Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure

#71

Post by bakuninsbart » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 3:32 PM UTC

zzleeper wrote: post #9

Perhaps NSO Group should be considered a terrorism-aiding organization. Freeze its assets, track all their employees, backers, etc. Wonder if they are even helping to hack US government employees through China, etc. (besides just helping to torture dissidents).

The Israeli government classified Pegasus, the software by NSO currently in the news, as a weapon, thus restricting its exports.

If you look at the list of customers, it quickly becomes clear that they are the same organizations that make the laws.

Re: Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure

#72

Post by bobthechef » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

h1fra wrote: post #62

igorzx31 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their biggest customers are middle eastern governments according to the WaPo article. US certainly has bought the software but it's mostly Saudi, UAE, Qatar, etc. US has NSA so they don't really need some software. Middle eastern powers dont have the same type of technical expertise to develop their own in-house.

So should we consider the NSA a terrorism-aiding organization? edit: the tone is lost via internet; my own opinion on this: yes, it is.

Does terrorizing citizens through illegal spying and mass surveillance constitute terrorism? Or does only setting off bombs in public spaces count?

Re: Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure

#73

Post by blackearl » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

h1fra wrote: post #62

igorzx31 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their biggest customers are middle eastern governments according to the WaPo article. US certainly has bought the software but it's mostly Saudi, UAE, Qatar, etc. US has NSA so they don't really need some software. Middle eastern powers dont have the same type of technical expertise to develop their own in-house.

So should we consider the NSA a terrorism-aiding organization? edit: the tone is lost via internet; my own opinion on this: yes, it is.

Is this supposed to be some kind of "gotcha"? Both are despicable.

Re: Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure

#74

Post by q1w2 » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

zzleeper wrote: post #9

Perhaps NSO Group should be considered a terrorism-aiding organization. Freeze its assets, track all their employees, backers, etc. Wonder if they are even helping to hack US government employees through China, etc. (besides just helping to torture dissidents).

The intelligence community ties between the US and Israel - and the private security companies is so tight, that there is no way this doesn't link back to the US gov't.

"five eyes" is nothing compared to the level of cooperation between the US and Israel on cybersecurity.

One of the very first things I noticed when I started in cybersecurity was the prevalence of Israeli accents.

Re: Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure

#75

Post by toss1 » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #55

b112 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like this is more a result of Amazon not being able to connect you with the right escalation path to verify & act on these claims than a considered decision to ignore them. Those two things are actually the same thing, both are wilfully ignoring situations like this.

Never assume malice where ignorance and incompetence would suffice instead. Those two things are actually not the same thing at all, depending on how you define “willful.”

Yes, that is a good summary of Hanlon's Razor, a sort of corollary to Occam's Razor about mot creating unnecessary entities in your conceptual models.

Hanlon's Razor is a good first approximation or initial approach to a situation, not the end of the discussion. There are many situations where incompetence may appear to be an explanation, but is in fact not the root cause, and may even be being actively used as a cover for malicious actions.

The point of the razor is that it is up to us to sort out the difference, not to just jump to a conclusion that it is malice, or that it is incompetence.

In this case, Amazon has had plenty of time, resources, and skilled people to see the need and implement an escalation & resolution pathway. That they have so persistently failed to do so for so long indicates a cause beyond mere incompetence. Even if they are not being as actively malicious as the malware distributors, they clearly and actively DGAF.

Re: Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure

#76

Post by prox » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 3:35 PM UTC

aritmo wrote: post #54

esens wrote: post #28

Anyone notice that this statement from NSO in the article doesn't make sense: "NSO does not operate its technology, does not collect, nor possesses, nor has any access to any kind of data of its customers." If this is true, how do we have a singular list of all phone numbers penetrated? If there was this type of "segmentation" or firewall between NSO and its clients, why was there this huge central data leak? NSO is…

They are trying to claim that the service is so fully automated that it is the client that does the selection of the target. They claim that their system does not require any fine-tuning from their side, etc. And that's totally bullshit.

So the good old plausible deniability?

Re: Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure

#77

Post by throwaway210222 » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 3:35 PM UTC

bobthechef wrote: post #72

h1fra wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So should we consider the NSA a terrorism-aiding organization? edit: the tone is lost via internet; my own opinion on this: yes, it is.

Does terrorizing citizens through illegal spying and mass surveillance constitute terrorism ? Or does only setting off bombs in public spaces count?

Once you too have had the misfortune of a bomb going off near your family, you will know the answer.

Re: Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure

#78

Post by atatatat » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #55

b112 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like this is more a result of Amazon not being able to connect you with the right escalation path to verify & act on these claims than a considered decision to ignore them. Those two things are actually the same thing, both are wilfully ignoring situations like this.

Never assume malice where ignorance and incompetence would suffice instead. Those two things are actually not the same thing at all, depending on how you define “willful.”

Never assume ignorance where a scumbag can take new default level of societal ignorance and hide behind it....

Re: Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure

#79

Post by JumpCrisscross » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 3:42 PM UTC

h1fra wrote: post #62

igorzx31 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their biggest customers are middle eastern governments according to the WaPo article. US certainly has bought the software but it's mostly Saudi, UAE, Qatar, etc. US has NSA so they don't really need some software. Middle eastern powers dont have the same type of technical expertise to develop their own in-house.

So should we consider the NSA a terrorism-aiding organization? edit: the tone is lost via internet; my own opinion on this: yes, it is.

> So should we considered the NSA a terrorism-aiding organization

This statement needs the "we" defined to be meaningful.

If it is the U.S., then obviously no, the NSA is an arm of the state. If "we"` is e.g. China, probably no, because words have meanings and the arms of recognized foreign states don't conduct terrorism, they do espionage and they do war. If "we" is a freshman dorm room, then, of course, the NSA is a terrorist organization alongside the student government.

Re: Amazon Shuts Down NSO Group Infrastructure

#80

Post by tomrod » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 3:42 PM UTC

h1fra wrote: post #62

igorzx31 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their biggest customers are middle eastern governments according to the WaPo article. US certainly has bought the software but it's mostly Saudi, UAE, Qatar, etc. US has NSA so they don't really need some software. Middle eastern powers dont have the same type of technical expertise to develop their own in-house.

So should we consider the NSA a terrorism-aiding organization? edit: the tone is lost via internet; my own opinion on this: yes, it is.

There is a community on reddit called "self-aware wolves" that narrowly identifies a much broader phenomenon: there are many elements of modern society which are generally tolerated but not morally permissible. This is a representative instance.