[HN Gopher] Israeli-founded app preloaded on Samsung phones is a...
___________________________________________________________________
Israeli-founded app preloaded on Samsung phones is attracting
controversy
Author : croes
Score : 288 points
Date : 2025-11-17 16:54 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sammobile.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sammobile.com)
| duxup wrote:
| I recently bought a cheap android device because I needed to test
| something on Android. The setup was about 3 hours of the device
| starting up, asking me questions, installing apps I explicitly
| told it not to, and then all sorts of other apps and OS updates
| trying to do their thing seemingly at once. I wasn't even
| transferring data, just a brand new phone, new google account.
|
| What a horrible experience you get with some providers and
| phones.
|
| It's to the point that I think there should be some sort of
| regulation that involves you getting a baseline experience on the
| OS rather than a bunch of malware out of the box.
| atonse wrote:
| My guess is, those auto installs is exactly how they keep the
| costs down, by subsidizing the cost with getting paid by
| companies to auto-install garbage.
|
| It's the same with Smart TVs, they've gotten so cheap because
| of all the other slimy stuff the manufacturers do, like sell
| your watch data, or pre-install apps.
| esafak wrote:
| The problem is that you do not get the option to pay off the
| subsidy to get a clean install.
| atonse wrote:
| I suppose the "paying off the subsidy" is to buy a more
| expensive phone. Or getting a Google Pixel. I've heard
| those are as much stock android as possible.
| xethos wrote:
| I agree, and that's the exact point I would make. The
| problem though, is I want a small phone with a headphone
| jack (and a physical keyboard, but that's orthogonal to
| the point).
|
| Many OEMs sell their flagship as a shiny glass slab with
| only BT or USB-C for audio, and ship 3.5mm jacks and
| other "antiquated niceties" like a uSD card reader, on
| their lower-end models.
|
| It's difficult to square the circle of "I want these
| specific features, but on a phone that's not working
| against me (any more than modern phones already do)"
| HeinzStuckeIt wrote:
| I must admit, I don't get the wish for 3.5mm headphone
| jacks in 2025. Already six years ago, with a phone that
| actually still had a headphone jack, I bought myself for
| just a few euro a Bluetooth DAC (a FiiO) that had
| superior sound quality to any phone's audio-out that I
| had ever used. With a Bluetooth DAC (or with any USB-C to
| 3.5mm converter that costs pennies) you can still use
| whatever wired headphones you want to use.
|
| Physical keyboards were nice back in an era when the web
| welcomed longform text, and I miss my Nokia N900.
| Nowadays, though, the web ecosystem that one typically
| uses from a phone is a cesspool, and for serious things
| I'll just use my real computer.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Bluetooth wastes batteries / alter soubd.
| blep-arsh wrote:
| I have a similar FiiO gadget and it makes less sense for
| me than a direct wired connection to the phone. It's a
| relatively bulky device that needs to be charged way too
| often, also it reduces voice call quality (like any other
| BT Classic device).
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| > I bought myself for just a few euro a Bluetooth DAC (a
| FiiO) that had superior sound quality to any phone's
| audio-out that I had ever used.
|
| I hate the 3.5'' jack myself (see below), but I can
| already tell you that mentioning some unscientific
| definition of "superior sound quality" that likely no one
| amongst us is humanly able to distinguish is not going to
| win any minds over. Proponents of 3.5'' like it because
| it is ridiculously simple to use, intuitive, cheap,
| doesn't have a lot of things that can go wrong (e.g. no
| batteries) and despite that is overall effective.
|
| The reason I dislike 3.5'' is because the _socket_ part
| (i.e. the part on the expensive device) wears out very
| quickly, becoming fragile and generating distracting
| artifacts even with slight cable pulls/movements, as the
| springs in the connector start to fail. This annoys me to
| no end, much more than any issues with other interfaces.
| HeinzStuckeIt wrote:
| Talking about "superior sound quality" in the context of
| mobile phones isn't controversial, it's not like a home-
| stereo audiophile snake oil debate. It is well known that
| DACs are an area where mid-range and low-end phone makers
| have cut corners, choosing chips that are quite flawed
| for anyone who uses their phone to listen to music where
| pristine sound quality is valued.
| pmontra wrote:
| I'm conflicted about this matter. I use a Bluetooth
| earpiece on my phone because it's more convenient: you
| can move around a room with the phone on a table, no
| pockets, and you can wear and unwear t-shirts and
| sweaters. When I can't find the x with the earpieces I
| plug in in a wired one.
|
| On the other hand a wired headphone always work, had
| maybe better quality and almost surely a better latency.
| I use one of them when doing calls from my laptop.
| Plasmoid wrote:
| I bought a USB-C to 3.5mm jack for around $20. It works
| well but does tend to get caught on things more easily
| than a pure jack.
| mc32 wrote:
| As well as easily getting misplaced...
| sodality2 wrote:
| And easily internally shorted, leading to the dreadful
| 'wiggle around in your pocket until the headphones are
| detected again, and then press play again'...
| ploxiln wrote:
| The "Sony Xperia 5 V" (I have the previous "Sony Xperia 5
| IV") has a headphone jack, takes a uSD card, and is
| somewhat compact. (And no silly camera cutout in the
| screen, it's in a reasonably small bezel.)
|
| EDIT: also see the Xperia 10 VII for a phone that isn't 2
| years old (I haven't been keeping up, I buy phones to use
| for 4+ years)
| pmontra wrote:
| According to the specs it's 154 x 68 x 8.6 mm and 182
| grams, so it's more compact than most phones of 2025 but
| not really compact. My Samsung A40 is smaller and lighter
| but it's 4 years older.
| pmontra wrote:
| Serendipity happens. Maybe you almost want this
| https://liliputing.com/zinwa-q27-prototype-brings-
| classic-bl... Keyboard but it seems no 3.5" jack.
| xethos wrote:
| I actually ordered the Q20 revival by the same team back
| in May or so! Very excited, should ship this week
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| pretty much why I switched to iphone. I used pixels before
| for the same reason but good luck getting your pixel
| warranty honored outside the united states
| elsjaako wrote:
| I've heard this theory before, but is an individual data
| point really worth enough to make this argument?
| takipsizad wrote:
| its not just your data point its everyones data point
| rubyn00bie wrote:
| This is true, it's not an individual datapoint. When
| smartphones, like the iPhone, originally debuted carriers
| had a conniption fit because they couldn't preload a ton of
| garbage apps to help subsidize the cost. Apple has been
| able to avoid this, but for your average smartphone this is
| absolutely how both the manufacturer and carrier are able
| to sell them so cheaply.
|
| Every experience may not be as bad as the one the OP had,
| but it's surely well within reality. Both carriers and
| handset manufacturers are glad to sell anything and
| everything about someone to make a quick buck. They've
| literally been doing it for 25+ years.
| montjoy wrote:
| You need to think about the aggregate data. Whole trends
| can be seen in almost real-time.
