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Hacking Lawyers or Journalists Is Totally Fine, Says Notorious Cyberweapons Firm (gizmodo.com)
The founder and CEO of NSO Group, the notorious Israeli hacking company with customers around the world, appeared on CBS's 60 Minutes Sunday night to defend the use of his company's tools in hacking and spying on lawyers, journalists, and minors when the country's customers determine the ends justify the means. From a report: NSO Group has reportedly sold hacking tools to dictators including those in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and across Central Asia -- a group of decision-makers whose track record includes numerous examples of human rights abuses and oppression of dissent. NSO's tools have been directly involved in the arrest of human rights activists and, in Mexico at least, spying on lawyers and journalists in an effort to catch the drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. "In order to catch El Chapo, for example, they had to intercept a journalist, an actress, and a lawyer," NSO Group founder Shalev Hulio told 60 minutes. "Now, by themselves, they are not criminals, right? But if they are in touch with a drug lord and in order to catch them, you need to intercept them, that's a decision an intelligence agency should get."
Funny how the very countries which are suppressing freedom of speech and freedom of religion are being supported in their efforts by a country which Christians support without reservation. It's almost as if they're blind to their support of this repression while at the same time complaining about the repression.
And don't forget, your tax dollars are going to a country which has its own version of apartheid.
I guess for a few pieces of silver it's easy to abandon ones principles.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
thinks being a sleazebag is totally cool yo.
"Notorious cyberweapons firm" is getting pwned in 3..2..1..
This person has not even the decency to be minimally ashamed for his hugely negative contribution to the human endeavor. That is the face of tomorrow, if we do not stop it. That is the kind of person that would have done really well in the 3rd Reich. That is, if he had made it past the race laws.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Just saying.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Is it okay to hack:
[_] Lawyers
[_] Journalists
[x] Both Lawyers and Journalists
[_] Cowboy Neil
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
^ Found the excuse-making nazi coward who advocates undermining rule of law and human rights for "righteous revenge" lol? Idiot, Israel is under less of a threat of being "wiped" off the map than your fiscally insolvent red state.
That's factual. Nyutty-yahoo just casually declared that "only jews" are citizens of Israel now. That cements him as a military occupier, and makes his bullshit about pretending to seek peace for 2-3 decades as 100% bullshit.
Likud is a terrorist organization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun
Once that history is known, everything else falls into place.
...lawyers, journalists, and the guardians of minors should understand that there's not some magical sacred boundary protecting them from what EVERYONE ELSE is vulnerable to.
I mean, they never SHOULD have considered themselves in any way inviolate, but knowing both some lawyers and journalists, they're both professions that think rather highly of their own importance, so perhaps the reminder is useful?
What's next, telling politicians that they're not special?
-Styopa
3 eyes and subsequent (what are they up to now about '16 eyes'?).
Ship sailed in the 1940s. Odds are good you are affected.
We've been being spied on by our nation's ally's spooks for our entire lives. Hi GCHQ, how's the weather in merry old Yobistan? (or is it the Boganistan shift?)
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Watched 60 minutes interview last night. It was hard to watch.. At one point Shalev did the whole evil laugh thing while uttering something about not believing the newspapers.
To me personally it isn't a shock or surprise to find grey hats selling their souls for money. Personally I've never believed in the existence of any meaningful distinction between grey and black hats to begin with. What is much harder to fathom was why Shalev was allowed to get anywhere near a camera in the first place.
As someone that is presently in Ukraine, and has been to Russia, and Belarus, over the past week, I can tell you that there is no universal definition of "totally fine." To present one in some course of action is to presume that your definition of "totally fine" is the acceptable one (totally fine), which presupposes that all other definitions are incorrect.
This line of reasoning is very similar to the case of when your neighbor is morbidly obese, and going to die from their lifestyle choices, and you decide to do something about it. So, the next time you see your neighbor eating a donut, and drinking a delicious beer, you decide to kick in his door, and knock that crap out of his hand. Maybe you slap him in the face a few times, so he'll learn a lesson. Then, in addition to this, you also decide to use your influence to make it illegal for third parties (in this case, Israelis) to sell him donuts and beer. Since he lives in the same block as you, and that kind of stuff isn't all right.
This is effectively American foreign policy.
There might be some problems associated with selling dictatorships the tools to repress their populations. Just as there are definitely some problems with being sedentary, eating crap, and watching t.v. / posting on slashdot all day. But guess what? The United States is not in control of Israel, or of those dictatorships, and should not act as the world's police, in order to project our values onto an unwilling audience.
Maybe we could lead by example, and not use hacking tools domestically, as a starting point? Like, you know, not eating donuts, drinking beer, and being sedentary, ourselves, before we tell other people how to live. That might be a better path.
Israelis should be pretty low on the list of people we shoud listen to to tell us what is OK or not, ethically.
And I'm saying that as a German Jew.
Seriously, my grandparents, one of which died in a concentration camp, would be the very first to condemn Israel for what it is.
Funny, how Jesus's main point was, that you should *not* harm others, even if, and especially if, they harmed you. For you would end up being just the same. And what did we learn? Nothing. We hung him. --.--
To me, humans are still a loong way away from being a developed, let alone "sapiens"-deserving, species.
>The United States is not in control of Israel, or of those dictatorships, and should not act as the world's police, in order to project our values onto an unwilling audience.
That may be a good ideal - but the U.S. helped create the modern nation of Israel from the spoils of WWII, and we keep it afloat via ongoing funding and military support. That makes us personally responsible for their actions. If we don't like what they're doing, we should stop supporting them. But we like having a consistently loyal location for military bases in the middle of the Middle East, and indirect genocide and other dirty dealings of all kinds are our military's stock in trade, so nothing is likely to change so long as the oil deposits in the region remain valuable.
>This is effectively American foreign policy.
No, it really isn't. America's foreign policy has nothing to do with spreading our values, and everything to do with expanding our power and influence. We routinely aid in the overthrowing of uncooperative democracies in order to install totalitarian dictators that will further those goals, and look the other way as the governments we support engage in genocide and other atrocities (just look at what we allowed from Saddam Hussein after we installed him in power - it wasn't until he stopped cooperating that we finally replaced him.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I would not mind this tactic if it was used on some of the more brutal governments in this world but have reservations about using it on common criminals and drug lords. In the US we desperately need to know about all kinds of things going on in government. But considering our being the greatest nation in regards to putting people in jails and prisons, the huge economic divide and racial issues we just might be classified as one of the brutal nations. We do not even have a legitimate president in office.
You know Intel has fabs in Israel, right?
Tell you what, let me know when we finally get around to doing the right thing - I haven't seen it yet.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Thing is that for much of the early history of Israel the USA did not provide military aid. In fact it was only the selling of advanced fighter aircraft to Iraq by the USSR in 1962 that it started to do so. The major turning point was the Six-Day War of 1967, with the nail in the coffin being the Yon Kippur war in 1973. Up until that point the main source of arms was France.
Much of the continuing support is because Israel is a fantastic test bed for new weapon technologies in actual combat operations. Where else do you get to test a missile defense system like Iron Dome for example?