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Israel Spent Years Hacking Tehran Traffic Cameras to Track Khamenei

56 points by gambutin 7mo ago

quantified 7mo ago
Good think Flock has such strong E2E encryption and internal controls on who can access camera data.
lbreakjai 7mo ago
How much of that is true, and how much of that is to cover and protect the actual humans on the ground feeding most of the intelligence? I doubt they'd let their secret leak so soon into the conflict if it was even half as useful as the articles I read claim. Now on the other hand, if I wanted the Iranian counterintelligence to waste time investigating and even taking the cameras offline ...
- 49421 7mo ago
  Probably all of it: Cameras are hacked, they got the real info from a human and they want them to be shut down now.
- adampunk 7mo ago
  Remember that you can burn human intelligence but you can also burn technical capacity. Israel has shown itself willing to burn technical capacities to strike (see also: the pager attacks). I would also submit that forcing Iranian traffic engineers to investigate their camera system is probably not a very high priority at Mossad. What is much more valuable is forcing other countries to change over their traffic control system to a new vendor that has been compromised by the Israelis. That is exactly how they achieved the pager compromise that they did— they fomented a crisis which forced adversaries to change their networks to a network that the Israelis controlled. This is more effective if it is not a bluff. Finally, the intelligence that they describe is most easily explained by the capability that they burned. You cannot have a human intelligence source sit on a street corner like that 24 hours a day in a country like Iran without someone asking questions. You absolutely need someone sitting on that corner 24 hours a day in order to get the kinds of intelligence that they got. You simply cannot collect that with a human source. On the contrary, it is quite easy to imagine how that intelligence could be gathered given only a traffic camera.
  - sabatonfan 7mo ago
    One of the things I have wondered is why a country would not create an company or VC network from people (spy agents) who for all intents and purposes look like normal citizens of any other country (perhaps even in the enemy country itself) and then just have the Country siphon off some money into that VC to buy some companies. The fact of the matter is that you can see an Israeli connection to VPN companies like express vpn, cyberghost vpn (the israeli billionaire who owns this has donated to IDF for context iirc) This is what is happening in the front page. Why wouldn't a nation want to create a VC network which can buy large companies in security industry in neutral countries (germany,switzerland etc.) People would be none the wiser if this actually happens and the head VC network considering that they can just buy security options and would be even able to sell them sometimes to even their enemy state themselves. A part of me is worried talking about this idea might give states ideas. Another part of me believes is that this might already be happening. For record, I am not against Venture capitalism for context, but the opportunity presented by it in the context of governments spending money secretly to buy security related companies in terms of a VC network to then have the same contract with foreign enemy company feels complicated but feels to me easy enough for a nation actor to pull. This can also not be just a single VC but can be spread across many for example. Are we certain that this might be what could've happened in this case, I suppose not but there might be a non zero chance. And we are already discounting the fact that in the case of isreal, sometimes they don't even do this and have it be an israeli company itself. What if they might do it to present two options: say an israeli and a german option. But both options might be tampered (I am absolutely not saying this is the case but I am just presenting a mere hypothetical) Given the absolute budget of governments for these things and the fact that Govt. hires people so much smarter than me. Surely they must have thought of this and if that's the case then if the plan is working as intended and its hidden and public doesn't know about it and if its hidden/public doesn't know about it, the plan is working as intended. That being said, It wouldn't be wrong to say that this feels more like a conspiracy theory. I genuinely hope I am wrong tho but why would a govt. give up on such a massive thing Once again, This is just a thought experiment and let's keep the discussion civil. I am not against Venture Capitalism.
