Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Undercover spy exposed in NYC was one of many

apnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 195 posts

Re: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was one of many

#51

Post by jsmith99 »

baybal2 wrote: post #47
inglor wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> NSO is a private company who is US owned and at odds with the Israeli government often. But is stuffed full of ex-officers from Israel's military. Don't you find it odd? Why they seem to keep coming, while at the same time switching back and forth in between army and "civilian" career? That's a rather dumb cover.

Israel has a draft. Most people are veterans.

Re: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was one of many

#52

Post by deanclatworthy »

ajkjk wrote: post #28

What is the... point... of all this? It seems like a lot of money spent on, what, finding out not-very-secret information from journalists?

When key figures in a legal case can be manipulated, you can often affect the outcome. There are countless instances of this across all legal systems across the globe, across pretty much all of civilisation.

Re: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was one of many

#53

Post by meowface »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #34
heyjudy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's partly why this is such an effective tactic for Israeli (government or private) intelligence. The presence, or mere accusation, of anti-Israeli government sentiment can be pretty easily spun into accusations of anti-Israeli and/or anti-Semitic beliefs. So it can kind of create a chilling effect on these discussions in general, like in this comment sub-thread. There are so many outlandish conspiracy theories out there about Israel and Jewish people that they can group you in with those types of people and paint you as a kook or bigot when there actually is some merit behind a theory.

There's always a middleground. Never forget that a country's government and intelligence services are not its people. Just as someone criticizing the NSA or CIA or Blackwater shouldn't be assumed to hate Americans, someone criticizing Mossad or Black Cube shouldn't be assumed to hate Israeli or Jewish people.

Re: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was one of many

#55

Post by a_bonobo »

anon007 wrote: post #14

I 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…

Having just finished reading Rise and Kill First on the history of Israel's targeted killings, getting your target to introduce themselves by talking loudly about their interests around them for several days is a tried-and-tested Mossad strategy. That way, the target will trust the agent more, as they think that they initiated the contact themselves.

Re: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was one of many

#57

Post by tomjakubowski »

jorblumesea wrote: post #32
anon007 wrote: post #14

I 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.

"Ah, glad to hear Agent Johnson's been doing his job."

Re: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was one of many

#58

Post by mprev »

eesmith wrote: post #30
i_phish_cats wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like he was just trying to hit on you.

I disagree. Even if it was meant as flirting, the repeated calls from multiple phone numbers approaches harassment, not "just hitting on" someone.

You’ve clearly never had a stalker.

The behaviour sounds almost exactly like how my stalker inveigled his way into my life and then behaved when I cut him out.

Re: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was one of many

#59

Post by baybal2 »

jsmith99 wrote: post #51
baybal2 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NSO is a private company who is US owned and at odds with the Israeli government often. But is stuffed full of ex-officers from Israel's military. Don't you find it odd? Why they seem to keep coming, while at the same time switching back and forth in between army and "civilian" career? That's a rather dumb cover.

Israel has a draft. Most people are veterans.

What I find odd is that their staffers may join the company, and leave for the military/intelligence agency again after less than a year, and like that few times over.

That's not how anybody's career can work. And nobody in his sane mind will accept severe demotion on rejoining the service, nor will choose a very different branch of service.

A diplomatic security corps officer, will not be making a good sailor. Those things are just screaming "a good pretext to station uniformed spy abroad" - these two for example, are pretty much the only two ways Israel can put a man in uniform into another country legally.

Re: Undercover spy exposed in NYC was one of many

#60

Post by _pmf_ »

dsl wrote: post #24
anon007 wrote: post #14

I 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 reach out to the FBI counterintelligence unit at the San Francisco field office. It sounds like nothing came of it, but screenshots of text messages, call logs, or other information you have may be of assistance in other investigations.

Why would you want to paint a target on your back?
Post reply on HN