[HN Gopher] Bahraini Government Hacks Activists with NSO Group Z...
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Bahraini Government Hacks Activists with NSO Group Zero-Click
iPhone Exploits
Author : giuliomagnifico
Score : 277 points
Date : 2021-08-24 10:42 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (citizenlab.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (citizenlab.ca)
| tiahura wrote:
| When Russian hackers hack, we all agree that Russia is
| responsible because they know about it and let it happen.
| meibo wrote:
| And still, in 2021, people die because some team at Apple can't
| write a memory-safe serializer for their own proprietary formats
| and image codecs.
|
| These exploits are in the hands of governments that have proven
| to not shy away from torturing/killing activists fighting for
| basic human rights.
| Siira wrote:
| "Security theatre." Apple's servers in China and their local
| photo scanning shows you clearly whose side they're on.
| aitchnyu wrote:
| Listened to the "rewrite it in Rust" chants. Is there a memory
| safe compiler/VM for existing C codebases with similar
| performance?
| throwaway75 wrote:
| On the one hand, the west seems to think that people have a
| fundamental right to protest and affect change in government,
| because, yeah, democracy, will of the majority and all that.
|
| On the other hand, if you let democracy get a foothold in many of
| the muslim-majority states, the winner of a democratic process
| will very likely be what the west perceives as a religious
| fundamentalist group whose values are antithetical to almost
| every single value that the west holds dear (including democracy
| itself). It will mean the rise of groups such as the muslim
| brotherhood that have pan-islamism and the establishment of
| sharia as their stated goals.
|
| So you can either support the right of the people to overthrow an
| authoritarian regime and establish a democratic process that will
| lead to a fundamentalist islamic state, or you can support a
| regime that is authoritarian but will allow the practice of some
| western liberal values.
|
| Which is it, and why?
| bigbillheck wrote:
| > So you can either support the right of the people to
| overthrow an authoritarian regime and establish a democratic
| process that will lead to a fundamentalist islamic state, or
| you can support a regime that is authoritarian but will allow
| the practice of some western liberal values.
|
| In Latin America, given the choice between 'a democratic
| process that will lead to socialism' or 'a regime that is
| authoritarian (with or without any "western liberal values"
| included)' the United States picks #2 basically every time.
| Siira wrote:
| The assumption that "democracy" will be pro-fundamentalist is
| problematic on two fronts:
|
| - A lot of protests are anti-Islamic.
|
| - Democracy is still bound by its constitution to protect the
| minorities, so a democratically elected fundamentalist
| government that is bound by a proper constitution can still be
| a viable regime.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| If the people want Sharia, than they should be free to chose
| it.
|
| Meanwhile, the west can go back home and instead of bombing
| democracy into these countries, we compete with their model
| (like we did with communism), we outperform their model and
| they will want our model.
|
| We didn't win against communism with bombs, we won against
| communism with widespread increase of wealth. We had more
| wealth, more rights, more freedom, a better life.
|
| Our own democracy and our own values have severely suffered
| after the downfall of communism, we are not on top of our game
| anymore. If young people from poor countries look at our
| countries and feel _hate_ instead of _envy_, then we are doing
| something wrong.
|
| What we did is saying "here, look at our awesome democracy,
| which bombs your weddings, no matter if a Black progressive or
| and Orange lunatic is in power, doesn't even make a
| difference".
|
| Almost all young people in Northern Africa are trying to run to
| Europe. They want what we have. Let's proof to them that
| democracy and liberal values are the way to get what we have.
| howinteresting wrote:
| The problem is that people aren't a monolith and
| fundamentalist sharia, like all religious nationalism,
| tramples all over minority rights. This is what makes me
| uncomfortable with the "if people want sharia" argument.
| mantas wrote:
| So, no democracy unless it's the correct type of democracy?
| Maybe just install a correct authoritarian regime and call
| it a day?
| IncRnd wrote:
| You may not be aware of the spectrum, but there are
| plenty of forms of government between democracy and
| authoritarian.
|
| For instance, there can be an indirect democratic
| republic that is configured in a way to protect the
| rights of the minority against the desires of the
| majority.
| mantas wrote:
| In a democracy, any configuration can be changed given a
| qualified majority. If there's such configuration that it
| can't be changed by a qualified majority, then it's not a
| democracy.
|
| Indirect democratic republic sounds painfully similar to
| people's democratic republics. Or infamous Putin's
| "controlled democracy" in Russia.
|
| How would limited indirect democracy differ from
| autocracy such as in Russia or Belarus?
| IncRnd wrote:
| It seems that you aren't aware that The United States is
| such a Republic, properly called a Constitutional
| Republic.
| mantas wrote:
| I'm not from US so naturally don't know every single bit
| about US...
|
| My country is a constitutional republic too. But here any
| article in constitution can be changed with a
| constitutional majority. Yes, it's not a simple 50%+1
| majority democracy, but it's still a democracy where the
| population can implement whatever changes they wish.
| Given that large enough part of population signs off on
| it.
| howinteresting wrote:
| It is impossible for correct authoritarian regimes to
| exist because people die. Even the most benevolent
| authoritarian regime cannot build the sorts of
| institutions required for their continued goodness after
| their current ruler dies.
|
| This is one of the reasons why democracies work out more
| often: because leadership changes happen more often, they
| act as a forcing function to build better institutions.
| Of course democracies have real failure modes too.
| mantas wrote:
| Well, according to this thread, democracies are not
| universal because people will die too.
|
| The question about democracy is wether democracy can
| ensure it's population does not go wrong way to vote in
| wrong people. Or does it need an oversight to make sure
| the society stays on track to be fit for a democracy? But
| if society needs an oversight, is it truly a democracy?
