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Israel’s lucrative and secretive cybersurveillance industry
- secfirstmd 6y agoSimilarly, K. says much of the work he did inside Unit 8200 is far from the sophisticated spyware that’s so often trumpeted. “Most Israelis think that intelligence is pure and slick,” he says. He came to see IDF intelligence as blunt, dirty work. “Old school things,” he says. Like blackmailing gay Palestinians, he explains. Or threatening to cut off medical care from people with health problems. Or threatening the families of people with health problems. But when it comes to criticism of 8200, K. is an anomaly among his peers. Many are more like Raphael Ouzan — true believers.
- tacheiordache 6y agoOutbrain and Taboola are as sneaky as the cybersurveillance and they might cover the same thing after all. Not sure how far this will go without any consequences until Israelis decide it's not the right thing to do and it is bad for the country in the long run.
- BitwiseFool 6y agoIt's an easy jump from digital surveillance to targeted advertising. The only difference is who pays for the data.
- rvnx 6y agoOr just invest in a digital advertising company (example: Facebook and In-Q-Tel)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- beagle3 6y agoThey are less sneaky and have less reach than Google and Facebook - but are comparable (they provide some value to users, but mostly to advertisers at the expense of users - and they keep most of that value for themselves. On a smaller scale) Why do you expect them (or Israelis in general) to decide that’s not the right thing to do? Do you expect the same of Google or Facebook? Or Americans for that matter?
- threatofrain 6y ago> “Most Israelis think that intelligence is pure and slick,” he says. He came to see IDF intelligence as blunt, dirty work. “Old school things,” he says. Like blackmailing gay Palestinians, he explains. Or threatening to cut off medical care from people with health problems. Or threatening the families of people with health problems. But when it comes to criticism of 8200, K. is an anomaly among his peers. Many are more like Raphael Ouzan — true believers.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dagav 6y agoLiterally every intelligence service does this, they're called "assets"[1]. Right and wrong isn't as black and white as you may think. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_(intelligence) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_(intelligence)
- pboutros 6y agoI think blackmailing someone in the closet is almost always wrong -- I'm sure there's some contrived edge case that could be thought of, but as a whole, it's never okay. Just because most / all intelligence agencies do something doesn't mean it's okay. It's unambiguously wrong.
- dagav 6y agoThere is a moral obligation to blackmail people who have material information about an imminent terror attack, or anything else which may threaten innocent lives. If I were you, I'd be much more concerned about why being exposed as gay in the Palestinian Territories is a threat capable of flipping an asset.
- solosoyokaze 6y agoThere is no moral high-ground for Israel. They are the colonizing force and they're committing war crimes and illegal annexing of Palestinian land. They're also blackmailing people for being gay as per the article.
- avipars 6y agothey are entirely based on fake news
- spoonjim 6y agoIsraelis have massively more genuine external threat than Americans so they are going to believe in the military industrial complex a lot longer.
- bosswipe 6y agoOr so they've been led to believe after 20 years of right wing hawkish rule.
- whearyou 6y agoIt's dirty as all heck. The people who run it are cowboys too I've heard.
- high_byte 6y agoMight be unpopular opinion but I think these do more damage than these private intelligence corporations. they ARE private intelligence corporations, just not (well not exactly) offensive cyber.
- joelbluminator 6y agoCan you explain what's so sneaky about Outbrain/Taboola? I understand there's some tracking going on but is there anything over the top?
- dagav 6y agoWriting code is a great way to make money in the desert. Israel is essentially an island. Also, warfare in the future is likely to be primarily digital, and Israel has many enemies. Israel will lead the cybersecurity and cyberwarfare industries out of sheer necessity.
- null_deref 6y agoMost of the Israeli population doesn't live in the desert.
- mam2 6y agothe point was "with not so much natural ressources"
- dagav 6y agoMore than half of Israel's land area is desert. It's quite hard to develop a nation in the desert.
- SuperCuber 6y agoYep. Population density map: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/images/maps/israel_pop.jpg https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/images/maps/isr... almost all the population lives near the sea.
- rowanseymour 6y agoIt's also part of mythology of Israel that it was built on an empty wasteland, and not on the ashes of Palestinian villages and farms.
- dagav 6y agoI'd like to propose a new law of the internet: Anti-Zionists cannot see a post about Israel without making a comment about the Palestinians. Weren't we talking about land area?
- high_byte 6y ago> As K. recalls, the recruitment pitch directed toward him was more about the “caressing of ego.” He was told: “You’re the best. We chose you. You’re one in a million. Most people can’t handle this job. You’re a genius.” 8200-alumni, can confirm lol.
