[HN Gopher] Israel police uses NSO's Pegasus to spy on citizens
___________________________________________________________________
Israel police uses NSO's Pegasus to spy on citizens
Author : idoco
Score : 231 points
Date : 2022-01-18 08:15 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.calcalistech.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.calcalistech.com)
| Barrin92 wrote:
| People used to quip that Prussia is an army with a country rather
| than the other way around, it seems like if you add the modern
| intelligence sector that describes Israel. With all the concerns
| about 'Military-civil fusion ' as it's called in China or Russia
| I always found it funny that Israel might as well be the country
| that has merged both spheres most successfully but nobody really
| seems to care at all.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Did you mean "Prussia was an army with a country" or "Russia is
| an army with a country"?
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| Prussia. There was a period of time in history when Prussia
| was known for its very militaristic culture.
| [deleted]
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Got it. I was confused because I didn't catch that they
| were talking about the past.
| samstave wrote:
| The venn diag of israel seems to be:
|
| Military -- Government -- Corporate/tech -- Religions <-- All
| encapsulated under the intel umbrella.
|
| All seem to be seamlessly aligned within Israel..
|
| --
|
| I mean this is basically what all governments strive for, just
| that Israel has turned it into an art+science.
|
| The amount of amazing technical innovation that comes from
| israel is quite stunning.
| eli_gottlieb wrote:
| Nah, you need to modify the diagram to take Religions out.
| The religious establishment considers the military, corporate
| sector, and non-parliamentary government agencies to be
| captive to "the seculars", which they basically consider to
| be evil and devoted to destroying religion. We seculars, in
| contrast, think we mostly just don't want to give the
| religious big heaps of free money.
| mateo1 wrote:
| A lot of people voice their concerns, including a lot of
| Israelis, but what can you do? Israel is a democracy and the
| majority votes for far right militaristic candidates and
| parties. Whether or not you hear about these concerns in public
| discourse in your country's media depends on your current
| foreign policy.
| terr-dav wrote:
| It's a democracy of the first-class citizens only. Don't
| forget it's an apartheid state!
| snird wrote:
| This is a lie, and you have an agenda.
|
| The "United Arab List" is part of the current government
| (!) not of the parliament, but the government itself that
| is formed. Representing many Arabs.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Arab_List
|
| Anyone who repeats the lie of "apartheid" is either
| malinformed, or has some antisemitic agenda to pro
| bobbylarrybobby wrote:
| Even if someone were unfairly anti-Israel, why would that
| imply they're also antisemitic?
| snird wrote:
| voz_ wrote:
| This is not grounded in reality. Arab citizens can vote and
| participate, and there are Arab parties in Israeli
| government. If you want to see an apartheid, go look at any
| other country in the middle east. Let's see how Jewish
| representation looks there...?
| kome wrote:
| you forgot about palestine.
| gambiting wrote:
| If I can quote someone else for putting it much better
| than I would:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ndik83/south_
| afr...
|
| "Israel is the nation state of Jews alone" Netanyahu
| responds to TV star saying Arabs are equal citizens
| (2019):
|
| source: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-
| israel-is-the-n...
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Many countries in the Middle East are islamic
| theocracies, so they limit religious freedom by their
| very constitution. However, even in Iran, a person of
| Jewish heritage who converts to Islam should not have any
| (official legal) barriers to entry in political life. In
| a country ruled by a church, that seems relatively
| reasonable.
| yonixw wrote:
| Yep, like that disgusting incident on 2005 where they gave
| up their land... and their control... they are the worst.
| Who else is at fault to what happened in Gaza? The
| apartheid of curse. Disgusting!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_from_Ga
| z...
| ak39 wrote:
| Have they given up West Bank yet?
| gambiting wrote:
| Here's a massive list of crimes that Israel is quilty of,
| with sources, for your perusal:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/list_palestine/comments/l43xgk/m
| ega...
| yonixw wrote:
| You do know this is a Conflict? Never denied both parties
| are fighting. Here is of course the counter list [1]. But
| while I'm just against the commenter one-siding of the
| situation. You are trying to make it a one-side crime
| again... which again... very wrong. Here is a quote just
| to show how not one sided it is:
|
| [1] "... A February 2008 suicide bombing that killed one
| Israeli woman in Dimona was supported by 77% and opposed
| by 19%"
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_political_v
| iolence...