|
| Here's a made up example, and it's probably not even the
| best one. - Show Teckno-Detectives shows a "Cameo" of
| Grapple's newest mixed-reality glasses. The data shows that
| 3.9 million additional people watched the episode.
| Investment firms who pay for the data notice and buy extra
| Grapple shares to cash in on the expected sales bump.
| kakacik wrote:
| Nah its the corporate greed and disregard for avoiding amoral
| behavior at the first place, since clearly its punished much
| less than rewards are (just look at all the slaps on the
| wrist of FAANGs and similar), _then_ followed by race to the
| bottom with the price.
|
| Economies of scale do bring costs of everything much further
| than stealing user's data can, but good luck explaining some
| long term vision to C-suites who only care about short term
| bonuses.
| tyfon wrote:
| I suspect the apparent reduction in price on these devices is
| a lot less than what they earn from the slimy stuff.
|
| But the premium devices (especially TVs) are starting to do
| this too now via software updates. I had to turn off a bunch
| of crap in the settings on my LG CX TVs some time ago. Now
| they are just off the internet and can only connect to my
| NAS.
| ghurtado wrote:
| > they've gotten so cheap because of all the other slimy
| stuff
|
| Not really, they've gotten so cheap because the individual
| components they are made of have become much cheaper due to
| economies of scale.
|
| The same thing happened with computer monitors, and those
| don't ship with the bloatware.
| brookst wrote:
| Compare monitors to TVs of similar spec, in price and
| bloatware.
| ozgrakkurt wrote:
| This is not a valid cause. They spend insane amounts of money
| on advertising and also make insane amounts of revenue. Don't
| think "them keeping the cost down" is relevant in this
| context.
| ravenstine wrote:
| That would make Samsung's business model not viable. :D
| jajuuka wrote:
| Sounds like the average carrier locked Samsung device
| experience in the US. Oh you didn't want Clash of Clans
| installed? We'll reinstall that for you next OS update. Running
| updates through carriers was a serious mistake.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Running remote updates in general was a serious mistake.
| Other manufacturers are no better and give you all kinds of
| crap for their income streams at the expense of your
| convenience whilst claiming the opposite.
|
| The last time I saw an update that _just_ fixed security bugs
| and improved performance was... never.
| avn2109 wrote:
| I took this seriously and thought back to the most recent
| actually-useful-bugfixes-and-security-improvements release
| that I can remember. OSX Snow Leopard perhaps?
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Wasn't that also Apple's last paid OS?
| cryzinger wrote:
| I was wondering why this thankfully _hasn 't_ been my
| experience until you said "carrier locked"... I always buy
| unlocked. Does that really make a difference?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yes, the carriers load up the phones with apps that you
| cannot remove (at least not without rooting the phone).
|
| You can usually disable them, but they are still there.
| cryzinger wrote:
| Well dang, that's another good reason to buy unlocked :P
| summermusic wrote:
| This is why custom ROM support is the first question I ask when
| buying a new Android phone
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Cheap devices get subsidized by shitty adware. The cheaper the
| device, the more likely that it's full of terrible adware.
|
| Consumers often have a choice, at least between "filled to the
| brim with crap" and "a modicum of crap", by choosing between
| buying their phone from a store or from a carrier. Carriers
| have better deals but shovel their phones full of the worst
| apps you can imagine. Still, people will buy the crap-filled
| experience that makes you want to tear your hair out because
| they like the idea of scoring a better deal.
|
| Nothing like unadulterated greed combined with short-sighed
| consumer behaviour at scale to drive a market segment into an
| awful race to the bottom.
| oceansky wrote:
| The premium devices still have the bloatware.
| smileson2 wrote:
| Yeah, even the iPhone bundles/bakes in google junk
| robocat wrote:
| > subsidized
|
| What's a better word here? Adverts cost the consumer, however
| I'm sure the consumer doesn't get equal recompense.
| Theoretically a SmartTV with adverts costs less money
| ("subsidised" due to price competition), but is the consumer
| actually ($,time) better off?
|
| The costs are invisible and the consumer cannot actually
| measure the costs (the vendors do measure profitability but
| this is not legible).
|
| I reckon most people are terrible at judging the value of
| their own time (especially children and retirees).
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| Name and shame please. I'm shopping for a cheap first phone for
| my 13 year old.
|
| I'm looking at HMD or Motorola.
| kbelder wrote:
| I kind of like Motorola in the cheap android phone space. I
| have a moto-g stylus in my pocket now, and it's big (which I
| like), has a heaphone jack, and has an sd-card port. I
| thought I'd like the stylus, but I rarely use it.
|
| It pre-installs some games, but you can uninstall them. The
| only thing it forces on you is a weather app which you can
| deactivate but not uninstall.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I remember back when the iPhone came out, this was perhaps the
| most noteworthy aspect of it, at least to me. We were so used
| to phones coming with crap on them and tightly coupled to the
| carrier. If the carrier didn't want something on the phone, it
| never got there. So Apple comes along and says "Hey, AT&T, we
| will make you the exclusive carrier for the iPhone iff you
| leave the entire experience under our control."
|
| There were lots of downsides to that deal, of course, but I
| appreciate that it broke the carriers' exclusive control over
| mobile phones.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| "I was so happy to get locked into a different eco system" is
| all I hear.
| linksnapzz wrote:
| You wouldn't get a phone in 2007 that didn't lock you in to
| something; the question is whose ecosystem you'd prefer to
| deal with.
|
| I remember the Verizon crapware phone experience well.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| I would say their comment had a lot more nuance and thought
| put in to it than yours did.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| I mean sure, but Androids been following Apple's lead,
| not tother way tround.
| consumer451 wrote:
| I haven't bought an android device for a few years, but the
| last time I did, it was also a very cheap one for testing. I
| chose an "Android One" to avoid all these issues. Is something
| like that still an option?
| robgibbons wrote:
| Your best bet might be one of the Pixel "a" series, which are
| Google's budget-oriented models. Stock vanilla Android with
| as little bloat as you can hope for.
| jamesrr39 wrote:
| Sounds like a Samsung phone... no end of dark patterns and
| pushing Bixby AI and whatever else. And then once you have the
| phone set up you get to spend the next 10 minutes uninstalling
| a load of pre-loadded apps that you didn't want.
|
| Fortunately Android is a pretty diverse range and Samsung is
| just one player. I had much more user-friendly experiences with
| Fairphone and Motorola.
| hersko wrote:
| So a Unity owned bloatware company being used by Samsung is now
| somehow controversial because it was founded in Israel? Am i
| reading this right?
| alephnerd wrote:
| That's not the controversy based on the article - it's arguing
| that because the app is Israeli in origin, it may run afoul of
| local BDS laws thus another reason for AppCloud to be removed
| from local device, which is notable because the AppCloud app
| only appears to be installed on African, Asian, and MENA
| Samsung phones, where the bulk of countries with BDS laws
| exist.
|
| The article doesn't appear to take a side one way or the other
| in the conflict, it's just listing a potential compliance
| issue.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| There is no such thing as BDS laws, only anti-BDS laws. Some
| muslim countries boycott Israeli-made products, But since
| Israel is a tech powerhouse only behind the US, almost every
| tech is Israeli-made at least partially, so again, trying to
| enforce any boycott is stupid.
| null_deref wrote:
| BDS is a western concept, legal laws banning business with
| Israel in the Middle East precede it.
| fn-mote wrote:
| To HN readers, the controversy is likely this:
|
| > the program was found to be quietly invasive as it allows the
| installer to install programs on the user's device without
| permission. It circumvents the user validation process and
| successfully bypasses multiple security checks, including
| antivirus programs
|
| I agree that the headline "controversy" is manufactured.
| asacrowflies wrote:
| Seems reasonable. Same way "Russian" companies are shady.
| Doesn't matter if they do something inane . This is really
| basic geopolitics that only had a short respite... Like less
| than 30 year period as cold war slowed. This is very normal.