- BitwiseFool 6y agoWhat was the process like, if you don't mind me asking? How did they 'discover' you and your talents?
- SuperCuber 6y agoIDF has a whole process for examination and selection of people into various roles. You usually get an invitation for an exam if you majored in CS in school and you can also request one.
- high_byte 6y agofor the average person, if you studied computer science in school or something like that, they refer you to intelligence unit tests, and they refer you to whatever sub-unit/team/squad/center/agency call it whatever. it's similar to big corporations where they say "get me 50 specialists of X Y and Z by next year" and then managers of X, Y and Z rock-paper-scissors it. also before you are being recruited, you are asked to list preferences. then in intelligence again, what are your interests, etc. I guess I aced the tests because I went through so many of them, should've focused only on what I actually wanted. it goes without saying it's not odd for them not to give a fuck about your preferences.
- myth_drannon 6y agoLow health profile, single child...
- avipars 6y agowhat about other tech units in the IDF/IAF
- 6y ago
- throwaway210222 6y agoOdd this article doesn't mention the iSentry CCTV surveillance system. It literally identifies and tracks individual people all day. Spooky stuff.
- jackson1442 6y agoDo you have any more information about that? It sounds really interesting, and I think my family used to actually have iSentry cameras at an old house.
- t0mmyb0y 6y agoOnce they are officially seen as an apartheid state it will all go away.
- keyme 6y agoLaughably biased. I actually LOL'd when seeing that all of the photos in the article are of Palestinian border regions.
- frashelaw 6y agoThey are blatantly an apartheid state, when you call it "laughably biased" you are implicitly taking the side of the settler-colonialist aggression against the people living their, placing them under siege and military occupation.
- gataca 6y agoUsing buzzwords as thought-terminating cliches. You seem angry that Israel managed to defeat its self-declared enemies - people who explicitly attempted genocide and failed. Seems like you "are implicitly taking the side of jihadist eliminationist aggression against the people living there".
- radycov 6y agoThe only ethnic cleansing genocide is against the Palestinians who have their land and sea borders occupied, patrolled and militarily enforced at checkpoints. Try that with me, and I certainly will revolt violently. No offense, but these are plain accurate facts and common sense.
- power78 6y agoThey didn't always. They kept blowing up Israelis and look what happened, they got walls put up. Can't blame Israel for that.
- smashah 6y agoI'm glad that there is some internal opposition to the Israeli cyberterrorism trade. However, it is sad that K does not feel that they can come out openly about their position in famously the only democracy in the middle east. I don't think people understand the devastation caused by just one of NSO's sales. Every country should teach in school the true cost of their own arms trades. Depressingly it seems peace can only be found within a weapons contract. How long do we wait for stability and freedom? Which arms shareholder's bank balance needs to be satiated before we can have peace? This community is full of talented and privileged people, if you are reading this I compel you to not lift a single finger in the way of another person's demise - no matter how sophisticated the abstraction or large the paycheck.
- sagiegurari 6y agowhen you face extermination and terrorism maybe you will understand how the world works and what needs to be done to survive. peace sometimes comes from understanding of others strength.
- smashah 6y agoYou don't know me. And I don't know you. But "We face extermination therefore we should be able to get rich by selling our (cyber)weapons to despots who in turn use it against their own citizens" doesn't sound like a winning argument.
- marshmallow_12 6y agoIf you phrase it like that, then no. how about "We face extermination, therefore we shall train soldiers who will work for us for a while, they will be able to make a living after their service using those skills"
- smashah 6y ago>they will be able to make a living They can, and many have made a "living" by moving on to working on normal tech startups. Nobody needs to make a killing to make a "living".
- joshgoldman 6y agoThese are exaggerated lies, save the conspiracies for Reddit, not here.
- xyzelement 6y agoThis is really straight forward - a nation's economic activity is always going to be shaped by its military policy and investment. For example - the US dominance in fields like internet, electronics and aviation is probably directly related to the investment the country has made in related fields for military reasons. Once you have a manufacturing base and labor force that knows how to do X, they will do it commercially. Israel is a small nation of well educated people which is consistently dealing with external existential threads. Of course its military strategy is going to be intelligence-based (rather pre-empt on pin-point basis rather than go to all out war down the road.) And then of course people will graduate from that military experience of using computers for broad data analysis and look to put it to commercial use. This manifests in cyber security and ad tec and plenty of other civilian uses like medical imaging. None of this is particularly malign or surprising. It comes down to - if you have a large labor force who can do X, and there are subsets of X you don't like, there's going to be some proportion of what the country does that you won't like.