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| A lot of our democratic law influenced by lobbyists is
| trampling on the rights of the majority to benefit a small
| minority.
|
| We can't bomb democracy into these countries. We have to
| show them that our model is superior. We bombed away many
| dictators, just then to be unhappy with what the people
| voted for afterwards. How are you going to convince the
| Afghans that Democracy is better than the Taliban and
| Sharia, when their president was corrupt and fled the
| country with a helicopter full of money, instead of
| protecting the nation?
|
| Imagine Apple bombing the house of a Samsung user to
| convince them to buy an iPhone. That's what we do in Arabic
| countries. And while we talk about democracy, we steal what
| they have.
| IncRnd wrote:
| You are assuming Democracy is better, while at the same
| time saying that it isn't, due to who gets elected.
|
| > Imagine Apple bombing the house of a Samsung user to
| convince them to buy an iPhone. That's what we do in
| Arabic countries. And while we talk about democracy, we
| steal what they have.
|
| Sorry, that isn't what happens in the world. You seem to
| believe the justifications provided by politicians are
| the true causes of things. For example, consider the 20
| year war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is
| ridiculous to think that the rest of the world couldn't
| eliminate a small group of people over a 20 year period.
| They are on social media. They use trackable phones. The
| intent was clearly not to track them down.
|
| That's because the goal wasn't actually to eliminate the
| Taliban any more than the goal is to solve any of the
| wedge issues in politics. These things are kept alive in
| order to fund politicians and special interest groups. In
| the case of The United States in Afghanistan, there was a
| 20 year war overseen by Generals who have never won a
| war. They spent somewhere just under a billion dollars a
| day. In that case, Defense contractors were the ultimate
| beneficiaries of the 20 year war. Now that there is a
| pullout, The United States is sending _civilians_ to help
| get people out of the country.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| You are making my point exactly!
|
| Assumption: Democracy is good. Counter: Look at what
| democratic countries did to Afghanistan in the name of
| democracy, when it really was just about some a-holes
| enriching themselves.
|
| Conclusion: Spreading democracy by force make a mockery
| out of it. We should spread it by proofing that it is
| better, by having a better quality of life, a fairer
| system, more freedom, less injustice and so on.
|
| No wonder people in those countries don't trust
| democracy, they have only seen the perversion of it!
| howinteresting wrote:
| With apologies to Planck, politics progresses one funeral
| at a time. For example, in Afghanistan there is a
| generation of women who had never faced oppression from
| the Taliban; who knows what would have happened if there
| were five generations of women who had never faced such
| oppression.
|
| The US is quite bad, its imperial adventures are a
| disgrace, and it absolutely should not have been
| occupying Afghanistan, of course.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| That's a good point. I am Austrian, living in Germany.
| Perfect examples of how to do nation building after a
| war. Maybe we should have tried that in Afghanistan.
| hhsbz wrote:
| Yeah, much better to live under the tyranny of the
| minorities like in the West.
| IncRnd wrote:
| If the people of your country vote that you are a second
| class citizen, and you are stripped of the rights that
| everyone else enjoys, should they have been free to choose
| that?
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| Who is gonna stop them?
|
| If a majority of a country wants this, we have to literally
| murder the majority of a country.
|
| We also talk about these countries like they are
| functioning democracies. They are not. In a functioning
| democracy, it is against the constitution for a majority to
| vote over minority rights.
|
| Should we bomb a constitution into them?
|
| All over the world people fought to be free, against
| tyrants, kings, foreign suppressors. The people in these
| countries will want freedom as much as everyone else. They
| will figure it out. I think we are stopping this process
| from happening through our interference.
|
| We force upon them a democracy they have not brought on
| themselves, and we often enough prop up corrupt
| politicians. The President of Afghanistan fled the country
| in a helicopter stacked with cash, the Army abandoned their
| posts. Democracy let the Afghans down.
| IncRnd wrote:
| That's a false choice.
|
| I was not suggesting that anyone bomb anyone else. I
| asked a question, which is still unanswered, about your
| statement which was in essence, "if a people want
| authoritarian rule, they should be free to chose it."
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| Your question will not be answered, because it does not
| make sense.
|
| In a democracy, a majority can not vote on the rights of
| a minority. There is a constitution, a bill of rights.
| But to get there _people have to chose democracy_ over
| authoritarianism. As long as they don't do that by
| themselves, we only have the options to show them by
| example why they should want it, or to force them to want
| it.
|
| Wherever we tried to force it, it recoiled.
| 8note wrote:
| Democracy doesn't infer that there's a constitution
| defending minorities.
|
| Modern democracies generally have that, but it's not
| required
| colpabar wrote:
| But aren't you advocating that the west should act as the
| world police and force sovereign states to act a certain
| way? If the people of a country vote for something, isn't
| that democracy? I understand that voting isn't a magical
| solution that will always produce a "good" outcome, but
| what right does a state have to tell another that they
| voted the wrong way?
| howinteresting wrote:
| An essential part of democracy in the modern age is
| balancing majoritarian will with minority rights.
| IncRnd wrote:
| > But aren't you advocating that the west should act as
| the world police and force sovereign states to act a
| certain way? If the people of a country vote for
| something, isn't that democracy? I understand that voting
| isn't a magical solution that will always produce a
| "good" outcome, but what right does a state have to tell
| another that they voted the wrong way?
|
| I didn't say any of that.
| colpabar wrote:
| Ok, but you asked "should they have been free to do
| that?" I don't have an answer to that question, because I
| don't know. I know that human rights violations are bad,
| but I also know that democracy means the majority rules.
|
| But my point is that even if we come to the conclusion
| that democracy produced an outcome that we didn't like,
| how do we rectify it? Who will "correct" their "mistake"?
| lucian1900 wrote:
| They run to Europe because we bombed Libya and continue the
| economic warfare and exploitation against the entire
| continent.