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| Getting upset "because Israel" is not the controversy you think
| it is. Serious war crimes were committed in the Israeli pager
| attack.
|
| Israel used its tech sector to commit those war crimes.
|
| It's only a controversial story, anyway, to those who think
| that the pager attack was 'a perfectly acceptable way to wage
| war', and the counter to that argument is: are you sure you
| would be willing to have this same technique, or similar uses
| of at-scale consumer devices being subverted by a nation state,
| applied to you?
|
| For those of us who see the war crime nature of that pager
| attack, Israeli companies can no longer be trusted with supply-
| side delivery of mobile devices. Or, indeed, with components to
| be used in such devices, hardware or software.
|
| This has significant relevance to us here on HN, who have to
| deal with the potential subversion of devices some of us
| deploy, at massive scale.
|
| Or would you be okay if some state that was hostile to your own
| decided to just pack malfeasant activities into devices that
| almost everyone in your neighborhood/company are using?
|
| The willingness to just roll over and let rogue states commit
| heinous acts is one thing; staying alert of potential threat
| vectors, at massive scale, is another.. and after all, isn't
| this "hacker" news?
| vladgur wrote:
| A targeted attack on members of Hezbollah, which was
| designated as a terrorist organization by 27 countries,
| including one where I live as they were shelling Israel with
| rockets that killed amongst others 12 druze kids in 2024.
|
| Yeah, totally a war crime against innocent civilians.
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| Tell me you don't care about the Geneva convention without
| telling me you've probably never read the Geneva
| convention.
|
| Extra-judicial murder through out of control deployment of
| weapons via subterfuge is terrorism, also. The idea that it
| was a 'targeted attack' is risible. Civilians died in those
| indiscriminate attacks - which were terrorist in nature and
| deed.
|
| Except yes, indeed, we label it a war crime, in civilised
| society - and we seek justice for the war criminals in
| terms of prison sentences. Not dismemberment and maiming.
|
| You can justify atrocities all you want. Getting called out
| for war crimes is the price to be paid for such
| 'cleverness', however.
|
| Or else, you know, _everyone will start doing it_ , not
| just those who have deemed themselves uniquely worthy of
| the act .. and we can't have that now, can we...
| hersko wrote:
| > indiscriminate attacks
|
| Literally the most discriminate attack against an enemy
| embedded within a civilian population in history.
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| Literally a violation of Common Article 3; GC I Art. 12 &
| 18; GC III Art. 13; GC IV Arts. 27, 32 & 51; AP I Arts.
| 48, 51(2-5), 57 & 54; CCW Amended Protocol II Art. 7(2)
| of the Geneva Conventions.
|
| Common Article 3 was breached by carrying out lethal
| attacks against persons taking no active part in
| hostilities (including off-duty medics and civilians)
| without individual assessment; GC I Articles 12 and 18
| were violated when medical personnel and facilities were
| hit by exploding devices carried by wounded or off-duty
| health workers; GC III Article 13 was infringed because
| many victims instantly became hors de combat through
| injury yet were subjected to further maiming by shrapnel
| designed to cause maximum harm; GC IV Articles 27, 32 and
| 51 were contravened by the indiscriminate killing and
| mutilation of civilians (including children and
| bystanders) and by imposing collective punishment through
| mass, simultaneous detonation regardless of individual
| status; Additional Protocol I Articles 48, 51(2-5), 57
| and 54 were violated through the failure to distinguish
| combatants from civilians, the inherently indiscriminate
| and disproportionate nature of detonating thousands of
| devices in populated areas, and the use of
| treachery/perfidious means to kill; finally, Amended
| Protocol II to the CCW Article 7(2) was directly breached
| by transforming ordinary civilian pagers into prohibited
| booby-traps specifically designed and constructed to
| contain concealed explosives.
|
| The use of treachery/perfidious means to kill is
| particularly disturbing, since it sets the precedent for
| similar means to be used in retaliation, very likely to
| result in yet more unjustifiable acts of terror.
| jameshilliard wrote:
| You're really playing up the false narrative that the
| spicy pagers were indiscriminate, which just isn't
| factually accurate, they were sold exclusively to
| terrorists and used exclusively by terrorist
| organizations for communications, there weren't any non-
| terrorist affiliated medics that got caught up in the
| attack from my understanding. Even in cases where they
| were detonated in populated areas bystanders were
| essentially unaffected due to the design of the explosive
| payload.
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| Literally everything you've stated is false:
|
| "sold exclusively to terrorists" - false.
|
| "used exclusively by terrorist organizations for
| communications" - false.
|
| "weren't any non-terrorist affiliated medics " - false.
|
| "bystanders were essentially unaffected due to the design
| of the explosive payload" - false.
|
| Prove your claims are not logical fallacies.
|
| And then .. Go ahead, read the CCW articles I've quoted.
| It is clear you are either ignorant of their significance
| and relevance to this case, or arguing in bad faith in
| order to protect your selected in-group.
| xdennis wrote:
| Every war is extra-judicial. It's not the own you think
| it is. Even if they wanted to do it through the justice
| system, they couldn't as Israel doesn't have jurisdiction
| over Lebanon. That's why wars happen.
|
| People set such a ridiculous high bar for Israel that it
| would prevent any war if any other country would be held
| to that standard.
|
| > deployment of weapons via subterfuge is terrorism
|
| Yeah, sure, lying to terrorists is even worse terrorism.