- helge9210 6y ago> Israel is a small nation of well educated people Out of 9 million population, only 200k work in Hi-Tech and only 28k of those work in startups. Only half of the high school students successfully pass matriculation examination. Very common mistake (even in Israel) to confuse Jews as a nation and Israel as Jewish state. Half of the jews chose not to live in Israel. The educated half.
- NeverFade 6y ago> Out of 9 million population, only 200k work in Hi-Tech Per available data, that is 321,000 employees, comprising 9.2% of the overall workforce. That is a very high portion, higher even than here in the US, where only 7.7% are tech workers. https://nocamels.com/2020/02/israeli-high-tech-industry-grows-workforce-shortage-18500/ https://nocamels.com/2020/02/israeli-high-tech-industry-grow... > Half of the jews chose not to live in Israel. The educated half. It's very clear that you have a blatant anti-Israeli agenda. Still important to point out that contrary to your biased, counterfactual claims, Israeli Jews are no less educated or talented than others, based on the actual facts of the Israeli technology industry and its economic achievements: https://www.amazon.com/Start-up-Nation-Israels-Economic-Miracle/dp/0446541478 https://www.amazon.com/Start-up-Nation-Israels-Economic-Mira...
- solosoyokaze 6y agoYou're missing the why Israel is "consistently dealing with external existential threats". It's because they are engaging in aggressive, illegal and amoral behavior that is causing others to retaliate. The espionage mentioned in this article is just one of many dirty tricks they are using to prop up their apartheid state.
- zucker42 6y agoThat's a very one-sided explanation. I'm not saying that Israel are the "good guys" but there's more to their conflicts with their neighbors than just Israeli aggression.
- solosoyokaze 6y agoOnly if you believe that Israel's occupation of Palestine is legitimate. In 1948 we knew better that to create a new colonization project (or should have). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- zucker42 6y agoYou're changing arguments. Your first comment was phrased in present tense and was about current Israeli aggression. Now you are supporting your one-sided view by claiming the original settlement was illegitimate. The reality is at some point you have to move past history to make the best decision now. It's neither moral nor practical to uproot or kill the people currently living in Israel because the original settlement was wrong or misguided. Palastinian claims over Israel make as much sense as Taiwanese claims over mainland China (or PRC claims over Taiwan). And I say that as someone who is very against continued aggression from Israel and for recognition of a Palastinian state.
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
- albntomat0 6y agoIs there any sense of how many 8200-grad founded companies are in the "sketchy" side (not sure what other word to use) of cyber-security? The article mentions 4, and implies the rest of the 700 mentioned are similar.
- fay59 6y agoWhat is non-sketchy offensive cyber-security to you?
- Un1corn 6y agoSelling services for democracies that will use it for counter terrorism? There are legitimate use for offensive cyber security
- albntomat0 6y ago> A 2018 study cited by Haaretz estimated that 80% of the 2,300 people who founded Israel’s 700 cybersecurity companies had come through IDF intelligence. The specific quote is that 8200 grads have founded a large number of cyber security companies in general, and the article follows by discussing specific offensive and surveillance ones (NSO, etc.). My read of the article is that it implies that most of the 700 companies are similar. The link for the study links to a paywalled article about the survey. Since defensive cyber security is a bigger market, I'd like to know if 8200 grads found offensive companies at a significantly higher rate than defensive ones.
- underdeserver 6y agoI follow the field, and I'd say defensive companies (anti malware, intrusion detection, monitoring, anti fraud etc.) outnumber offensive companies 100-to-1.
- PoignardAzur 6y agoI don't want to do whataboutism and I completely agree that international arms trade is a seriously evil, especially with the kind of partners the article mentions... But I really don't like the overall tone of the article and the way it paints Israel as uniquely nefarious. Eg: > In the Israeli cyberweapon sector, he argues, “the companies are implementing government policy.” Mack says Israeli companies are not truly private, like their European or American counterparts. “Israel has so much military sensitivity” that, in effect, many of these cyberweapon sales are “military agreements between governments.” Oh please. You will never find an arm sales from French, British or American companies that wasn't mediated on some level by their respective government. In France the top executives of weapons companies (eg Dassault, Thales) often come from the same school (ENA) as the political elite, and are always well connected to whoever the current president and ministers are. Thales in particular is owned at 25% by the government. Israel plays the same game everyone else in the world plays, they just happen to have a more immediate stake in it. Any discussion of weapon sales that doesn't mention the broader picture is misleading at best.