| tsimionescu wrote:
| How many people have been killed by Palestinians in
| Israel since, say, 2011 (the last ten years?) How many
| has Israel killed in Palestine in the same time frame?
|
| I will not even go into the difference between lone
| gunmen and state-sanctioned killings. Let's accept that
| any Palestinian killing an Isareli should be treated the
| same as an officer of the Israeli military or police,
| acting in their official capacity, killing a Palestinian.
| Even so, which way has the balance turned in the last
| 10-20 years?
| yonixw wrote:
| According to the UN (since 1/1/10): [1] x18 in favor of
| Israelis... 220-vs-4032. Most of the Palestinians (3000)
| were killed in Gaza. Which bring me back to my original
| point. Israel gave Gaza control to the Palestinians in
| 2005 only to wake up the next year to find Hamas taking
| control and later starting to shoot rockets at Israeli
| civilians. All the power and support they gain only
| mounted to terror.
|
| I will acknowledge Israel is stronger. But I also
| acknowledge what happens in Gaza is 85% due to the Hamas
| terroristic organization being terroristic. How the hell
| does that even imply Israel as an apartheid. Who knows.
|
| Is the fact the Egypt also closes the border with Gaza,
| Make them also an apartheid state? I guess the problem
| here is not Israel.
|
| [1] https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties
| markdown wrote:
| LOL, you write about one Israeli dying? Is that a joke?
| Palestinians get slaughtered on a monthly basis, by
| snipers and indiscriminate bombing.
|
| Some random terrorist killing one Israeli (by sacrificing
| his own life) can't be compared to Israeli government
| snipers doing the bidding of the Israeli people (it's a
| democracy after all).
| yonixw wrote:
| 1) You didn't open the link... now did you?
|
| 2) "sacrificing his own life" what a poetic gesture ...
| never thought of a terrorist bomb suiciding as such a
| beautiful act.
| mysterEFrank wrote:
| This blames Israel for 9/11, what a joke.
| terr-dav wrote:
| Does it?
|
| >(32) 5 Israelis working for an Israeli Company "Urban
| Moving" were arrested on 9/11 after being seen
| "documenting" (their own words during an Israeli
| interview) and celebrating the attack on the WTC. Owner
| of the company, Dominik Suter, fled to Israel after the
| incident. His name appeared on the May 2002 FBI Suspect
| List, along with the 9/11 hijackers and other suspected
| extremists. Israel has yet to extradiate him (2001):
| alphakilo wrote:
| All Israelis have equal rights, why do you say Israel an
| apartheid state?
| terr-dav wrote:
| All people residing in Israel do not have equal rights.
| Why do you think they have equal rights?
| ciphol wrote:
| That's true in every country. Citizens and noncitizens
| have unequal rights.
| terr-dav wrote:
| Haha, what a huge oversight on my part, of course
| citizens and non-citizens have different rights.
|
| One of the legal principles of Israel is:
|
| > The right to exercise national self-determination in
| the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people. [0]
|
| There's also a legal path from citizenship to legal-
| residency, which I would surmise is used almost
| exclusively on non-Jewish citizens, as well as the
| blanket permission for all Jewish people (and no one
| else) to become citizens of Israel.
|
| [0]https://www.timesofisrael.com/final-text-of-jewish-
| nation-st...
| odiroot wrote:
| [Citation needed]
|
| That's a very bold claim.
| eli_gottlieb wrote:
| Maybe if they let us call it left-wing to have literally any
| politics other than unilateral surrender to the people still
| at war with us (even as we achieve normalization with more
| and more countries!), we'd vote more left-wing.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Its a bit easier for Israel - if you are an outsider (99.9%
| of mankind) and dare criticize it anyhow, you are quickly
| marked either a) antisemitic or b) supporting islamic
| terrorism, or some mix of those. Nobody wants to touch that
| with 10 foot pole in woke era.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > Its a bit easier for Israel - if you are an outsider
| (99.9% of mankind) and dare criticize it anyhow, you are
| quickly marked either a) antisemitic or b) supporting
| islamic terrorism, or some mix of those. Nobody wants to
| touch that with 10 foot pole in woke era.
|
| I don't know about that connection with 'wokeness'.
| Progressives are frequently tagged as anti-semitic for
| criticizing Israel.
| p1necone wrote:
| Don't blame this on "wokeness", being pro Israel at least
| in the USA is a right wing thing, at least from my
| perspective as an outsider.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > being pro Israel at least in the USA is a right wing
| thing, at least from my perspective as an outsider.
