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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

#701

Post by snickerbockers »

dijit wrote: post #356

I think people don't tend to realise how authoritarian the internal structures of companies are. They're effectively miniature dictatorships. Normalising removing services because a tenant does something you personally find disagreeable is fine in the moment, but what happens when it's someone you support? Like when they removed Office365 access for a member of the EU parliament.[0] For me, this is more proof (not le…

>They're effectively miniature dictatorships. Normalising removing services because a tenant does something you personally find disagreeable is fine in the moment, but what happens when it's someone you support? Like when they removed Office365 access for a member of the EU parliament.

Not that I necessarily agree with what they did here, but I would like to point out that one alternative which has been employed previously would be to silently forward her e-mails to the NSA or state department. Refusing to offer their services is probably the most ethical thing that MS has ever done on behalf of the US federal government.

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

#702

Post by kennywinker »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #523
dark_mode wrote: post #235

> The decision has not affected Microsoft’s wider commercial relationship with the IDF, which is a longstanding client and will retain access to other services. The termination will raise questions within Israel about the policy of holding sensitive military data in a third-party cloud hosted overseas. It's worth noting that even after finding out the "most moral" army is conducting mass surveillance, they're still h…

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.

Perhaps the actual moral choice isn’t attacking blindly or mass surveillance of an occupied nation - it’s peace?

Regardless, the death toll in gaza (somewhere between 45,000 and 600,000) suggests that this mass surveillance isn’t being used effectively to reduce the death toll. It also doesn’t take mass surveillance to know that bombing hospitals and schools is going to kill innocent people.

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

#703

Post by halflife »

basilgohar wrote: post #601
halflife wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what, I just had to do a double take because your post is so stupid. Israel brought nothing to the region? Let’s review. Israel has the highest gdp by a great margin. Israel is an important exporter of technology to the world, be it cyber tech, water tech, agriculture tech or defense tech. Israel has the highest number of startups per capita in the world. Israel has more Nobel laureates than the entire rest…

Israel only survives as a vassal state of the US. Without US aid, political cover, and unconditional military support, they cannot exist. It is being made illegal to boycott Israel in the US, given them artificial economic advantages, and they receive a surprising amount of US government contracts especially in security and data related tech. They exploit the few remaining Palestinians for their own manual labor with…

How much land did Israel expand in km^2 since 1967?

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

#704

Post by lupusreal »

throwforfeds wrote: post #145
vkou wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, here, that would have the stench of colonialism about it. It's not their land to 'return to' - after all, people already live there and they have no moral right to displace them.

Honestly can't tell if this is satire or not.

I can only hope it is, and assume it isn't.

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

#705

Post by snickerbockers »

danbruc wrote: post #479

What would happen in a hypothetical scenario where Microsoft cut off everything [1] they can for all of Israel - no Azure, no Office, no Outlook, no Exchange, no SQL Server, no Windows, no Xbox, no ...? Depending on how many things they can make unusable, I would imagine that this would be pretty bad, probably even causing some deaths because of affected infrastructure. [1] Not sure what they could actually make unus…

IDK but Mossad is quite possibly the world's most effective spy agency and SV software corporations rarely have effective safeguards to protect against rogue employees so we must conclude that there are many sleeper agents planted throughout major corporations on behalf of just about every intelligence agency in the world including but not limited to mossad.

I have not seen any hard evidence of this nor have i ever suspected a fellow employee at any of my employers of being a double-agent loyal to a state intelligence agency but it's easy enough to do that there must be hundreds, maybe even thousands of sleeper agents all over santa clara and redmond.

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

#706

Post by tguvot »

babu657 wrote: post #678
dragonwriter wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The West Bank is occupied by Israel and Israel has overall control, but it is broken up into a whole bunch of tiny administrative regions, some of which are administered by the PA and some of which are administered directly by Israel.

Gee i wonder what happens if Israel just let the west bank be. Wait…i know what will happen

Rocket factories, like the one that was discovered week ago https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bjbqu9qolx

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

#707

Post by dotancohen »

hashim wrote: post #696
dotancohen wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right - such association with colour is not limited to Americans. I almost forgot being told about the slaves in the Gaza strip. It turns out that Gazans call black-skinned Gazans "slaves". I've met black-skinned Bedouins but not black-skinned Gazans, and I don't know if the black-skinned Gazans are also Bedouins. I actually didn't know the word for slave in Arabic, but it was similar enough to the word in Heb…

I'm sure the Gazan friends you spoke to will be overjoyed you had face-to-face conversations with them before going online to advocate for their genocide, and that those conversations you had make them clearly savage enough to justify said genocide. Are you really so wrapped up in your tech bubble in Tel Aviv that you can believe that? Here's some reading on a story even I knew off from the top of my head: https://ww…

I knew that somebody would bring up the contraceptives the moment that I mentioned Ethiopians. Here, have a read: https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/o49jqp/myt...