- helge9210 6y ago> In Israel, tech education can begin as early as middle school Actual selection starts in kindergarden. Various games and activities that select for ability to follow and understand the rules and so on. Results from kindergarden define class distribution in elementary. At the second grade kids do kind of IQ test (0-100). Those who scored 92-95 get selected for one-day-a-week development program. Those with 95-100 get selected to special schools. Every half a year each teacher fills a summary on each kid. The summary is added to general evaluation. By the time, they get to army, it's known precisely which unit is the best fit mentally and physically. Drawback of this system: if immigrant kid gets directly into high school without document trail, he is labeled as not smart. Goes directly to the Border Police. There is a special unit within the Border Policy for kids, who are smart and got there by mistake. In general border police are mentally challenged grunts unable to follow complex written instructions (anecdote: my collegue was treating in the field a border police soldier who lost an eye by shooting through the hole with label "Do not shoot through this hole, you'll lose an eye").
- tguvot 6y agoIt's a bit overkill. There is plenty of immigrant kids that go directly to high school and from there to 8200 and whatever. Half of compsci class in my high school was fresh off the plane and i don't think anyone ended in border police :)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- avipars 6y agoGreat point!
- shahar2k 6y agoy'know as an israeli who left the country at 13, that explains some interesting tests I remember :) (are you talking about "psychometric" testing?)
- helge9210 6y agoYes, except after high school test. Psychometric test after high school and before university is calibrated to predict performance at the first semester finals.
- lormayna 6y agoSome years ago I had an interview from a cybersecurity startup founded by a member of 8200 unit. It was the worst process selection ever: they ask me to perform a demo (with my own hardware, in the nights and weekends) and at least 5 interviews with several VPs and company's key persons. The process seems going well, they made me lot of promises, they told me that we was only two in the final selection step, but suddendly they disappeared and they completely ghosted me. I send several emails to the HR but he did not reply. At the end, I mailed the headhunter that found me on LinkedIn and he told me that they took other decisions. This was very unpolite by them, I wasted lot of private time for nothing.
- chzm 6y agoThis is serious because many leaders especially in developing countries where democracy is relatively young are using the same technologies to spy on opposition leaders and activists. Many people are dying and are running away from their homeland because Israel technology is enabling dictators and shrinking the rights of others.
- whearyou 6y agoIs it just me or are Israel related threads getting brigaded recently?
- Udik 6y agoMaybe their free pass has finally expired?
- whearyou 6y agoOr you know, the anti semites are back out in force
- dang 6y agoYou don't need to resort to hidden variables to explain why this topic breaks out into flamewars. Also, can you please review the site guidelines, which ask you not to post like this? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
- zawaideh 6y agoMaintaining an apartheid regime where half the population is subject to military rule will require big investments in this. I guess it’s profitable for them after all.
- andrepd 6y ago> Within the Israeli cyberweapons industry, the totemic name is NSO Group. Its Pegasus technology can purportedly hack a phone without the target even clicking a link. It’s been used to track dissidents, activists, and journalists from Mexico to Morocco. Most infamously, according to a 2018 lawsuit, the Saudi government is alleged to have used Pegasus to hack the phone of a friend of Jamal Khashoggi’s in order to monitor the journalist before his murder. > Behind NSO Group, there are many more. Cellebrite offers services to reconstruct data deleted from devices. NSO’s sister company Circles sells the ability to locate a person’s physical location using only their phone number. Terrifying stuff. All this makes me wonder: nowadays, how are citizens living under oppressive governments ever to conceivably organise any kind of resistance? Such pervasive and all-encompassing surveillance makes it impossible that any kind of opposition can ever be mounted, if citizens can be monitored everywhere at all times. Absolutely depressing stuff.
- mensetmanusman 6y agoThis is why I have recently thought that part of the US national labs’s mission should be to create secure communications software in the event of an authoritarian government takeover. Such software could also be shared with other country’s citizens.
- ENOTTY 6y agoCheck out the Open Technology Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Technology_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Technology_Fund
- spaetzleesser 6y agoOnce they have drones with weapons then even gun rights like the second amendment won't help. I feel people like Stalin or Hitler were born just a little too early. Today's tech would make their job much easier.
- jollofricepeas 6y agoOr let’s even pick much more recent figures... “I feel people like J. Edgar Hoover and Joseph McCarthy were born just a little too early.” For non-Americans: - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
- nsajko 6y agoCitizen Lab has covered NSO Group extensively, just search for HN comments or stories ("nso citizen lab"). What NSO Group's selling is much scarier in reality (with more details) than what this article presents (I just skimmed the article).
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- atomicson 6y agoMark Zuckerberg aka Zucky is one of Unit 8200 member.