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Given that Israel regularly employs deadly force against civilians, this does not absolve NSO's software engineers from moral culpability. That is like saying t

Given that Israel regularly employs deadly force against civilians, this does not absolve NSO's software engineers from moral culpability. That is like saying the backroom boys at Dow who developed napalm thought it was just being used against "bad guys".

flyinglizard 8y ago
Moral culpability depends on perspective. It’s not absolute. In some societies it’s immoral to consume alcohol, in others it’s immoral to get a divorce or use electricity on Saturdays. From the perspective of NSO developers, they are helping prevent the next attack against civilians somewhere. I can’t fault them for that.
- objektif 8y ago
  Killing people is immoral in any society. If you have an average IQ you understand eventually what your product will be used for.
  - javagram 8y ago
    > Killing people is immoral in any society Most societies make an exception for killing enemies of the state. Soldiers are seen as heroes fighting for their country not as immoral killers.
  - airstrike 8y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_ad_bellum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_ad_bellum
  - oh-kumudo 8y ago
    Guns, cars and knives can kill people too. Also drugs and alcohol, how about banning people working on those stuff?
    - objektif 8y ago
      Went over your head didnt it? Nobody is talking about banning software. Here we are talking about developing software that is specifically designed for governments for hacking phones and spying on citizens.
      - oh-kumudo 8y ago
        Who would know it is deployed on another countries' citizens? If anything it is the Saudi who chose to use it, why shift the blame to the original developer? Hope you understand the point now.
  - 14 8y ago
    I wonder if the Sentinelese find it immoral?
    - objektif 8y ago
      Looks like they find it less immoral than manipulating people into believing fake religious stuff.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    Murdering people is immoral in any society, but whether a given slaying constitutes murder or not varies widely. There's justifiable self-defense, capital punishment etc.
- tareqak 8y ago
  Now, NSO developers can have a frank and honest dialog with their leadership about how they made it possible to carry out an attack against a civilian somewhere similar to the dialog between Google employees and their leadership concerning Operation Dragonfly.
  - nbsd4life 8y ago
    Google has 100 times as many employs as NSO group. The equivalent for a group of 100 Google employees signing a petition is one person signing it. They can just be fired & replaced.
- eli_gottlieb 8y ago
  That's not a difference in what's right and what's wrong. It's a disagreement over what the developers are actually doing.
- oculusthrift 8y ago
  why are you discussing moral relativism so boldly as if it’s a fact. it’s that postmodernist philosophy that’s totally degraded society. in some societies it’s “immoral” not to rape someone as punishment or to not kill a “unclean” ethnicity and your definition supports that
  - flyinglizard 8y ago
    Only the recognition of relative morality is modern. Moral always differed between region and cultures, but our crusading ancestors said it’s only their moral that’s correct and tried to fix other societies to conform.
  - 0db532a0 8y ago
    Moral relativism deals with the idea that there is no fact in morality.
- abalone 8y ago
  > From the perspective of NSO developers, they are helping prevent the next attack against civilians somewhere. I can’t fault them for that. They are selling spy software to regimes that are known to kill civilians. Ergo they are not preventing attacks against civilians; they are enabling attacks against civilians. No moral relativism necessary. Even with respect to Israel’s “counter” terrorism efforts, if the NSO development team’s motivation is to prevent attacks on civilians, then enabling Israel to attack and kill civilians is something for which they are morally culpable.
tomp 8y ago
Ah come on when has Israel last employed force offensively, not defensively? As in first strike (not a retaliatory counter-strike) motivated mainly by economics/politics, not safety (e.g. like US war in Iraq or UK attacks on Syria or Russian occupation of Crimea although even then you could argue they were just defending their base but Israel's are milder than even that, such as destroying rocket/nuclear facilities in Syria and Iran).
- toyg 8y ago
  Almost nobody engages in “offensive” wars since the Nazis, it’s always some sort of “defensive” or “retaliatory” action.
  - Udik 8y ago
    Sorry to correct you, the Nazis claimed they were "defending" themselves from the Jewish threat. So no exception even for them.
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      You must have missed the 'lebensraum' bit.
      - Udik 8y ago
        True, I was focusing on the Jewish persecution. However, even the lebensraum concept has undertones of defense against a threat rather than pure conquest: the term itself refers to space as a necessity for life rather than the object of simple greed. The lebensraum was considered by Nazi ideology "necessary for the survival" of the German race, against the threat of "inferior and decaying races". As far as I can understand it, the whole Nazi ideology is informed by a vision of history as a zero sum game and by a "triumph or perish" attitude- so that every aggression can be justified as a necessary and ultimately defensive move.
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    We used to have War departments. Now we have defense departments. It's a giant white-wash. If it really was defense then nobody would ever cross their borders in a uniform.
netcan 8y ago
How about the engineers who did Manhattan? Scientists and engineers have always been a part of wars, just like the other people.
- TheForumTroll 8y ago
