[HN Gopher] Israeli spyware company NSO Group placed on US black...
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Israeli spyware company NSO Group placed on US blacklist
Author : sequence7
Score : 112 points
Date : 2021-11-03 14:46 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| bberenberg wrote:
| Dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29095265
| bink wrote:
| There are several US companies that provide the same service,
| though they ostensibly operate under guidelines set by the US
| government.
|
| As someone who was busted for hacking way back in the day, it
| perturbs me just a little bit that I could legally develop an
| exploit and sell it to someone who I know will use it for illegal
| activity (but activity that the US govt. might approve of,
| regardless of legality), but if I myself use this exploit I'll be
| facing serious jail time. Or if I sell it to someone who isn't on
| an unofficial "approved" list of users.
| suifbwish wrote:
| If people who exploit this sort of thing for financial gain
| would spend a fraction of their problem solving on developing a
| constructive solution that solves a real world problem they
| would probably have more money
| sonjaqql wrote:
| See episodes 99 and 100 on the Darknet Diaries [1] for background
| on NSO and Pegasus.
|
| [1] https://darknetdiaries.com/
| jayrot wrote:
| Great podcast.
| sofixa wrote:
| Serves them right. I wonder how Israel would react here, and how
| the US squares blacklisting the company, but saying nothing of
| the Israeli MoD that had to authorise every sale due to export
| restrictions. If the company sold to bad actors, surely the MoD
| is at least partly to blame for allowing it?
| baybal2 wrote:
| Not the MoD, but the cabinet, and the previous PM specifically
| dogma1138 wrote:
| I highly doubt that some of the more shady deals like selling
| to the KSA weren't greenlit if not brokered by the US.
|
| About 10 years ago Israel sold Hermes drones to KSA through
| South Africa, that deal was pretty much openly brokered by the
| US because KSA wanted drones with attack capability and the US
| didn't want to supply them with predator drones and the UK
| which is primary arms supplier to KSA didn't had anything to
| export either.
|
| Israel or not if these companies posed any actual threat to US
| interests yet alone national security they wouldn't exist
| either through political pressure or by much stronger actions
| than putting them on a sanctioned list.
|
| What will likely happen is that they'll reform as other
| entities with sufficient separation from to avoid sanction or
| Israel would shift that capacity to some of the larger defense
| contractors like Elbit which the US will not sanction.
|
| As long as there is a market for these services and there is
| sufficient political will in the west and the US specifically
| to supply "allies" with controlled offensive cyber capability
| there will be countries like Israel that would fulfill this
| demand.
|
| The main challenge of establishing a company like NSO isn't the
| human capital you can find people with the right skills pretty
| much anywhere it's the connections and the government backing
| needed to make these deals.
| einpoklum wrote:
| Call me when the US federal government and its bombing and drone
| assassination program runners are placed on the blacklist.
| viro wrote:
| For what exactly? Your issues with that program probably has
| more to do with Taliban war crimes. Don't forget it's a war
| crime to not wear a uniform during combat.
| throwaway946513 wrote:
| I'd reckon that the 'war crime' of a lack of a uniform is
| lower on the scale than a drone strike on a civilian aide to
| the U.S. during the withdrawal from said State.
| viro wrote:
| Nope that drone strike only happened because of the lack of
| uniform and clear insignia. If they didn't use that tactic
| the strike would never have happened.
| throwaway946513 wrote:
| "happened because of the lack of uniform"
|
| Following interviews of the man's employer, and the
| official word from the DoD "we tracked the vehicle from a
| known ISIS safehouse."
|
| The vehicle was a Toyota Corolla whose driver took his
| coworkers home, and one coworker's home was "a known ISIS
| safehouse" even though he had long been working for the
| U.S. effort, in full support of the U.S. effort.
|
| Let alone, ISIS isn't quite a government entity, but
| rather a terrorist group so not explicitly going to
| follow international treaties. Their premise is to blend
| in - the U.S. shouldn't be allowing the collateral damage
| to happen on our watch, rather do it's best to stop
| damaging and hurting civilians.
| eliasmacpherson wrote:
| They investigated themselves and found no wrongdoing.
|
| https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/03/watchdog-finds-
| no-m...
|
| "Said was asked to investigate the Aug. 29 drone strike
| on a white Toyota Corolla sedan, which killed Zemerai
| Ahmadi and nine family members, including seven children.
| Ahmadi, 37, was a longtime employee of an American
| humanitarian organization."
|
| What uniform would have avoided the tragedy?
|
| You are blaming ISIS' lack of uniforms for the drone
| strike on this man and his nine family members?
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| It just goes down to the function of such a rule. Who made
| that rule? It's just power dynamics. It's simply oppressive
| to force weak militaries to lose. Weak countries that will
| lose in head to head combat. In paraphrasing but there's two
| ways to fight the U.S. the stupid way or guerrilla warfare.
| Let's not forget how the revolutionary war against Britain
| was won because they didn't follow formalities.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| "Aged like milk" Bill Cosby aside, he had a great bit if
| more things were decided by coin toss.
|
| The Americans win the coin toss; they can wear whatever
| they want and hide behind trees and rocks. The British will
| be forced to wear bright red and march in straight lines.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| The US won the Revolutionary War because ultimately France
| joined in against the British. The French provided
| substantial support and training for the Continental Army,
| and the French navy held the British fleet at bay.
|
| The land battles that were won by the Continental Army were
| won using the standard tactics of the day.
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| There's lots of reasons, they had the forage war and used
| guerilla tactics, ambushes and non conventional warfare
| since they'd lose a head to head war.
| erdos4d wrote:
| > Don't forget it's a war crime to not wear a uniform during
| combat
|
| lol those dudes are getting shot at with gunships and tanks
| and have AKs and old mines and stuff to fight back with. They
| should invest in uniforms to make it "fair"?
| viro wrote:
| It's not about making it fair. When soldiers dress as
| civilians in civilian areas during combat. It's nearly
| impossible to make sure a real civilian doesn't get harmed.
| bestcoder69 wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy48P-SBgUU
| dotancohen wrote:
| Unfortunately the US is well-known for actually actively
| engaging civilians.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0
|
| Whether or not that is an isolated incident is
| irrelevant. The US has a reputation for shooting
| civilians. The US media doesn't help either, often
| portraying soldiers shooting civilians even in fiction.
| vernie wrote:
| Nobody will call you.
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2021-11-03 23:02 UTC)