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| No "high bar" is being set - the precedent for _all_
| nations to use the international legal system is there.
|
| Not as many nations _massacre civilians and /or feel
| compelled to murder children_ at massive scales in their
| self-defense, however.
|
| Speaking of standards.
|
| "Lying to terrorists" is just weasel-words for committing
| massive violations of Common Article 3; GC I Art. 12 &
| 18; GC III Art. 13; GC IV Arts. 27, 32 & 51; AP I Arts.
| 48, 51(2-5), 57 & 54; CCW Amended Protocol II Art. 7(2)
| of the Geneva Conventions.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >Extra-judicial murder through out of control deployment
| of weapons via subterfuge is terrorism, also.
|
| No? The slave workers in Nazi germany who purposely
| fucked up equipment to get german soldiers killed were
| not committing a war crime. Sabotage is legitimate
| warfare. The french people getting the trust of german
| soldiers and then slitting their throats were not
| committing war crimes.
|
| >Civilians died in those indiscriminate attacks - which
| were terrorist in nature and deed.
|
| Civilians die in every war because war is messy and the
| geneva conventions, which only considered prisoners of
| war until the 4th, do not prevent civilian causalities.
| They are not intended to. The Geneva conventions were
| updated after world war 2 and were STILL not made to
| prevent things like the London Blitz or infrastructure
| attacks, and indeed things like Russia trying to freeze
| Ukraine to death by blowing up it's electrical
| infrastructure is not a war crime.
|
| If hezbollah are legitimate combatants, then they have to
| wear a uniform during hostilities to be protected by the
| conventions/protocols/hague. If they do not wear a
| uniform, they are considered defectors to lawful war and
| have _less protections than actual combatants_.
|
| If China puts backdoors in all the chips we buy from
| them, and we build weapons with those chips, and China
| pressed a button that self destructs all things made with
| those chips, that is also not a warcrime.
|
| War crimes are pretty much _only_ treating POWs
| incorrectly by doing medical "experiments" on them or
| genociding them. If you are not a POW yet, the Geneva
| conventions don't say much about you.
|
| Do you people think _anyone_ would have signed a treaty
| that says "You can't kill more than 1 innocent person
| per bad guy"?
|
| >Tell me you don't care about the Geneva convention
| without telling me you've probably never read the Geneva
| convention.
|
| Big words from someone who doesn't seem to recognize that
| they geneva convention they've "totally read" doesn't say
| what they seem to think it says. Please quote the part
| where blowing up a civilian with your target is called a
| war crime
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| >sabotage is legitimate warfare
|
| Show me the Article in the CCW which supports this claim.
| And do you mean sabotage against civilian infrastructure,
| or military materials? Again, show the Article, either
| way.
|
| >If hezbollah are legitimate combatants, then they have
| to wear a uniform
|
| Yes, true. Just as those responsible for the pager
| attacks had to identify themselves as combatants, also.
|
| > If China puts backdoors in all the chips we buy from
| them, and we build weapons with those chips, and China
| pressed a button that self destructs all things made with
| those chips, that is also not a warcrime.
|
| If this were to occur, it would be considered a war crime
| under one or more of the following articles:
|
| - Perfidy (Art. 37 AP I)
|
| - Indiscriminate attack (Art. 51(4) AP I)
|
| - Excessive incidental civilian harm / disproportionality
| (Art. 51(5)(b) AP I)
|
| - Treachery (broader Hague prohibition)
|
| - Superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering (Art. 35(2)
| AP I)
|
| - Failure to take feasible precautions (Art. 57 AP I)
|
| _Any of these 6 violations can constitute war crimes._
|
| >"War crimes are pretty much only treating POWs
| incorrectly by doing medical "experiments" on them or
| genociding them."
|
| Okay, this is just plain, ignorant, crazy talk.
|
| >"Please quote the part where blowing up a civilian with
| your target is called a war crime,"
|
| Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions and from
| the Rome Statute of the ICC.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| It harmed and killed civilians. 28% of the victims killed
| were civilian. An additional 4,000 civilians were injured -
| disfigured, permanently disabled, etc.
|
| The method was a war crime. You appear to be defending war
| crimes as justifiable.
| dralley wrote:
| Less than a dozen people were killed. "28%" is 3 people.
|
| And it is absolutely not the case that 4000 civilians
| were injured. 4000 _people_ , perhaps, but the
| exceedingly vast majority were actual targets and not
| bystanders.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| 42 people were killed
|
| 4000 civilians were injured
|
| There were two waves of attacks. You're ignoring the
| second one.
| dralley wrote:
| The radios are even less likely to have ended up in the
| wrong hands than the pagers.
|
| I want to see good evidence that the "4000" were indeed
| civilians, and were indeed injured. Because so many of
| the examples of "this innocent doctor" etc. etc. ended up
| with Hezbollah themselves eventually announcing their
| name and rank within the organization and giving them an
| official funeral.
| galagawinkle489 wrote:
| Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation. All of its members
| appear at first glance to be civilians. That's why
| terrorist organisations love western media and their
| absurd gullibility: any member killed can be painted as
| an "innocent civilian".
| potatototoo99 wrote:
| It wasn't a targeted attack since they had no way of
| knowing where the pagers would end up in the second-hand
| market, as they were only activated years later.
| thenaturalist wrote:
| You're telling me pagers used by a terrorist organization
| ending up in the second-hand market.
|
| What do you know about Lebanon and Hezbollah?
|
| How do people end up making such unfounded, unbiased
| claims so confidently??
| themafia wrote:
| > You're telling me pagers used by a terrorist
| organization ending up in the second-hand market.
|
| Four children were killed and dozens of _innocent_
| bystanders were injured.
|
| > What do you know about Lebanon and Hezbollah?
|
| It's a conflict that's been going on for 30 years that I
| can remember and I don't think that more kinetic
| operations are going to accomplish anything other than
| fomenting an actual genocide.
|
| Did you think gatekeeping was going to work? This
| conflict has spilled out into the broader world. If it
| were strictly contained to Lebanon and only implicated
| Hezbollah then you might have a point. We're well past
| that.
|
| > How do people end up making such unfounded, unbiased
| claims so confidently??
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/world/middleeast/israe
| l-e...
| dralley wrote:
| >Four children were killed and dozens of _innocent_
| bystanders were injured.
|
| Compared to thousands of Hezbollah members. Literally one
| of the most targeted large-scale attacks of all time.
| There are effectively zero other military means that
| would have been even close to as selective and
| discriminant. Would you prefer they drop a 500lb bomb on
| each of their houses instead?
| monocasa wrote:
| The pagers killed a total of twelve people; which
| included four children.
|
| That's a pretty awful ratio.
| dralley wrote:
| The pager detonations were weak enough to be effectively
| nonlethal _unless_ you 're especially vulnerable. That's
| how you end up with such a low death to injury ratio in
| the first place.
|
| So per the KPI metric you've chosen, making it more
| lethal and more dangerous to bystanders would have been
| better.
| monocasa wrote:
| Even among the injuries, you're still looking at an awful
| ratio, since Hezbollah had mostly migrated these devices
| out of their combatants in favor of newer models, and
| they were mainly in the hands of civilians.
|
| And all of this is ignoring the blatant international law
| violation against booby trapping. This was very clearly a
| war crime.