|
| The Cold War was also won with coups and invasions and death
| squads and infiltration. What you see now is entirely in
| character with western imperialism, merely turning inwards as
| it collapses.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| That's the point, people say we should intervene for, eh
| ethics or something and democracy, but we go there for
| selfish reasons _and make things worse_.
|
| We should focus on fixing and improving our own democracy,
| make sure people here are visibly doing better than in
| places that don't have democracy and freedom and offer help
| to everyone who wants to achieve it.
|
| Help as in "this is how you write a constitution", "this is
| how you write civil law", "this is how you run an efficient
| health care system" , not bombs.
| throwaway75 wrote:
| But if that's the chosen path, then you'd have to be ok with
| the imposition of majoritarian laws on the minorities of the
| country - at least until the majority wakes up and tunes into
| the west's liberal values, or until the minority ceases to
| exist - whichever occurs first.
| afroboy wrote:
| This is same thing that happened in Algeria back in the
| nineties, in Algeria if you let a clear and honest democratic
| process in the country make assure that an Islamic group will
| win by majority and that why Europe union (France) will not
| ever make it happen and Algeria now is in really very bad
| situation with corruption running by an authoritarian regime so
| that they can milk them with stupid economic trades.
|
| And to put it in the bigger picture why USA will never let a
| democratic process in Muslims majority country happen is simply
| the existence of Israel, you know exactly what the first thing
| Muslims will do if they united.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Isn't Iraq democratic now?
| kome wrote:
| no, not really... just on paper. like Afghanistan 1 months
| ago.
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| Afghanistan wasn't democratic even on paper. Only a
| sovereign state can be democratic, colonies and occupying
| territories with puppet governments are by definition
| non-democratic, even if they pretend to have "free"
| elections.
| [deleted]
| sharikous wrote:
| Nah keep Israel out of this. First, it would benefit from
| secular democracies in the region. Second it has seen far
| worse things than "Muslims united" and it has won.
|
| The only factors are that big global/regional players (USA,
| Iran, Turkey, SA) like their vassal state to be easily
| controlled. And that most cultures there do not have a
| history of democracy, or for that matter of national states.
| kungito wrote:
| When exactly has Israel specifically won?
| CDRdude wrote:
| The Suez War, the Six-Day War, and the Yom Kippur War, I
| guess?
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| Israel will win for sure since they have American money and
| a defensive position (always easier than an offensive
| position in war).
|
| But the best case scenario for Israel is that Muslim
| countries are ruled by authoritarian elites (whose wealth
| lends them to be more Western liberal than Islamist). That
| would lead to the least issues and the most chance for them
| to cement the legitimacy of their country (still not
| considered legitimate by majority of the world's
| population).
| sangnoir wrote:
| This time, _both_ sides will have nukes: even the "winner"
| will still lose.
|
| Edit: what absolutely baffled me was the eagerness of the
| previous US administration to do nulcear tech transfer to
| Saudi Arabia; I couldn't see any tactical or strategic
| advantage to that.
| blackhaz wrote:
| Could you provide an example where a democractic process has
| legitimately elected a religious fundamentalist group? That is
| how I understand "the winner" in your statement, as if the
| group was elected by the people.
| mikevm wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Egyptian_presidential_ele.
| ..
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_e.
| ..
| einpoklum wrote:
| Neither Hamas nor the Egyptian Muslim brotherhood are
| fundamentalist movements. They're conservative, but that's
| quite different.
|
| Naturally, people who feed off of pro-US media may think
| them fundamentalist (as some commenters here seem to), but
| their respective electoral platforms and governmental
| policies do not agree with such a characterization.
| [deleted]
| odiroot wrote:
| From Wikipedia:
|
| [..] Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian
| Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist,[c] militant,[16] and
| nationalist organization.
| einpoklum wrote:
| Ah, so the national security assistant to John McCain
| says Hamas is fundamentalist. Well, I guess it must be
| true then. How could I ever disagree with Wikipedia,
| silly me. They are _never_ biased in favor of US foreign
| policy positions, right?
| drorco wrote:
| Huh? "Hamas is a radical Islamic fundamentalist
| organization that has stated that its highest priority is
| a Jihad (holy war) for the liberation of Palestine."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas
| sofixa wrote:
| > a person who believes in the strict, literal
| interpretation of scripture in a religion. "religious
| fundamentalists"
|
| They're both Islamist, conservative, fundamentalist, pro-
| Sharia law, etc. etc. Both were or are still considered
| terrorist groups, and both have used terror tactics to
| murder opponents or enemies.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| I don't think it's fair to call them terrorists because
| they "use terror tactics to murder opponents".
|
| The US and Israel do that too. Every army in the world
| does that.
|
| Nuclear bombing of Hiroshima was, by all definitions,
| using terror tactics to murder opponents. By your logic,
| one who has used terror tactics is a terrorist, then the
| US Army is a terrorist
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Democracy is meaningless without liberal values. So no, there
| is no "fundamental right" to a tyranny of the majority that
| oppresses minority groups and opinions. This was very well
| understood in the West; it's why many Western countries have
| Bills of Rights that cannot be overruled by the ordinary
| democratic process, including the United States.
| quetzthecoatl wrote:
| are you even aware of your own history? Genocide, slavery,
| segregation, oppression of religious and sexual minorities
| etc ? You did wars to spread christianity. Even now gays
| don't have equal rights. Whatever little rights they earned
| was just recently. Bill of rights was in the 1700s. Genocide,
| slavery and all that rest happened while your bill of rights
| was in full force.
|
| How do people write these shit with a straight face knowing
| western history? especially United State's history.
|
| As for the topic in hand, the Bahraini govt is accused of
| doing to select people what US govt does to everyone, and you
| are getting self righteous? Lmao this is hilarious.
| stickfigure wrote:
| This is a twisted form of whatabboutism. Every lineage of
| humans has a sordid history. None of those people are alive
| now; what matters is what the people who are alive today
| do.