|
| There are a few things going on: Jewish Americans vote
| overwhelmingly for Democrats, there is a powerful (and
| loud) conservative pro-Israel lobby, and hardline
| conservative Christians overwhelmingly support Israel -
| likely Israel's most powerful American constituency.
| rowathay wrote:
| US citizen here, and you are correct. The farther left
| you go, the more anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic sentiment
| you'll find.
| p1necone wrote:
| No, that's not what I meant at all. Being opposed to
| Israel and the impact they have on their neighbours !==
| being antisemitic.
|
| It's my understanding that pro-Israeli sentiment on the
| right is somewhat rooted in antisemitism in the first
| place. They _love_ the idea of Jews having their own
| country away from everyone else.
|
| Besides, the whole Q conspiracy wing currently taking
| over the American right is blatantly antisemitic.
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| Maybe in the people, but AIPAC is the most feared lobby
| group across both sides of the isle for politicians.
| Russiagate is a joke compared to how much influence they
| have on our foreign policy, and its a travesty that their
| activities and heavy-handed influence is spoken of so
| quietly if at all.
|
| Signed, Iraq war vet (it was more for Israels interests
| than ours!)
| yyyk wrote:
| >Signed, Iraq war vet (it was more for Israels interests
| than ours!)
|
| That would be odd way of serving the Israeli interest, as
| the actual Israeli government opposed the Iraq war and
| thought it would be bad for Israel:
|
| https://forward.com/opinion/9839/sharon-warned-bush/
| woodruffw wrote:
| Please do not conflate opposition to the Israeli state
| with anti-Jewishness. There are millions of diaspora Jews
| living in the US who do not accept that conflation and
| are not fans of Israel.
| yyyk wrote:
| Note how nobody in the comments has mentioned a) or b)
| _except_ those 'critical' of Israel, and how 'nobody wants
| to touch that' accurately describes how every thread about
| NSO has the same Israel-Arab conflict comments.
|
| Furthermore, if we look at these past related threads, we
| can almost always find some person with the same opinions
| crying victim before anything has been said.
|
| This absurd victimhood - one that places some imaginary
| nonexistent hurt to some outsider before _either_ side 's
| actual hurt - describes very effectively the mentality and
| connection to reality of those 'critical' voices.
| woodruffw wrote:
| It's a bad situation: we don't currently have a good litmus
| test for good-faith criticisms of Israel (of which there
| are an overwhelming number) versus treatments of Israel as
| coextensive with and the mouthpiece of the Jewish diaspora
| (which it certainly isn't). The former is righteous
| criticism; the latter is gussied up antisemitism.
|
| Edit: and, to be absolutely clear, it is in Israel's
| continued interest for us to _not_ have a good litmus test
| for the two. I believe that most international messaging
| and the intentional obfuscation of Israeli foreign policy
| behind Jewish identity demonstrates that keeping the two
| murky is a continued policy goal of Israel 's leadership.
| eli_gottlieb wrote:
| IMHO, it's hard to come up with a litmus test because
| both sides of the debate kinda like the standard motte-
| and-bailey structure of "criticisms of Israel". In fact,
| not only are the arguments often motte-and-baileys,
| there's often a _super-bailey_ , a bailey for the bailey
| that basically invokes some kind of "I win either way"
| gotcha. For example:
|
| Motte: Israel's use of Palestinian "guest workers" who
| have no opportunity to participate in either a robust
| Palestinian economy or a neighboring Arab economy, even
| when those workers receive the Israeli minimum wage or
| higher, does fit into an analogy to the treatment of
| black South Africans under apartheid as captive cheap
| labor. If Israel wants to avoid being subjected to this
| analogy, it should simply stop exploiting Palestinian
| labor this way.
|
| Bailey: Israel is an apartheid state, and _not_
| exploiting Palestinian labor would just be _covering it
| up_. The only way for Israel to stop being an apartheid
| state is to stop being Jewish-Israeli: dissolve itself
| into a single state of Palestine ruled by its natural
| Arab majority.
|
| Super-bailey: Israel is so apartheid, white-supremacist,
| and settler-colonial that _not_ exploiting Palestinian
| labor, were it possible or even implemented at some point
| in existing history, would only make it _more racist_
| (see: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/10/kibbutz-labor-
| zionism-ber...). Israel owes these jobs to the
| Palestinians, as a precursor to the genocide reparations
| it will pay when it dissolves itself into a single state
| of Palestine ruled by its natural Arab majority.