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| For future reference, the specific articles:
|
| Common Article 3; GC I Art. 12 & 18; GC III Art. 13; GC
| IV Arts. 27, 32 & 51; AP I Arts. 48, 51(2-5), 57 & 54;
| CCW Amended Protocol II Art. 7(2) of the Geneva
| Conventions.
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| The point is that such preposterously stupid military
| means are not preventing the continuation of blood-shed,
| and if you are saying that exploding pagers are a
| perfectly acceptable means of executing military goals,
| then .. whats next .. are Israeli citizens expected to
| live under the continuous threat of exploding vibrators
| and vaporizers, now, too?
| dralley wrote:
| Does the IDF issue vibrators to their soldiers?
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised to learn they do, but that's not
| the point. If not vibrators, then wireless headphones or
| e-book readers .. the list of devices now potentially
| 'acceptable for use in acts of violence by hostile
| actors', set by the Israeli precedent, is near infinite.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| Second hand market? lol are you serious? It was a closed
| system used by Hezbollah there are no pager networks
| operating in Lebanon.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| So every bomb/missle ever is a war crime because there is
| no way knowing 100% that no civilian ever can be hurt?
| Heck even guns aren't guaranteed to never miss and hit a
| bystander. So anything more serious than a stick is a war
| crime?
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| The "War on Terror" has addled peoples minds so harshly
| that the notion that there is actually a legal way to
| wage war seems preposterous - however, there is a "legal
| means by which to wage war" which does in fact protect
| you, citizen, and you should learn about it - because
| when your representatives (and by proxy: you) violate
| those laws, you become personally liable for the
| repercussions that _other victims_ will prosecute on you,
| and your nation state:
|
| https://www.icrc.org/en/law-and-policy/geneva-
| conventions-an...
|
| If 'no bomb/missile ever is a war crime', then .. there
| is no such thing as "terrorism", either. (Although the
| argument could be made that there is no such thing as
| 'terrorism' at all, and that indeed, the word terrorism
| is merely a propaganda crutch used to justify atrocities
| against so-called 'lesser cultures' deemed inferior by
| the same institutions which used to use the 'n-word' to
| justify their atrocities in decades past, too, before
| that became difficult to do ..)
|
| You can indeed commit war crimes with sticks too, though,
| incidentally.
| galagawinkle489 wrote:
| The "legal way to wage war" is only relevant when you are
| waging war against an army. Hezbollah is not an army,
| it's a terrorist group. It attacks civilians. It doesn't
| wear uniforms. It ignores the laws of war.
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| Says you, and that is too easy:
|
| "The IDF attacks civilians. It uses perfidy to
| indiscriminately attack the civilian population of its
| enemies. It, too, ignores the laws of war."
|
| There is no way to continue justifying acts of terror
| being committed by your in-group, without also become
| equivalent to the terrorist of your out-group.
| galagawinkle489 wrote:
| That is a lie. The IDF does no such thing.
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| False. The truth is that the IDF does indeed do such
| things at massive scales.
| linksnapzz wrote:
| You have to lose the war in order to be so prosecuted.
| So, the important thing about war crimes is not to lose
| once you've determined that you've committed them.
|
| I'll start to believe this sort of fantasy when the
| people who win wars begin investigating and prosecuting
| themselves for the crimes that they committed or
| suborned.
| thenaturalist wrote:
| You won't be able to argue with facts against Israel
| haters, unfortunately. :/
|
| Not on HN, not other places.
|
| They all know best while living a world away from the
| region.
| avh02 wrote:
| actually i think those that have the most beef with
| israel are very much in the region.
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| Who are these "Israel haters" on HN you're referring to?
|
| There are plenty of us on HN who believe in the Israeli
| peoples' human rights just as seriously as we support
| those of the children of Gaza, too.
|
| Those of us who actually care about civilized society,
| human rights, and international law also consider that
| there are plenty of Israeli citizens who are, themselves,
| victims of their own states acts of terrorism as well.
|
| _You are responsible for the crimes of your state,
| citizen. No amount of chicken-waving is going to absolve
| you of that fact._
|
| The point of discussing the heinous nature of the pager
| attack is to prevent the precedent set by that attack
| from taking further victims.
|
| It is not in the interests of Israeli citizens to have
| their war-crime committing state subjugate their
| societies' commercial institutions to commit further
| atrocities.
| ebbi wrote:
| When you increasingly lose the court of public opinion,
| you resort to this sort of gaslighting.
|
| Because the Israeli Hasbara is now failing at this
| gaslighting strategy, you're leveling ad hominems towards
| people who see this as what it is - decades of war crimes
| and a humanitarian crisis.
|
| So either come up with a proper argument, or stay quiet.
| Gaslighting us into thinking we're being biased, or that
| we're ill informed, just isn't going to work anymore.
| galagawinkle489 wrote:
| The war crime is when Hamas and Hezbollah fire rockets
| indiscriminately into Israel to kill innocent civilians.
|
| Any and all means are and will always be justified to
| prevent that.
| baked_beanz wrote:
| ...and destroying or damaging >2/3rds of all structures
| in Gaza and killing tens of thousands of civilians with
| airstrikes isn't?
|
| Obviously yes, Hamas and Hezbollah indiscriminately
| firing rockets at Israel consistute war crimes. I assume
| you must agree that Israel's systematic targeting of
| schools, hospitals, mosques, and refugee camps would also
| qualify?
| ebbi wrote:
| Agree that is a war crime.
|
| It is also a war crime to carry out what is known as the
| Nakba - ethnically cleansing and displacing hundreds and
| thousands of Palestinians. It is a crime illegally occupy
| land that does not belong to you. It is a crime to
| maintain an apartheid state. It is a crime to hold
| 'prisoners' without any charges It is a crime to rape
| said prisoners. It is also disgusting to have a society
| that riots when said rapists are called out for their
| actions. It is a crime to continually bomb and kill
| Palestinians for just existing. It is a crime to
| continually kill Palestinians for no reason via 'mowing
| the grass' exercises It is a crime to crime to kill
| Palestinians when they peacefully protest It is a crime
| to indiscriminately bomb Gaza because some Palestinians
| have had enough of being subjected to sub-human
| conditions.
|
| So if you say 'any and all means are justified to prevent
| that', then any and all means should be justified to
| prevent the above, right?
| galagawinkle489 wrote:
| There was no "Nakba". Arab Muslims invaded Israel in
| 1948. They lost their aggressive (expressly genocidal)
| war. They left again. That isn't ethnic cleansing. There
| are heaps of Arab Muslims in Israel. They are a sizeable
| minority of the population. They've always been part of
| Israel. The peaceful ones that can coexist with Jews
| stayed. The ones that are so hateful they could not
| fathom the idea of living alongside Jews left. That's not
| ethnic cleansing.
|
| Note by contrast that in most Arab Muslim countries in
| the Middle East, there is not just no large Jewish
| minority (as there was historically in all of those
| places). There are no Jews at all. Literally zero. They
| were ethnically cleansed. Expelled or murdered.