|
| The crusades a thousand years ago do not justify jihad
| today. "The West" has come a long way. It's not
| hypocritical to want the rest of the world to catch up.
| quetzthecoatl wrote:
| >This is a twisted form of whatabboutism.
|
| As if that's a valid criticism. What about your
| whataboutism? hehe.
|
| You wrote about western countries and especially US
| having protections that make your democracy enlightened -
| especially citing bill of rights that protects the rights
| of everyone. To which I pointed out that you had genocide
| of natives, slavery of Africans, oppression of women,
| sexual minorities etc when bill of rights was in full
| force. Point being that not only are you wrong about west
| being equal, but also about having these protection would
| actually mean anything.
|
| >The crusades a thousand years ago do not justify jihad
| today.
|
| No where did i say it does. You are literally making
| stuff up. How does you lot doing genocide and slavery in
| US justify Taliban blowing up whatever they find
| unislamic in their narrow definition of pure islam? None
| of the examples I used went far back to 1000 years, why
| even bring it up?
|
| As for ignoring this happened in the past - Axe doesn't
| remember, the tree does. You can conveniently forget
| horrific events in the past when you benefited from it or
| you did it (whatever that "you" identity is). You might
| say the genocide of natives was in the past, so shouldn't
| matter, but the native americans would definitely beg to
| differ.
|
| btw where do you draw the line? 500 years? 100 years? 10
| years? yesterday? Of the genocide, slavery, segregation,
| wars to spread christianity and/or stop communism - what
| according to you is beyond the statute of limitations on
| moral responsibility?
|
| >"The West" has come a long way. It's not hypocritical to
| want the rest of the world to catch up.
|
| It really hasn't. The latest nightmare that is unfolding
| in Afghanistan, is created by west. The rest of the world
| can't catch up when you keep destabilizing it.
| shadilay wrote:
| It seems the crusades are always referenced but rarely in
| their historical context.
| [deleted]
| shkkmo wrote:
| How is it "whataboutism"? This isn't saying "america is
| bad because history" it is saying that the history of
| america shoes that democracy can function even with
| pretty limited application of liberal values.
| masterof0 wrote:
| When you point out hypocrisy in HN, you will get downvoted
| and comments on how you are using "whataboutism". Most of
| the traffic to this website comes from the US, so you
| probably understand the clear bias. You will also see how
| people love to bring(rightfully so) Hong Kong crackdowns on
| protesters but willingly ignore what is going on in other
| countries (and have been going for longer) like Venezuela,
| Cuba, etc... Is just how it is.
| verall wrote:
| Hong Kong is an extremely international and technically
| advanced city that freely accepts American passports for
| visits. Many on HN bring up the HK crackdowns because
| they have personal experiences with the city.
|
| Its unlikely that on a majority-American forum you will
| find many people with personal experiences in countries
| that the USA has put under embargo.
| masterof0 wrote:
| So, countries under embargo are doomed to apathy and
| disregard from the American public? Their people
| suffering can be safely ignored , just because their
| country is not "international"(whatever this means) or
| "technically advanced" enough? Your comment shows the
| sentiment I was describing. Is never about being fair, or
| about freedom, etc.. Is just about what can I say to make
| people like my comment. But anyways, I get your point, is
| just sad.
| verall wrote:
| > just because their country is not
| "international"(whatever this means) or "technically
| advanced" enough
|
| I think you're misunderstanding me - it is much more
| likely, due to those qualities, that people on a majority
| American forum have personally lived in or met people
| from Hong Kong. An embargo heavily reduces the ability
| for Americans to visit or meet people people from that
| country. This obviously makes those people "feel" further
| away.
|
| This reduction in cultural exchange between America and
| communist countries is a key goal of the embargo. Between
| propaganda and the embargo, the average American public
| has no chance of realistically meeting, visiting, or
| understanding these people and places.
| quetzthecoatl wrote:
| It's "people like us". Always been. What's changed is how
| the "people like us" is defined. It used to be race, then
| skin color, then religious belief, and now it's class.
| It's still us vs them, only "us" is not defined on racial
| or religious lines.
| quetzthecoatl wrote:
| that and they really are unaware of the horrible things
| their government/country did and still does. In my view,
| every good thing/ideal has been corrupted and weaponized
| by the west. Be it women's rights, civil liberties, human
| rights in general - whatever. West uses this as a means
| to pressure other countries to achieve west's foreign
| policy goals. It's just a stick to beat others with - not
| an ideal to uphold. So, what you have is a few in the
| west setting the narrative, and the rest mindlessly
| dancing as per the narrative believing it. What you see
| in HN/Reddit etc are the people who believe the
| propaganda as they being the good guys despite the ones
| doing the horrible things all across the planet for the
| last few hundred years. It's hypocrisy when the ones
| setting the narrative peddle this nonsense. I don't think
| that crowd comes to HN/Reddit. They are more in
| nytimes/wapo/economist opeds and columns. The ones you
| find here are genuinely clueless and/or can't think for
| themselves. As punishing wrongthink becomes the norm,
| it's going to get worse.
| eschaton wrote:
| There are other movements in the region but they tend to be
| seen as even more antithetical to western governments.
|
| For example, the PKK wants to establish a modern secular
| Kurdish state. Turkey, Iraq, and Syria are opposed because it
| would be in "their" territory (never mind the desire of the
| people _in_ that territory for self-governance).
|
| But why is so much of the "democratic" west unwilling to
| support the PKK? Because they want a _socialist_ state.
|
| Similarly, there is a large contingent of Palestinians that
| want to establish a modern secular and non-anti-Israel state,
| but you never hear about them and they never get a seat at the
| table--even though lots of people hate the PLO and Hamas--
| because they're socialists.