|
| So yeah. The people who could _just_ lay down the motte
| as a serious moral charge _don 't want to_. They want the
| bailey, or preferably the super-bailey. Likewise, the
| people who could just _admit to_ the motte and _fix the
| problem_ are assured that, were they to actually do so,
| the goalposts would only be moved to the bailey. Then the
| bailey will be moved to the super-bailey.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Who could have guessed that one of the world's oldest
| ethnoreligious territorial debates could be so pernicious
| ;)?
|
| I agree with your analysis: it's very easy to play the
| trump card at the onset and rest safely knowing that your
| position is insurmountable. Argumentatively, it's the
| equivalent of two opposing armies refusing to leave their
| respective high grounds to get down to the dirty business
| of war (or peace, in this case).
|
| I am not an Israeli and I have never been to Israel, so
| I'll spare the world from another opinion on how to solve
| the problem. It is only my perspective, as a diaspora
| Jew, that many of Israel's actions _qua sovereign state_
| are not defensible on the basic plane of human rights.
| WaxProlix wrote:
| I think there's a bit of distance between that motte and
| the initial ("standard") bailey. It isn't just the status
| of 'guest worker's but also the ongoing asymmetric
| violence, theft & active bulldozing of homes,
| harassment/hacking of activists' phones, military
| checkpoints & other core indicators of an occupied land,
| etc.
|
| I heard someone point out that Israel can't help but kill
| children in Palestine because the median age there is 20.
| Like what do you even say to something like that? The
| conversation is just totally hosed at this point.
|
| I think you're right though in a lot of ways - critics of
| Israel tend to fall into a trap of over-exaggeration
| which does their arguments no favors in some highly
| educated circles. Subtlety doesn't spread fervor though,
| and I don't think it's ever toppled regimes.
| ars wrote:
| Reminds me of when the IDF was criticized for not raping
| Palestinians:
| https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2017/02/17/israeli-army-
| veter...
| maratc wrote:
| > dare criticize it anyhow, you are quickly marked either
| a) antisemitic
|
| I don't think this is a good representation of anti-anti-
| Israel debate.
|
| The opposite of antisemitism is equality, where there is no
| "special" treatment of either Jews or Israel. Anyone can
| criticize Israel for its policies, provided they also
| criticize other states that have similar policies and not
| "single out" Israel as such. If only Israel is criticized
| for certain policies and other states aren't, this brings
| up the question of inequality. This may be perceived a sort
| of thinly-veiled antisemitism.
| efdee wrote:
| But isn't that just a roundabout way of describing
| whataboutism?
| yonixw wrote:
| Whataboutism has its limits. When the far left,
| specifically Tankies, and left communities online, are
| literally being China apologists while calling Israel a
| genocide-apartheid-colonial country... you kind of know
| the logic fallacies are the other way around.
| p1necone wrote:
| That's just 'What about China', with a sprinkling of
| assuming that the entire left is one homogeneous group.
| (They're not, and most of the left makes fun of tankies
| too.)
| yonixw wrote:
| No, Because you can simply answer "China bad too, so back
| to you..". If you can't say it, welp, we got you, It's
| not the Israel government\policies you hate...
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Can you point any fingers? I have not heard any of the
| positions you mention from any leftist place I frequent -
| not from Jacobin, not from leftist YouTube, not from any
| member of "the squad" or any other leftist member of
| Congress. Who exactly are you accusing of being anti-
| Israel but pro-China?
| jacobolus wrote:
| It's pretty absurd to declare that "tankies" (presumably
| meaning "Western European communist party members who
| explicitly supported the Soviet subjugation of Eastern
| Europe") is co-extensive with "the far left", when most
| of the left considered Soviet foreign policy abhorrent.
|
| Beyond that, here in the USA, I don't know anyone who I
| would consider both a "China apologist" and a "leftist"
| ("far" or otherwise) - China has not been anything
| remotely resembling socialist for at least a generation,
| and the China apologists I know all vote GOP (or would if
| they could vote).
|
| Unless by "apologist" you just mean "has a low
| expectation that China's political system is going to
| collapse or radically democratize in the near future, and
| thinks that some level of economic and diplomatic
| engagement is necessary despite China's human rights
| record".