|
| Israel does not occupy any land. In 1967, once again
| Israel's Arab Muslim neighbours aggressively and
| genocidally invaded. They once again were unsuccessful
| and lost territory. That territory has been part of
| Israel since then. It is no more "occupied" than western
| Poland is, which not too long ago was Germany, or western
| parts of Russia that recently were Poland. Land changes
| hands in the world, and after 1967 that land was lost.
|
| Why when they aggressively invaded Israel should we care
| about their territorial claims for land they lost in the
| aftermath? Why is Israel the only country in the world
| expected to give up land it took decades ago?
|
| Israel doesn't have apartheid. Everyone in the country
| has the same rights. Muslims are a minority. Obviously
| they don't get the same say as the Jews who are a
| majority. That's how every democratic state works.
|
| The antisemitic and defamatory claims that Israel is
| deliberately killing Palestinian civilians is without
| basis.
| ebbi wrote:
| Thanks for exposing your clear bias. Nothing productive
| will come of this discussion.
| vladgur wrote:
| Which of those historical facts you find biased?
|
| Ps humans are biased. Humans need to be able to have
| respectful discussions
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| _Prosecute All The War Criminals, But Start With YOUR OWN
| FIRST._
|
| Only then will you have the moral altitude required to
| gain the support of the rest of the world in prosecuting
| "their" war criminals.
| shuraman7 wrote:
| Can't agree more. it's really easy to be the judge of
| Israel when you are far away from here and the only war
| you've experienced is on TV and movies. what's even
| funnier is that some of the comments here are made by
| people living in the US, who hasn't fought a defensive
| war since WW2, started more wars than any other country
| even though it's protected by almost a trillion dollar
| military budget and two oceans. oh, and it pretty much
| eradicated native Americans.
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| Nobody is going to argue that the USA is a force for good
| in the world when it comes to starting one stupid, evil
| war, after the other. If the USA is good at one thing,
| its dropping bombs on innocent human beings every twenty
| minutes for the past twenty odd years. The question is,
| though, in which interest is it committing those crimes?
|
| Oh, and .. who are you referring to as "people living in
| the US", and by what means are you certain of this fact?
| HN is an international community.
|
| Some of us don't see national identity and just want the
| mass murder of children to stop, whatever it takes.
| CommanderData wrote:
| I mean the world takes the view Israel is occupying and
| slowly invading more regions of Palestine.
|
| I didn't make it up, the Balfour declaration makes it
| pretty clear, so if you're upset natives are attacking you
| what's your point exactly.
|
| Anyway, point is Israel has almost always lied throughout
| it's genocide against Palestinians. The IOF has lied or
| distorted the truth in almost every statement, one which
| always comes to mind is the attack on the Christian
| hospital.
|
| The Israeli government are liars, they have a whole online
| army dedicated to misinformation and the 5 D's. For them
| lying is just another effective weapon of war which must be
| utilised.
| nashashmi wrote:
| 27 out of 190 countries is far from "international
| consensus" and does not legitimize attacks on the group in
| sovereign territory. don't justify the security hack as
| legitimate. If Israel penetrated a security perimeter of a
| group that breach becomes a threat to all people everywhere
| null_deref wrote:
| Hezoballah group itself defies the Lebanese government
| and the Lebanese sovereignty
| nashashmi wrote:
| Hezbollah is part of the political system in Lebanon
| Qiu_Zhanxuan wrote:
| I'm not american and I'm horrified to read such comment,
| what kind of deranged logic is that? The prevalence of this
| mindset in the country with the biggest military is the
| main culprit behind all the sufferings around the world.
| Absolute facepalm.
| vladgur wrote:
| Which deranged logic are you referring to?
|
| Also America is behind all sufferings in the world?
|
| That's some amazing interpretation of reality
| dundarious wrote:
| > Former CIA director Leon Panetta labeled last week's
| deadly pager explosions in Lebanon a form of "terrorism."
|
| > "I don't think there's any question that it's a form of
| terrorism," Panetta said on "CBS News Sunday morning."
|
| https://thehill.com/policy/international/4893900-leon-
| panett...
|
| I don't take anything Leon Panetta says as gospel, but the
| fact that someone like him says this shows how the position
| is not ludicrous in the way you and other similar replies
| are painting it.
| xenospn wrote:
| "It's a war crime because of a fictional scenario I made up
| in my head".
| matkoniecz wrote:
| > Serious war crimes were committed in the Israeli pager
| attack.
|
| which ones?
|
| are you confusing "war crimes" with "nonzero collateral
| damage"?
|
| > are you sure you would be willing to have this same
| technique, or similar uses of at-scale consumer devices being
| subverted by a nation state, applied to you?
|
| no, but it would not be motivated by nonexisting war crimes
|
| it would be motivated by "I prefer my enemy to not succeed at
| attacking me"
|
| > would you be okay if some state that was hostile to your
| own decided to just pack malfeasant activities into devices
| that almost everyone in your neighborhood/company are using?
|
| as I am not in military or in terrorist organization or
| anything similar, it would not be analogous
|
| if I would be in either then I would not be happy about it
| happening but it would not a war crime either
| nashashmi wrote:
| Targeting civilians in a sovereign country is a war crime
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| You might want to familiarize yourself with this material
| before commenting further on this thread:
|
| Common Article 3; GC I Art. 12 & 18; GC III Art. 13; GC IV
| Arts. 27, 32 & 51; AP I Arts. 48, 51(2-5), 57 & 54; CCW
| Amended Protocol II Art. 7(2) of the Geneva Conventions.
| shuraman7 wrote:
| jesus, you must be seriously fucked in the head to refer to
| the pagers attack as a war crime. how much more targeted do
| you want an attack to be? when was the last time you've heard
| of such precise of an attack, done in such a scale? the
| pagers were distributed to members of Hezbollah, what more do
| you want, how should Israel actually fight terrorists, please
| do tell, because it sounds like no matter what they do, they
| are always the bad guys. and I bet you're sitting now, living
| in a country so far away from all the wars in the middle
| east, judging, critiquing without a fucking clue what it is
| like actually living here.
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| You have, of course, familiarized yourself with this
| material:
|
| Common Article 3; GC I Art. 12 & 18; GC III Art. 13; GC IV
| Arts. 27, 32 & 51; AP I Arts. 48, 51(2-5), 57 & 54; CCW
| Amended Protocol II Art. 7(2) of the Geneva Conventions.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| If you want clicks putting "Israel" in the story will do a
| better job than a fairly boring tale of typical Android
| phone/Samsung bloatware. Outrage sells, and a loooooot of
| people (for a range of reasons) are easily outraged by that one
| word.
| paxys wrote:
| RTFA
|
| > The presence of an Israeli-origin technology component on
| Samsung phones in WANA countries poses additional problems.
| Several nations in this region legally bar Israeli companies
| from operating, and in light of the ongoing Israel-Palestine
| conflict, the preload of an app tied to such a company becomes
| even more contentious.
|
| So yes, the presence of Israeli software is a problem in many
| countries, and may even be illegal.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| I'll wager there is a bit more Israeli tech in those phones
| than some adware.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Or a heck of a lot of non-phone tech as well.
| xenospn wrote:
| Apple's A/M-series chips are designed in Israel. My guess is
| no one is banning iPhones.
| Centigonal wrote:
| From Stuxnet to Pegasus to the 2024 pager attack, Israel has a
| history of leveraging its tech sector to advance its national
| security aims through clandestine means (this is not unusual:
| so does the US, and so does China). If you're a country with
| not-so-friendly relations with Israel, the company being
| founded in Israel is _absolutely_ pertinent.
| Un1corn wrote:
| Which _Israeli_ companies were used for Stuxnet or the 2024
| pager attack? NSO is not the same as the company from the
| article since it's explicitly a cyber company.