|
| The west really does prefer authoritarian rule with the minimum
| of western liberal values to democratic socialism with a full
| embrace of western liberal values. Profit above all else, so
| any attempt at socialism must be opposed even at the expense of
| those values.
| bronzeage wrote:
| Islam is simply incompatible with democracy. Not a single
| Arabic democracy exists in the middle east. The values required
| by citizens of democratic countries to preserve democracy are
| in contradiction with Islam.
|
| Democracy, unlike the misconception in the west, is incredibly
| unstable state of government. I don't mean that democratic
| countries are unstable, I mean that democracies countries are
| extremely likely to devolve into undemocratic countries.
| Maintaining democratic country requires a certain level of
| education and ideology from the citizens, an understanding of
| values, that is very hard to bootstrap. Countries without these
| values would never turn into democracies on their own because
| it takes societal change.
|
| The 1920s have seen many countries devolve from democratic
| elections into autocracies, including Nazi Germany. Mass media,
| when weaponized, can easily kill democracies.
|
| Democracies can even devolve by a government simply rigging
| their own election. Democracy gives politicians the power to
| change the rules of their own election, and it's just a matter
| of time until they change election laws to voting by mail or
| voting machines they simply rig. All it takes is replacing
| elections with an arbitrary sham process, reinforced by
| propaganda, and democracy dies.
| swiley wrote:
| Don't forget that the US democracy started with a religious
| fundamentalist regime.
| tempay wrote:
| I have no ties to the US and very little knowledge of it's
| history but I thought the ideas around the separation of
| church and state can be traced back to the founding of the
| US?
| mc32 wrote:
| It's a ridiculous assessment and it's comparing XVIII c. US
| with the modern day.
|
| That would be like someone bringing up some deficiency in
| women's rights in the US today and then retort by comparing
| it to women's rights in 1700s somewhere else.
|
| No, we live today.
| luckylion wrote:
| The point was that it _started_ as one. I read that as
| "even if it starts as a fundamentalist regime, it can
| develop into something else."
| mc32 wrote:
| I would disagree on the assertion that it was
| fundamentalist. Compared to the places they came from,
| they were pretty open and indeed ensured that there was
| separation between state and religion, unlike many other
| places at the time where there was an intricate
| relationship between the two.
| scns wrote:
| The only country i know of, where church and state are
| actually separate is France.
| [deleted]
| einpoklum wrote:
| > On the other hand, if you let democracy
|
| That's your problem right there. Many of these countries are
| either under direct occupation of the US or its allies, or
| having a puppet government which answers to them and not to the
| population in any significant sense (e.g. Jordan, Bahrain when
| it's not occupied by KSA). So when you write "you let", the
| subject is the foreign occupier.
|
| The most important thing which should happen is for "you" not
| to be able to "let" or "not let" people manage their lives one
| way or the other.
|
| > get a foothold in many of the muslim-majority states, the
| winner of a democratic process will very likely be what the
| west perceives as a religious fundamentalist group
|
| On the contrary. This happens when, in that country, you have
| fundamentalist forces which have been trained, equipped and
| sometimes even ferried in by the US (e.g. via the CIA) or its
| allies. Examples: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya. There is
| also the effects of decades of trying to suppress left-wing
| forces in various places in the world, which leaves a vacuum
| which fundametalist Islamist forces may fill, as in the case of
| Iran.
|
| When that's not the case, you get something like Egypt,
| Tunisia, Yemen in the 1960s, Egypt in the 1950s, Iraq in the
| 1950s, Palestine in the 1930s etc.
|
| Bottom line: When the US (and other Imperialist powers) don't
| intervene and manipulate things, the results are not what
| you're worried about.
|
| > every single value that the west holds dear (including
| democracy itself).
|
| Assuming "The West" means the EU states and the US, then I
| don't see how they hold democracy dear. They routinely prefer
| their national ruling classes' interests over democracy. We
| have even seen a recent example of this within Europe itself,
| where nobody opposed the Spanish Monarchy's suppression of
| Catalonian democracy.
| buzzwords wrote:
| It always fascinates me to read comments like this in here.
| Because it shows quite clearly that we all buy into narratives
| pushed by states. This post says that only winner of democracy
| in middle east is a fundamentalist religious governments. This
| is totally untrue. For example Iran, which was way more
| religious in 1950s managed to establish a secular democracy. It
| was the foreign intervention that derailed it. The same people
| who derailed the very democracy then pushed the idea that
| middle east is not suitable for democracy.
| ipaddr wrote:
| You let them go fundamentalist because it will swing back the
| other way.
|
| This only works if social changes are made allowing for these
| things to happen.
| atoav wrote:
| I don't think the two choices described are the _only_ choices
| available. The point of a democracy is that -- if the people
| are unhappy with those ruling them -- they can change those in
| power without a revolution, civil wars or similar violence.
| Such a change is hardly imaginable with radical islamist
| powers.
|
| This principle of being able to get rid of those you voted in
| is more important in a democracy than the actual representation
| of the "will of the people", because the "will of the people"
| can change and so the people should not be allowed to make a
| democratic choice that robs them, the oppositions and the
| coming generations of their future democratic rights. This is
| what we in Germany call "wehrhafte Demokratie" ("militant
| democracy").
|
| If your democracy can be lost by voting in facists or religious
| nuts it is not a sufficiently enough militant democracy,
| seperations of powers didn't work as intended etc. Democracies
| should be designed for this case in mind, not for the normal
| "we have leaders who are a tad bit corrupt but things are
| otherwise ok"-case.
|
| So every nation should be able to vote in whoever they please,
| but those voted in should not have the power to abolish
| democracy, human rights, etc. because it, is _not_ their right
| fundamentally.