| p1necone wrote:
| In modern parlance 'Tankie' is generally used to refer to
| people on the left who support authoritarian governments.
| (see second paragraph in definition section:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie#Definition)
|
| So yeah basically the intersection of "left wing" and
| "thinks the Chinese government is great" (which as you
| point out is not a particularly large group of people, at
| least in the USA).
| vkou wrote:
| > Beyond that, here in the USA, I don't know anyone who I
| would consider both a "China apologist"
|
| Depending on who you're talking to, the bar to become a
| "China apologist" is not very high.
| p1necone wrote:
| Israel gets singled out because it's a (very) close US
| ally and therefore _should_ be under more criticism than
| the average country.
| james-redwood wrote:
| I fail to see how Bennett is far right in any sense of the
| word. Conservative yes, but the far right is inhabited by nut
| jobs like Smotrich and Ben Gvir. Whether you define support
| for an active military as militaristic versus actually taking
| aggressive military action is also another issue - they
| cannot be militaristic if you accept the second definition.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Isn't Bennett's big issue, for most of his political
| career, seizing the West Bank? He and his political party
| have been routinely described as far right.
|
| We could define 'far' relatively, and say there are people
| further right, but I think the word stops being meaningful
| at that point.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| There are few countries on Earth that have (a) directly
| officially threatened military action against another
| state, or (b) routinely bomb another state they are not
| officially at war with, the way Israel has. How are they
| not "taking aggressive military action"?
| eli_gottlieb wrote:
| > (b) routinely bomb another state they are not
| officially at war with
|
| In what sense are we not officially at war with
| Palestine? Nobody ever signed an armistice, ceasefire, or
| peace deal to end the War of 1948. Nobody even wants to.
| The official policies of both the PLO and Hamas remain
| "struggle until victory". There are internal political
| reasons for this that any knowledgeable person can
| describe, but as far as anyone who lacks inside influence
| is concerned, that's their policy and they're sticking to
| it.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| > In what sense are we not officially at war with
| Palestine?
|
| In the literal sense. The territories that form Palestine
| and the West Bank today were part of Egypt and Jordan
| before the six-day war. Israel occupied these territories
| during the war, then signed peace treaties with the
| countries it defeated. The three Arab countries
| (including Syria) attempted to recapture their
| territories again in 1973, but failed, and peace treaties
| were again signed between all four countries involved.
|
| In the meantime, people living in the territories
| occupied by the Israeli military forces continued their
| fight for freedom, as all occupied people do. They made
| some strides in this direction with the Oslo accords,
| where they gained official recognition as a separate
| country under their own authority.
|
| While open hostility existed on both sides since the
| beginning, there has never been an official war
| declaration between the PLO and Israel. Both have been
| routinely attacking and killing civilians and destroying
| infrastructure in each other's country forma long time -
| though Israel now has a vast upper hand and the killing
| and destruction has become more and more one sided
| against the people of Palestine.
| underdeserver wrote:
| I think you are grossly overestimating the interconnectedness
| of it all. Yes the defense sector is large. NSO employs what,
| 300 people? The Israeli tech sector as a whole employs about a
| million, including tens of thousands working for Microsoft,
| Nvidia, Intel, Google, Apple, Amazon, IBM, Oracle, Facebook,
| Dropbox among others.
|
| The cloak and dagger people are a drop in the bucket.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| Yes, like Rafael and Elbit are x100 bigger and are more high-
| tech but all eyes are on bottom of the barrel 0 day exploits
| company.
| ogogmad wrote:
| Can Israelis take the matter to court?
| compsciphd wrote:
| https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-693834
| shmatt wrote:
| Once the method exists. i'd just assume its everywhere
|
| We know about Pegasus/NSO and its a fun subject to follow, but in
| all honesty, every engineer privy to the 0-day bank that powers
| it could build one of their own, or sell it to another group, and
| no one would know
| samstave wrote:
| Imagine some group that duplicates Pegasus/NSO -- compromises
| it but sells it AS Pegasus/NSO to unsuspecting, less-savvy
| nation-states and effectively uses /IT/ to infiltrate/backdoor
| the intelligence/LEO ops of said customer state...
|
| Or is that what Pegasus/NSO basically already provide, as a
| feature?
| beckman466 wrote:
| > Or is that what Pegasus/NSO basically already provide, as a
| feature?
|
| considering shell are mainly used for deeply corrupt ends,
| this isn't a far stretch. similarly, things that _seem_ like
| duopolies today might well be revealed to be monopolies _in
| reality_ if actual ownership records became public. i imagine
| the false public perception of a market that has fair
| competition is very valuable as it maintains the illusion of
| choice. similarly, regarding spying by USA; i imagine Crypto
| AG was /isn't the only CIA front.
