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Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

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Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#471

Post by dang »

tguvot wrote: post #386
dang wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree, and there are many counterexamples in this thread alone. People who are passionate about a divisive topic often feel like the site/moderators/community are hopelessly biased against their view. The people with opposing views feel exactly the same way—which, ironically, becomes the one thing they can agree about, although they disagree about the direction. This is ultimately a function of how the passio…

you are avoiding the actual topic in question and try to divert discussion into different direction. flags are been abused and you don't do anything about it, short of "show me wrongly flagged comment and i'll unflag it if i think it was flagged wrong" can you openly admit that flags are been abused and misused to silence opinions that people disagree with ? if you can't agree with such a trivial statement, I don't t…

I've addressed this question countless times, and am always happy to answer good-faith questions. But I'm not interested in being cross-examined.

> ps. obviously after i made 3 comments i am throttled and cant post this comment

Your account is rate-limited. We rate limit accounts when they post too many low-quality comments and/or get involved in flamewars (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40043551).

If you want to build up a track record of using HN as intended for a while, you'd be welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and we can take a look and hopefully take the rate limit off your account.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#472

Post by UltraSane »

jackling wrote: post #445
tptacek wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just start from the premise that Israel targeted exclusively handheld military comms devices that would in ordinary practice only be in the custody of Hezbollah combatants, and from the additional premise that the explosions in the strikes were relatively small, so small that the overwhelming majority of the Hezbollah casualties were wounded and not KIA. Then try to make another story make sense. We have significant…

Premise 1: The pagers were military devices, but based on what we know about them, it is impossible to assert that all were in the custody of Hezbollah combatants at the moment they exploded. One would need to prove that the pagers were physically on the combatants’ persons—and not, for example, sitting on a coffee table or elsewhere—at the time of detonation. Premise 2: The physical location of the pagers directly a…

Israel was able to monitor communications on the pagers for years and this allowed them to be quite certain of who they were targeting.

"Footage from Reuters, Al Jazeera, AP, and local Lebanese reporters shows numerous injured civilians"

How do you know they were civilians?

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#473

Post by richardfeynman »

viccis wrote: post #357
richardfeynman wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* * *

Would you call it terrorism when Israel sent mailbombs to US top brass, including our president?

This has not happened anywhere other than your imagination. You mean "if" not "when."

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#474

Post by UltraSane »

jackling wrote: post #447
juliusdavies wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you want some deeply studied anthropological journal article on “The use of pagers in Lebanese society “? Do you know of any civilians anywhere in the world that currently use pagers? Who had the pagers and why they had the pagers is almost derivable from first principles at this point, never mind the international journalism on the subject.

It’s almost like explosives… explode, and hit the people and surroundings near them. Shrapnel travels. You’re trying to derive who had the pagers from first principles, yet you don’t seem to understand how a bomb actually works.

The bomb in the pagers was so weak it could only harm someone directly holding it or if it was in a pocket.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#475

Post by UltraSane »

sp4cec0wb0y wrote: post #88
bunji wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intended targets of the exploding papers weren't civilians. Very few actual civilians ended up hurt by the detonations, much fewer than attacks by conventional weapons. It's about as targeted an attack as one can achieve from a distance. As an act of warfare, Israel did a splendid job on this. Thoroughly impressive work.

You're telling me that the 2,800 injured were mostly Hezbollah operatives? Was this sourced and verified anywhere? What is the rate of combatant to non-combatant casualties is this instance compared to "conventional weapons"?

"You're telling me that the 2,800 injured were mostly Hezbollah operatives?"

Yes, because these pagers were only used by Hezbollah and Israel was able to read the messages they sent on them so they could know if they were in use by a Hezbollah member.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#476

Post by richardfeynman »

jackling wrote: post #445
tptacek wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just start from the premise that Israel targeted exclusively handheld military comms devices that would in ordinary practice only be in the custody of Hezbollah combatants, and from the additional premise that the explosions in the strikes were relatively small, so small that the overwhelming majority of the Hezbollah casualties were wounded and not KIA. Then try to make another story make sense. We have significant…

Premise 1: The pagers were military devices, but based on what we know about them, it is impossible to assert that all were in the custody of Hezbollah combatants at the moment they exploded. One would need to prove that the pagers were physically on the combatants’ persons—and not, for example, sitting on a coffee table or elsewhere—at the time of detonation. Premise 2: The physical location of the pagers directly a…

Premise 2 is false. The vast majority of the injured were Hezbollah terrorists. You say The Times of Israel reported "many of the injured were civilians, including children, women, and non-combatant" - show me a source, please.