    - adampunk 7mo ago
- ekjhgkejhgk 7mo ago
  [flagged]
- cherry_tree 7mo ago
  I’m sure lots of surveillance was done, but ultimately they bombed the home of an 80-something year old man and he was at home and died. Seems like some wasted effort in hacking traffic cameras, spying on entire populations, etc for many years to just blow up the guys house; they’ll always try to sell you in the technology of obviously negative things being cool spy tech, but the reality continues to be that people are not that complex and dragnet surveillance is just dragnet surveillance and serves no better ultimate purpose.
- nerdyadventurer 7mo ago
  > How much of that is true Indeed, they bombed a school with over 150 dead due to incorrect intel. (story is there was base near the school years ago, but it had been moved) https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/03/1167063 https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/03/1167063
49421 7mo ago
[flagged]
mdni007 7mo ago
Good thing Isreal is our greatest ally. If they were our enemy they'd be doing this to Americans
- cute_boi 7mo ago
  they might be doing it, we never know.
- xenospn 7mo ago
  If you think every nation isn’t doing it to every other nation, constantly, I have a bridge to sell you (cheap!).
- ahartmetz 7mo ago
  That is how some NSA-type agencies work around the prohibition of spying on their own citizens: they have the agency of another country do it. I think some also just ignore the prohibition. The German BND has the "space theory", the idea that the data might have theoretically been transmitted by satellites, which makes it okay to intercept.
- victorbjorklund 7mo ago
  Wait until you find out what Americans are doing to everyone else on earth (and sometimes to themselves). Americans should sit down. Don’t talk about surveillance and spies as if Americans have never ever spied or used survilliance.
  - danielparsons 7mo ago
    So what? We want to be the strongest. The principle is not 'dont spy', the principle is 'dont spy on ME'.
    - iso-logi 7mo ago
      You're delusional if you think the US isn't spying on you though. They spy on everyone, they just happen to pay US-companies to do the spying to avoid any accountability. I don't think we should also just tolerate spying on other countries. Why does the average Joe Blogs in Sweden need to be spied on by the US Government?
aussieguy1234 7mo ago
These types of cameras are quite useful to authoritarian regimes for tracking dissidents and tracking protests. So it's possible the release of this knowledge could be a ploy to encourage the Iranians to shut them down.
pier25 7mo ago
Anyone remembers stuxnet? Apparently part of a US and Israel joint operation called Olympic Games [1]. In the documentary Zero Days some anonymous source mentions there was another project within Olympic Games called Nitro Zeus[2]. This was a complete takeover of Iran's infrastructure. I wonder if these hacks we're seeing are the remains of Nitro Zeus. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Olympic_Games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Olympic_Games [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitro_Zeus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitro_Zeus
- morkalork 7mo ago
  Maintaining consistent backdoor access over a decade and a half would be a feat. The NSA might have a better idea of how their networks are are setup than their junior and mid-level staff..
LetDogsVote 7mo ago
Was mass surveillance even necessary? He was sitting in his home compound in central Tehran with his grandchildren. He wasn't hiding and had resigned himself to martyrdom.
spaghetdefects 7mo ago
And yet they can't produce a single video of the "30,000 protesters killed by Iran".

