AP is well know for its anti Israeli agenda.
I think AP is neutral. They are cooperative association -- every member submit whatever they see fit.
Undercover spy exposed in NYC was one of many
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Re: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was one of many
#32I personally was approached by what I now believe was an undercover spy agent in San Francisco. I believe he might have been Israeli. How we got there is a long story. But, the person (agent) came to a coffee shop that I frequented and made himself very visible talking audibly about certain areas that were my interest. I'm a very outgoing person so after over-hearing him by the second or third encounter there, I appr…
Please report this to a local FBI office, this was obviously an agent trying to co-opt whatever movement you're associated with.
Re: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was one of many
#33[flagged]
This comment was correctly flagged because it crosses into ideological and nationalistic (or racial or religious, your call) flamewar, as well as veering onto grandiose tangents that are way off topic. All of this is bad for intellectual curiosity, which is the core principle here, so please don't post like this to Hacker News.
Re: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was one of many
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't quite get why an Israeli spy would like to get you to say something anti-semitic/anti-Israel. Would he want to blackmail you then? Did he want to make sure you are supportive of Isreal, sort of reverse-psychologically?
It depends. It could've been grooming for recruitment or unwitting exploitation: either he was trying to prove he wasn't Israeli by dabbling in anti-semitism and/or collect Kompropat that could ratchet up leverage from one minor ask to gradually larger ones. Several agencies of the US govt are known to deploy facial recognition monitoring of social media for known foreign agents and place calls to employers if their…
I sense some anti-isreali sentiment among somewhat valid criticism right there.
The issue is complicated by Israel being a US-ally so technically it's not that much of an issue of Israeli "agents" talking to Americans.
Re: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was one of many
#35For those interested in the activities of Mossad there’s a great documentary on Netflix at the moment called “Inside the Mossad”. They talk a lot about the tactics used in this article. I presume the operatives in this scenario are all ex-Mossad.
Re: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was one of many
#36To clarify: NSO is a private company, mostly owned by US firm. The involvement of "Israel" in whatever NSO is doing is as follows:
1. As a vendor of security sensitive products, any NSO deal would be approved by Israel's MOD.
2. They naturally employ loads of secret service "graduates" because it's good for business.
Consequently, calling an apparently clumsy NSO employee "an Israeli spy" comes across as kind of fake news. Not to say there aren't Israeli spies in NY, I just don't think he's one of them.
Re: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was one of many
#37To clarify: NSO is a private company, mostly owned by US firm. The involvement of "Israel" in whatever NSO is doing is as follows: 1. As a vendor of security sensitive products, any NSO deal would be approved by Israel's MOD. 2. They naturally employ loads of secret service "graduates" because it's good for business. Consequently, calling an apparently clumsy NSO employee "an Israeli spy" comes across as kind of fake…
I’m not sure why this is downvoted - this is absolutely true.
NSO is a private company who is US owned and at odds with the Israeli government often.
As an Israeli I’m pretty confident Israel would not send spies in order to do things related to NSO’s private business.
If anything - these are US spies and not Israeli ones. It just doesn’t make sense for Israel to do this.
Not that Israel doesn’t do shabby spywork or it’s ethically above this - just not for NSO.
Re: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was one of many
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
They got baited by the spies presenting themselves as investors, it fits imo. Furthermore I think people who are well-practiced in HUMINT and academics/researchers building up a legal case against a hacking group don't really overlap that much.
I don't know if a lot of academics/researchers would be able to explain even the basic concepts of "MICE" if asked. They're a soft target.
Hence the organizing of entire overseas conferences in order to lure them in.
Re: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was one of many
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know if a lot of academics/researchers would be able to explain even the basic concepts of "MICE" if asked. They're a soft target.
I’m not security expert, so I had to look that up. MICE: Money, Ideology, Compromise or Coercion (depending on source), and Ego or Extortion (depending on source). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_spying
Somewhat ironically, the Israelis have their own, cruder, initialism for this.
Re: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was one of many
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't quite get why an Israeli spy would like to get you to say something anti-semitic/anti-Israel. Would he want to blackmail you then? Did he want to make sure you are supportive of Isreal, sort of reverse-psychologically?
Massive discredit for any cause you push?
it's just a bit outside what I/we consider spies roles. This sounds more like the usual PR trick.