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Israel demanded Google and Amazon use secret 'wink' to sidestep legal orders

963 points by skilled 11mo ago

helsinkiandrew 11mo ago
So if a government agency or court (presumably the US government) makes a data request with a non disclosure order (FBI NSL, FISA, SCA) - Google and Amazon would break that non disclosure order and tell Israel. Wouldn't those involved be liable to years in prison?
- alwa 11mo ago
  I imagine it depends on which country makes that request, its legal basis, and how their gag order is written. I find it hard to imagine a federal US order wouldn’t proscribe this cute “wink” payment. (Although who knows? If a state or locality takes it upon themselves to raid a bit barn, can their local courts bind transnational payments or is that federal jurisdiction?) But from the way it’s structured—around a specific amount of currency corresponding to a dialing code of the requesting nation—it sure sounds like they’re thinking more broadly. I could more easily imagine an opportunistic order—say, from a small neighboring state compelling a local contractor to tap an international cable as it crosses their territory—to accommodate the “winking” disclosure: by being either so loosely drafted or so far removed from the parent company’s jurisdiction as to make the $billions contract worth preserving this way.
- IAmBroom 11mo ago
  In a nation that strictly follows its own laws, sure.
  - votepaunchy 11mo ago
    Your terms are acceptable.
- breppp 11mo ago
  and your assumption is that if Google has conflicting legal obligations to the USA and Israel it will choose Israel... In my opinion that's extremely unlikely. This was probably set up for other kinds of countries
  - NickC25 11mo ago
    [flagged]
rwmj 11mo ago
The method is buried about 60% through the article, but it's interesting. It seems incredibly risky for the cloud companies to do this. Was it agreed by some salespeople without the knowledge of legal / management? Leaked documents from Israel’s finance ministry, which include a finalised version of the Nimbus agreement, suggest the secret code would take the form of payments – referred to as “special compensation” – made by the companies to the Israeli government. According to the documents, the payments must be made “within 24 hours of the information being transferred” and correspond to the telephone dialing code of the foreign country, amounting to sums between 1,000 and 9,999 shekels. If either Google or Amazon provides information to authorities in the US, where the dialing code is +1, and they are prevented from disclosing their cooperation, they must send the Israeli government 1,000 shekels. If, for example, the companies receive a request for Israeli data from authorities in Italy, where the dialing code is +39, they must send 3,900 shekels. If the companies conclude the terms of a gag order prevent them from even signaling which country has received the data, there is a backstop: the companies must pay 100,000 shekels ($30,000) to the Israeli government.
- levi-turner 11mo ago
  > Was it agreed by some salespeople without the knowledge of legal / management? Never worked for either company, but there's a zero percent chance. Legal agrees to bespoke terms and conditions on contracts (or negotiates them) for contracts. How flexible they are to agreeing to exotic terms depends on the dollar value of the contract, but there is no chance that these terms (a) weren't outlined in the contract and (b) weren't heavily scrutinized by legal (and ops, doing paybacks in such a manner likely require work-arounds for their ops and finance teams).
  - rwmj 11mo ago
    That's my experience too, but it seems impossible that a competent legal team would have agreed to this.
    - gadders 11mo ago
      Legal can advise, but it's ultimately up to the business to risk-accept. If they think the risk vs reward analysis makes it worthwhile, they can overrule legal and proceed.
rdtsc 11mo ago
Now that the trick is out the gag order will say explicitly not to make the payment. Or specifically to make a “false flag” payment, tell them it’s the Italians.
- Yossarrian22 11mo ago
  I don’t think speech can be compelled like that latter idea
  - rdtsc 11mo ago
    Are payments "speech" though? Just like the Israeli govt thinks they are being "cute" with the "winks" so can other governments be "cute" with their interpretation of "speech".
    - kevin_thibedeau 11mo ago
      The Supreme court has labeled political spending as free speech. No reason it can't extend everywhere.
    - DonHopkins 11mo ago
      Money talks.
- IAmBroom 11mo ago
  There's no need to alter a gag order. If you attempt an end-run around a gag order by speaking in French or Latin or Swahili, the gag order is still violated. This is exactly the same: changing the language in which the gag order is violated.
gruez 11mo ago
>Under the terms of the deal, the mechanism works like this: > If either Google or Amazon provides information to authorities in the US, where the dialing code is +1, and they are prevented from disclosing their cooperation, they must send the Israeli government 1,000 shekels. This sounds like warrant canaries but worse. At least with warrant canaries you argue that you can't compel speech, but in this case it's pretty clear to any judge that such payments constitute disclosure or violation of gag order, because you're taking a specific action that results in the target knowing the request was made.
- mikeyouse 11mo ago
  This reads like something a non-lawyer who watched too many bad detective movies would dream up. Theres absolutely no way this would pass legal muster —- even warrant canaries are mostly untested, but this is clearly like 5x ‘worse’ for the reasons you point out.
  - randallsquared 11mo ago
    From the article: > Several experts described the mechanism as a “clever” workaround that could comply with the letter of the law but not its spirit. It's not clear to me how it could comply with the letter of the law, but evidently at least some legal experts think it can? That uncertainty is probably how it made it past the legal teams in the first place.
    - AstralStorm 11mo ago
      Warrant canary depends on agreed upon inaction, which shields it somewhat. You cannot exactly compel speech by a gag order. This, being an active process, if found out, is violating a gag order by direct action.
      - votepaunchy 11mo ago
        Warrant canaries depend on action, the removal or altering of the canary document. It’s too clever but no more clever than what Israel is requiring here.
antonvs 11mo ago
[flagged]
- t-3 11mo ago
  Intentionally. An easy way to accuse people who oppose you of bias is to bait them into producing quotes and soundbites that can later be used (out-of-context or not) as evidence of antisemitism.
  - votepaunchy 11mo ago
    [flagged]
    - rozap 11mo ago
      Confidential documents yes. Genocide, also yes.
- dlubarov 11mo ago
  By wanting to know when foreign states are snooping on their data? The Guardian is trying their best to paint this as something nefarious on Israel's part, but it just isn't. Maybe Amazon and Google created a compliance issue for themselves, but that's not Israel's problem; Israel isn't obligated to comply with foreign states' gag orders.
- asdklfa 11mo ago
  I'm not sure which ones you're referring to, but it's very obvious they have outsized control in US politics and especially the Trump admin. That it is taboo to say this is evidence of that control, and I think that taboo serves to enable things like the genocide in Gaza via controlling US opinion. Articles like the above should raise major alarms among US citizens. And this is not the first time Israel has betrayed the US. They even welcomed Jonathan Pollard (a US citizen!) with open arms and he's now pursuing a political career in Israel. They're clearly not an ally, and it is mind boggling we continue to support them. And like any good RCA, we need to not only fix the current mess but analyze how it occurred so it does not happen again.
buyucu 11mo ago
[flagged]
- theobreuerweil 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - rkozik1989 11mo ago
    Israel stole US nuclear secrets to create their own nuclear weapons program, they killed American navy men, they destroyed 90% of the buildings in Gaza and very blatantly committed genocide in the process of doing so, Palestinians prisoners are commonly held without trials or charges i.e. they're hostages. Zionism literally cannot exist without them committing ethnic cleansing because everywhere Israelis live used to be Palestinian properties. Honestly, what is your point? What are you seeing that the rest of us aren't getting? For the record, my mother's family is mostly Sephardic.
    - dlubarov 11mo ago
      > they killed American navy men This was about 50 years ago, was accidental, and Israel apologized and paid reparations soon after. This is a pretty clear example of double standards for Israel - no other country gets demonized for friendly fire incidents.
      - Stevvo 11mo ago
        None of the sailors that survived believe it was accidental. They claim it was a deliberate false-flag attack.
        dlubarov 11mo ago
        The claims that it was deliberate boil down to "they must have known because there were identifying marks", which can be said about almost any friendly fire incident. In reality, not every operation is executed competently. Plenty of militaries have shot down their own airplanes, for example, despite the existence of several safeguards designed to prevent that.
ratelimitsteve 11mo ago
[flagged]
- kujjerl7 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - thaumasiotes 11mo ago
    People seem more accepting of the concept than you might expect. Compare the song "My Uncle Dan McCann", which you can hear here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_puzpI03Xcs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_puzpI03Xcs I found me uncle Dan McCann A very prosperous Yankee man He holds a seat in Congress And he's leader of his clan He's helped to write America's laws His heart and soul in Ireland's cause And God help the man who opened his jaws to me uncle Dan McCann As far as the song is concerned, this is admirable behavior. Of course, the song is written from the perspective of an Irishman visiting from Ireland to look for his uncle. But it's marketed to Americans. The question "is it a good thing to have American legislators whose purpose in life is to work for the benefit of Ireland?" never seems to come up.
