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If your goal is to hurt Israel, I doubt you would give money to the NSO Group to spy on Palestinian human rights defenders in the hopes that some day their targ

If your goal is to hurt Israel, I doubt you would give money to the NSO Group to spy on Palestinian human rights defenders in the hopes that some day their targets list becomes public. As if that violation of Palestinian rights would suddenly turn people against Israel. And if it's their enemies are behind the hack and then are adding false information to hurt Israel, there are so many better targets. Any US journalist critical of Israel for example.

bawolff 5y ago
I was thinking more if you had access to some leaked nso exploits somehow, not paying them. And i do think israel is vulnerable to bad PR, especially right now when there has been a lot of it recently - at least that seems to be its weakest point right now. Its not like anyone is going to win a straight up military conflict with them. > Any US journalist critical of Israel for example. But if you do that, NSA becomes involved, much easier to get discovered. It also fits with the narrative a bit better to make the target a Palestinian human rights activist. On the whole though, i do think its more likely that Israel is behind this, i'm just exploring this from the perspective of who could potentially benefit.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  > On the whole though, i do think its more likely that Israel is behind this Not just more likely, but overwhelmingly more likely. You are clearly not weighing the facts in a neutral manner if you think a false flag by Hamas (?) using an Israeli security company's exploit to hack Palestinian activists has any substantial possibility of being what occurred.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  >But if you do that, NSA becomes involved, much easier to get discovered. I think you're overestimating how much the NSA saying "no no, the NSO Group didn't spy on the US, it was planted by those tricksy Iranians" would diminish the story. I also disagree that Israel is particularly vulnerable to negative PR right now. I somewhat wonder if you're just noticing more stories critical of them because the latest event is tech related.

bawolff 5y ago

I was thinking more if you had access to some leaked nso exploits somehow, not paying them. And i do think israel is vulnerable to bad PR, especially right now when there has been a lot of it recently - at least that seems to be its weakest point right now. Its not like anyone is going to win a straight up military conflict with them. > Any US journalist critical of Israel for example. But if you do that, NSA becomes involved, much easier to get discovered. It also fits with the narrative a bit better to make the target a Palestinian human rights activist. On the whole though, i do think its more likely that Israel is behind this, i'm just exploring this from the perspective of who could potentially benefit.

whimsicalism 5y ago
> On the whole though, i do think its more likely that Israel is behind this Not just more likely, but overwhelmingly more likely. You are clearly not weighing the facts in a neutral manner if you think a false flag by Hamas (?) using an Israeli security company's exploit to hack Palestinian activists has any substantial possibility of being what occurred.
boomboomsubban 5y ago
>But if you do that, NSA becomes involved, much easier to get discovered. I think you're overestimating how much the NSA saying "no no, the NSO Group didn't spy on the US, it was planted by those tricksy Iranians" would diminish the story. I also disagree that Israel is particularly vulnerable to negative PR right now. I somewhat wonder if you're just noticing more stories critical of them because the latest event is tech related.