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All my life I've thought spyware was developed primarily by evil Russian and Chinese hackers. But apparently also by Israeli developers with their government's
by bjourne 8y ago
All my life I've thought spyware was developed primarily by evil Russian and Chinese hackers. But apparently also by Israeli developers with their government's blessing and open endorsement. That's some very shady stuff.
Before someone says something about government surveillance of fiber cables. Yes, that is also bad, but exploiting vulnerabilities to install spyware on peoples phones... It crosses yet another line that shouldn't ever be crossed.
- StanislavPetrov 8y ago>All my life I've thought spyware was developed primarily by evil Russian and Chinese hackers. You've led a very sheltered life if you think the Russians and the Chinese have been more evil than the Americans or the Israelis. I suggest reading history - a lot of it. When it comes to governments there are no good guys, only bad guys.
- dash2 8y agoI’ve read a lot of history. Your last statement is kind of fair. Your first statement is not. (Does eg US imperialism make Roosevelt no better than Hitler? Of course not.) The Russians and Chinese are doing many things worse than what the US does: Ukraine, the Uighurs.... Both are far less bound by the rule of law. Neither have any serious form of democracy. False equivalence is a specious but dangerous form of reasoning.
- StanislavPetrov 8y agoThe US has killed millions of people in the last 15 years alone in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen and a dozen other countries that we have bombed or invaded (including the 8 we are bombing right now). I'm under no illusions about the many despicable things done by the Russians and the Chinese, but its simply absurd to contend that their behavior has any worse than the United States. We have more of our citizens locked in cages than Russia and China combined. We have toppled more governments and invaded more countries than Russia and China combined by a factor of 10 (or more) since the end of World War II. Its astounding how willfully blind people can be when it comes to their own government. We can't become the good guys until people wake up and acknowledge that there haven't been any good guys.
- MagnumOpus 8y ago> We have toppled more governments and invaded more countries than Russia and China combined by a factor of 10 (or more) Russia/Soviet Union is roughly on par with the US on the invasion/occupation/regime change count -- of course they did it mostly in eastern Europe, the Caucasus and the MENA region rather than in Latin America.
- wil421 8y agoThe US has not killed millions of people in the last 15 years that is just a blatantly false statement. A quick search on Google or Wikipedia will refute your claim instantly. Can you provide a decent source for your millions of casualties claim or for you claim about the US toppling more Governments than Russia/China? I bet you can’t. Judging by your username I believe you know some things about history. Why spread false info?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- edzillion 8y agoWashington DC-based Physicians for Social Responsibility (PRS) released a landmark study concluding that the death toll from 10 years of the “War on Terror” since the 9/11 attacks is at least 1.3 million, and could be as high as 2 million. https://www.psr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/body-count.pdf https://www.psr.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/body-count.pd... It's not that hard to believe surely? There have been plenty of other reports showing similar numbers.
- sangnoir 8y agoRoosevelt personally? No. America as a whole? Yes, comparisons can absolutely be made between America's and Hitler's genocidal philosophies, as the former influenced the latter[1]. 1. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/how-american-racism-influenced-hitler https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/how-american-r...
- icelancer 8y agoThere was Stuxnet, which was almost certainly a joint US/Israeli operation (likely other minor players involved), and plenty of other programs we never hear about.
- xenospn 8y agoThey managed to destroy Iranian nuclear centrifuges using a very sophisticated attack. Read up on Stuxnet. Also, as an Israeli, I can 100% confirm that Israelis have absolutely no issues with crossing any kind of boundary. The fact that others think that such a thing as "boundaries" exist only serves as an advantage.
- Paraesthetic 8y agoEnough of your conspiracy theories
- serioussecurity 8y agoUnsure if joking. Look up stuxnet
- v64 8y agoRead the Wikipedia entry on Stuxnet [1] for more details. > Stuxnet targets SCADA systems and is believed to be responsible for causing substantial damage to Iran's nuclear program. Although neither country has openly admitted responsibility, the worm is believed to be a jointly built American/Israeli cyberweapon. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet
- seppin 8y ago> The fact that others think that such a thing as "boundaries" exist only serves as an advantage. Isn't this how villains in Marvel movies work?
- bookofjoe 8y ago"Russia has no boundaries."—V. Putin
- olivermarks 8y agoNot clear whether you consider this a good thing or a disgrace?
- wubnf 8y ago>All my life I've thought spyware was developed primarily by evil Russian and Chinese hackers. But apparently also by Israeli developers with their government's blessing and open endorsement. Guess who controls the media and therefore the narrative.
- bitcurious 8y ago...
- wubnf 8y agoI'm not hiding, anybody who reads it knows what I mean. I think it's just funnier when written that way. "Guess who..." But yeah, let's be open: the media is controlled by the Jews, so you won't hear them badmouth Israel often. Come on, just look at what they do in Gaza. That shit should be on the telly 24/7 instead of Syria.