    - rgblambda 11mo ago
      Though I recognise the similarity, a Irish song about a relative who emigrated to America in the 19th century, fought in the Civil War, becomes a politician and advocates for Irish Independence isn't really on the same scale as what the Israel lobby is being accused of. And a double reminder that it's an Irish song that tells an Irish perspective,not an American one.
      - thaumasiotes 11mo ago
        > And a double reminder that it's an Irish song that tells an Irish perspective,not an American one. No, it's an American song that tells an Irish perspective. It was written in America to be performed for American audiences. Why do American audiences appreciate it?
stopthebullshit 11mo ago
[dead]
sporkxrocket 11mo ago
[flagged]
- ilegitmadethisw 11mo ago
  Yeap. This site is infested with Zionist brain rot Edit: you Zionists can flag, downvote, whatever. Doesn’t make a difference. The world sees your grotesque actions and Israel will fall
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
zaoui_amine 11mo ago
That's wild. Sounds like a sketchy legal loophole for big tech.
cedws 11mo ago
Is managing servers really such a lost art that even governments with sensitive data must cede to AWS/Azure/GCP?
- geodel 11mo ago
  It is more of people who can manage servers have no standing in front of people who buy or sell cloud services.
- ignoramous 11mo ago
  > ...a lost art that even governments with sensitive data must cede to AWS/Azure/GCP? Apparently, US aid to a country is usually spent on US companies; Israel is no exception: https://theintercept.com/2024/05/01/google-amazon-nimbus-israel-weapons-arms-gaza https://theintercept.com/2024/05/01/google-amazon-nimbus-isr...
- dpoloncsak 11mo ago
  Can't buy stock contracts on Amazon/Microsoft/Google right before you announce the $1B investment towards cloud infrastructure if you roll it all yourself, though
- foota 11mo ago
  Apparently, yes: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/858tb-of-government-data-may-be-lost-for-good-after-south-korea-data-center-fire/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/858tb-of-governme...
- aaa_aaa 11mo ago
  Some states can get away with what ever they want, so it does not matter for them.
- zbentley 11mo ago
  I’ve seen government datacenters. We should be thankful they’re using the cloud. That’s not “cloud > onprem always”, that’s “even given cloud providers’ many faults governments are so terrible at managing and securing infrastructure today that the cloud is preferable for them”. Whether you anre pro- or anti-particular-government, you should still support gov-moves-to-cloud. The alternative is proven unbelievably worse on every possible axis.
advisedwang 11mo ago
I wonder if Google's plan here is to just not actually make the "special payments" if a gag order applies. Possibly they think that the contract doesn't actually require those payments (most contracts have a provision about not contradicting the law), or just ignore the contract provision when a gag order comes (how would Israel know, and what would they do about it anyway).
- ngruhn 11mo ago
  My thoughts as well. Also, "only" violating a contract sounds less illegal.
- overfeed 11mo ago
  > how would Israel know, and what would they do about it anyway Spy on, insert or recruit an asset from the pool of employees who are involved in any "Should we tell Israel?" discussion. That way, even if an answer is "No, don't alert them", the mere existence of the mechanism provides an actionable intelligence signal.
  - mdasen 11mo ago
    If they're able to gather the intelligence without a public signal, they wouldn't be wanting a public signal. Any discussion of "should we tell Israel" would be limited to people who knew of the secret subpoena's existence. If Israel already had an asset within that group, they'd just have that person signal them in a much more clandestine manner than a public payment mandated in a signed contract. Either Israel already knows about the subpoena, in which case the discussion doesn't matter, or they don't, in which case their asset wouldn't be in on the discussion.
- worik 11mo ago
  > Google's plan here is to just not actually make the "special payments" That does not help Signing the contract was a criminal conspiracy I am not holding my breath for prosecution, though.
- shrubble 11mo ago
  Israel reportedly has unredacted data feeds from the USA(this was part of the Snowden leaks, Guardian link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/11/nsa-americans-personal-data-israel-documents https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/11/nsa-americans-...). This means that they can read even the personal email of Supreme Court justices, congressmen and senators. However they have a gentleman’s agreement to not do that. “Wink”
shevy-java 11mo ago
Israel and the USA already coordinate, so I doubt this story. Other countries should stop selling data of their citizens to these two countries.
- lenerdenator 11mo ago
  That's basically how all governments work. If you don't want your data in the hands of someone with access to the state's monopoly on violence, you're best off getting rid of all internet access in your life.
- Analemma_ 11mo ago
  They coordinate, but coordination doesn't mean totally aligned behavior and interests which never diverge, nor that they don't try to spy on each other. Multiple people in the United States have been been caught and convicted of spying for Israel and are serving lengthy prison sentences because of it; Israeli lobbying efforts have tried to get their sentences commuted, so far without success. That's not what you would see if "coordination" went as far as your post implied.
  - Seattle3503 11mo ago
    I wouldn't be surprised if this is all a part of the "game" of spycraft. Israel probably expects the US spy agencies would get wind of this agreement. "I see you watching me."
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
gadders 11mo ago
Imagine if someone asked for the data for money laundering investigations. The cloud provider could get prosecuted for "tipping off".
neilv 11mo ago
Initially, I suspected the cloud contracts were for general government operations, to have geo-distributed backups and continuity, in event of regional disaster (natural or human-made). But could it instead/also be for international spy operations, like surveillance, propaganda, and cyber attacks? A major cloud provider has fast access at scale in multiple regions, is less likely to be blocked than certain countries, and can hide which customer the traffic is for. If it were for international operations, two questions: 1. How complicit would the cloud providers be? 2. For US-based providers, how likely that US spy agencies would be consulted before signing the contracts, and consciously allow it to proceed (i.e., let US cloud providers facilitate the foreign spy activity), so that US can monitor the activity?
- dfsegoat 11mo ago
  fwiw towards your theory, I believe that the US Govt actually considers cloud providers - by way of specific services offered "dual use" systems for mil or civil use. E.g. you will find references in AWS docs to Bureau of Industry/Security rulings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-use_technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-use_technology https://www.bis.gov/ https://www.bis.gov/ https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/global-export-compliance/ https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/global-export-compliance/
- megous 11mo ago
  In Microsoft case they provide services for storing and possibly processing (transcribing) calls of millions of people that are under belligerent occupation: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/microsoft-israeli-military-palestinian-phone-calls-cloud https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/microsoft-isra... I don't imagine Google and Amazon are any better. I.e. take boatloads of money, while sticking the head into sand and pretend it's not likely used to help the illegal occupation of Palestinians, to persecute and harm them.
nova22033 11mo ago
If the US government asked Google and amazon for data using specific legal authorities and the companies tipped off the Israeli government, there's a chance they may have broken the law....
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
  > there's a chance they may have broken the law There is certainty they broke the law. Both federally and, in all likelihood, in most states.
  - worik 11mo ago
    The agreement breaks the law
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
yshuman 11mo ago
[flagged]
- econ 11mo ago
  The empire is EOL tho
Havoc 11mo ago
Surprised that Israel didn't just decide to go it alone and build their own infra given the multiple reservations they clearly had. They have a vibrant tech ecosystem so could presumably pull it off
- vorpalhex 11mo ago
  I imagine the concern becomes survivability. Israeli's really like their multiple levels of backups, and having a data copy out of the reach of enemy arms seems high priority. Iran attacking US-East-1 would certainly be unusual.
  - noir_lord 11mo ago
    They could likely work around that, multiple locations in-country and an off site encrypted backup out of country. More likely is it was "aid" from the US which usually comes with stipulations about what/where they can spend it - common with weapons/military kit, wouldn't be surprised if they did something similar with cloud services.
    - vorpalhex 11mo ago
      Hundreds of missiles get colaunched making up multi-thousand missile waves. A 200 drone wave is "small". And any offsite that is "Israel's gov offsite" is an easy target even if in Cyprus or NYC. Comingling with a bunch of bulk commercial hosts is very safe from a threat modeling perspective (in this case).
- pcthrowaway 11mo ago
