5 ms·

The tech industry is chock full of spies working for one side or the other. FAANG has been an intelligence front since the beginning. The only bullshit here is

by SMVS 5y ago

The tech industry is chock full of spies working for one side or the other. FAANG has been an intelligence front since the beginning. The only bullshit here is targeting KSA, when everyone's involved.

l33t2328 5y ago
Why do you say FAANG has been an intelligence front since the beginning?
- southerntofu 5y ago
  Because all of Silicon Valley has a strong/long history with the military industrial complex and various intelligence services? It's not exactly a secret... Now take a look at how many ex-intelligence run tech companies (may i remind you that former NSA head is on Amazon board?) and how many tech companies happily collaborate with intelligence services (Microsoft, Amazon, Palantir).
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  PRISM would seem to support that idea.
  - sneak 5y ago
    Front suggests secret ownership/control. More likely is that they are simply compelled by the state to spy, willingly or not.
    - thaumasiotes 5y ago
      How is "the state secretly compels them to do things" different from "they are secretly controlled by the state"?
      - d23 5y ago
        As another commenter suggested: it's absurd beyond parody and a flagrant abuse of language to conflate being a "front" with being compelled by a third party (especially one with legal authority) to do some action(s). Being a "front" suggests an entire business model created by and built around propping up that third party such that the two are indistinguishable actors on everything but the surface level.
        thaumasiotes 5y ago
        > Being a "front" suggests an entire business model created by and built around propping up that third party such that the two are indistinguishable actors on everything but the surface level. No. One party being a front for another party suggests that the two are indistinguishable actors on everything but the surface level, or more accurately that any action taken by the first party might be better viewed as being "really" taken by the second party, that any information given to the first party is also being given to the second party, etc. It does not suggest that fronting for the second party is the only thing the first party does, or that the first party was created to serve the purposes of the second party. Taking an example out of the dictionary, it would be unusual to claim that a massage parlor serving as a front for prostitution is obviously, by its nature as a "front", unwilling to provide massages.
        graperapist1480 5y ago
        so when google releases its 13th chat app, that’s really the CIA doing it? Netflix’s chaos monkey program is ackthuallee an intelligence scam to attack your distributed systems from within?
        thaumasiotes 5y ago
        How did you go from > It does not suggest that fronting for the second party is the only thing the first party does to > Netflix’s chaos monkey program is ackthuallee an intelligence scam to attack your distributed systems from within? You're trying to interpret me as saying literally the opposite of the plain text of my comment. Work on your reading comprehension. But yes, when Google releases its 13th chat app, there are good reasons to view that as being a CIA chat app with Google branding.
  - evgen 5y ago
    No it would not. It would only suggest that once the data existed there was an interest on the part of certain government agencies to gain access to the data. The idea that these companies are 'fronts' for these agencies is moronic to the point of being self-parody.
- graperapist1480 5y ago
  as a longtime CIA front myself (three of Allen Dulles’ secret children in a trench coat), I have it on good authority google’s sole purpose is to steal your data and then laugh at your porn and internet history. You sure love those tiny Asian feet! The search engine and internet thing just kinda fell out of it, and then became too big to stop by the time we realized it’d become the main thing
- CyanBird 5y ago
  Because it has[1] As for the rest, it is just a matter of checking funding from inqtel and associated groups The UK has information warfare agents on Twitter as well [2] None of this is a disputed topic, back on the 70s with operation mockingbird US intelligence agencies bragged that they had an agent/asset on every important editorial board on the country [3] which all goes back to the church committee [1] https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-goo... [2] www.businessinsider.com/twitter-chief-also-works-for-the-british-armys-information-unit-2019-10 [3] https://schoolhistory.co.uk/notes/operation-mockingbird/ https://schoolhistory.co.uk/notes/operation-mockingbird/
  - evgen 5y ago
    So your proof is one bullshit story made up by someone who wants to claim Google was created by the CIA but lacks any real evidence. The fact that a mid-level exec at twitter was an Army reservist, and an claim that TLAs were controlling newspapers that is even more poorly sourced than the Google claim. Did you even read the first and third story you cite to see the level of innuendo and hand-waving suggestions without supporting evidence that this 'reporting' was using? Try again paranoia troll.
- homo_ergaster 5y ago
  There is a reason AWS’ first and largest region is in Northern Virginia
  - evgen 5y ago
    Yes, because at the time there were only four or five main junctions for cross-country internet peering locations. Seattle was not on that list and if you are not going to be local then why go to CA and compete for space, data-center engineers, and peering with every other late-90s dot-com on the planet when you could go to an area with equivalent infrastructure and less competition for the resources. The reason so much telecom infrastructure terminated in that region was due to proximity to the government center of gravity, but also due to simple geography and the tendency of new telecom infra to be built out in parallel to existing telecom infra. Oh, you were trying to make some sort of sinister innuendo based upon your complete lack of understanding of the telecom industry in the original dot-com era and the existing long-haul infrastructure at the time? Ok.
    - homo_ergaster 5y ago
      > The reason so much telecom infrastructure terminated in that region was due to proximity to the government center of gravity Yeah, that’s what I said. You could have just upvoted the comment ;)
      - evgen 5y ago
        The suggestion implied was that the infra was there so that it could be monitored. The reality is that the infra was there because the US federal government was, and continues to be, one of the largest customers of telecom on the planet.
        homo_ergaster 5y ago
        Yeah I’m just saying they have a close relationship as evidenced by the location of us-east-1. How far that relationship goes you or I do not know, but clearly there is a close relationship

by SMVS 5y ago

l33t2328 5y ago

Why do you say FAANG has been an intelligence front since the beginning?

