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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

#761

Post by jlawson »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #717
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.

>Attacking/bombing/etc without large scale surveillance would largely mean increased collateral damage. That would only be true if your goal was not to completely obliterate the population you are attacking and bombing, as Israel has demonstrated.

Since the Oct 7 attacks the Palestinian population has not shrunk. War deaths have roughly equalled births.

Are you claiming that the IDF is trying their hardest to kill all the Palestinians they can, and that this is the best they can do? Really?

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

#762

Post by stackedinserter »

dunekid wrote: post #565
stackedinserter wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inconvenient truth is that anyone who remained in Gaza, in active IDF ops area, is not a civilian. Civilians left these areas, or at least asked to leave many, many times. Unless it's a little child that's not capable of lifting a firearm, this person is Hamas at this point. If you have better way to differentiate, I will happily pass it to IDF. Don't forget to mention about the last time you risked your own life.

>Civilians left these areas, or at least asked to leave many, many times. Where to? Hind Rajab ,literally a child, was brutally killed when fleeing their home, after being asked of course. The ambulance which came to rescue was blown up by the ITF. The Whole world has seen it all, ITF proudly displays it. Maybe it is time to update the Hasbara points. >Don't forget to mention about the last time you risked your own l…

Kid, civilians die in war zones, that's sad truth about world that you was born into. It sucks that this child was killed. Nobody in IDF or in any other army wants to kill civilians and children, btw unlike Hamas pigs that openly bragged about it, and benefit from every single civilian death in this conflict.

> Why

Because there's no shortage of armchair operators that know better how to make split second decisions in combat. Also, they never do anything wrong because they never happen to be in situation where you have to decide between bad and worse.

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

#763

Post by fjdjshsh »

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]

50% of Gaza destroyed, 100% of the hospitals. It's a good thing they precisely targeted Hamas assets

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

#765

Post by nimih »

amscanne wrote: post #727
tkel wrote: post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gaza Health Ministry only counts those that show up at hospitals. The first big Lancet study a year ago estimated 200k. I've seen more recent studies estimate higher, with an additional year of killings. Also, Israel has attacked or destroyed most hospitals in Gaza. So the Health Ministry's counting is obviously hindered.

I don't believe that what you're saying is correct at all. Only 34,344 of the GHM estimate are confirmed identities. The rest of either missing but presumed dead or gross adjustments. They are open about using "media reports to assess deaths in the north of Gaza". The Lancet study published in January 2025 estimated 70,000 as of October, 2024. This is higher than the GHM estimate, but I can't find anything close to y…

The Lancet article the GP is probably referencing is probably this one: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

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

#766

Post by BrenBarn »

hashim wrote: post #389
BrenBarn wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that if you're very very bad, you can do a good thing and still be very bad.

What other reasons are Microsoft very very bad? Genuinely curious about what your definition of "very, very bad" is and whether it aligns with mine.

In other comments replying to another user you dismissed "criticisms from the 90s", but I think that's not entirely justified. If the bad things they did in the 90s are still having bad effects today, and they built their success on those bad things, then it's not really enough just to stop doing them; they would need to actively try to right those past wrongs.

However, even in the present, the increasing intrusiveness of their update schemes, forcing people to have a Microsoft account even to install Windows, shoving AI into people's faces at every opportunity, etc., would all count as reasons I think they are bad. Also I tend to think in general that simply existing as a giant corporation with large market share is bad.

To be clear, I also think that Apple, Google, Amazon, etc., are also very very bad. I think I'd agree that these days Microsoft is on the lower end of badness among these megacorps. However, that's partly just because it's become somewhat weaker than it was at the height of its badness. You could argue that this isn't "badness" but something like "ability to implement badness" but I see those as pretty closely tied. Basically the bigger a corporation becomes, the harder it has to work to avoid being bad.

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

#767

Post by jameshilliard »

kennywinker wrote: post #702
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.

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.

> 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.

Keep in mind deaths published by the Gaza(Hamas) ministry of health do not differentiate civilian vs combatant deaths at all.

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

#768

Post by visawafer »

hashim wrote: post #683
SilverElfin wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when the entire land was previously Palestinian land No such thing as Palestinian. Just Islamic Arab. Choosing to label yourself the same as one name for the land doesn’t make the land yours. But also - who do you think occupied the land previously?

Sure, that must be why the very text of the Balfour Declaration specifies "Palestine" and why coins from the 19th century have been proven to show the same. I'm afraid the hasbara isn't gonna work anymore.

[dead]

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

#769

Post by amscanne »

kennywinker wrote: post #760
amscanne wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the Gaza Health Ministry claims only 68,000, so I presume that your 600,000 is a typo.

Unfortunately not a typo: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/press-briefing-francesca... “65,000 is the number of Palestinians are certain killed, including over, of which 75% are women and children. In fact, we shall start the thinking of 680,000, because this is the number that some scholars and scientists claim being the real death toll in Gaza. And it would be hard to be able to prove or disprove this number, es…

I don’t think her statements aren’t even factual: the current estimates aren’t the confirmed identities, they include estimates for missing and presumed dead. You don’t think the GHM would publish larger estimates if 1/3 of every living person in Gaza was missing or dead? It’s hard to have an objective conversation when numbers are just made up.

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

#770

Post by WD-42 »

hashim wrote: post #740
WD-42 wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I installed windows 11 in a VM I had to agree to at least 3, possibly more, un-skippable Eulas that required me to agree to share my personal information. Maybe they aren’t selling it outside of MS, but MS is such a giant company if they are using it for ads I don’t see the distinction.

The distinction is consent, and it's a pretty big one, because it's the difference between Microsoft sharing it among their services (they don't need to sell it to themselves) for the reasons outlined in the EULAs, and companies that aren't Microsoft using it for whatever reason they want. You can be assured they're following the EULAs because the consequences of not doing so would make them vulnerable to millions if…

I appreciate the nuanced and intelligent analysis of the situation. Admittedly I haven’t thought about it very deeply because as it appears you agree Linux has made operating systems commodity at this point, at least to moderately technical users, so I really see no benefit to using any MS OS at this point.
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