  Something worth noting is that when they call a significant number of reserves to IDF, their industries suffer. Most SWEs are still 20-40-something men, which would be the same demographic being called to service (I realize women also serve in the IDF, but combat positions are generally reserved for men). So it's possible that Israel can't rely on their own private tech industry being unaffected during high-engagement periods. I think the government does have plenty of its own infra (and military tech sectors would be unaffected by calling in reserves), but given the size of the country (and also considering its Palestinian second-class citizens who make up 20% of the Israeli population may not be trusted to work on more sensitive portions of its infrastructure) they're probably not able to manage every part of the stack. Probably only China and the U.S. can do this.
Ozzie_osman 11mo ago
> Microsoft said that using Azure in this way violated its terms of service and it was “not in the business of facilitating the mass surveillance of civilians”. Under the terms of the Nimbus deal, Google and Amazon are prohibited from taking such action as it would “discriminate” against the Israeli government. Doing so would incur financial penalties for the companies, as well as legal action for breach of contract. Insane. Obeying the law or ToS, apparently, is discriminatory when it comes to Israel.
- neuroelectron 11mo ago
  It would be suicide to sign the contract. It basically allows them to hack their platforms without any repercussions or ability to stop it. They would quickly claim expanded access is part of the contract.
- ktallett 11mo ago
  This endless bowing down to Israel is and always will be ridiculous. When a country can do whatever they like unchallenged, no matter how wrong, or how illegal, we have failed as a society.
  - ugh123 11mo ago
    That now makes two of U.S.
  - churchill 11mo ago
    [flagged]
    - loverofhumanz 11mo ago
      [flagged]
      - mikkupikku 11mo ago
        It's always this same lame rhetoric every single goddamn time.
znpy 11mo ago
[flagged]
- mynameajeff 11mo ago
  Could you elaborate on what specifically details regarding cn-northwest-1/similar are remotely similar to what's being described in the article?
- b00ty4breakfast 11mo ago
  As if the terms of Amazon's contract with the Chinese government being leaked wouldn't be massive news. This kind of cynicism is precisely why these things aren't challenged; "of course bad stuff is happening, why should I be concerned???"
vladgur 11mo ago
If we take "Israel" out of the equation to remove much of controversy, i dont understand why wouldnt any actor, especially government actor, take every possible step that their data remains under their sole control. In other words, im curious why would Israel not invest in making sure that the their were storing in third-party vendor clouds was not encrypted at rest and in transit by keys not stored in that cloud. This seems like a matter of national security for any government, not to have their data accessible by other parties at the whims of different jurisdiction where that cloud vendor operates.
- nashashmi 11mo ago
  It would still be very alarming if a democratic country like Australia or European Union taking a step like this where they tell the vendor that it will use its data and service in whatever way it sees fit, and sidestep existing policies those vendors have on the uses of their services and data. Now maybe we can say that Israel is not a democratic system or environment, but then Microsoft would not be wholly desiring to do business serving such an entity, lest they break with US oversight. Israel here told the vendor that whenever there is a gag on them by their government against making Israel aware of their request, the vendor is to secretly transmit a message alerting them..
- Dig1t 11mo ago
  Because it is obviously illegal, violates both the letter and spirit of American law. Also because no other country has the power to get cloud vendors to do this and this one special country will face no consequences (as usual).
  - vladgur 11mo ago
    From the article: "The demand, which would require Google and Amazon to effectively sidestep legal obligations in countries around the world" "Like other big tech companies, Google and Amazon’s cloud businesses routinely comply with requests from police, prosecutors and security services to hand over customer data to assist investigations." The way I interpret this is Google, Amazon operates in multiple countries under multiple jurisdictions. The security services for any of these countries(including for example Egypt where Google has offices according to....Google), can produce a legal(in Egypt) order requesting Google to produce data of another customer( for example Israeli govt) and Google has to comply or leave Egypt. It seems to me that being under constant threat of your government sensitive data being exposed at the whims of another, potentially adversarial government is not a sustainable way of operating and Im surprised that Israel havent either found ways of storing its infrastructure locally or encrypting it five way to Sunday. This is not a comment on the specific accusation of actions by Israel but for strange reality of being a small-country government and a customer of a multi-national cloud vendor.
worik 11mo ago
We know already that Google and Amazon are morally bankrupt. (My brain is spinning that Microsoft are the "good guys" here). But I do not think we knew that Google and Amazon would engage in criminal conspiracy for profit
xbar 11mo ago
"The idea that we would evade our legal obligations to the US government as a US company, or in any other country, is categorically wrong," I can imagine that this Alphabet General Counsel-approved language could be challenged in court.
JohnMakin 11mo ago
If you or I did this, we'd go to jail for a very long time.
AlanYx 11mo ago
Setting aside the legalities of the "wink" payments, I'm fascinated to know what is the purpose of the country-specific granularity? At most Israel would learn that some order was being sought in country X, but they wouldn't receive knowledge of the particular class of data being targeted. I wonder if there's a national security aspect here, in that knowing the country would prompt some form of country-specific espionage (signals intelligence, local agents on the inside at these service providers, etc.) to discover what the targeted data might be.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- avidiax 11mo ago
  Obviously, they must think it's a feature of some value. Knowing the country allows an immediate diplomatic protest, threats to withdraw business, and investigation. The payment is to be within 24 hours, which means that they can act quickly to stop the processing of the data, prevent conclusions from being drawn, etc. If the signaled country were the US, I would expect a bunch of senators to be immediately called and pressured to look into and perhaps stop the investigation.
  - sniggler 11mo ago
    [dead]
  - AlanYx 11mo ago
    Interesting take. It's also possible that it functions as a checksum of sorts for their intelligence operations to identify gaps. e.g., If intelligence has knowledge of X requests from country Y, but they're getting X+5 "winks" about country Y, then it's an indicator of where they need to step up their intelligence efforts.
nickdothutton 11mo ago
The WWW = Western Wall Wink.
throwaway_fjmr 11mo ago
[dead]
mattfrommars 11mo ago
Israel just can't get any more shittier.
- kossTKR 11mo ago
  My comment and others point to the israeli atrocities here all just all just got flagged and removed in a very suspicious way with tons of "disinformation" comments below them, basic stuff that's literally been said by the UN, Amnesty, Red Cross, Doctors without borders etc. for years is flaggable now? I thought censoring and straight up brigading was not allowed here? But i guess if they do what the article is about they can easily sway a thread like this in a few minutes, and i'm sure they do when stuff becomes frontpage on various sites. Can't talk about the genocide.
  - FridayoLeary 11mo ago
    [flagged]
    - computerex 11mo ago
      [flagged]
    - KingMob 11mo ago
      > You're making the appeal to authority fallacy Funny, I thought he was adjusting his Bayesian priors based on available evidence. From a classical logic perspective, it's correct that authority does not imply truth. But from a pragmatic Bayesian perspective, when verifying the truth of a matter is difficult-to-impossible for a layperson, we all try to figure out the truth based on what authorities say and our assessment of their trustworthiness. ---- HNers really need to grok that high-school debate club doesn't help you with reality.
      - FridayoLeary 11mo ago
        [flagged]
parliament32 11mo ago
> According to sources familiar with negotiations, Microsoft’s bid suffered as it refused to accept some of Israel’s demands. MS/Azure being the good guys for once? Colour me surprised.
TacticalCoder 11mo ago
[dead]
hereme888 11mo ago
[flagged]
aucisson_masque 11mo ago
> Several experts described the mechanism as a “clever” workaround that could comply with the letter of the law but not its spirit. “It’s kind of brilliant, but it’s risky,” said a former senior US security official. If it wasn't Amazon, Google and Israel government, there wouldn't be people pretending it comply with the 'letter of the law'. It is simple treason, selling your own country secret to another. And the way it's done isn't that 'brilliant'. Oh yes they aren't writing on paper that x country asked for Israel data, they are instead using the country phone index and making payment based on that...
- runarberg 11mo ago
  Isn’t there a legal term for this? It is like if it is illegal to import more then $1000 into the country without declaring, and you (clever) give $900 each to 4 of your friends who are conveniently traveling with you, so you only walk across the border with remaining $400, not breaking any laws. Then when inside the country, your friends give you back the $900 each, meaning you just de-facto imported $4000 while technically crossing the border with less then $1000, as legally required. If normal people tried to do this they would obviously be charged with the crime of illegally importing money, but also with something like a conspiracy to evade the law.