  > I'm sure the Gazan friends you spoke to will be overjoyed you had face-to-face conversations with them while advocating for their genocide, and that those conversations make them clearly savage enough to justify said genocide.
Since October 7th I haven't seen any Gazans face to face, but we have spoken on the phone and on Telegram. And I've never advocated for their genocide, rather I've advocated against the genocide of Jews. Anybody who supports Hamas, their goals, or their idealogy supports the genocide of Jews. It's right there in the Hamas charter.

I'll say it clearly. There is no genocide of Arabs, or Muslims, or Palestinians, or Gazans in the Gaza strip. There are many Gazans dying, and many of them are children. Many of them are killed as a result of Israeli actions, and many of them are killed as a result of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other organizations' actions. Israel does not systematically target children, only Hamas benefits from dead children. They say it clearly themselves.

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

#708

Post by computerex »

khazhoux wrote: post #158
computerex wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word genocide has a legal definition, it’s not up for discussion or debate. What is happening in Gaza is a genocide according to genocide scholars.

I think the debate (/question) is whether it is Israel’s goal to eliminate the entirety of the Palestinian people. That does not seem to be the case, which is where the “not genocide” argument comes from. Now I understand that the UN has specific criteria, etc. But the most famous genocide was the systematic execution of millions in gas chambers. This is not akin to that, is what people are arguing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intent_and_incitement_in_the_G...

Anyone who watches Israeli news/media in Hebrew knows that Palestinians are not considered human in the Israeli society. Israel dehumanizes and genocides the Palestinians with the intention of wiping them off the face of the earth.

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

#709

Post by nahuel0x »

SilverElfin wrote: post #679
mrguyorama wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Refusing to distinguish between random Palestinians and Hamas members is literally the entire problem I have ZERO issue with the IDF killing Hamas. That's what you do in a war . But we have ample evidence that Israel and the IDF is not making any effort to not kill random Palestinians. They made some stupid AI algorithm to feed data into in order to generate target lists. They accepted something like 10:1 "innocent p…

> Refusing to distinguish between random Palestinians and Hamas members is literally the entire problem Well, it is difficult to distinguish between the two when you’re hunting down terrorists who hide among civilians. But also, let’s not forget - the civilian population of Gaza VOTED for Hamas. In polls they still show support for Hamas even after October 7. There are videos of those civilians cheering in the street…

It's very easy to distinguish a children from a terrorist, children are no terrorists, also, children didn't vote anybody. However, the IDF is killing thousands of children in the most horrible ways.

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

#710

Post by hashim »

dotancohen wrote: post #707
hashim wrote: post #696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure the Gazan friends you spoke to will be overjoyed you had face-to-face conversations with them before going online to advocate for their genocide, and that those conversations you had make them clearly savage enough to justify said genocide. Are you really so wrapped up in your tech bubble in Tel Aviv that you can believe that? Here's some reading on a story even I knew off from the top of my head: https://ww…

I knew that somebody would bring up the contraceptives the moment that I mentioned Ethiopians. Here, have a read: https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/o49jqp/myt... > I'm sure the Gazan friends you spoke to will be overjoyed you had face-to-face conversations with them while advocating for their genocide, and that those conversations make them clearly savage enough to justify said genocide. Since October…

So in your warped logic, the few thousand combined killed by all of the groups you named are more evil than the 60,000 killed by Israel (likely 100,000+ after Israel finally lets the UN in) and the true cost of the genocide can be calculated. Also, Israel just accidentally ended up with a collateral damage rate of 50%, just like several medical doctors have attested to it accidentally sniping tens of kids and people waiting for aid, and accidentally shooting 300 bullets into the vehicle holding Hind Rajab. I suggest you wake up and start moving toward the right side of history, along with the UN, Amnesty International, Oxfam and virtually every other major human rights organisation, because very soon it'll be too late and history isn't going to forget active enablers and propagandists like yourself.
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