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Middle East Dictators Buy Spy Tech from Company Linked to IBM and Google

37 points by notlukesky 7y ago

jsty 7y ago
> The Chinese firm is a member of an American organization called the OpenPower Foundation, which was founded by Google and IBM executives with the aim of trying to “drive innovation.” So the link is all three happen to be members of an open consortium? That has to be one of the most tenuous 'links' imaginable, on par with "have employees who attended the same conference once".
- yorwba 7y ago
  OpenPower is such a nice ominous name that the writer conveniently avoided explaining that it refers to the instruction set architecture descended from PowerPC (although that means they missed a chance to also "link" them to Apple). I doubt that the particular instruction set architecture used by those chips has a large influence on their use for surveillance applications. In a few years, we'll probably get to read similar articles about RISC-V, complete with "risky" puns.
vuln 7y ago
The Falcon tool sounds very similar to the stingray device manufactured by Harris Corporation. The same company that strong armed law enforcement with NDAs on the tools itself and releasing any information about how the law enforcement officers actually gathered the evidence. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180120/06352239048/harris-stingray-nondisclosure-agreement-forbids-cops-telling-legislators-about-surveillance-tech.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180120/06352239048/harri...
badrabbit 7y ago
Would be nice if default apps and settings in purism's phone use end to end encryption for reasons like this.
quaquaqua1 7y ago
Saudi Interior Ministry (secret police) buy a ton of Oracle/SUN as well. The Saudis have deep pockets and Oracle us very happy to aid them in human rights violations
resters 7y ago
This is not unusual behavior for firms that are defense contractors.
sverige 7y ago
>Aegis, Semptian’s flagship system, is designed to be installed inside phone and internet networks, where it is used to secretly collect people’s email records, phone calls, text messages, cellphone locations, and web browsing histories. Other than government involvement, how is this different than the capabilities deployed by Google and the permissions granted various apps in their store?
buboard 7y ago
They wanted tried and tested solutions.

37 points by notlukesky 7y ago

jsty 7y ago

> The Chinese firm is a member of an American organization called the OpenPower Foundation, which was founded by Google and IBM executives with the aim of trying to “drive innovation.” So the link is all three happen to be members of an open consortium? That has to be one of the most tenuous 'links' imaginable, on par with "have employees who attended the same conference once".

yorwba 7y ago
OpenPower is such a nice ominous name that the writer conveniently avoided explaining that it refers to the instruction set architecture descended from PowerPC (although that means they missed a chance to also "link" them to Apple). I doubt that the particular instruction set architecture used by those chips has a large influence on their use for surveillance applications. In a few years, we'll probably get to read similar articles about RISC-V, complete with "risky" puns.

vuln 7y ago

The Falcon tool sounds very similar to the stingray device manufactured by Harris Corporation. The same company that strong armed law enforcement with NDAs on the tools itself and releasing any information about how the law enforcement officers actually gathered the evidence. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180120/06352239048/harris-stingray-nondisclosure-agreement-forbids-cops-telling-legislators-about-surveillance-tech.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180120/06352239048/harri...

badrabbit 7y ago

Would be nice if default apps and settings in purism's phone use end to end encryption for reasons like this.

quaquaqua1 7y ago

Saudi Interior Ministry (secret police) buy a ton of Oracle/SUN as well. The Saudis have deep pockets and Oracle us very happy to aid them in human rights violations

resters 7y ago

This is not unusual behavior for firms that are defense contractors.

sverige 7y ago

>Aegis, Semptian’s flagship system, is designed to be installed inside phone and internet networks, where it is used to secretly collect people’s email records, phone calls, text messages, cellphone locations, and web browsing histories. Other than government involvement, how is this different than the capabilities deployed by Google and the permissions granted various apps in their store?

buboard 7y ago

They wanted tried and tested solutions.