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Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

theguardian.com

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Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#621

Post by SilverElfin »

pessimizer wrote: post #213
dotancohen wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn't that what Hamas did? Broke into homes and burned babies to death? Beheaded people? Pulled fetuses from pregnant women? Shoot up clinics and murder the entire staff and patients?

> Broke into homes and burned babies to death? Beheaded people? Pulled fetuses from pregnant women? It's important to note that these things never happened, and you're still repeating them years later. The only baby that died on 10/7 was a 10 month old hit by crossfire. I have no idea of the third, and though I feel sure it's wrong judging by the rest of what you have said, I feel obligated to check. Try it.

I suggest you seek out more information. Frankly this is not even under debate - there are videos from Hamas and from Gazans showing what happened. There are surveillance cameras showing them setting shelters on fire with children inside. Grenades thrown into living rooms with families. Dead women paraded around naked in the streets of Gaza (how did their clothes come off?)? Female hostages with blood on their crotch (hint: rape).

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#622

Post by Capricorn2481 »

dotancohen wrote: post #541
duxup wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think understanding exactly how your customers do a thing is not an easy thing to be 100% sure of. I've had sales, customer reps, even engineers and customers describe how a customer / they work ... and then I go and look and ... it's not how anyone said they work IRL.

[flagged]

> Would it be a better world in which Israel were not able to precisely target Hamas entities and assets

They are already not doing that

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#623

Post by hashim »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #551
hashim wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article you're commenting on quite literally mentions that employee pressure, of which Ibtihal Aboussad's was the most vocal and memorable in the media, played a significant role in the decision.

> article you're commenting on quite literally mentions that employee pressure Fair enough. I’m not buying it—the timeline doesn’t work, and the broader literature on disruptive protest is mixed, leaning towards negative. What clearly swung the odds was the Guardian reporting on the frankly brazen meetings Microsoft executives decided to take. Without that reporting, this wouldn't have happened. With that reporting a…

Does that "literature" include history itself? I can't think of a single movement for good in history that accomplished its goals without pissing people off. Resisting any form of power tends to result in that power - and the many supporting it - getting quite upset by definition.

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#624

Post by kmeisthax »

efitz wrote: post #473

I think Cloud providers should be common carriers. I don’t think that it is a good thing when a company can make an arbitrary decision and disable functionality that you have put millions of dollars and thousands or tens of thousands of person hours into. I think that the only reasons that a cloud provider should be permitted to use to justify termination of service, are illegal activity (in the country of service),…

Just to be clear: "illegal under international law" isn't good enough? It has to be sovereign entities' own laws? As in, a cloud provider should have no power to refuse service to any government?

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#625

Post by SilverElfin »

basilgohar wrote: post #610
js212 wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jews are an ethnicity and are genetically the same. Even those from Europe and those from Muslim countries (who now live in Israel after getting kicked out of Muslim countries). Stop making stuff up. Ohhh and Muslims didn’t treat Jews “peacefully”. They were second class citizens and often massacred. Read some history.

No, Jews of today are ethnically quite diverse and have mixed significantly. There are several recognized heritages of Jews of today with known populations from North Africa, the Middle East, Iran, and also Europe. I don't deny the "Jewishness" of anyone, but say "The Jews" as if this covers all of them is wrong. There are huge swaths of Jews today that are anti-Zionist and consider Israel an abomination on religious…

Why do you think Jewish people are mixed? Could it that occupiers, like invading Islamic Arabs, drove them away and they mixed over time with others? Regardless of that, it is Jewish people and their culture that are indigenous to the Levant. Not the Islamic Arabs who call themselves Palestinian.

> That it is a religious goal to have a nation of Israel is a new idea driven by Christian Zionists more than Jewish ones and the political, areligious Jewish Zionists enjoy their support and will play any role to achieve their own goals.

It is literally a religious goal of Hamas and the people who voted for them (Gazans) to destroy a religion (Judaism) and to commit genocide. It is literally in their charter. They voted for it. Meanwhile, the nation of Israel has a population that is over 20% Islamic Arab and they are thriving. The reality seems to me to be the opposite of what you’re stating here.

> Jerusalem and the rest of the Palestine was at peace under Muslim rule

It seems to me like you are pro colonization when the rules are Islamic and when the suppressed are Jewish. But not in the reverse? Israel is a democracy. Surely that is preferable to a religious supremacist rule?

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#626

Post by 3form »

lordofgibbons wrote: post #553
tick_tock_tick wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't every army conduct "mass surveillance"? What do you think all those satellites with cameras are doing orbiting the planet? Wouldn't the opposite be incredibly immoral? Attacking/bombing/etc without large scale surveillance would largely mean increased collateral damage.

Are you seriously equating observing an area using satellites with indiscriminately monitoring everyone's calls, messages, and possibly hacking their devices?

Given lackluster response to the recent attempts of the "democratic" governments to do very much the same to their own citizens, I daresay not many are particularly impressed.

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#628

Post by jiggawatts »

IlikeKitties wrote: post #77
Etheryte wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of confidential computing is that the cloud provider can't access your data and can't tell what you're doing with it. This is a must have requirement in many government contracts and other highly legislated fields.

I've personally never seen anything requiring confidential computing in anything. Is this required in the USA? I find that hard to believe, because the technology on a cloud level is still very beta-feeling. I think that Microsoft just never looked because they did not want to know.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/confidential-computi...

Re: Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

#629

Post by JumpCrisscross »

hashim wrote: post #623
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> article you're commenting on quite literally mentions that employee pressure Fair enough. I’m not buying it—the timeline doesn’t work, and the broader literature on disruptive protest is mixed, leaning towards negative. What clearly swung the odds was the Guardian reporting on the frankly brazen meetings Microsoft executives decided to take. Without that reporting, this wouldn't have happened. With that reporting a…

Does that "literature" include history itself? I can't think of a single movement for good in history that accomplished its goals without pissing people off. Resisting any form of power tends to result in that power - and the many supporting it - getting quite upset by definition.

> Does that "literature" include history itself?

Literally how these things are studied.

> can't think of a single movement for good in history that accomplished its goals without pissing people off

Disruptive protest takes the form of interrupting ordinary peoples' lives. (In contrast with targeted protest, which seeks to directly disrupt the problematic conduct.)

They are effective at raising awareness of an issue and rallying the base. Among those who are already aware and have not yet committed to a side, however, they tend (broadly) to decrease sympathy.

> Resisting any form of power tends to result in that power - and the many supporting it - getting quite upset by definition

Of course. I'm talking about broader views.

Sympathy for Israel went up after the Columbia protests because (a) nobody was surprised that there was a war in Gaza and (b) folks breaking into a building and disrupting public spaces doesn't naturally elicit sympathy from undecideds. (It also crowds out coverage of the actual war.)

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