  - stocksinsmocks 11mo ago
    Obstruction of justice. At least for us. For the more fortunate, maybe it’s just a “creative interpretation of law.”
  - sitharus 11mo ago
    I don't know of a general term, but in financial crime it's generally referred to as 'structuring'. IIRC this is from US legislation but it's definitely used in several other countries. I've also heard it referred to as 'smurfing', particularly when splitting a task like purchasing items in a small enough quantity to not be suspicious.
  - irl_zebra 11mo ago
    When this is done with deposits to avoid IRS scrutiny it's called "structuring."
yahoozoo 11mo ago
[flagged]
stogot 11mo ago
This is basically just the warrant canaries from the FISA prism days. Which at the time hacker news was in favor of. Both companies deny doing this though
CKMo 11mo ago
Microsoft of all companies were the ones who had backbone here? What the heck
- aaa_aaa 11mo ago
  Not until it was unveiled. Also still allowing. none has any backbone.
- AlanYx 11mo ago
  Based on reported decisions (mostly SCA-related; FISA stuff is not public), Microsoft is the cloud provider who's litigated the most on behalf of client privacy. e.g., It was the Microsoft Ireland case, challenging the extraterritoriality of the Stored Communications Act, that ultimately led to the CLOUD Act. Microsoft understands at a corporate level that it's in their business interest (as a global vendor) for local lawful access regimes to be as narrow as possible. Their pushback here is understandable; if they're not seen as trustworthy by the US government, it potentially undermines a lot of the latitude they're trying to fight for.
lingrush4 11mo ago
[flagged]
- DocTomoe 11mo ago
  In all fairness, if you put data on the internet (aka "the Cloud"), here is no reasonable expectation of privacy, unless you yourself control both the server and the client AND have everything encrypted.
- dlubarov 11mo ago
  It is extremely hard to imagine such an article being written, and such a response generated, about any other country. "Denmark asks cloud providers to privately notify it if its data is leaked to other states" sounds way too boring to be published, let alone generate outrage. Change it to Israel, sprinkle in some vaguely insidious language (a contract becomes a "secret agreement", etc), and suddenly it's a scandal.
- wahnfrieden 11mo ago
  Why are you advocating for treasonous spying on law enforcement?
zouhair 11mo ago
[flagged]
- thomassmith65 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - zouhair 11mo ago
    Genocide and colonization, you forgot those two.
    - thomassmith65 11mo ago
      To the extent that I would use those terms, I'd withhold some of my judgement. If the Israelis are committing genocide, it's of a people obsessed with destroying them. If it's colonisation, it's colonisation with about a dozen caveats. That doesn't make things any better for Gazans, for whom I also have sympathy. The aspect of the original comment that I was poking fun of is that it is reductive.
      - mikewarot 11mo ago
        >If the Israelis are committing genocide, it's of a people obsessed with destroying them. That's the same justification used by a certain failed Austrian painter. Genocide is never right.
        thomassmith65 11mo ago
        Did German Jews make public statements prior to Nazism about driving 'Aryans' from Europe? What were the equivalents to the Munich Massacre, suicide bombings, rocket attacks, or October 7th? The situations seem quite different to me, but maybe there is an outrageous gap in my knowledge of Weimar Germany.
        zouhair 11mo ago
kittikitti 11mo ago
I don't trust any of these cloud providers with my data specifically because of their ties to Israel and the Trump administration. They will always acquiesce to the bully in the room. I've received too many notices from both Amazon and Google about how my data was leaked already. Their motto, "Don't be evil", should have included a wink wink in it.
zawaideh 11mo ago
History repeating itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
asdefghyk 11mo ago
Nothing to say any money has actually been sent.
- bigyabai 11mo ago
  That's your defense?
sheepscreek 11mo ago
> The idea that we would evade our legal obligations to the US government as a US company, or in any other country, is categorically wrong Not a lawyer. Can this statement hold in a US court of law? To me it sounds sleazy and ambiguous. To say if an “idea is wrong” could mean it’s a bad idea, an immoral one or a false “idea”. But in any case, an idea is not a statement or a fact. I have a hundred ideas everyday. Some are right, some are wrong and others in between.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
gnerix 11mo ago
Amazon already publishes transparency reports indicating which country requested data[1]. It's not clear in the article what kinds of data requests are communicated by the alleged payments (subpoena, warrant, court order?), but the whole thing seems so unbelievable as to be.... made up [1] https://d1.awsstatic.com/Security/pdfs/Amazon_AWS_Information_Request_Report_H1_2025.pdf https://d1.awsstatic.com/Security/pdfs/Amazon_AWS_Informatio...
bfkwlfkjf 11mo ago
I'm not gonna say anything because if I say something I'm gonna be in trouble.
ByteMe95 11mo ago
[flagged]
cakealert 11mo ago
This is almost certainly just for show (as in, they would have no reliance on it and not expect it to ever be triggered). They will have agents both known and unknown operating at those companies. A company cannot as a policy set out to violate the law (if it's smart). It would be trivial for individuals to have covert channels set up.
sniggler 11mo ago
[dead]
oldgregg 11mo ago
[flagged]
eviks 11mo ago
> suggest the secret code would take the form of payments – referred to as “special compensation” – made by the companies to the Israeli government. This seems like a very dumb way to communicate in a criminal conspiracy: it's more traceable than a simple message, with permanent record, and more people are involved to enact the communication. Is there any benefit?
slim 11mo ago
Are google and amazon liable for conspiracy to commit a federal crime ?
23david 11mo ago
[flagged]
- saagarjha 11mo ago
  Why do you post nothing but this to Hacker News?
ozozozd 11mo ago
I don’t think this contract would be enforceable. Google/Amazon had no incentive to say no, other than self-respect. Also, how would Israel even know if Google/Amazon failed to “wink”? If they have a way of knowing that, then they don’t need the “wink.” Google/Amazon could just say yes until the contract is signed, and then just not comply. Israeli government would have no recourse since they can’t go to a US court, and file charges for a US company NOT breaking the law or for complying with a court order. Israel also would not want this to come to light. It’s like a criminal’s promise. The only recourse is taking your business elsewhere, which Israel would do when they’re tipped off anyways. But at least if Google/Amazon fail to wink, contract lasts a little longer.
DeathArrow 11mo ago
>Microsoft, which provides a range of cloud services to Israel’s military and public sector, bid for the Nimbus contract but was beaten by its rivals. According to sources familiar with negotiations, Microsoft’s bid suffered as it refused to accept some of Israel’s demands. So Microsoft is now more ethical than Google and Amazon? What times we live in!
pettertb 11mo ago
He is Mr Nimbus, he controls the police!
derelicta 11mo ago
Greatest democracy in the middle east everyone!
bigcat12345678 11mo ago
[flagged]
- realityking 11mo ago
  Saying things like “first genocide since WWII” makes me not take you serious at all. Just as a single example, Rwanda genocide in 1994 saw between 500,000 and 800,000 people killed. And it’s by far not the only one in the last 80 years.
- b800h 11mo ago
  Sadly not. https://grokipedia.com/page/Bosnian_genocide https://grokipedia.com/page/Bosnian_genocide https://grokipedia.com/page/Rwandan_genocide https://grokipedia.com/page/Rwandan_genocide
  - tovej 11mo ago
    What is grokipedia? Looks like you're linking a far-right propaganda source without actually arguing anything. Why not state your argument aloud? And link reliable sources.
- mikkupikku 11mo ago
  > world's first genocide since WWII This kind of absurd blunder is what happens when American public schools have twelve years of history education that consist of nothing but "Holocaust Class". Bro has probably had to read every popular holocaust book but has never even heard of Cambodia.
rendall 11mo ago
So many unanswered questions. Why would Israel move sensitive data into Amazon and Google servers off this was a concern? How would this scheme protect Israel's data or help them at all? Why would these very wealthy companies agree to this? Why would Israel assume or verify they would comply? Why and how would an obscure Palestinian magazine acquire these documents? Why is this characterized as a "demand"? Amazon and Google have the freedom that Microsoft does to decline. This story stinks.
nakamoto_damacy 11mo ago
> Was it agreed by some salespeople without the knowledge of legal / management? LOL. No. That is not how it works. Legal combs through every contract, negotiates, and gates the process, while revenue officers act very self-entitled to having the contract signed ASAP. Legal has to do their job, or they're a liability.
cess11 11mo ago
Here's the corresponding article in +972. https://www.972mag.com/project-nimbus-contract-google-amazon-israel/ https://www.972mag.com/project-nimbus-contract-google-amazon... This is a good opportunity to make money from helping corporations migrate off these services and onto alternatives with better data protection regulations and weaker ties to the zionist atrocity factory.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
culanuchachamim 11mo ago
One thing I don't understand. Israel probably have huge amount of data in Google and Amazon. What is the gain from telling Israel that there is a country that issue an order about some of their data. What data? What's the order about? Etc, many crucial details are missing for Israel be able to do something....
mock-possum 11mo ago
All aspect of this disgust me and I don’t know what to do about it