|
| This is why one can be for democracy in a state and at the same
| time be against certain antidemocratic powers that will ignore,
| circumvent, undermine democratic guarantees like the ones
| mentioned. But the whole discourse is quite old already and had
| been well discussed by Karl Popper:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
|
| Should we tolerate the intolerant in a tolerant society? No.
| Not even if they are the majority.
| [deleted]
| colpabar wrote:
| But who will be the tolerance police? If a majority votes for
| something that is intolerant, does that give an outside
| faction the right to start bombing them until they vote the
| right way?
| zozbot234 wrote:
| In a true liberal democracy, the people themselves enforce
| these rights. The people must of course preserve some
| spirit of resistance, which provides the "militant" twist
| in parent's description of a "militant democracy".
| colpabar wrote:
| But what if they don't? A lot of countries in the middle
| east are profoundly not liberal. If things play out in an
| un-liberal/intolerant way, do we step in and "fix" them
| so that they meet our own standards?
| luckylion wrote:
| While the German constitution says that all Germans have
| the right to resist against anyone seeking to abolish
| democratic fundamentals, there's not really a provision
| for it to be by violent means.
|
| It's not "militant democracy", it does not point to the
| means, but to the idea that it's not possible to abolish
| democracy by legal means. It's a legal concept, not a
| plan to follow in case of emergency.
| mattrighetti wrote:
| Who decides who is intolerant?
| atoav wrote:
| Intolerance in Popper's sense has a different connotation
| than we might be used to today. The thinking of Karl Popper
| is heavily influenced by the horrors of the holocaust where
| people where denied rights, quartered up, shot or gassed
| based on being in the oposition, having the wrong ideology,
| religion, skin color, relatives, friends, gender identity,
| sexuality, etc. So for Popper this was not some vague
| undecidable "what is intolerance anyways"-kind of word, but
| bound to really harsh existential inhumane cruelties.
|
| I guess we can agree that people who want others killed or
| at least surpressed like that do count pretty much as
| intolerant under regular free society standards. So in
| other words: intolerant people are people who can't be
| bothered to tolerate sharing their existance with other
| people who mind their own bussiness.
|
| So: the definition of the word "intolerance" decides who is
| intolerant. And of course intolerant people will argue that
| they aren't (because that is not a nice attribute to get
| branded with, even if it is true) and therefore they try to
| change the meaning of "tolerance" in their image. And of
| course some people will claim intolerance where the
| definition won't justify it, because they feel it gives
| them an advantage in a given situation and therefore try to
| change the definition of "tolerance" into their direction.
| Ultimately like any codified law it would be a matter of
| presedence etc.
| 0134340 wrote:
| The ones with the power to decide or power to yield that
| power to another, as what already happens anywhere you go.
| You can't murder someone for slighting you, that would be
| intolerant in US law. Don't like it, yield power to change
| the law.
| atatatat wrote:
| > You can't murder someone for slighting you, that would
| be intolerant in US law.
|
| Yeah, they'll just put you in a cage, next to Julian.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| False dichotomy. You left out the obvious US style republic
| with heavily enforced rights that can't be voted away.
| rory wrote:
| Who enforces those rights in that scenario?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > So you can either support the right of the people to
| overthrow an authoritarian regime and establish a democratic
| process that will lead to a fundamentalist islamic state, or
| you can support a regime that is authoritarian but will allow
| the practice of some western liberal values.
|
| > Which is it, and why?
|
| It has to be the former, because the latter is unsustainable
| and builds further local opposition to liberal values equating
| them with shams covering Western imperialism in the service of
| commercial interests of foreign elites (because in that case
| _that 's exactly what they are_, once you limit "liberal
| values" to those that can be enjoyed without giving substantive
| power to local opposition to the Western-imposed regime.)
|
| Of course, the thing is, the actual motivation, not just the
| incidental result, is commercial imperialism in the Middle
| East--"liberal values" are an excuse, access to and influence
| over global markets for resources (particularly oil) are the
| actual critical concern.
| dundarious wrote:
| The US has been propping up (mostly secular, but not
| exclusively) authoritarian regimes, and instigating coups,
| since at least the 1950s -- either to guarantee favorable terms
| for oil or shipping, or to destroy local
| communist/socialist/not-capitalist-enough movements.
|
| One of Chomsky's oft-repeated facts is that Eisenhower
| commissioned a report while president, to figure out why is the
| US hated so much on "the Arab street" (but presumably including
| Iran, etc.)? The report concluded that the US is perceived to
| have installed and propped up authoritarians, and generally to
| have meddled in internal affairs and elections, and what's more
| that it's all pretty much true. I never found the report he's
| referencing, but you can easily find info about meddling, even
| on CIA's own website (pre-revamp), such as an internal CIA
| historian's favorable review of a history of their commission
| of the Iran coup.
|
| I think this has to be taken into account when trying to
| explain the current dynamics.
| stuaxo wrote:
| There is another dimension: when there have been liberal
| governments, but that want to do things like nationalise
| western oil companies, western countries prefer to destabilise
| those countries - the end result is often authoritarian
| regimes.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| Wasn't that paradox already apparent during the cold war, when
| the US tried to block Communism by propping up right- wing
| dictators?
| yardie wrote:
| If we've learned anything from Afghanistan and Iraq, the will
| of the people will eventually win out. So western liberal
| values should always support democracy because they still
| haven't been able to show a unicorn self-sustaining, liberal
| authoritarian.
| snarf21 wrote:
| It is such a travesty what we've done in the middle east. We
| kept toppling people we thought we're bad and are surprised
| that the puppet doesn't have support. Maybe the stability that
| was there was hard one. Maybe everyone in Iraq hating Suddam
| equally was a very stabilization lodestone instead of them all
| fighting each other. What we did is like dropping a bomb into a
| river, it is going to take decades for a new stabilization to
| occur.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Maybe the stability that was there was hard one._
|
| Stability is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition.
|
| Propping up dictators because they are "stable" is something
| the West has done - to little success - for a long time.
| throwaway769879 wrote:
| Toppling dictators because they are "evil" is something the
| West has done - to little success - for a long time
| andrepd wrote:
| The West never toppled one dictator for being "evil". It
| toppled many for not being profitable.
| kome wrote:
| the only and correct answer is: you let them to do whatever
| they want as a collectivity, and you stop your imperialist
| project.
|
| You can use all the softpower you want, and i see no problem
| with this, but it's up to the majority of the people to decide
| what to do.
| refurb wrote:
| So if the country decides to exterminate a specific ethnic
| group you just try and use soft power and if that doesn't
| work then oh well?