56 points by gambutin 7mo ago

Good think Flock has such strong E2E encryption and internal controls on who can access camera data.

How much of that is true, and how much of that is to cover and protect the actual humans on the ground feeding most of the intelligence? I doubt they'd let their secret leak so soon into the conflict if it was even half as useful as the articles I read claim. Now on the other hand, if I wanted the Iranian counterintelligence to waste time investigating and even taking the cameras offline ...

49421 7mo ago
Probably all of it: Cameras are hacked, they got the real info from a human and they want them to be shut down now.
adampunk 7mo ago
Remember that you can burn human intelligence but you can also burn technical capacity. Israel has shown itself willing to burn technical capacities to strike (see also: the pager attacks). I would also submit that forcing Iranian traffic engineers to investigate their camera system is probably not a very high priority at Mossad. What is much more valuable is forcing other countries to change over their traffic control system to a new vendor that has been compromised by the Israelis. That is exactly how they achieved the pager compromise that they did— they fomented a crisis which forced adversaries to change their networks to a network that the Israelis controlled. This is more effective if it is not a bluff. Finally, the intelligence that they describe is most easily explained by the capability that they burned. You cannot have a human intelligence source sit on a street corner like that 24 hours a day in a country like Iran without someone asking questions. You absolutely need someone sitting on that corner 24 hours a day in order to get the kinds of intelligence that they got. You simply cannot collect that with a human source. On the contrary, it is quite easy to imagine how that intelligence could be gathered given only a traffic camera.
- sabatonfan 7mo ago
  One of the things I have wondered is why a country would not create an company or VC network from people (spy agents) who for all intents and purposes look like normal citizens of any other country (perhaps even in the enemy country itself) and then just have the Country siphon off some money into that VC to buy some companies. The fact of the matter is that you can see an Israeli connection to VPN companies like express vpn, cyberghost vpn (the israeli billionaire who owns this has donated to IDF for context iirc) This is what is happening in the front page. Why wouldn't a nation want to create a VC network which can buy large companies in security industry in neutral countries (germany,switzerland etc.) People would be none the wiser if this actually happens and the head VC network considering that they can just buy security options and would be even able to sell them sometimes to even their enemy state themselves. A part of me is worried talking about this idea might give states ideas. Another part of me believes is that this might already be happening. For record, I am not against Venture capitalism for context, but the opportunity presented by it in the context of governments spending money secretly to buy security related companies in terms of a VC network to then have the same contract with foreign enemy company feels complicated but feels to me easy enough for a nation actor to pull. This can also not be just a single VC but can be spread across many for example. Are we certain that this might be what could've happened in this case, I suppose not but there might be a non zero chance. And we are already discounting the fact that in the case of isreal, sometimes they don't even do this and have it be an israeli company itself. What if they might do it to present two options: say an israeli and a german option. But both options might be tampered (I am absolutely not saying this is the case but I am just presenting a mere hypothetical) Given the absolute budget of governments for these things and the fact that Govt. hires people so much smarter than me. Surely they must have thought of this and if that's the case then if the plan is working as intended and its hidden and public doesn't know about it and if its hidden/public doesn't know about it, the plan is working as intended. That being said, It wouldn't be wrong to say that this feels more like a conspiracy theory. I genuinely hope I am wrong tho but why would a govt. give up on such a massive thing Once again, This is just a thought experiment and let's keep the discussion civil. I am not against Venture Capitalism.
  - adampunk 7mo ago
ekjhgkejhgk 7mo ago
[flagged]
cherry_tree 7mo ago
I’m sure lots of surveillance was done, but ultimately they bombed the home of an 80-something year old man and he was at home and died. Seems like some wasted effort in hacking traffic cameras, spying on entire populations, etc for many years to just blow up the guys house; they’ll always try to sell you in the technology of obviously negative things being cool spy tech, but the reality continues to be that people are not that complex and dragnet surveillance is just dragnet surveillance and serves no better ultimate purpose.
nerdyadventurer 7mo ago
> How much of that is true Indeed, they bombed a school with over 150 dead due to incorrect intel. (story is there was base near the school years ago, but it had been moved) https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/03/1167063 https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/03/1167063

49421 7mo ago

[flagged]

mdni007 7mo ago

Good thing Isreal is our greatest ally. If they were our enemy they'd be doing this to Americans

cute_boi 7mo ago
they might be doing it, we never know.
xenospn 7mo ago
If you think every nation isn’t doing it to every other nation, constantly, I have a bridge to sell you (cheap!).
ahartmetz 7mo ago
That is how some NSA-type agencies work around the prohibition of spying on their own citizens: they have the agency of another country do it. I think some also just ignore the prohibition. The German BND has the "space theory", the idea that the data might have theoretically been transmitted by satellites, which makes it okay to intercept.
victorbjorklund 7mo ago
Wait until you find out what Americans are doing to everyone else on earth (and sometimes to themselves). Americans should sit down. Don’t talk about surveillance and spies as if Americans have never ever spied or used survilliance.
- danielparsons 7mo ago
  So what? We want to be the strongest. The principle is not 'dont spy', the principle is 'dont spy on ME'.
  - iso-logi 7mo ago
    You're delusional if you think the US isn't spying on you though. They spy on everyone, they just happen to pay US-companies to do the spying to avoid any accountability. I don't think we should also just tolerate spying on other countries. Why does the average Joe Blogs in Sweden need to be spied on by the US Government?

aussieguy1234 7mo ago

These types of cameras are quite useful to authoritarian regimes for tracking dissidents and tracking protests. So it's possible the release of this knowledge could be a ploy to encourage the Iranians to shut them down.

pier25 7mo ago

Anyone remembers stuxnet? Apparently part of a US and Israel joint operation called Olympic Games [1]. In the documentary Zero Days some anonymous source mentions there was another project within Olympic Games called Nitro Zeus[2]. This was a complete takeover of Iran's infrastructure. I wonder if these hacks we're seeing are the remains of Nitro Zeus. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Olympic_Games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Olympic_Games [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitro_Zeus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitro_Zeus

morkalork 7mo ago
Maintaining consistent backdoor access over a decade and a half would be a feat. The NSA might have a better idea of how their networks are are setup than their junior and mid-level staff..

LetDogsVote 7mo ago

Was mass surveillance even necessary? He was sitting in his home compound in central Tehran with his grandchildren. He wasn't hiding and had resigned himself to martyrdom.

spaghetdefects 7mo ago

And yet they can't produce a single video of the "30,000 protesters killed by Iran".