- sergiotapia 8y agoPlease stop writing these kinds of comments that only further flame wars here. Thank you.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dang 8y agoPlease don't break the site guidelines by feeding trolls or taking threads further into flamewar. That only makes this place worse. Instead, flag the comment. Other users did that, which killed the comment and alerted us so we could ban the account. In egregious cases, you can also let us know about it at hn@ycombinator.com. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- eof 8y agoI love how you’ve been convinced that Russia and China are naughty and Israel is somehow too good to be shady.
- macintux 8y agoWell, the first half of that statement seems undeniably true.
- eof 8y agoAbsolutely. But no more naughty than USA or Israel, as far as I can tell.
- dash2 8y agoHmm, I don’t want to get into a state wickedness bidding war, but the US/Israel are democracies where you are unlikely to be eg locked up without a fair trial. Contrast with the fate of the Uighurs. In foreign policy it’s more balanced (supporting Syria vs Saudi Arabia) but even there, Russia is clearly trying to subvert foreign democracies. China is (perhaps reasonably) pushing for more power in Asia. And while the US support for human rights is patchy, China’s is non-existent. Then there’s the Palestinians... (sigh)
- strictfp 8y agoStory time. A close friend of mine was held in custody in the US based on false accusations by a police officer. The police officer later admitted the false accusations to the judge, that he just wanted to "scare him a bit". The judge nodded, proceeded to aquit him of all offenses exept the speeding ticket which he deserved, and off he went.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Krasnol 8y ago
- StreamBright 8y agoNot at all, many EU countries produce such tools, some even commercially sold.
- coreman 8y agoAll my life I've thought spyware was developed primarily by evil Russian and Chinese hackers. But apparently also by Israeli developers with their government's blessing and open endorsement. That's some very shady stuff. Gamma Group is an Anglo-German company that provides similar surveillance software with government blessing and endorsement. Hacking Team (Italian company) sells similar surveillance software to various European governments. Before an embarrassing data breach in 2015 they also used to sell surveillance software to various totalitarian regimes outside Europe.
- jakobegger 8y ago> Before an embarrassing data breach in 2015 they also used to sell surveillance software to various totalitarian regimes outside Europe. Why do you think they stopped selling to those regimes? (I didn't follow the issue after it disappeared from the news)
- toyg 8y agoIf i remember correctly, the Italian government at the time made some noise - they weren’t happy to find there was no exclusivity in the relationship, so to speak. They kinda threatened to cut their contracts. To be honest I don’t know how it ended, it fell off the news in Italy too and that was it. Behind the façade of barely-organised anarchy, Italy is an instinctively authoritarian country and blunt instruments are considered fair game more often than not.
- leriksen 8y agowork out what your enemy considers an uncrossable boundary - then cross it - gets them every time. source - Art of War, probably...
- int_19h 8y agoYou're talking about a government that has a long track record of assassinating and abducting people in other countries, including Western liberal democracies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli_assassinations#1970s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli_assassinations... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Vanunu#Disclosure,_abduction_and_publication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Vanunu#Disclosure,_a... Whatever lines there were, they have long been crossed.
- lixtra 8y agoAbducting people in western countries unfortunately seems to be the norm in the war on terror, not only by the Israelis [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Omar_case https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Omar_case
- quickthrower2 8y ago> Before someone says something about government surveillance of fiber cables. Anything that goes unencrypted over the internet is (a) public and (b) liable to be changed by anyone on transit. It's like a travelling wikipedia article.
- HillaryBriss 8y agocrossing a new line is a way to signal your opponent that you're unafraid of any and all of their potential retaliation. it is a way to tell them that (you think) you dominate them.
- rmrfrmrf 8y agoAnd the US government's blessing. Along with the UK, this is how the US indirectly spies on its own citizens.
- noelsusman 8y agoI would be shocked if any moderately wealthy government hasn't crossed that line. This is child's play for cyber warfare.
- dontbenebby 8y agoI remember when "spyware" was just malicious advertising programs designed to sell your browser history + replace ads. (Eg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoolWebSearch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoolWebSearch) The MySpace era was a simpler time...
- qrbLPHiKpiux 8y ago> That's some very shady stuff. By them, I’m not surprised. And I’m not being anti Semitic. I’m just calling fact.
- lm28469 8y ago> All my life I've thought spyware was developed primarily by evil Russian and Chinese hackers. They're build by any government/entity having sufficient resources to build them, there is no good or bad guys in that story.
- zaro 8y ago>All my life I've thought spyware was developed primarily by evil Russian and Chinese hackers. Yep, manufacturing of consent at play. But this aside, I have a friend who worked in Israeli company whose main business was to sell phone exploits and customer data by using the still very insecure SS7. Basically they were registered as voip operator, but according to my friend that was only a cover, and the real business was selling surveillance data they were gathering via SS7.
- notlukesky 8y agoHey Zaro. The author of the FT article would love to have a chat with you and maybe get a quote for a follow-up article. His email is: mehul.srivastava@ft.com