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| Would you make that argument for the US treatment of
| minorities historically? No? Why?
| Cyph0n wrote:
| There is nothing preventing an autocracy from doing the
| same thing, right? In fact, history shows that autocracies
| are more prone to doing that.
|
| And who are we kidding here: the West is not against
| democracy in MENA because of some deep care for minorities
| or individual liberties. The West is against democracy
| because it's more unpredictable and opens up the
| possibility that the people decide to take control of their
| resources.
|
| Feel free to believe otherwise if it makes you feel better,
| but it's not the truth.
| dijit wrote:
| > So you can either support the right of the people to
| overthrow an authoritarian regime and establish a democratic
| process that will lead to a fundamentalist islamic state, or
| you can support a regime that is authoritarian but will allow
| the practice of some western liberal values.
|
| Democracy is "dangerous" in that people who wish to secretly
| concentrate power can become elected; Once elected they figure
| out ways to remain "elected" forever.
|
| Any democracy that fails to listen to the will of the people is
| a failed democracy; so inherently anything that's "installed"
| is immediately failed.
|
| There's also a huge populism argument here too, things that
| sound good are often very _not_ good; and it's difficult to
| make that kind of call for yourself let alone making it for
| other people.
|
| But we should not be in the habit of installing governments,
| that shit is colonialism v.2.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > I think religious fundamentalism _should_ win out because
| that's the will of the people and we in the West are not
| supposed to be interfering with others in such a way.
|
| Good point, but there are a couple problematic things in that
| take:
|
| - What is the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights"
| actually worth if no one enforces it?
|
| - Religious fundamentalism at its core - Christian
| fundamentalism, Islamist fundamentalism, Hindu
| fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalism, even entirely agnostic
| fundamentalism - is incompatible with democracy and human
| rights at its very core. Women's rights, equality of all
| people no matter their heritage, gender or sexual
| orientation, freedom of (and from!) religion... there are
| _lots_ of conflict potentials.
|
| - Can (or rather, _should_ ) we as Western countries turn a
| blind eye against grave instances of human rights abuses? No
| matter if they label themselves democratic or not? In case of
| "no", can we truly claim we as a species learned _anything_
| from the horrors of the Nazi regime? What is a sensible
| threshold to intervene?
|
| And that's just the ideological side. There are also
| practical issues:
|
| - How can "the will of the people", even if it were to live
| under Taliban rule, even be determined amidst widespread
| corruption, vote fraud, exclusion of societal groups from
| voting or running for an office,
| corrupt/demagogic/government-dominated media or mistrust in
| the voting process? It's hard enough to guarantee that in
| developed Western-ish countries as we saw with the entire US
| re-election fiasco, the media takeover by the government in
| Hungary, Murdoch being labeled a threat to democracy or the
| bought Brexit and outright impossible in cases like Russia or
| China.
|
| - How _can_ abusers be meaningfully sanctioned? China and
| Russia are already cozying up to the Taliban, just as the
| West has done with Saudi-Arabia and its chainsaw-loving
| prince.
|
| > Once elected they figure out ways to remain "elected"
| forever.
|
| Which is why it would make sense to expand the UN into an
| actual worldwide oversight committee. The problem with that
| however is that the majority of governments represented there
| isn't democratically backed and, given historic UN voting,
| would probably band together to dissolve Israel in an
| instant, probably followed by the US. Additionally, how
| should voting weights be distributed? By population? By
| economic quantities?
|
| > Any democracy that fails to listen to the will of the
| people is a failed democracy.
|
| That is coming close to a "tyranny of the majority" scenario,
| _especially_ when throwing in demagogues into the mix. Any
| democracy worth calling it by that name must guarantee the
| human rights of its most powerless.
| dijit wrote:
| Everything you say is true.
|
| But interventionism based on _your_ beliefs is a form of
| tyranny and usually stokes tensions which riles up support
| for your opponents ideology. It's not long lived.
|
| All the things you say are things the EU struggles with
| _Massively_ , and I'm not so naive to assume I have all the
| answers; but I have a hard time swallowing the idea that I
| know better than "Fundamentalist Muslims" or whatever else,
| because if that's the leadership they choose then
| unfortunately one way or the other I need to just let them
| get on with that.
|
| Doesn't mean I agree.
|
| You're right, though, that there are things like the human
| rights conventions, and the EU is quite good at not working
| with countries which do not ensure basic protections; but
| to some people (brexiteers, for a good example) this is
| also a form of tyranny.
|
| You can't appeal to everyone, so you're basically imposing
| tyranny or allowing a tyranny of the majority in some form;
| as you so eloquently put it.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > But interventionism based on _your_ beliefs
|
| They are not my beliefs, they are what the majority of
| the civilized world believed to be the core tenets of
| civilization after the horrors of the Nazi regime. That
| is the entire point on why I believe human rights
| interventions to not only be justified but _morally
| necessary_.
|
| And for what it's worth I (as a German) would really love
| some sort of oversight committee to tell Viktor Orban or
| our own far-right to pound sand.
| dijit wrote:
| I guess the main difference I'm trying to get at here is:
| what we believe to be core tenets of civilisation are
| perhaps more hotly contested than we want to admit?
|
| Or; to put it another way: you and I believe this (we're
| in the majority!), so should we force it on everyone?