963 points by skilled 11mo ago

So if a government agency or court (presumably the US government) makes a data request with a non disclosure order (FBI NSL, FISA, SCA) - Google and Amazon would break that non disclosure order and tell Israel. Wouldn't those involved be liable to years in prison?

alwa 11mo ago
I imagine it depends on which country makes that request, its legal basis, and how their gag order is written. I find it hard to imagine a federal US order wouldn’t proscribe this cute “wink” payment. (Although who knows? If a state or locality takes it upon themselves to raid a bit barn, can their local courts bind transnational payments or is that federal jurisdiction?) But from the way it’s structured—around a specific amount of currency corresponding to a dialing code of the requesting nation—it sure sounds like they’re thinking more broadly. I could more easily imagine an opportunistic order—say, from a small neighboring state compelling a local contractor to tap an international cable as it crosses their territory—to accommodate the “winking” disclosure: by being either so loosely drafted or so far removed from the parent company’s jurisdiction as to make the $billions contract worth preserving this way.
IAmBroom 11mo ago
In a nation that strictly follows its own laws, sure.
- votepaunchy 11mo ago
  Your terms are acceptable.
breppp 11mo ago
and your assumption is that if Google has conflicting legal obligations to the USA and Israel it will choose Israel... In my opinion that's extremely unlikely. This was probably set up for other kinds of countries
- NickC25 11mo ago
  [flagged]

rwmj 11mo ago

The method is buried about 60% through the article, but it's interesting. It seems incredibly risky for the cloud companies to do this. Was it agreed by some salespeople without the knowledge of legal / management? Leaked documents from Israel’s finance ministry, which include a finalised version of the Nimbus agreement, suggest the secret code would take the form of payments – referred to as “special compensation” – made by the companies to the Israeli government. According to the documents, the payments must be made “within 24 hours of the information being transferred” and correspond to the telephone dialing code of the foreign country, amounting to sums between 1,000 and 9,999 shekels. If either Google or Amazon provides information to authorities in the US, where the dialing code is +1, and they are prevented from disclosing their cooperation, they must send the Israeli government 1,000 shekels. If, for example, the companies receive a request for Israeli data from authorities in Italy, where the dialing code is +39, they must send 3,900 shekels. If the companies conclude the terms of a gag order prevent them from even signaling which country has received the data, there is a backstop: the companies must pay 100,000 shekels ($30,000) to the Israeli government.

levi-turner 11mo ago
> Was it agreed by some salespeople without the knowledge of legal / management? Never worked for either company, but there's a zero percent chance. Legal agrees to bespoke terms and conditions on contracts (or negotiates them) for contracts. How flexible they are to agreeing to exotic terms depends on the dollar value of the contract, but there is no chance that these terms (a) weren't outlined in the contract and (b) weren't heavily scrutinized by legal (and ops, doing paybacks in such a manner likely require work-arounds for their ops and finance teams).
- rwmj 11mo ago
  That's my experience too, but it seems impossible that a competent legal team would have agreed to this.
  - gadders 11mo ago
    Legal can advise, but it's ultimately up to the business to risk-accept. If they think the risk vs reward analysis makes it worthwhile, they can overrule legal and proceed.

rdtsc 11mo ago

Now that the trick is out the gag order will say explicitly not to make the payment. Or specifically to make a “false flag” payment, tell them it’s the Italians.

Yossarrian22 11mo ago
I don’t think speech can be compelled like that latter idea
- rdtsc 11mo ago
  Are payments "speech" though? Just like the Israeli govt thinks they are being "cute" with the "winks" so can other governments be "cute" with their interpretation of "speech".
  - kevin_thibedeau 11mo ago
    The Supreme court has labeled political spending as free speech. No reason it can't extend everywhere.
  - DonHopkins 11mo ago
    Money talks.
IAmBroom 11mo ago
There's no need to alter a gag order. If you attempt an end-run around a gag order by speaking in French or Latin or Swahili, the gag order is still violated. This is exactly the same: changing the language in which the gag order is violated.

gruez 11mo ago

>Under the terms of the deal, the mechanism works like this: > If either Google or Amazon provides information to authorities in the US, where the dialing code is +1, and they are prevented from disclosing their cooperation, they must send the Israeli government 1,000 shekels. This sounds like warrant canaries but worse. At least with warrant canaries you argue that you can't compel speech, but in this case it's pretty clear to any judge that such payments constitute disclosure or violation of gag order, because you're taking a specific action that results in the target knowing the request was made.

mikeyouse 11mo ago
This reads like something a non-lawyer who watched too many bad detective movies would dream up. Theres absolutely no way this would pass legal muster —- even warrant canaries are mostly untested, but this is clearly like 5x ‘worse’ for the reasons you point out.
- randallsquared 11mo ago
  From the article: > Several experts described the mechanism as a “clever” workaround that could comply with the letter of the law but not its spirit. It's not clear to me how it could comply with the letter of the law, but evidently at least some legal experts think it can? That uncertainty is probably how it made it past the legal teams in the first place.
  - AstralStorm 11mo ago
    Warrant canary depends on agreed upon inaction, which shields it somewhat. You cannot exactly compel speech by a gag order. This, being an active process, if found out, is violating a gag order by direct action.
    - votepaunchy 11mo ago
      Warrant canaries depend on action, the removal or altering of the canary document. It’s too clever but no more clever than what Israel is requiring here.

antonvs 11mo ago

[flagged]

t-3 11mo ago
Intentionally. An easy way to accuse people who oppose you of bias is to bait them into producing quotes and soundbites that can later be used (out-of-context or not) as evidence of antisemitism.
- votepaunchy 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - rozap 11mo ago
    Confidential documents yes. Genocide, also yes.
dlubarov 11mo ago
By wanting to know when foreign states are snooping on their data? The Guardian is trying their best to paint this as something nefarious on Israel's part, but it just isn't. Maybe Amazon and Google created a compliance issue for themselves, but that's not Israel's problem; Israel isn't obligated to comply with foreign states' gag orders.
asdklfa 11mo ago
I'm not sure which ones you're referring to, but it's very obvious they have outsized control in US politics and especially the Trump admin. That it is taboo to say this is evidence of that control, and I think that taboo serves to enable things like the genocide in Gaza via controlling US opinion. Articles like the above should raise major alarms among US citizens. And this is not the first time Israel has betrayed the US. They even welcomed Jonathan Pollard (a US citizen!) with open arms and he's now pursuing a political career in Israel. They're clearly not an ally, and it is mind boggling we continue to support them. And like any good RCA, we need to not only fix the current mess but analyze how it occurred so it does not happen again.

buyucu 11mo ago

[flagged]

theobreuerweil 11mo ago
[flagged]
- rkozik1989 11mo ago
  Israel stole US nuclear secrets to create their own nuclear weapons program, they killed American navy men, they destroyed 90% of the buildings in Gaza and very blatantly committed genocide in the process of doing so, Palestinians prisoners are commonly held without trials or charges i.e. they're hostages. Zionism literally cannot exist without them committing ethnic cleansing because everywhere Israelis live used to be Palestinian properties. Honestly, what is your point? What are you seeing that the rest of us aren't getting? For the record, my mother's family is mostly Sephardic.
  - dlubarov 11mo ago
    > they killed American navy men This was about 50 years ago, was accidental, and Israel apologized and paid reparations soon after. This is a pretty clear example of double standards for Israel - no other country gets demonized for friendly fire incidents.
    - Stevvo 11mo ago
      None of the sailors that survived believe it was accidental. They claim it was a deliberate false-flag attack.
      - dlubarov 11mo ago
        The claims that it was deliberate boil down to "they must have known because there were identifying marks", which can be said about almost any friendly fire incident. In reality, not every operation is executed competently. Plenty of militaries have shot down their own airplanes, for example, despite the existence of several safeguards designed to prevent that.

