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How Spyware Reaches Oppressive Governments
New submitter blando writes "Between February and March of 2011, at the height of Egypt's tumultuous revolution, protesters stormed the offices of their feared State Security Investigations Service in Alexandria and Sixth of October city, on the edge of Cairo. It was there, amongst evidence of detentions, torture and surveillance at SSIS's headquarters, that information first came to light regarding a sales pitch by UK-based Gamma Group to Egypt's security agency for their FinFisher spyware."
Another revolution is going to happen in Egypt?
It was there, amongst evidence of detentions, torture and surveillance at SSIS's headquarters, that information first came to light regarding a sales pitch by UK-based Gamma Group to Egypt's security agency for their FinFisher spyware.
So what you're saying is that companies should adopt the same ethics as the reading audience and allow or deny selling based upon that?
I dunno if Stalin did said the following or not, nevertheless, it does sound valid for this case
Stalin once said: " A Capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him with. "
The creation of spyware and the selling that spyware to governments will only end up with all people in all countries being denied their basic human rights - including England, where the maker of the spyware, the Gamma Group, originated from
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
How Spyware Reaches Oppressive Governments
It reaches them like software reaches anyone else.
(1) The source code is available.
(2) They buy the software.
(3) They pirate the software.
If (2) is not an option then they will go with (3) just like they do with any other piece of software.
Have sanctions and embargoes worked against such regimes? The ordinary person on the street may suffer from them but are these governments truly denied the things they want?
the fruits of your labors are made possible by, and are protected by, a certain set of ideals
it should not be legal that you be engaged in a business which actively undermines those ideals
you should have your business punished, fined, shut down, or, at best, you, asshole, should have to relocate your business to the kind of country that would use your products against you. if they don't like that idea, maybe they shouldn't be pedaling their products to tyrants
there is a line, that any company will face, when engaging in business in foreign lands with bad attitudes about fundamental human freedoms
if you cross that line, i, and others in your home country, will not forget it, and will not let you get off the hook for your championing of profits over principles that made your riches possible in the first place
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This has been going on for decades.
IBM assisted the Nazi Holocaust by providing the card reading/sorting technology which Nazi Germany used to locate and kill the ethnicities that the Germans wanted wiped out. (Jews, Gypsies, Catholics, etc.) "IBM's German subsidiary (was) known as Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft"
The actual punch card code for each concentration camp were:
Auschwitz — 001; Buchenwald — 002; Dachau — 003; Flossenbürg — 004; Gross-Rosen — 005; Herzogenbusch — 006; Mauthausen — 007; Natzweiler — 008; Neuengamme — 009; Ravensbrück — 010; Sachsenhausen — 011; and Stutthoff — 012.
Its getting harder and harder to get by because previous generations of politicians bought votes by offering the voters free goodies. Now the bill is coming due.
Corporations have royally f'd up some things but its harder to get by largely due to gov't actions not corporate actions. Of course politicians would like you to believe otherwise.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse out of the public treasury. From that moment on the majority, he said, always vote for the candidate promising the most benefits from the treasury with the result that democracy always collpases over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a dictatorship."
Citation of the quote is disputed.
So which "home country" should a multinational corporation be beholden to?
Anyone whose used IBM kit knows that actually they were trying to HINDER Nazi Germany by slowing down the efficient Germans with business speak and Business Process Gurus.
They almost succeeded too, if only they'd held that last six sigma analysis pre-meeting agenda discussion review, they'd have made it through the war!
Have you ever heard of any project IBM has been involved in, that actually HELPED the customer???? ...QED.
The idea of such sanctions is technically the bleed the populance dry to the point where they uprise against the regime, we see how well that worked in North Korea.
Don't want to be obnoxious or flaming, but isn't "putting profit over all else" the very foundation of the free market capitalism? Why this behavior surprises anyone is beyond me...
Yes, "profit over all else" is one of the cornerstones of free market capitalism, but you have to remember that capitalism is neither good nor evil.
For the situation at hand, it would appear that, at the time Gamma Group made the sales pitch:
1) There was a possibility of short-term profit
2) There was a fair likelihood that the sale would not be discovered
3) If discovered, there was a fair likelihood that it would be so far in the future that the persons responsible would be unaccountable
4) Well-connected companies tend to get lenient, slap-on-the-wrist penalties anyway
It is not capitalism per-se which is the problem here, it is items 2 through 4 which allows capitalism to be used for immoral ends. If we really value morality over profit, then we should strongly discourage immoral acts which use capitalism as a tool.
We don't. Blaming capitalism is avoiding the real issue, which is that morality is more important than capitalism (or rather, it should be).
It's like the old adage - any technology can be used for both good or evil.
It's a depressing fact that oppressed people rise up against their oppressors, only to show that what they really wanted was just what the former rulers wanted: to oppress others.
When I heard news on the radio about the Egyptian elections, I was utterly baffled why they had elected Morrissey as their new President; I thought they must have taken a turn from oppression to depression.
Then I saw the headlines -- "Oh, Morsi , not Morrissey. Muslim Brotherhood, not Emo. That makes more sense."
:-P
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
through porn and shaddy realeases of GTA IV
British support US unconditionally, US is neo colonialist in intent, just more sophisticated than days of yore.
What do you think we are doing in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq? Who do you think engineered the destructive civil war in Syria that will most likely lead to more US occupation forces? So, OK, I judge England, the US, so what, PS I'm of Native Anmerican descent, we don't forget, expect us? And all the wealth of the West that you enjoy, if based on past crimes (and current, it's ongoing)? Judgement day is coming and the lake of fire is waiting.
What the hell does capitalism have to do with it? I hate to break it to you but capitalism is not the only economic system that allows some to sell something to someone else. I suppose you think it is also capitalism's fault that Chinese companies sell weapons to Sudan?
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