  They are also guilty of deaths by nuclear weapons.
  - iamdave 8y ago
    And we've got some quite famous statements from quite a few of them that they knew quite well, and felt the full weight of what they were doing. I would presume because they weren't sold the idea that what they were doing had any other express intent-purpose or plausible outcome for use even used by the people they worked for, which alone I think warrants a different group to compare this situation to.
- boomboomsubban 8y ago
  Many of then joined the project convinced it was the only way to stop the Axis from developing a nuclear bomb, and at least some of them were opposed to it's use by 1945, particularly against civilians. Not really comparable to an apartheid state currently at peace.
  - kingofhdds 8y ago
    Israel is pretty much constantly shelled by rockets. And there are capable state, and quasi-state actors behind that who officially claim they want it to be eliminated. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel,_2018 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_a... The fact, that majority of its population can enjoy relatively peaceful life is thanks to organizational, and technological superiority of Israeli military. Which depends on work of Israeli engineers whose motivation is therefore exactly the same: do military tech to stop anti-Israeli "Axis".
    - 8y ago
FakeComments 8y ago
Israel uses deadly force against civilians engaged in acts of force against Israel. You can argue that it’s not a proportional response, but there’s a clear editorial bias to refer to one side of a force exchange as “civilian” and the other as “deadly”.
- TheForumTroll 8y ago
  "Israel uses deadly force against civilians [they think might be] engaged in acts of force against Israel" would be closer to the truth. Missiles doesn't check if everyone near are bad guys before exploding.
- boomboomsubban 8y ago
  They use deadly force against people protesting in the Gaza Strip, an area of land the residents are unable to leave and is under an Israeli blockade. One side is considered "deadly" as they've killed over 150 people, many of them children, while the other side has killed 1.
  - maratd 8y ago
    They use deadly force against people firing missiles in the Gaza Strip, an area of land the residents are unable to leave and is under an Egyptian and Israeli blockade because it is controlled by Hamas, a terrorist organization. One side is considered "deadly" as they've killed over 150 people, many of them children because they are used as human shields by the terrorists, while the other side has killed 1, because they're incompetent. Fixed that for you.
  - nbsd4life 8y ago
    Ridiculous claim. A few months ago Gaza militants fired 460 rockets in one day, injuring 80 people (mostly civilians) and killing one, and the IDF has barely done anything besides bomb empty buildings. When's the last time your country restrained itself after being hit by 460 rockets in one day?
    - boomboomsubban 8y ago
ars 8y ago
> Given that Israel regularly employs deadly force against civilians ??????? Say what now? The Israeli combatant to non-combatant death ratio is among the best in the world, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio If anything developing such software would be a moral imperative, not something to be upset about.
- ryanlol 8y ago
  I think your article just confirms that Israel does indeed regularly employ deadly force against civilians. Most other countries manage just fine without doing so.
  - ars 8y ago
    I'm sure you are not implying they do so on purpose. Israel does better than anyone else in the world at minimizing civilian causalities, but accidents are a fact of war. So, what other options does Israel have? Let the combatants do whatever they want? Are you seriously implying someone should not work for the Israeli military because of civilian accidents? What's your endgame here? Israel should give up and let millions of people be murdered? abalone has a severely skewed moral filter to say "this does not absolve NSO's software engineers from moral culpability" - he would rather millions of Israeli citizens get murdered? I really hope you are not in any way agreeing with him because it is a truly loathsome thing to say, and I was absolutely shocked to see someone just causally speak like that. The only moral thing to do here is do an even better job at this type of software to make the civilian casualty ratio even better.
    - cazum 8y ago
      >Israel does better than anyone else in the world at minimizing civilian causalities, but accidents are a fact of war. Israel regularly shoots and kills unarmed civilians for standing too close to a fence. >So, what other options does Israel have? Let the combatants do whatever they want? They are unarmed civilians, standing near a fence. >Are you seriously implying someone should not work for the Israeli military because of civilian accidents? Yes, one should not involve themselves in a violent force that regularly murders civilians for standing too close to a fence. >What's your endgame here? Israel should give up and let millions of people be murdered? They can start by not murdering the desperate civilians protesting the blockade and destruction of their homes by standing too close to a fence. >he would rather millions of Israeli citizens get murdered? Millions of Israelis are not at risk of being murdered by the unarmed civilians standing near fences. >The only moral thing to do here is do an even better job at this type of software to make the civilian casualty ratio even better. The most moral thing to do would be to pressure Israel to stop murdering civilians for standing too near a fence.
vfulco2 8y ago
This story saddens me and reminds me of the well documented stories of Israeli defense industry selling to the apartheid government in South Africa. Ok to feed oppressors so long as it isn't affecting the chosen people. Criminal.
EpicEng 8y ago
Yeah and the other side specifically targets citizens and then hides amongst their own.