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| Anyone interested in this should lookup the PROMIS scandal,
| which involved Ghislane Maxwell's father Robert Maxwell.
| samstave wrote:
| And dont forget to look into the Maxwell Twins - the
| sisters of Ghislane --> They made initial DB software for
| the intel community for "tracking financial fraud" and
| other tracking...
|
| They sold this to .gov and supposedly it was in use in the
| early '00s - and it provided ostensibly access to tracking
| financial and human trafficking data..
|
| Think of it as a precurser to palantir and such - and there
| was a bunch of shady shit around this.
|
| Here is just one sketchy story about it:
|
| https://oye.news/news/world-news/epstein-the-maxwell-
| sisters...
|
| but apparently they made counter-terrorism software and
| that this software was in use in the US intel comm and that
| it was also compromised...
|
| Regardless of the truth of how it was used - the fact that
| the most notorious human trafficking/blackmailing operation
| yet exposed was directly related to providing counter-
| terrorism software to the USG is.... interesting.
|
| Google the maxwell twins.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| This should surprise no one since the spyware was developed by
| Israeli intelligence agencies.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Domestic police working with intelligence services is called
| secret police, e.g. the _Gestapo_.
| rougka wrote:
| lol, you really went straight to the hyperbole
| myth_drannon wrote:
| It was not, no matter how the company tries to market itself to
| foreign clients. Israeli intel has more important work to do
| than develop software to spy on journalists and others persons
| of interest for big ego dictators.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Like killing Palestinian children and spying and infiltrating
| other nations governments?
|
| Mossad has a history of contracting out private services as
| well. Psy-Group was just one of many for example.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| Yes, thats Mossad's day to day ops - using Palestinian
| children's blood in matzos for Passover.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| Really curious what, even on their terms, is the more
| important work.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| Stuxnet and the likes.
| samstave wrote:
| If we learned nothing from STUXNET/DUQU.... Israel has
| literally the most advanced capabilities in this area that we
| are aware of...
|
| I mean - do you recall, as a part of the Snowden leaks, there
| was a small amount of information that came out that there was
| some channel/mechanism by which israel was effectively given a
| firehose of data from the collective five-eyes...
|
| I don't quite recall the details, but it was a revelation
| because via that firehose they were getting more data than was
| thought to be 'allowed'/previously known...
| selimthegrim wrote:
| It wasn't just on Palestinian-Americans?
| samstave wrote:
| AFAIR: It was _supposed_ to be limited to some sort of
| agreed hose... but it was revealed that they were getting
| the full blast...
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| So it would be like domestic law enforcement (the FBI? state
| patrol?) using NSA-developed spyware, secretly, without court
| orders, against US citizens, including protestors.
|
| Whether this should surprise you I guess depends on your
| worldview; whether it should alarm or disturb you, especially
| if you are an Israeli or in Israel, I guess depends on your
| view of individual rights and the police.
| wswope wrote:
| > So it would be like domestic law enforcement (the FBI?
| state patrol?) using NSA-developed spyware, secretly, without
| court orders, against US citizens, including protestors.
|
| In the US, we already have police using Stingray interceptors
| without warrants (and in a similar vein but less problematic,
| sweeping dragnet warrants issued to cell providers), which
| are _slightly_ less invasive, but relatively comparable in
| terms of abuse potential.
|
| https://www.aclu.org/issues/privacy-
| technology/surveillance-...
| cheeze wrote:
| Yes, it's like this. But in general, Mossad and Isreali
| intelligence have done whatever they wanted with no
| repercussions for a long time now. This is, IMO, nothing new.
| eli_gottlieb wrote:
| I certainly don't like it, but I'm not surprised by it. I
| sort of have to file it under people voting for the Leopards
| Eating Faces Party getting terribly shocked and appalled when
| the leopard eats their face.
|
| Like yeah, you jerks all said it was "smolani masriach boged"
| (stinking traitor lefty) to not vote for transparently sleazy
| political parties and their STRONG LEADER. Well, I stuck with
| my stinking lefty treason and now your guy is facing jail
| time and _my_ party are in charge of the Health Ministry
| tackling vaccine distribution. _So there._
| suifbwish wrote:
| Faraday pockets
| myth_drannon wrote:
| It's more like police using Palantir or Clearview AI
| ummonk wrote:
| It's nothing like that. Neither of those hack into people's
| phones.