ratelimitsteve 11mo ago

[flagged]

kujjerl7 11mo ago
[flagged]
- thaumasiotes 11mo ago
  People seem more accepting of the concept than you might expect. Compare the song "My Uncle Dan McCann", which you can hear here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_puzpI03Xcs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_puzpI03Xcs I found me uncle Dan McCann A very prosperous Yankee man He holds a seat in Congress And he's leader of his clan He's helped to write America's laws His heart and soul in Ireland's cause And God help the man who opened his jaws to me uncle Dan McCann As far as the song is concerned, this is admirable behavior. Of course, the song is written from the perspective of an Irishman visiting from Ireland to look for his uncle. But it's marketed to Americans. The question "is it a good thing to have American legislators whose purpose in life is to work for the benefit of Ireland?" never seems to come up.
  - rgblambda 11mo ago
    Though I recognise the similarity, a Irish song about a relative who emigrated to America in the 19th century, fought in the Civil War, becomes a politician and advocates for Irish Independence isn't really on the same scale as what the Israel lobby is being accused of. And a double reminder that it's an Irish song that tells an Irish perspective,not an American one.
    - thaumasiotes 11mo ago
      > And a double reminder that it's an Irish song that tells an Irish perspective,not an American one. No, it's an American song that tells an Irish perspective. It was written in America to be performed for American audiences. Why do American audiences appreciate it?

stopthebullshit 11mo ago

[dead]

sporkxrocket 11mo ago

[flagged]

ilegitmadethisw 11mo ago
Yeap. This site is infested with Zionist brain rot Edit: you Zionists can flag, downvote, whatever. Doesn’t make a difference. The world sees your grotesque actions and Israel will fall

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

zaoui_amine 11mo ago

That's wild. Sounds like a sketchy legal loophole for big tech.

cedws 11mo ago

Is managing servers really such a lost art that even governments with sensitive data must cede to AWS/Azure/GCP?

geodel 11mo ago
It is more of people who can manage servers have no standing in front of people who buy or sell cloud services.
ignoramous 11mo ago
> ...a lost art that even governments with sensitive data must cede to AWS/Azure/GCP? Apparently, US aid to a country is usually spent on US companies; Israel is no exception: https://theintercept.com/2024/05/01/google-amazon-nimbus-israel-weapons-arms-gaza https://theintercept.com/2024/05/01/google-amazon-nimbus-isr...
dpoloncsak 11mo ago
Can't buy stock contracts on Amazon/Microsoft/Google right before you announce the $1B investment towards cloud infrastructure if you roll it all yourself, though
foota 11mo ago
Apparently, yes: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/858tb-of-government-data-may-be-lost-for-good-after-south-korea-data-center-fire/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/858tb-of-governme...
aaa_aaa 11mo ago
Some states can get away with what ever they want, so it does not matter for them.
zbentley 11mo ago
I’ve seen government datacenters. We should be thankful they’re using the cloud. That’s not “cloud > onprem always”, that’s “even given cloud providers’ many faults governments are so terrible at managing and securing infrastructure today that the cloud is preferable for them”. Whether you anre pro- or anti-particular-government, you should still support gov-moves-to-cloud. The alternative is proven unbelievably worse on every possible axis.

advisedwang 11mo ago

I wonder if Google's plan here is to just not actually make the "special payments" if a gag order applies. Possibly they think that the contract doesn't actually require those payments (most contracts have a provision about not contradicting the law), or just ignore the contract provision when a gag order comes (how would Israel know, and what would they do about it anyway).

ngruhn 11mo ago
My thoughts as well. Also, "only" violating a contract sounds less illegal.
overfeed 11mo ago
> how would Israel know, and what would they do about it anyway Spy on, insert or recruit an asset from the pool of employees who are involved in any "Should we tell Israel?" discussion. That way, even if an answer is "No, don't alert them", the mere existence of the mechanism provides an actionable intelligence signal.
- mdasen 11mo ago
  If they're able to gather the intelligence without a public signal, they wouldn't be wanting a public signal. Any discussion of "should we tell Israel" would be limited to people who knew of the secret subpoena's existence. If Israel already had an asset within that group, they'd just have that person signal them in a much more clandestine manner than a public payment mandated in a signed contract. Either Israel already knows about the subpoena, in which case the discussion doesn't matter, or they don't, in which case their asset wouldn't be in on the discussion.
worik 11mo ago
> Google's plan here is to just not actually make the "special payments" That does not help Signing the contract was a criminal conspiracy I am not holding my breath for prosecution, though.
shrubble 11mo ago
Israel reportedly has unredacted data feeds from the USA(this was part of the Snowden leaks, Guardian link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/11/nsa-americans-personal-data-israel-documents https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/11/nsa-americans-...). This means that they can read even the personal email of Supreme Court justices, congressmen and senators. However they have a gentleman’s agreement to not do that. “Wink”

shevy-java 11mo ago

Israel and the USA already coordinate, so I doubt this story. Other countries should stop selling data of their citizens to these two countries.

lenerdenator 11mo ago
That's basically how all governments work. If you don't want your data in the hands of someone with access to the state's monopoly on violence, you're best off getting rid of all internet access in your life.
Analemma_ 11mo ago
They coordinate, but coordination doesn't mean totally aligned behavior and interests which never diverge, nor that they don't try to spy on each other. Multiple people in the United States have been been caught and convicted of spying for Israel and are serving lengthy prison sentences because of it; Israeli lobbying efforts have tried to get their sentences commuted, so far without success. That's not what you would see if "coordination" went as far as your post implied.
- Seattle3503 11mo ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if this is all a part of the "game" of spycraft. Israel probably expects the US spy agencies would get wind of this agreement. "I see you watching me."
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

gadders 11mo ago

Imagine if someone asked for the data for money laundering investigations. The cloud provider could get prosecuted for "tipping off".

neilv 11mo ago

Initially, I suspected the cloud contracts were for general government operations, to have geo-distributed backups and continuity, in event of regional disaster (natural or human-made). But could it instead/also be for international spy operations, like surveillance, propaganda, and cyber attacks? A major cloud provider has fast access at scale in multiple regions, is less likely to be blocked than certain countries, and can hide which customer the traffic is for. If it were for international operations, two questions: 1. How complicit would the cloud providers be? 2. For US-based providers, how likely that US spy agencies would be consulted before signing the contracts, and consciously allow it to proceed (i.e., let US cloud providers facilitate the foreign spy activity), so that US can monitor the activity?

dfsegoat 11mo ago
fwiw towards your theory, I believe that the US Govt actually considers cloud providers - by way of specific services offered "dual use" systems for mil or civil use. E.g. you will find references in AWS docs to Bureau of Industry/Security rulings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-use_technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-use_technology https://www.bis.gov/ https://www.bis.gov/ https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/global-export-compliance/ https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/global-export-compliance/
megous 11mo ago
In Microsoft case they provide services for storing and possibly processing (transcribing) calls of millions of people that are under belligerent occupation: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/microsoft-israeli-military-palestinian-phone-calls-cloud https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/microsoft-isra... I don't imagine Google and Amazon are any better. I.e. take boatloads of money, while sticking the head into sand and pretend it's not likely used to help the illegal occupation of Palestinians, to persecute and harm them.

nova22033 11mo ago

If the US government asked Google and amazon for data using specific legal authorities and the companies tipped off the Israeli government, there's a chance they may have broken the law....

JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
> there's a chance they may have broken the law There is certainty they broke the law. Both federally and, in all likelihood, in most states.
- worik 11mo ago
  The agreement breaks the law
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

yshuman 11mo ago

[flagged]

econ 11mo ago
The empire is EOL tho

Havoc 11mo ago

Surprised that Israel didn't just decide to go it alone and build their own infra given the multiple reservations they clearly had. They have a vibrant tech ecosystem so could presumably pull it off

vorpalhex 11mo ago
I imagine the concern becomes survivability. Israeli's really like their multiple levels of backups, and having a data copy out of the reach of enemy arms seems high priority. Iran attacking US-East-1 would certainly be unusual.
- noir_lord 11mo ago
  They could likely work around that, multiple locations in-country and an off site encrypted backup out of country. More likely is it was "aid" from the US which usually comes with stipulations about what/where they can spend it - common with weapons/military kit, wouldn't be surprised if they did something similar with cloud services.
  - vorpalhex 11mo ago
    Hundreds of missiles get colaunched making up multi-thousand missile waves. A 200 drone wave is "small". And any offsite that is "Israel's gov offsite" is an easy target even if in Cyprus or NYC. Comingling with a bunch of bulk commercial hosts is very safe from a threat modeling perspective (in this case).
pcthrowaway 11mo ago
Something worth noting is that when they call a significant number of reserves to IDF, their industries suffer. Most SWEs are still 20-40-something men, which would be the same demographic being called to service (I realize women also serve in the IDF, but combat positions are generally reserved for men). So it's possible that Israel can't rely on their own private tech industry being unaffected during high-engagement periods. I think the government does have plenty of its own infra (and military tech sectors would be unaffected by calling in reserves), but given the size of the country (and also considering its Palestinian second-class citizens who make up 20% of the Israeli population may not be trusted to work on more sensitive portions of its infrastructure) they're probably not able to manage every part of the stack. Probably only China and the U.S. can do this.

