressperson has some deep dark secret that makes them blackmail-able. I'd be more than willing to bet that they do. "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." and that only covers "honest" men who wouldn't have illegal coordination with PACs, bribes with lobbyists, personal communications filled…

You only need the capture the party leadership, they can keep everyone else in line via fundraising initiatives.

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

#279

Post by Spooky23 »

jjeaff wrote: post #242
linschn wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe stop funding them, for a start? Congressional oversight used to be a thing. Snowden showed the NSA lied to congress. No heads rolled.

I can believe there are shadow organizations that lack oversight. In fact, it seems likely. But that these shadow organizations are maintaining power by surveiling and blackmailing congress people is a whole other ballgame and seems highly unlikely to me. For one, it's likely that not every Congressperson has some deep dark secret that makes them blackmail-able. And pissing off the only group of people that could cut…

Politics is a funny business. I have spent alot of time dealing with political people ranging from staffers to actual officials.

Many are very well meaning public servants, others careerists, some are… insane on various scales. Politics is a business with uncertain outcomes where “friends” are important and personal stakes are high.

From a blackmail perspective, you have people like the bartender turned member of congress who got their GED to run who are obvious puppets with a wheelbarrow of odious behavior behind them. But even the most boring congressman has a legal escrow account with irregularities, a kid with emotional problems that caused trouble, a campaign finance violation, etc.

I don’t think there is a shadow cabal, but some executive branch entities wield tremendous power.

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

#280

Post by stjohnswarts »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #207
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…

Implying that Israeli spying on the US is some fringe "shadow government" sub-group of the Israeli government is strange given a long, long history of high profile Israeli spying incidents against the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Franklin_espionage_sc... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben-Ami_Kadish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons_(rocket_engineer…

Anyone who doesn't think the USA and Israel don't spy on each other 24/7 is living in a dream world. Israel is an ally but I don't think that they are our friends.
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