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| The more relevant question is, which Israeli companies are
| currently _not involved_ in covert military operations?
|
| The difficulty in comprehending an answer to this question
| is precisely why allowing ones military to perform such
| actions using covert means is so dangerous for a civilian
| population to support.
|
| War is supposed to be fought in the open in order to
| protect the civilians.
|
| I suppose when the distinction between soldier and civilian
| is not so easy to make, the profligate mindset which allows
| covert, indiscriminate mass murder at scale becomes a norm.
| HappyPanacea wrote:
| >The more relevant question is, which Israeli companies
| are currently not involved in covert military operations?
|
| You have failed to answer the question ("Which _Israeli_
| companies were used for Stuxnet or the 2024 pager
| attack?") and implied the opposite with no good evidence.
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| The question is a straw man fallacy in an attempt to
| distract from the fact that Shin Bet/Mossad, both Israeli
| organizations, used multiple company cutouts to weaponize
| the supply chain of civilian infrastructure in order to
| commit acts of perfidy in violation of the Geneva
| Convention.. of course they're not going to set up
| "SababaTech", headquartered in Tel Aviv, to do this dirty
| work. The perfidious nature of this act required them to
| involve Hungary, among other nations.
|
| Where the question "which Israeli companies are involved
| in committing Israels war crimes?" needs to be answered,
| is at the ICC - not here on HN.
|
| (Unless the question is being answered by a
| whistleblower, of course..)
| Centigonal wrote:
| > Which _Israeli_ companies were used for Stuxnet or the
| 2024 pager attack?
|
| I'll tell you as soon as you tell me exactly why ZTE
| devices were banned in the United States. The thing about
| clandestine operations is that they aren't done in the
| open.
| computerex wrote:
| Uhhhh, not sure about you, but I wouldn't want anything Israeli
| within 10m of my phone.
| tguvot wrote:
| you probably need to throw away your phone. or something.
| because never mind of it apple/qualcomm/android/etc - one of
| R&D centers that all companies have in Israel developed part
| of it.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| The controversy is Israeli remote control over all these
| phones. Not Israeli R&D contributing to a component.
|
| Edit: I know what they wrote
| tguvot wrote:
| parent said "anything israeli". phones are partially
| israeli. including baseband firmware and stuff.
| thenaturalist wrote:
| ROFL.
|
| Best step up to your words and throw away your phone then.
|
| All major tech companies and chip manufacturers have R&D and
| design centers in Israel.
| hersko wrote:
| Best throw it away then
| yb303 wrote:
| If you want to _really_ bar anything of Israeli origin, you
| should:
|
| - Not use Intel processors, as many are developed in Haifa
|
| - Not use a firewall. It was invented in the IDF.
|
| - Not use Waze. It's Israeli.
|
| - Not use thumb drives. Invented in Israel.
|
| - Not eat cherry tomatoes. Israeli development.
|
| The list goes on and on, but I must add - if you ever suffer
| a serious head or stomach injury, tell the medics to not use
| the Israeli bandage.
| hyghjiyhu wrote:
| Edited. This seems to be according worldwide despite the article
| saying it's in West Asia and Africa.
| snypher wrote:
| Why, is privacy less valuable there?
| Vinnl wrote:
| It tells readers whether they might or might not be affected.
| rs186 wrote:
| The reporting is not accurate. The app is found in phones
| sold in the US as well.
|
| Source: me who uninstalled AppCloud via adb on a phone
| purchased from Best Buy.
| hyghjiyhu wrote:
| Thanks that's important data. I started looking into this
| and found a case in the EU as well.
| shevy-java wrote:
| SpyApps everywhere.
|
| Hopefully one day we not only have open software, open hardware
| but also reproducibly guaranteed secure systems. Now I don't have
| any idea how this could be verified (and no, Microsoft's "Trusted
| Computing" is not what I have in mind), but I hope we'll see to
| this eventually.
| johnebgd wrote:
| If you don't trust a centralized authority you need
| decentralized governance...
| cyanydeez wrote:
| we've alreaaaay seen that decentralization is an abstract,
| butnot a reality.
|
| There will always be a move towards centralization when a
| project gains enough converts because the bulk of concerns
| are exactly the same but we don't have n+1 people willing to
| do the necessary legwork to secure.
|
| As such, just like REST apis and their N+1 query problem,
| forcing everyone to have a security conscious posture is
| never going to happen.
|
| You absolutely need centralized authorities; what the real
| argume is about is how that authority is selected, changed
| and intermediated. The same way we argue about how a stable
| RAFT algorithm operates.
|
| Move on from this "decentralization is all we need" argument.
| It's failed and failing.
| delusional wrote:
| "Decentralized governance" is just feudalism. What you need
| is a re-envigoration of democracy. Democracy works, but we
| have to engage with it positively, both as citizens and as
| politicians.
| tamimio wrote:
| It will be excluded from any popular OS and will end up a niche
| thing that no one will use. The issue is the hegemony of big
| tech companies over the regulations to shape it however they
| like, and in return they provide the surveillance to
| legislators.
| rs186 wrote:
| AppCloud is not only in India. It is on some OEM version of the
| phone in the US as well.
|
| How did I know? My phone had random notifications promoting apps
| that I had never heard of, and I couldn't find a way to disable
| them. Eventually I found and removed it via adb.
|
| These scumbags.
| keyringlight wrote:
| Any chance you can remember the package name? It's not
| mentioned in the article or ones it linked to, and I can't
| quickly find it on my phone. There is the vaguely named
| "application recommendations" that going by a quick search
| should be com.samsung.android.mapsagent
| coffeecoders wrote:
| I bought an Ipad yesterday. The setup was almost the same, except
| all the bloat was from Apple itself. Numbers, GarageBand, iMovie,
| Keynote, Pages, Clips... even the Tips app felt like bloatware.
|
| Wild how every ecosystem has its own "preloaded surprise pack."
| gruez wrote:
| Those are easily deleteable though, moreover they don't install
| third party "recommended" apps.
| elzbardico wrote:
| They are deletable, and frankly, I wouldn't call them
| bloatware, they are all pretty much decent applications, they
| don't shove you ads down your throat and a lot of people are
| happy to use them.