Ozzie_osman 11mo ago

> Microsoft said that using Azure in this way violated its terms of service and it was “not in the business of facilitating the mass surveillance of civilians”. Under the terms of the Nimbus deal, Google and Amazon are prohibited from taking such action as it would “discriminate” against the Israeli government. Doing so would incur financial penalties for the companies, as well as legal action for breach of contract. Insane. Obeying the law or ToS, apparently, is discriminatory when it comes to Israel.

neuroelectron 11mo ago
It would be suicide to sign the contract. It basically allows them to hack their platforms without any repercussions or ability to stop it. They would quickly claim expanded access is part of the contract.
ktallett 11mo ago
This endless bowing down to Israel is and always will be ridiculous. When a country can do whatever they like unchallenged, no matter how wrong, or how illegal, we have failed as a society.
- ugh123 11mo ago
  That now makes two of U.S.
- churchill 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - loverofhumanz 11mo ago
    [flagged]
    - mikkupikku 11mo ago
      It's always this same lame rhetoric every single goddamn time.

znpy 11mo ago

[flagged]

mynameajeff 11mo ago
Could you elaborate on what specifically details regarding cn-northwest-1/similar are remotely similar to what's being described in the article?
b00ty4breakfast 11mo ago
As if the terms of Amazon's contract with the Chinese government being leaked wouldn't be massive news. This kind of cynicism is precisely why these things aren't challenged; "of course bad stuff is happening, why should I be concerned???"

vladgur 11mo ago

If we take "Israel" out of the equation to remove much of controversy, i dont understand why wouldnt any actor, especially government actor, take every possible step that their data remains under their sole control. In other words, im curious why would Israel not invest in making sure that the their were storing in third-party vendor clouds was not encrypted at rest and in transit by keys not stored in that cloud. This seems like a matter of national security for any government, not to have their data accessible by other parties at the whims of different jurisdiction where that cloud vendor operates.

nashashmi 11mo ago
It would still be very alarming if a democratic country like Australia or European Union taking a step like this where they tell the vendor that it will use its data and service in whatever way it sees fit, and sidestep existing policies those vendors have on the uses of their services and data. Now maybe we can say that Israel is not a democratic system or environment, but then Microsoft would not be wholly desiring to do business serving such an entity, lest they break with US oversight. Israel here told the vendor that whenever there is a gag on them by their government against making Israel aware of their request, the vendor is to secretly transmit a message alerting them..
Dig1t 11mo ago
Because it is obviously illegal, violates both the letter and spirit of American law. Also because no other country has the power to get cloud vendors to do this and this one special country will face no consequences (as usual).
- vladgur 11mo ago
  From the article: "The demand, which would require Google and Amazon to effectively sidestep legal obligations in countries around the world" "Like other big tech companies, Google and Amazon’s cloud businesses routinely comply with requests from police, prosecutors and security services to hand over customer data to assist investigations." The way I interpret this is Google, Amazon operates in multiple countries under multiple jurisdictions. The security services for any of these countries(including for example Egypt where Google has offices according to....Google), can produce a legal(in Egypt) order requesting Google to produce data of another customer( for example Israeli govt) and Google has to comply or leave Egypt. It seems to me that being under constant threat of your government sensitive data being exposed at the whims of another, potentially adversarial government is not a sustainable way of operating and Im surprised that Israel havent either found ways of storing its infrastructure locally or encrypting it five way to Sunday. This is not a comment on the specific accusation of actions by Israel but for strange reality of being a small-country government and a customer of a multi-national cloud vendor.

worik 11mo ago

We know already that Google and Amazon are morally bankrupt. (My brain is spinning that Microsoft are the "good guys" here). But I do not think we knew that Google and Amazon would engage in criminal conspiracy for profit

xbar 11mo ago

"The idea that we would evade our legal obligations to the US government as a US company, or in any other country, is categorically wrong," I can imagine that this Alphabet General Counsel-approved language could be challenged in court.

JohnMakin 11mo ago

If you or I did this, we'd go to jail for a very long time.

AlanYx 11mo ago

Setting aside the legalities of the "wink" payments, I'm fascinated to know what is the purpose of the country-specific granularity? At most Israel would learn that some order was being sought in country X, but they wouldn't receive knowledge of the particular class of data being targeted. I wonder if there's a national security aspect here, in that knowing the country would prompt some form of country-specific espionage (signals intelligence, local agents on the inside at these service providers, etc.) to discover what the targeted data might be.

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
avidiax 11mo ago
Obviously, they must think it's a feature of some value. Knowing the country allows an immediate diplomatic protest, threats to withdraw business, and investigation. The payment is to be within 24 hours, which means that they can act quickly to stop the processing of the data, prevent conclusions from being drawn, etc. If the signaled country were the US, I would expect a bunch of senators to be immediately called and pressured to look into and perhaps stop the investigation.
- sniggler 11mo ago
  [dead]
- AlanYx 11mo ago
  Interesting take. It's also possible that it functions as a checksum of sorts for their intelligence operations to identify gaps. e.g., If intelligence has knowledge of X requests from country Y, but they're getting X+5 "winks" about country Y, then it's an indicator of where they need to step up their intelligence efforts.

nickdothutton 11mo ago

The WWW = Western Wall Wink.

throwaway_fjmr 11mo ago

[dead]

mattfrommars 11mo ago

Israel just can't get any more shittier.

kossTKR 11mo ago
My comment and others point to the israeli atrocities here all just all just got flagged and removed in a very suspicious way with tons of "disinformation" comments below them, basic stuff that's literally been said by the UN, Amnesty, Red Cross, Doctors without borders etc. for years is flaggable now? I thought censoring and straight up brigading was not allowed here? But i guess if they do what the article is about they can easily sway a thread like this in a few minutes, and i'm sure they do when stuff becomes frontpage on various sites. Can't talk about the genocide.
- FridayoLeary 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - computerex 11mo ago
    [flagged]
  - KingMob 11mo ago
    > You're making the appeal to authority fallacy Funny, I thought he was adjusting his Bayesian priors based on available evidence. From a classical logic perspective, it's correct that authority does not imply truth. But from a pragmatic Bayesian perspective, when verifying the truth of a matter is difficult-to-impossible for a layperson, we all try to figure out the truth based on what authorities say and our assessment of their trustworthiness. ---- HNers really need to grok that high-school debate club doesn't help you with reality.
    - FridayoLeary 11mo ago
      [flagged]

parliament32 11mo ago

> According to sources familiar with negotiations, Microsoft’s bid suffered as it refused to accept some of Israel’s demands. MS/Azure being the good guys for once? Colour me surprised.

TacticalCoder 11mo ago

[dead]

hereme888 11mo ago

[flagged]

aucisson_masque 11mo ago

> Several experts described the mechanism as a “clever” workaround that could comply with the letter of the law but not its spirit. “It’s kind of brilliant, but it’s risky,” said a former senior US security official. If it wasn't Amazon, Google and Israel government, there wouldn't be people pretending it comply with the 'letter of the law'. It is simple treason, selling your own country secret to another. And the way it's done isn't that 'brilliant'. Oh yes they aren't writing on paper that x country asked for Israel data, they are instead using the country phone index and making payment based on that...

runarberg 11mo ago
Isn’t there a legal term for this? It is like if it is illegal to import more then $1000 into the country without declaring, and you (clever) give $900 each to 4 of your friends who are conveniently traveling with you, so you only walk across the border with remaining $400, not breaking any laws. Then when inside the country, your friends give you back the $900 each, meaning you just de-facto imported $4000 while technically crossing the border with less then $1000, as legally required. If normal people tried to do this they would obviously be charged with the crime of illegally importing money, but also with something like a conspiracy to evade the law.
- stocksinsmocks 11mo ago
  Obstruction of justice. At least for us. For the more fortunate, maybe it’s just a “creative interpretation of law.”
- sitharus 11mo ago
  I don't know of a general term, but in financial crime it's generally referred to as 'structuring'. IIRC this is from US legislation but it's definitely used in several other countries. I've also heard it referred to as 'smurfing', particularly when splitting a task like purchasing items in a small enough quantity to not be suspicious.
- irl_zebra 11mo ago
  When this is done with deposits to avoid IRS scrutiny it's called "structuring."