flyinglizard 8y ago

Moral culpability depends on perspective. It’s not absolute. In some societies it’s immoral to consume alcohol, in others it’s immoral to get a divorce or use electricity on Saturdays. From the perspective of NSO developers, they are helping prevent the next attack against civilians somewhere. I can’t fault them for that.

objektif 8y ago
Killing people is immoral in any society. If you have an average IQ you understand eventually what your product will be used for.
- javagram 8y ago
  > Killing people is immoral in any society Most societies make an exception for killing enemies of the state. Soldiers are seen as heroes fighting for their country not as immoral killers.
- airstrike 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_ad_bellum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_ad_bellum
- oh-kumudo 8y ago
  Guns, cars and knives can kill people too. Also drugs and alcohol, how about banning people working on those stuff?
  - objektif 8y ago
    Went over your head didnt it? Nobody is talking about banning software. Here we are talking about developing software that is specifically designed for governments for hacking phones and spying on citizens.
    - oh-kumudo 8y ago
      Who would know it is deployed on another countries' citizens? If anything it is the Saudi who chose to use it, why shift the blame to the original developer? Hope you understand the point now.
- 14 8y ago
  I wonder if the Sentinelese find it immoral?
  - objektif 8y ago
    Looks like they find it less immoral than manipulating people into believing fake religious stuff.
- int_19h 8y ago
  Murdering people is immoral in any society, but whether a given slaying constitutes murder or not varies widely. There's justifiable self-defense, capital punishment etc.
tareqak 8y ago
Now, NSO developers can have a frank and honest dialog with their leadership about how they made it possible to carry out an attack against a civilian somewhere similar to the dialog between Google employees and their leadership concerning Operation Dragonfly.
- nbsd4life 8y ago
  Google has 100 times as many employs as NSO group. The equivalent for a group of 100 Google employees signing a petition is one person signing it. They can just be fired & replaced.
eli_gottlieb 8y ago
That's not a difference in what's right and what's wrong. It's a disagreement over what the developers are actually doing.
oculusthrift 8y ago
why are you discussing moral relativism so boldly as if it’s a fact. it’s that postmodernist philosophy that’s totally degraded society. in some societies it’s “immoral” not to rape someone as punishment or to not kill a “unclean” ethnicity and your definition supports that
- flyinglizard 8y ago
  Only the recognition of relative morality is modern. Moral always differed between region and cultures, but our crusading ancestors said it’s only their moral that’s correct and tried to fix other societies to conform.
- 0db532a0 8y ago
  Moral relativism deals with the idea that there is no fact in morality.
abalone 8y ago
> From the perspective of NSO developers, they are helping prevent the next attack against civilians somewhere. I can’t fault them for that. They are selling spy software to regimes that are known to kill civilians. Ergo they are not preventing attacks against civilians; they are enabling attacks against civilians. No moral relativism necessary. Even with respect to Israel’s “counter” terrorism efforts, if the NSO development team’s motivation is to prevent attacks on civilians, then enabling Israel to attack and kill civilians is something for which they are morally culpable.

tomp 8y ago

Ah come on when has Israel last employed force offensively, not defensively? As in first strike (not a retaliatory counter-strike) motivated mainly by economics/politics, not safety (e.g. like US war in Iraq or UK attacks on Syria or Russian occupation of Crimea although even then you could argue they were just defending their base but Israel's are milder than even that, such as destroying rocket/nuclear facilities in Syria and Iran).

toyg 8y ago
Almost nobody engages in “offensive” wars since the Nazis, it’s always some sort of “defensive” or “retaliatory” action.
- Udik 8y ago
  Sorry to correct you, the Nazis claimed they were "defending" themselves from the Jewish threat. So no exception even for them.
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    You must have missed the 'lebensraum' bit.
    - Udik 8y ago
      True, I was focusing on the Jewish persecution. However, even the lebensraum concept has undertones of defense against a threat rather than pure conquest: the term itself refers to space as a necessity for life rather than the object of simple greed. The lebensraum was considered by Nazi ideology "necessary for the survival" of the German race, against the threat of "inferior and decaying races". As far as I can understand it, the whole Nazi ideology is informed by a vision of history as a zero sum game and by a "triumph or perish" attitude- so that every aggression can be justified as a necessary and ultimately defensive move.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  We used to have War departments. Now we have defense departments. It's a giant white-wash. If it really was defense then nobody would ever cross their borders in a uniform.

netcan 8y ago

How about the engineers who did Manhattan? Scientists and engineers have always been a part of wars, just like the other people.