|
| Edit: I guess you're pointing out that the spyware was
| developed by a private company rather than the Israeli
| equivalent of the NSA, which is true.
| xbar wrote:
| Is it? I do not know anything about Israeli
| "Federal/State/County/Municipal" law enforcement
| jurisdictions to agree or disagree.
| excuses_ wrote:
| In Poland there was a sort of similar story. Politicians from the
| opposition, lawyers, "difficult" prosecutors have been spied. A
| few days ago a special commission started investigation but it
| consists only from opposition politicians. The ruling far-right
| party pretends this topic does not exist. It's a farce.
| teluride5 wrote:
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar. Last
| thing we need here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| teluride5 wrote:
| Sure, though can you explain how pointing out hypocrisy is
| nationalistic? Nobody is saying either country is better or
| worse.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The "here" matters, here. If it's America or Europe, then yes,
| Poland is part of NATO and the EU. Its decisions impact its
| partners. And if it's invaded, coalition blood will be spilled.
| Mutual defence means a common interest in being worth fighting
| for. Add to that Warsaw's belligerence on multiple political
| fronts, and the criticism is unsurprising.
|
| More pointedly, this is current news. How are you already
| judging reactions?
| golemiprague wrote:
| chews wrote:
| "In other cases, NSO's spyware was installed in the phone of
| citizens to try to find and collect data and information that
| isn't necessarily connected to an investigation or suspicions but
| simply for investigators to use this data later on as a means of
| pressure on people being interrogated."
|
| aka Blackmail
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| And anyone who thinks their own country isnt doing the same is
| deluded! The Security Services has to protect a country which
| means getting involved in everything, organised crime as well
| as business, and then when they feel things need to change
| direction, the security services have the tools aka blackmail
| information to make that change happen... in most cases!
| sebow wrote:
| Can we stop pretending like Pegasus is not virtually
| everywhere?If it's not Pegasus is another tool, worse or better,
| foreign or domestic, from NSA,CIA,etc.Who exactly cares which
| entity does it as long as it's happening and laws & principles
| are being broken?
|
| Vault7 was the first leak de facto proving these things existed,
| why the f#ck are we still surprised now, almost 5 years later,
| that these things are being used and there is a market here
| opened for politicians,private individuals, governments, etc.?
|
| Awareness is good, but who(or better said: what institutions,
| what parties, etc) are you seeing advocating for more privacy,
| security, transparency in software and hardware, etc?
|
| I will go one step further here beyond the simple "more privacy,
| security,etc." rhetoric, which i'm sure every HN user has heard
| to the point of ears bleeding, and I hate to say this but one
| cannot fully understand something until either s/he makes it, he
| hacks it(for the purpose of at least understanding) or becomes
| subject to the tool's effects.Far too many times people use
| something without even reading the TOS, let alone understanding
| the mechanisms behind the technology.At this point i have little
| sympathy for people who do not take the time and putting in the
| work of understanding a technology >for their own benefit<.
|
| Because nobody who is at least semi-literate in this field was
| born with the knowledge, and while arguably it's our duty to
| point less knowledgeable people to inform themselves, we cannot
| tire ourselves to death by promoting (or allowing others who
| promote) this "usable-first, hussle-free, happy jolly" tech
| ecosystem and then also act surprised when the masses don't have
| a f*cking clue what's going on, because effectively we trained
| humans to become dumb monkeys with a smartphone, arguably worse.
| throwaw10293847 wrote:
| Comment from duplicate submission:
|
| Some of the companies in the field, in contrast to NSO, do have
| ethics committees to filter out obviously bad clients. Once when
| guidelines were described to engineers a question was asked:
| Would Israel itself pass the ethics committee check?
|
| The answer was "No. But..."
| Sahbak wrote:
| You can argue about it's effectiveness, but NSO does have an
| ethics committee.
| james-redwood wrote:
| Could you source that anecdote?
| detcader wrote:
| The Israeli government and former government ministers also fund
| propaganda orgs on American soil, CAMERA and Hasbara Fellowships
| to name two. You could even say that every US election has been
| compromised by well-funded, successful foreign propaganda
| operations since at least 1982!
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