southerntofu 5y ago
Because all of Silicon Valley has a strong/long history with the military industrial complex and various intelligence services? It's not exactly a secret... Now take a look at how many ex-intelligence run tech companies (may i remind you that former NSA head is on Amazon board?) and how many tech companies happily collaborate with intelligence services (Microsoft, Amazon, Palantir).
thaumasiotes 5y ago
PRISM would seem to support that idea.
- sneak 5y ago
  Front suggests secret ownership/control. More likely is that they are simply compelled by the state to spy, willingly or not.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    How is "the state secretly compels them to do things" different from "they are secretly controlled by the state"?
    - d23 5y ago
      As another commenter suggested: it's absurd beyond parody and a flagrant abuse of language to conflate being a "front" with being compelled by a third party (especially one with legal authority) to do some action(s). Being a "front" suggests an entire business model created by and built around propping up that third party such that the two are indistinguishable actors on everything but the surface level.
      - thaumasiotes 5y ago
        > Being a "front" suggests an entire business model created by and built around propping up that third party such that the two are indistinguishable actors on everything but the surface level. No. One party being a front for another party suggests that the two are indistinguishable actors on everything but the surface level, or more accurately that any action taken by the first party might be better viewed as being "really" taken by the second party, that any information given to the first party is also being given to the second party, etc. It does not suggest that fronting for the second party is the only thing the first party does, or that the first party was created to serve the purposes of the second party. Taking an example out of the dictionary, it would be unusual to claim that a massage parlor serving as a front for prostitution is obviously, by its nature as a "front", unwilling to provide massages.
        graperapist1480 5y ago
        so when google releases its 13th chat app, that’s really the CIA doing it? Netflix’s chaos monkey program is ackthuallee an intelligence scam to attack your distributed systems from within?
        thaumasiotes 5y ago
        How did you go from > It does not suggest that fronting for the second party is the only thing the first party does to > Netflix’s chaos monkey program is ackthuallee an intelligence scam to attack your distributed systems from within? You're trying to interpret me as saying literally the opposite of the plain text of my comment. Work on your reading comprehension. But yes, when Google releases its 13th chat app, there are good reasons to view that as being a CIA chat app with Google branding.
- evgen 5y ago
  No it would not. It would only suggest that once the data existed there was an interest on the part of certain government agencies to gain access to the data. The idea that these companies are 'fronts' for these agencies is moronic to the point of being self-parody.
graperapist1480 5y ago
as a longtime CIA front myself (three of Allen Dulles’ secret children in a trench coat), I have it on good authority google’s sole purpose is to steal your data and then laugh at your porn and internet history. You sure love those tiny Asian feet! The search engine and internet thing just kinda fell out of it, and then became too big to stop by the time we realized it’d become the main thing
CyanBird 5y ago
Because it has[1] As for the rest, it is just a matter of checking funding from inqtel and associated groups The UK has information warfare agents on Twitter as well [2] None of this is a disputed topic, back on the 70s with operation mockingbird US intelligence agencies bragged that they had an agent/asset on every important editorial board on the country [3] which all goes back to the church committee [1] https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-goo... [2] www.businessinsider.com/twitter-chief-also-works-for-the-british-armys-information-unit-2019-10 [3] https://schoolhistory.co.uk/notes/operation-mockingbird/ https://schoolhistory.co.uk/notes/operation-mockingbird/
- evgen 5y ago
  So your proof is one bullshit story made up by someone who wants to claim Google was created by the CIA but lacks any real evidence. The fact that a mid-level exec at twitter was an Army reservist, and an claim that TLAs were controlling newspapers that is even more poorly sourced than the Google claim. Did you even read the first and third story you cite to see the level of innuendo and hand-waving suggestions without supporting evidence that this 'reporting' was using? Try again paranoia troll.
homo_ergaster 5y ago
There is a reason AWS’ first and largest region is in Northern Virginia
- evgen 5y ago
  Yes, because at the time there were only four or five main junctions for cross-country internet peering locations. Seattle was not on that list and if you are not going to be local then why go to CA and compete for space, data-center engineers, and peering with every other late-90s dot-com on the planet when you could go to an area with equivalent infrastructure and less competition for the resources. The reason so much telecom infrastructure terminated in that region was due to proximity to the government center of gravity, but also due to simple geography and the tendency of new telecom infra to be built out in parallel to existing telecom infra. Oh, you were trying to make some sort of sinister innuendo based upon your complete lack of understanding of the telecom industry in the original dot-com era and the existing long-haul infrastructure at the time? Ok.
  - homo_ergaster 5y ago
    > The reason so much telecom infrastructure terminated in that region was due to proximity to the government center of gravity Yeah, that’s what I said. You could have just upvoted the comment ;)
    - evgen 5y ago
      The suggestion implied was that the infra was there so that it could be monitored. The reality is that the infra was there because the US federal government was, and continues to be, one of the largest customers of telecom on the planet.
      - homo_ergaster 5y ago
        Yeah I’m just saying they have a close relationship as evidenced by the location of us-east-1. How far that relationship goes you or I do not know, but clearly there is a close relationship