TheForumTroll 8y ago
They are also guilty of deaths by nuclear weapons.
- iamdave 8y ago
  And we've got some quite famous statements from quite a few of them that they knew quite well, and felt the full weight of what they were doing. I would presume because they weren't sold the idea that what they were doing had any other express intent-purpose or plausible outcome for use even used by the people they worked for, which alone I think warrants a different group to compare this situation to.
boomboomsubban 8y ago
Many of then joined the project convinced it was the only way to stop the Axis from developing a nuclear bomb, and at least some of them were opposed to it's use by 1945, particularly against civilians. Not really comparable to an apartheid state currently at peace.
- kingofhdds 8y ago
  Israel is pretty much constantly shelled by rockets. And there are capable state, and quasi-state actors behind that who officially claim they want it to be eliminated. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel,_2018 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_a... The fact, that majority of its population can enjoy relatively peaceful life is thanks to organizational, and technological superiority of Israeli military. Which depends on work of Israeli engineers whose motivation is therefore exactly the same: do military tech to stop anti-Israeli "Axis".
  - 8y ago

FakeComments 8y ago

Israel uses deadly force against civilians engaged in acts of force against Israel. You can argue that it’s not a proportional response, but there’s a clear editorial bias to refer to one side of a force exchange as “civilian” and the other as “deadly”.

TheForumTroll 8y ago
"Israel uses deadly force against civilians [they think might be] engaged in acts of force against Israel" would be closer to the truth. Missiles doesn't check if everyone near are bad guys before exploding.
boomboomsubban 8y ago
They use deadly force against people protesting in the Gaza Strip, an area of land the residents are unable to leave and is under an Israeli blockade. One side is considered "deadly" as they've killed over 150 people, many of them children, while the other side has killed 1.
- maratd 8y ago
  They use deadly force against people firing missiles in the Gaza Strip, an area of land the residents are unable to leave and is under an Egyptian and Israeli blockade because it is controlled by Hamas, a terrorist organization. One side is considered "deadly" as they've killed over 150 people, many of them children because they are used as human shields by the terrorists, while the other side has killed 1, because they're incompetent. Fixed that for you.
- nbsd4life 8y ago
  Ridiculous claim. A few months ago Gaza militants fired 460 rockets in one day, injuring 80 people (mostly civilians) and killing one, and the IDF has barely done anything besides bomb empty buildings. When's the last time your country restrained itself after being hit by 460 rockets in one day?
  - boomboomsubban 8y ago

ars 8y ago

> Given that Israel regularly employs deadly force against civilians ??????? Say what now? The Israeli combatant to non-combatant death ratio is among the best in the world, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio If anything developing such software would be a moral imperative, not something to be upset about.

ryanlol 8y ago
I think your article just confirms that Israel does indeed regularly employ deadly force against civilians. Most other countries manage just fine without doing so.
- ars 8y ago
  I'm sure you are not implying they do so on purpose. Israel does better than anyone else in the world at minimizing civilian causalities, but accidents are a fact of war. So, what other options does Israel have? Let the combatants do whatever they want? Are you seriously implying someone should not work for the Israeli military because of civilian accidents? What's your endgame here? Israel should give up and let millions of people be murdered? abalone has a severely skewed moral filter to say "this does not absolve NSO's software engineers from moral culpability" - he would rather millions of Israeli citizens get murdered? I really hope you are not in any way agreeing with him because it is a truly loathsome thing to say, and I was absolutely shocked to see someone just causally speak like that. The only moral thing to do here is do an even better job at this type of software to make the civilian casualty ratio even better.
  - cazum 8y ago
    >Israel does better than anyone else in the world at minimizing civilian causalities, but accidents are a fact of war. Israel regularly shoots and kills unarmed civilians for standing too close to a fence. >So, what other options does Israel have? Let the combatants do whatever they want? They are unarmed civilians, standing near a fence. >Are you seriously implying someone should not work for the Israeli military because of civilian accidents? Yes, one should not involve themselves in a violent force that regularly murders civilians for standing too close to a fence. >What's your endgame here? Israel should give up and let millions of people be murdered? They can start by not murdering the desperate civilians protesting the blockade and destruction of their homes by standing too close to a fence. >he would rather millions of Israeli citizens get murdered? Millions of Israelis are not at risk of being murdered by the unarmed civilians standing near fences. >The only moral thing to do here is do an even better job at this type of software to make the civilian casualty ratio even better. The most moral thing to do would be to pressure Israel to stop murdering civilians for standing too near a fence.

vfulco2 8y ago

This story saddens me and reminds me of the well documented stories of Israeli defense industry selling to the apartheid government in South Africa. Ok to feed oppressors so long as it isn't affecting the chosen people. Criminal.

EpicEng 8y ago

Yeah and the other side specifically targets citizens and then hides amongst their own.