| baklavaEmperor wrote:
| What's striking is how often these 'small' surveillance tech
| stories trace back to the same state-aligned ecosystem. When
| Israel does it, it's treated as a complex security issue. When
| another 'bad' country does the same thing, we immediately call it
| espionage. And almost on cue, the discussion drifts anywhere
| except the uncomfortable fact that it's the same ecosystem from
| the same country showing up again.
| tamimio wrote:
| You are asking the "wrong" question!! If you are Gabriele
| Nunziati you will be fired immediately!!
|
| For context: https://www.eunews.it/en/2025/11/05/italian-
| journalist-fired...
| crmd wrote:
| it's a tough infosec situation because the tel aviv-haifa
| corridor in israel has an enormous amount of computer science
| R&D going on that gives US companies a competitive advantage.
|
| for example, annapurna labs in haifa develops the technology
| behind AWS's nitro cards, which run the hypervisor, block
| storage, and networking in every EC2 server.
| verisimi wrote:
| Fair enough. I guess it's fine to be spied on to make sure US
| companies have that competitive advantage you mention. As its
| all in a good cause, I'll take the Samsung phone!
| dijit wrote:
| To be fair, us over in Europe have been uncomfortable for a
| while due to the US surveillance apparatus having total
| dominion over the underlying systems that run our
| countries.
|
| So, its a little bit tone deaf to hear these complaints
| from Americans honestly.
|
| We're told that we're uncompetitive (yet when rising
| startups happen they're bought out before being too large)-
| we're told that we shouldn't run on anything except US SaaS
| and US cloud providers.
|
| I'm not saying that _you_ specifically make these
| arguments, but the zeitgeist on HN definitely centres on
| this notion.
|
| So, please forgive me for not taking this as seriously as
| you'd like me to.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| I mean, it's literally the same thing that happens when past
| genocides are bad, but when they happen today from an ally of
| the west... "it's complicated". Except this time happens on the
| technological side rather than the humanitarian one
| like_any_other wrote:
| > an ally of the west
|
| Remind me again of all the help Israel has provided the
| USA/the West that they are considered such a great (the
| greatest, in fact) ally?
| energy123 wrote:
| When Israel does what, in this case? Write software?
| adhamsalama wrote:
| Spyware*
| kryogen1c wrote:
| > When Israel does it, it's treated as a complex security
| issue. When another 'bad' country does the same thing, we
| immediately call it espionage
|
| Israel is in a bit of a unique situation, where they are
| surrounded by some number of religious fanatics that wouldn't
| mind seeing them genocided off the planet.
|
| They live under existential threat. Oct 7 was very recent.
| YorickPeterse wrote:
| If only Israel wasn't committing a genocide itself, and
| hadn't treated the Palestinian people like lesser beings for
| decades, maybe things would be different.
| dijit wrote:
| Maybe, I think an honest request might be to put yourself
| in the shoes of either side of that conflict in a genuine
| way.
|
| Isreal was founded and immediately descended on by almost
| the entire the Arab world, and we can say they were
| justified in doing so: but it doesn't take away from what
| happens when _that_ is your founding.
|
| Palestinian suffering is real, but we only really care
| because they're losing. If Israel was as evil as people say
| then there wouldn't even _be_ a gaza, it hurts them more
| that they didn't commit a genocide like the Rwandans did,
| or Bosnia or, for a more modern one: Rohingya's, which only
| lead to international sanctions on named government
| officials... no lasting sanctions of any kind by the west.
|
| If I sound supportive of Israel here it's only because I'm
| trying to balance the narrative, they're clearly a superior
| force and should have a higher standard applied, but anyone
| who supports either is doing so half blind.
|
| They are both "right" in what they are doing, or at least
| they have sufficient cause to feel that way.
|
| Also, I'm aware this is unpopular so I expect that many
| will reflexively flag this. Empathising with your enemy is
| what we should be asking everyone to do, and it's harder
| than you think.
| tovej wrote:
| This narrative about the founding of Israel is false.
|
| Israel was founded in the middle of an offensive when it
| was "descended upon by the Arab world". That was a
| defensive reaction to Israel's brutal Plan Dalet, an
| invasion and occupation of Palestine, which extended far
| beyond what the UN had drawn up.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Dalet
|
| And then they destroyed 500 villages, ethnically cleansed
| Palestine of three quarters of a million of Palestinians
| and never let them return.
|
| They went around with detailed lists of people identified
| as Arabs in each village, rounded them up, set fire to
| the villages, and then blew up the rubble. How can you
| believe that is the act of a legitimate state? It is
| quite simply evil. Nazi-level shit.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba
|
| This was not an operation that was sanctioned by the UN's
| partition plan (which was ridiculous and at odds with the
| UNs founding principles of self-determination to begin
| with) it was just retconned into being a legitimate
| action.
| zkmon wrote:
| Why do android phone companies load up the bloatware on their
| phones? Why can't they provide a plain vanilla version of android
| and let users to choose the stuff?
| mpol wrote:
| The same reason this happens/happened on Windows laptops. The
| hardware provider gets money to pre-install this software. They
| can then offer the phone at a lower price with a higher margin.
| naIak wrote:
| Even worse is that Samsung phones, at least in my region, come
| with a "Samsung Global Goals" app installed by default; an app
| that serves to push a certain political agenda that many find
| unpalatable. Imagine if your new Xiaomi phone came with an app
| telling you how good the CCP is.
| donohoe wrote:
| ...and this, and similar stories, continues to be why I will
| never trust or own an Android phone.
| shauniel wrote:
| What a trash title, literally just covering bloatware...
| german_mcdon wrote:
| For a bloatware that has been owned by a US company for years.
|
| Just originally founded in Israel.
|
| Almost like posting it has an alterior motive.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Actually AppCloud is a software that can install apps remotely.
| Not bloatware. It is spyware. And the location of the
| developers (example, being in China) would make it a security
| concern. And Israel is a security concern for countries that
| don't recognize Israel.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Well, apps probably won't explode.
| breppp wrote:
| low quality website "sammobile" wanted to recycle news from 2011
| which is essentially "samsung packs their phone full of
| bloatware" so they sprayed some israel over it. Now they got all
| those angry clicks and they have made their honest pay.
|
| but why is HN playing along?
| davesque wrote:
| TL;DR Article claims AppCloud (software in question) has ties to
| ironSource, an Israeli-founded company now owned by US-based
| Unity, but never clarifies what those ties are. The author only
| states that an ironSource tech called "Aura" appears to do
| something similar to AppCloud. However, the author also points
| out that AppCloud isn't listed anywhere on ironSource's website.
| They also acknowledge that there's no evidence currently that
| AppCloud is doing anything weird. This looks an awful lot like an
| "Israel bad" article.
| xnx wrote:
| Getting an Android phone from anyone but Google seems like a
| nightmare.
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