yahoozoo 11mo ago

[flagged]

stogot 11mo ago

This is basically just the warrant canaries from the FISA prism days. Which at the time hacker news was in favor of. Both companies deny doing this though

CKMo 11mo ago

Microsoft of all companies were the ones who had backbone here? What the heck

aaa_aaa 11mo ago
Not until it was unveiled. Also still allowing. none has any backbone.
AlanYx 11mo ago
Based on reported decisions (mostly SCA-related; FISA stuff is not public), Microsoft is the cloud provider who's litigated the most on behalf of client privacy. e.g., It was the Microsoft Ireland case, challenging the extraterritoriality of the Stored Communications Act, that ultimately led to the CLOUD Act. Microsoft understands at a corporate level that it's in their business interest (as a global vendor) for local lawful access regimes to be as narrow as possible. Their pushback here is understandable; if they're not seen as trustworthy by the US government, it potentially undermines a lot of the latitude they're trying to fight for.

lingrush4 11mo ago

[flagged]

DocTomoe 11mo ago
In all fairness, if you put data on the internet (aka "the Cloud"), here is no reasonable expectation of privacy, unless you yourself control both the server and the client AND have everything encrypted.
dlubarov 11mo ago
It is extremely hard to imagine such an article being written, and such a response generated, about any other country. "Denmark asks cloud providers to privately notify it if its data is leaked to other states" sounds way too boring to be published, let alone generate outrage. Change it to Israel, sprinkle in some vaguely insidious language (a contract becomes a "secret agreement", etc), and suddenly it's a scandal.
wahnfrieden 11mo ago
Why are you advocating for treasonous spying on law enforcement?

zouhair 11mo ago

[flagged]

thomassmith65 11mo ago
[flagged]
- zouhair 11mo ago
  Genocide and colonization, you forgot those two.
  - thomassmith65 11mo ago
    To the extent that I would use those terms, I'd withhold some of my judgement. If the Israelis are committing genocide, it's of a people obsessed with destroying them. If it's colonisation, it's colonisation with about a dozen caveats. That doesn't make things any better for Gazans, for whom I also have sympathy. The aspect of the original comment that I was poking fun of is that it is reductive.
    - mikewarot 11mo ago
      >If the Israelis are committing genocide, it's of a people obsessed with destroying them. That's the same justification used by a certain failed Austrian painter. Genocide is never right.
      - thomassmith65 11mo ago
        Did German Jews make public statements prior to Nazism about driving 'Aryans' from Europe? What were the equivalents to the Munich Massacre, suicide bombings, rocket attacks, or October 7th? The situations seem quite different to me, but maybe there is an outrageous gap in my knowledge of Weimar Germany.
        zouhair 11mo ago

kittikitti 11mo ago

I don't trust any of these cloud providers with my data specifically because of their ties to Israel and the Trump administration. They will always acquiesce to the bully in the room. I've received too many notices from both Amazon and Google about how my data was leaked already. Their motto, "Don't be evil", should have included a wink wink in it.

zawaideh 11mo ago

History repeating itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

asdefghyk 11mo ago

Nothing to say any money has actually been sent.

bigyabai 11mo ago
That's your defense?

sheepscreek 11mo ago

> The idea that we would evade our legal obligations to the US government as a US company, or in any other country, is categorically wrong Not a lawyer. Can this statement hold in a US court of law? To me it sounds sleazy and ambiguous. To say if an “idea is wrong” could mean it’s a bad idea, an immoral one or a false “idea”. But in any case, an idea is not a statement or a fact. I have a hundred ideas everyday. Some are right, some are wrong and others in between.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

gnerix 11mo ago

Amazon already publishes transparency reports indicating which country requested data[1]. It's not clear in the article what kinds of data requests are communicated by the alleged payments (subpoena, warrant, court order?), but the whole thing seems so unbelievable as to be.... made up [1] https://d1.awsstatic.com/Security/pdfs/Amazon_AWS_Information_Request_Report_H1_2025.pdf https://d1.awsstatic.com/Security/pdfs/Amazon_AWS_Informatio...

bfkwlfkjf 11mo ago

I'm not gonna say anything because if I say something I'm gonna be in trouble.

ByteMe95 11mo ago

[flagged]

cakealert 11mo ago

This is almost certainly just for show (as in, they would have no reliance on it and not expect it to ever be triggered). They will have agents both known and unknown operating at those companies. A company cannot as a policy set out to violate the law (if it's smart). It would be trivial for individuals to have covert channels set up.

sniggler 11mo ago

[dead]

oldgregg 11mo ago

[flagged]

eviks 11mo ago

> suggest the secret code would take the form of payments – referred to as “special compensation” – made by the companies to the Israeli government. This seems like a very dumb way to communicate in a criminal conspiracy: it's more traceable than a simple message, with permanent record, and more people are involved to enact the communication. Is there any benefit?

slim 11mo ago

Are google and amazon liable for conspiracy to commit a federal crime ?

23david 11mo ago

[flagged]

saagarjha 11mo ago
Why do you post nothing but this to Hacker News?

ozozozd 11mo ago

I don’t think this contract would be enforceable. Google/Amazon had no incentive to say no, other than self-respect. Also, how would Israel even know if Google/Amazon failed to “wink”? If they have a way of knowing that, then they don’t need the “wink.” Google/Amazon could just say yes until the contract is signed, and then just not comply. Israeli government would have no recourse since they can’t go to a US court, and file charges for a US company NOT breaking the law or for complying with a court order. Israel also would not want this to come to light. It’s like a criminal’s promise. The only recourse is taking your business elsewhere, which Israel would do when they’re tipped off anyways. But at least if Google/Amazon fail to wink, contract lasts a little longer.

DeathArrow 11mo ago

>Microsoft, which provides a range of cloud services to Israel’s military and public sector, bid for the Nimbus contract but was beaten by its rivals. According to sources familiar with negotiations, Microsoft’s bid suffered as it refused to accept some of Israel’s demands. So Microsoft is now more ethical than Google and Amazon? What times we live in!

pettertb 11mo ago

He is Mr Nimbus, he controls the police!

derelicta 11mo ago

Greatest democracy in the middle east everyone!

bigcat12345678 11mo ago

[flagged]

realityking 11mo ago
Saying things like “first genocide since WWII” makes me not take you serious at all. Just as a single example, Rwanda genocide in 1994 saw between 500,000 and 800,000 people killed. And it’s by far not the only one in the last 80 years.
b800h 11mo ago
Sadly not. https://grokipedia.com/page/Bosnian_genocide https://grokipedia.com/page/Bosnian_genocide https://grokipedia.com/page/Rwandan_genocide https://grokipedia.com/page/Rwandan_genocide
- tovej 11mo ago
  What is grokipedia? Looks like you're linking a far-right propaganda source without actually arguing anything. Why not state your argument aloud? And link reliable sources.
mikkupikku 11mo ago
> world's first genocide since WWII This kind of absurd blunder is what happens when American public schools have twelve years of history education that consist of nothing but "Holocaust Class". Bro has probably had to read every popular holocaust book but has never even heard of Cambodia.

rendall 11mo ago

So many unanswered questions. Why would Israel move sensitive data into Amazon and Google servers off this was a concern? How would this scheme protect Israel's data or help them at all? Why would these very wealthy companies agree to this? Why would Israel assume or verify they would comply? Why and how would an obscure Palestinian magazine acquire these documents? Why is this characterized as a "demand"? Amazon and Google have the freedom that Microsoft does to decline. This story stinks.

nakamoto_damacy 11mo ago

> Was it agreed by some salespeople without the knowledge of legal / management? LOL. No. That is not how it works. Legal combs through every contract, negotiates, and gates the process, while revenue officers act very self-entitled to having the contract signed ASAP. Legal has to do their job, or they're a liability.

cess11 11mo ago

Here's the corresponding article in +972. https://www.972mag.com/project-nimbus-contract-google-amazon-israel/ https://www.972mag.com/project-nimbus-contract-google-amazon... This is a good opportunity to make money from helping corporations migrate off these services and onto alternatives with better data protection regulations and weaker ties to the zionist atrocity factory.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

culanuchachamim 11mo ago

One thing I don't understand. Israel probably have huge amount of data in Google and Amazon. What is the gain from telling Israel that there is a country that issue an order about some of their data. What data? What's the order about? Etc, many crucial details are missing for Israel be able to do something....

mock-possum 11mo ago

All aspect of this disgust me and I don’t know what to do about it