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It is hard to believe that NSO group is allowed to operate. They sell technology to horrible places, they cause death torture, and a host of less horrible thin

It is hard to believe that NSO group is allowed to operate. They sell technology to horrible places, they cause death torture, and a host of less horrible things. Yet they are protected by the US and Israel, which I believe is the case that they have backdoors into all of it, and getting the targets to actually install this malware on their own saves a lot time. All good, except for the actual real world victims.

bigfatkitten 2y ago
> It is hard to believe that NSO group is allowed to operate. They sell technology to horrible places, they cause death torture, and a host of less horrible things. That describes the entire Israeli defence industry, and a fair sized portion of Israel's cybersecurity industry, based on the stomach-churning sales pitches I've received. NSO are not unique, they just got unlucky.
- tptacek 2y ago
  It describes the entire defense industry, and a fair sized portion of the cybersecurity industry, full stop.
- EMIRELADERO 2y ago
  > based on the stomach-churning sales pitches I've received. Care to elaborate? This could be news story-worthy
tptacek 2y ago
How do you "not" allow them to operate? People write things like this that seem premised on the idea that Bahrain wouldn't have implant technology if you shuttered NSO, but the only thing that would actually change is who the invoice got sent to. These companies have an unbeatable value proposition, lots of competition, and the lowest capital investment requirements of any intelligence product. I really feel like people aren't thinking this stuff through. Exploits and implants are not rocket science. There aren't a huge number of people in the world that are world-class at reliably exploiting modern targets, but it's not like there's just like 20 of them or something. later In case it's unclear from the comment: I don't think this is a good thing. I'm speaking positively, not normatively.
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
  > premised on the idea that Bahrain wouldn't have implant technology if you shuttered NSO, but the only thing that would actually change is who the invoice got sent to So what? Does this mean we should sell our arms to any horrible enemies of our state because if we don't, China will? Many many of these regimes target Americans. Kashoggi had American citizen kids. Why do we allow our own citizens to get harmed because we have to love Israel and NSO so much? Who gets paid to look the other way?
gerash 2y ago
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- bushbaba 2y ago
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- fortran77 2y ago
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VoodooJuJu 2y ago
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- dang 2y ago
  We've banned this account for frequently posting flamewar comments, breaking the site guidelines, and ignoring our requests to stop. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
deleted 2y ago
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kindeyooweee 2y ago
everybody tortures kills its all the same like Mary Kate the smart ones have figured out how to do it without attracting attention ever heard of fingers in fedex boxes being sent to mothers in the states? does that make fedex liable? probably not NSO is just the weak kid thats been caught and is the punching bag
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
  > ever heard of fingers in fedex boxes being sent to mothers in the states? does that make fedex liable? FedEx operates a service known to be used by criminals but also of so much utility to the average citizen that the government has an entire service to provide the same thing. The government doesn't provide spyware to anyone commercially and neither should we tolerate companies that do.

bigfatkitten 2y ago

> It is hard to believe that NSO group is allowed to operate. They sell technology to horrible places, they cause death torture, and a host of less horrible things. That describes the entire Israeli defence industry, and a fair sized portion of Israel's cybersecurity industry, based on the stomach-churning sales pitches I've received. NSO are not unique, they just got unlucky.

tptacek 2y ago
It describes the entire defense industry, and a fair sized portion of the cybersecurity industry, full stop.
EMIRELADERO 2y ago
> based on the stomach-churning sales pitches I've received. Care to elaborate? This could be news story-worthy

tptacek 2y ago

How do you "not" allow them to operate? People write things like this that seem premised on the idea that Bahrain wouldn't have implant technology if you shuttered NSO, but the only thing that would actually change is who the invoice got sent to. These companies have an unbeatable value proposition, lots of competition, and the lowest capital investment requirements of any intelligence product. I really feel like people aren't thinking this stuff through. Exploits and implants are not rocket science. There aren't a huge number of people in the world that are world-class at reliably exploiting modern targets, but it's not like there's just like 20 of them or something. later In case it's unclear from the comment: I don't think this is a good thing. I'm speaking positively, not normatively.

aprilthird2021 2y ago
> premised on the idea that Bahrain wouldn't have implant technology if you shuttered NSO, but the only thing that would actually change is who the invoice got sent to So what? Does this mean we should sell our arms to any horrible enemies of our state because if we don't, China will? Many many of these regimes target Americans. Kashoggi had American citizen kids. Why do we allow our own citizens to get harmed because we have to love Israel and NSO so much? Who gets paid to look the other way?

gerash 2y ago

[flagged]

bushbaba 2y ago
[flagged]
fortran77 2y ago
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VoodooJuJu 2y ago

[flagged]

dang 2y ago
We've banned this account for frequently posting flamewar comments, breaking the site guidelines, and ignoring our requests to stop. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

kindeyooweee 2y ago

everybody tortures kills its all the same like Mary Kate the smart ones have figured out how to do it without attracting attention ever heard of fingers in fedex boxes being sent to mothers in the states? does that make fedex liable? probably not NSO is just the weak kid thats been caught and is the punching bag

aprilthird2021 2y ago
> ever heard of fingers in fedex boxes being sent to mothers in the states? does that make fedex liable? FedEx operates a service known to be used by criminals but also of so much utility to the average citizen that the government has an entire service to provide the same thing. The government doesn't provide spyware to anyone commercially and neither should we tolerate companies that do.