It's also false that footage shows numerous injured civilians with bandaged hands and faces. Again, show a credible source and explain how this happened to them.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#477

Post by tguvot »

dang wrote: post #471
tguvot wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are avoiding the actual topic in question and try to divert discussion into different direction. flags are been abused and you don't do anything about it, short of "show me wrongly flagged comment and i'll unflag it if i think it was flagged wrong" can you openly admit that flags are been abused and misused to silence opinions that people disagree with ? if you can't agree with such a trivial statement, I don't t…

I've addressed this question countless times, and am always happy to answer good-faith questions. But I'm not interested in being cross-examined. > ps. obviously after i made 3 comments i am throttled and cant post this comment Your account is rate-limited. We rate limit accounts when they post too many low-quality comments and/or get involved in flamewars ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40043551 ). If you wan…

if by "addressed" you mean ignored - yes. I saw multiple people raising with you and with other moderator issue of "abuse of flagging of comments" (not submissions), and I never saw neither of you trying to address it. I saw you only trying to avoid it.

just like you did now twice, first time when I asked, you diverted it to different topic and second time you accused me of asking questions in bad faith.

ironically, you violated yourelf site guideline: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

something funny i saw a couple of weeks ago: some dude that was here for 10-15 years and wrote only 200 or so comments (but really good comments. i went through his comment history and it was really good and insightful), wrote in one of discussions that abuse of flagging of comments is crazy and it used to suppress discussion and that he leaves the site.

his comment got flagged.

this is the atmosphere that you been fostering here. either by inaction against abuse or by "pardoning" people that according to you violate guidelines in multiple ways https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46227648

edit. and how you decide "low quality comment" ? is it your objective opinion or is it all the downvoting from people that don't like facts that i preset (it's common here to downvote and flag comments with link to factual data) ?

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#478

Post by dang »

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #449
oa335 wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any sources at all for your assertion “This was very probably the most precisely targeted large-scale military strike of the last 100 years”? It is hard to engage with your statement in any reasonable fashion without knowing where you are getting your information.

Here is an excellent and HN-worthy writeup of the argument for legality, and the counterargument that it was an improper booby trap.[1] It seems to me most of the polarizarion on this board could have been avoided had the original article recognized (as does the one linked here) "that the legality or illegality of the pagers attack can only be determined on the basis of a detailed factual analysis and that the releva…

> I disagree with @dang's decision to leave the original link up, as it is nearly valuless in framing this discussion

I'm open to replacing it with a better link, but the one you've listed here (even though it's a much more in-depth article) isn't about this specific topic.

I found https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-used-palantir-its-... by googling. Is it better than OP?

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#479

Post by parineum »

dragonwriter wrote: post #461
parineum wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a member of any American military or political organization that takes any kind of military action.

If you are part of the American electorate (including a voter who is eligible but choosing to abstain out of protest or indifference) you are part of a political organization that chooses military action.

That's fine if you think that, but I hope you know that your position is not common at all.

I was born an American. Hezbollah is a group you have to choose to join. Accidents of birth and conscious choices to join a group with a violent ideology and a history of acting on it are so different, I find it hard to believe you would actually equate them.

Hezbollah is more akin to joining the KKK or Weather Underground.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#480

Post by tptacek »

UltraSane wrote: post #474
jackling wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s almost like explosives… explode, and hit the people and surroundings near them. Shrapnel travels. You’re trying to derive who had the pagers from first principles, yet you don’t seem to understand how a bomb actually works.

The bomb in the pagers was so weak it could only harm someone directly holding it or if it was in a pocket.

I think we have in fact pretty strong reporting that at least 2 children were killed, and while the explosions and payload were nowhere nearly as devastating as a grenade, they were still much bigger than a firework mortar (which themselves have killed children).

I think a stronger argument is that in the aggregate, the devices overwhelmingly targeted combatants.

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