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| Lol what a long-winded comment just to demonstrate your racism.
|
| Tell me, how long did you live in any Muslim-majority country,
| let alone the Middle-East? Because I've lived in, and regularly
| visit, one for the past 21 years.
|
| They have as much capacity for democracy and "liberal Western
| values" (whatever that means) as the West.
|
| I could flip your question around and ask why the US deserves
| democracy, since it inevitably elects a bunch of war-mongers
| that have wrought untold destruction across the world.
| einpoklum wrote:
| The title should read "Saudi puppet government in Bahrian hacks
| activists etc." Bahrain has been under effective Saudi military
| occupation for a while now.
|
| Also, and as the article points that even regardless of the Saudi
| involvement - Bahrain is an autocracy. So it's not like it's all
| the KSA's fault.
| nullspace wrote:
| This is interesting. I lived in Bahrain for about half my life
| and left around 2004. At that time, I'd say the USA had a much
| greater leverage on Bahrain than Saudi did. Although, they were
| still quite cozy.
|
| Has that dynamic changed in more recent years?
| 1cvmask wrote:
| This is just a digital manifestation and continuation of
| President Obama's values and policies on Bahrain:
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-...
| noisy_boy wrote:
| > The State Department has called for Mr. Rajab's release;
| instead, he is likely to be sentenced to up to 15 years in
| prison. If so, it will be another demonstration of how the
| Obama administration has failed to defend U.S. values even in
| cases where -- as in Bahrain -- it wields extraordinary
| leverage.
|
| I don't even know why they keep saying "U.S. values" - USA
| doesn't have values (no nation does) - it has policies and
| those policies are self-serving/pragmatic and change as per
| geopolitical needs. U.S. values are no more than Hollywood's
| populist marketing scheme. Countries basically use those
| "values" as shields/excuses when needed and set them aside
| whenever it is required/convenient to do so.
| tsjq wrote:
| why hasn't apple fixed these security gaps / defects ?
| zionic wrote:
| They're too busy writing spyware for iOS 15.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| I assume they aren't aware of them as the NSO Group won't
| disclose them.
| sva_ wrote:
| > Type one crashes indicate that the chain of events set off
| by invoking copyGifFromPath:toDestinationPath:error
| ultimately crashed while apparently invoking ImageIO's
| functionality for rendering Adobe Photoshop PSD data.
|
| > Type two crashes indicate that the chain of events set off
| by invoking copyGifFromPath:toDestinationPath:error
| ultimately crashed while invoking CoreGraphics' functionality
| for decoding JBIG2-encoded data in a PDF file.
|
| The usual suspects. I don't know why it isn't possible to
| deactivate media parsing in the phone's text messaging app,
| as the vulnerabilities seem to always be found in those. How
| often do people send PDF/PSD files by text message?!
| yardie wrote:
| Apple has the market cap of entire countries. If they really
| wanted this fix they can throw almost infinite amounts of
| money at it.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| If apple paid 10 million for a 0 day exploit the people who
| create the exploits would be incentivized to tell apple
| instead of developing exploits for their employer. Apple
| could definitely be doing more with their infinite money.
| cehrlich wrote:
| I certainly don't want to suggest that Apple couldn't do
| more in terms of security, but 0-days are inevitable. Every
| OS has them, and will continue to have them. Throwing money
| at this can make it better, but I don't think it's possible
| to "fix" it without creating some sort of new paradigm for
| how software is made.
| albntomat0 wrote:
| True, but there's a wide range of things that can be done
| to change how difficult it is to find those 0-days, while
| also provide good incentives to those capable of finding
| said O-days.
|
| Writing the iMessage parser in a memory safe language is
| a step towards a "new paradigm" [0], but more can and
| should be done by a company Apple's size.
|
| [0]:
| https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2021/01/a-look-at-
| ime...
| sumedh wrote:
| How about Apple gives more money(in millions) to people
| who report legit security vulnerabilities?
| cehrlich wrote:
| I agree that Apple should do more to improve their
| relationship with security researchers, including paying
| better.
|
| However I also don't think that this can fully solve the
| problem - if a government creates a sufficiently funded
| black hat operation (or outsources it to someone like
| NSO, which is effectively the same thing), it's
| inevitable that they will find a 0-day sooner or later.
|
| This is going off topic a bit, but I honestly don't know
| what the solution to this is. The pragmatic truth is that
| anyone who is a big enough target that it would be worth
| for a hostile entity to spend a couple million to
| intercept their communication should assume at all times
| that their devices are compromised.
| hvis wrote:
| Some 0-days - sure. But we're talking about a major
| corporation continuing their business uninhibited.
|
| If the NSO Group has been active for a number of years,
| couldn't Apple make an effort to purchase their products
| (through some third party, perhaps) and then reverse-
| engineer the vulnerabilities?
| simion314 wrote:
| Apple has the money and influence to buy this exploits
| and analyze them, probably NSA are using them too so
| Apple won't attempt to upset NSA so they do nothing
| because the "good guys" are using it too.
|
| Also Apple is notorious on their bad bounties and on have
| a bad history on providing researchers with unlocked
| devices for testing, probably Google found more security
| bugs in iOS then Apple.
| agni3002 wrote:
| Internally apple security org focus on politics and firings
| over result. Apple Security has reorg and new management
| almost every six months
|
| Weak leadership
| dane-pgp wrote:
| "Why are you putting on running shoes? You can't outrun a
| bear!"
|
| "I don't have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun
| you."
| rangerdan wrote:
| They don't have any incentive to, in fact the opposite is true
| - they purposefully don't fix zero days so intel agencies can
| use them to spy on dissidents.
| [deleted]
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