4 ms·

Anyone know why it's always Israel with the mobile spyware?

by FirmwareBurner 1y ago

orisho 1y ago
It's not just Israel. It's just not newsworthy if it's not Israel.
- andy99 1y ago
  Somehow "invasive Mountain View bloatware is harvesting data from Samsung users in the US" doesn't get the same attention.
  - amarcheschi 1y ago
    I routinely see posts of various shitfuckeries in the home page of hn, mostly from big tech or other companies
  - dundarious 1y ago
    It certainly has a valence if you're in Gaza, etc., and this software is typically found in phones in the region.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  Which EU countries are comparable in militarized mobile spyware?
fakedang 1y ago
Ex Mossad, Shin Bet and Aman guys going into the private sector. In other countries, intelligence services people usually stay around for the long run. In Israel, most do it for a few years before moving to the private sector, and taking those talents with them. It's also the case with Russia and China - there's just more money for these guys in the private sector, while national service ensures they don't get treated any more exceptionally and obtain very little benefit for staying on.
fancyfredbot 1y ago
NSO group are a particularly successful Israeli spyware company, but there are others. For example Pars is Turkish.
markus_zhang 1y ago
Not sure, but they are really important in the Ads scene (yeah those ads). You got Ironsource and Applovin, both from IL. I think they are pretty talented in these things.
kmeisthax 1y ago
It's not, but you hear about them more often because they're America's attack dog. AFAIK China has their own mobile spyware too, and the US has several private companies that make spyware too. Smartphones are juicy targets. Most people have one, originally by choice and now by social mandate. And people have a habit of loading lots of personal data on them - at a minimum, just by using the location features on the device, which produces a near-perfect location tracking log. Lots of governments would love nothing more than to have access to telepathy - i.e. actual mind reading - to figure out which citizens were loyal, disloyal, engaged in criminal behavior, etc. And having a full unencrypted phone backup is basically a mind rip. The only countries that aren't interested in mobile spyware are countries not big enough to afford a spyware engineering org.
Barrin92 1y ago
you know what they said about Prussia, it's a military that happens to have a country attached to it, Israel is sort of like that but with an internet connection
sReinwald 1y ago
It's not always, but Israel is uniquely positioned for tech companies of this kind thanks to Unit 8200. Israel has mandatory military service. They grab the most promising teenagers and give them insanely good cybersecurity training on the government's dime. They do their mandatory service, maybe spend a few more years in the unit, then move on to the private sector. Most, if not all, of Israel's tech companies in the cybersecurity/surveillance sector are related to Unit 8200 for this reason. But also: I think it's fair to say that Israeli spyware gets more media attention party because of geopolitical factors. Similar to Russian or Chinese spyware. I doubt the same headline would catch as much attention if you swapped Israeli-founded with Spanish-founded.

Anyone know why it's always Israel with the mobile spyware?

orisho 1y ago

It's not just Israel. It's just not newsworthy if it's not Israel.

andy99 1y ago
Somehow "invasive Mountain View bloatware is harvesting data from Samsung users in the US" doesn't get the same attention.
- amarcheschi 1y ago
  I routinely see posts of various shitfuckeries in the home page of hn, mostly from big tech or other companies
- dundarious 1y ago
  It certainly has a valence if you're in Gaza, etc., and this software is typically found in phones in the region.
FirmwareBurner 1y ago
Which EU countries are comparable in militarized mobile spyware?

fakedang 1y ago

Ex Mossad, Shin Bet and Aman guys going into the private sector. In other countries, intelligence services people usually stay around for the long run. In Israel, most do it for a few years before moving to the private sector, and taking those talents with them. It's also the case with Russia and China - there's just more money for these guys in the private sector, while national service ensures they don't get treated any more exceptionally and obtain very little benefit for staying on.

fancyfredbot 1y ago

NSO group are a particularly successful Israeli spyware company, but there are others. For example Pars is Turkish.

markus_zhang 1y ago

Not sure, but they are really important in the Ads scene (yeah those ads). You got Ironsource and Applovin, both from IL. I think they are pretty talented in these things.

kmeisthax 1y ago

It's not, but you hear about them more often because they're America's attack dog. AFAIK China has their own mobile spyware too, and the US has several private companies that make spyware too. Smartphones are juicy targets. Most people have one, originally by choice and now by social mandate. And people have a habit of loading lots of personal data on them - at a minimum, just by using the location features on the device, which produces a near-perfect location tracking log. Lots of governments would love nothing more than to have access to telepathy - i.e. actual mind reading - to figure out which citizens were loyal, disloyal, engaged in criminal behavior, etc. And having a full unencrypted phone backup is basically a mind rip. The only countries that aren't interested in mobile spyware are countries not big enough to afford a spyware engineering org.

Barrin92 1y ago

you know what they said about Prussia, it's a military that happens to have a country attached to it, Israel is sort of like that but with an internet connection

sReinwald 1y ago

It's not always, but Israel is uniquely positioned for tech companies of this kind thanks to Unit 8200. Israel has mandatory military service. They grab the most promising teenagers and give them insanely good cybersecurity training on the government's dime. They do their mandatory service, maybe spend a few more years in the unit, then move on to the private sector. Most, if not all, of Israel's tech companies in the cybersecurity/surveillance sector are related to Unit 8200 for this reason. But also: I think it's fair to say that Israeli spyware gets more media attention party because of geopolitical factors. Similar to Russian or Chinese spyware. I doubt the same headline would catch as much attention if you swapped Israeli-founded with Spanish-founded.