How the United Arab Emirates Intelligence Tried to Hire Me to Spy on Its People | Hacker News Reader

How the United Arab Emirates Intelligence Tried to Hire Me to Spy on Its People

evilsocket.net

152 pointsevilsocket73 comments

It is not mentioned in the article, but the UAE is a country with sharia law: Flogging is a punishment for criminal offences such as adultery, premarital sex and alcohol consumption, while apostasy and homosexuality are crimes punishable by death. Amputation and crucification are legal punishments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_Ara...

I wonder if the author is afraid of retribution (e.g. abduction, “disappearance”).

I didn't know that! ... anyway, yes I'm afraid, I just did what I felt to be my "duty" and hope for the best :)

Just never – ever – visit UAE again.

ahaha of course not! :D

Or any of the GCC states.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/04/26/gcc-joint-security-agree...

I like the UAE.

As long as you don't break their laws the experience is fine. To be honest, I'm more frightened of going to America as a non-white person where even obeying the laws can result in death.

Edit: If you disagree with my post please add to the conversation rather than just down-voting.

There's not even a way to frame a disagreement. Your statement is just intellectually dishonest. You can die obeying the laws anywhere as a person of any race.

America has problems with racial violence, but your comment indicates a total disconnect from reality in pretty much every way.

I'd still stay away if I were evilsocket.

Referring to racial discrimination in the west as reaction to allegations of human rights abuse is a quite old technique: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes

Edit: The rhetorical device is called a “whataboutism”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism. The fallacy involved is called “to quoque” – a special case of an “ad hominem” argument, i.e. attacking the speaker and not the content. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

There was no attempt to excuse human rights abuses in the post you are responding to. Only a comment about visiting such places vs the US while brown.

In general despotic regimes love visitors who are willing to keep their opinions about the local political situation to themselves no matter what sort of person they are. Places like the US tend to be indifferent to the political beliefs of visitors and as a result any local racial biases will be applied fairly to those visiting.

Better not get raped: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23381448

The chances of you dieing from law enforcement acting in a racist manner are vanishingly small and it is still illegal.

The uae condones killing people for being gay as a matter of policy. Don't expect much more than downvotes when you attempt to portray as the US being worse in that comparison.

The difference of course is that one can hide the fact that one is gay. It's not so easy to hide that one is black.

Which might be one reason why they need surveillance. For many people, even a simple web search might turn up stuff that could get them arrested. For this reason, I have decided not to visit countries where some of the content on web sites I am responsible for is illegal.

The difference of course is that one is discrimination based on law, while the other is a minority of bad actors acting illegally.

>It's not so easy to hide that one is black.

Sure it is. Wear a burka every time you are in public. This suggestion is also as ridiculous as suggesting that people hide the fact that they are gay.

> Wear a burka every time you are in public. This suggestion is also as ridiculous as suggesting that people hide the fact that they are gay.

So let me get this right:

You are comparing the ridiculousness of a black person having to wear a burka in the US to avoid being shot, versus the ridiculousness of a gay person having to hide the fact that they are gay while in the UAE?

I'm sorry, it just doesn't sound as ridiculous to me to expect someone to take care not to utter the words, "I am gay" while in a country where being gay can get you legally killed, as opposed to the ridiculousness of a black person having to wear a burka in the US to avoid being shot illegally.

Being black in the US is legal, and being shot for being a black person in the US is uncommon. The burden of having to wear a burka all the time lest your blackness be discovered is large.

Being gay in the UAE is illegal and punishable by death. The burden of not saying certain particular words to expose your gayness is small.

Ergo, the black guy having to wear a burka option is clearly more ridiculous.

>>Being black in the US is legal, and being shot for being a black person in the US is uncommon.

That's true, although you also run the risk of being choked/tasered to death.

Indonesia banned their women from working in the UAE and 20 of their neighbors because of the abuse, maiming and killing by their employers and judicial systems.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/06/asia/indonesia-migrant-wor...

I am disgusted by the race and policing problems in the US, but you have to have some perspective.

I've never had a problem as a half-black Canadian business traveler. That doesn't mean I'm not anxious.

All though the US may legitimately seem callous and murderous to those on the sharp end of its foreign policy, there are a whole lot of Americans who take this freedom thing seriously. More important, there is a culture of free speech and of challenging government.

I think an important difference is that the victims of most US actions like abduction, imprisonment without trial, torture or assassinations are not US citizens – and it is often done in a foreign country. Because of that, it does not stifle political debate.

Example: The current US administration apparently has a “kill list” for enemies of the US government that they plan to assassinate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix

I find such a thing scary and unethical. Yet, as I understand it, domestic political opponents of US politicians do not have to fear torture, disappearance, or imprisonment without trial – it is even possible to openly criticize the people who command such assassinations without being in danger of being executed by the government.

Personally, I'm more interested in the perception than in the sorts of defensiveness that I'm seeing in response.

Sure, statistically, most visitors aren't going to have any problem with our screwed up police.

But remember that, statistically, your average voter is more likely to drown in a bucket[1] than be a victim of terrorism, and look at what has been done since 2001 "to keep us safe".

Fear is not rational, and "you're wrong" or "I have this issue with your rhetorical technique" is not going to change any minds.

[1] Picked statistically unlikely event at random; did not look up actual statistics. You get the point and I'm not going to respond to pedantry.

Your comment shows the level of misinformation and reputation damage done by media and various social movements. America is safe for all law-abiding persons. Not only do I disagree with your comment, but I find it offensive that you would propagate the myth. It's damaging and unsubstantiated.

> America is safe for all law-abiding persons.

This is patently not true. You can blame social media, or SJW's or whatever, but it is not true, except in the minds of the alt-right.

> America is safe for all law-abiding persons

Your comment shows the level of misinformation and reputation damage done by media and various social movements. Not only do I disagree with your comment, but I find it offensive that you would propagate the myth. It's damaging and unsubstantiated.

"why did you shoot me?" "I don't know" [1]

[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/7566992798261...

You going to base an entire argument on one example?

You are the one who said America is safe for all law-abiding citizens. One example invalidates your claim handily.

Then we can argue about the definition of safe, or the reasonable expectation of safety. But it seems that Hacker News would rather point to one example which apparently "invalidates" the claim "handily". What do you consider safe then? If you are determined to argue based on one example; Do you not take a risk starting a business? Do you not take a risk eating foods? Do you not take a risk driving?

There are reasonable mistakes made in the course of living and of any action. So if you want to exaggerate the claim of one (or even a few) examples to the point of making it appear as an epidemic in America; then I will hold you to a higher standard than the half-assed arguments that I see here. Many people engaged with these narratives are grossly misrepresenting legitimate claims of police brutality or racial discrimination. If you cannot be honest in debate, then I would also not expect the same to be honest in any proposed solution. Blatant misrepresentation by so many; it's disgusting.

You're getting a bit hysterical. All that's happened is that people have shown your claim to be false.

If we can argue about the definition of safe, then "America is safe" is meaningless. Why don't you help us out by defining how you measure safety, and "law abiding" for that matter. Is anybody in the US rigorously law-abiding? Based on what evidence?

I try to stay away from the US after the story of John Kristoffer Larsgard. Due process, my ass.

I don't just disagree with your post: in light of what evilsocket just stated, your claims are downright ludocrious.

Even though I also try to stay away from the US, attitudes like these are in a different league: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bV710c1dgpU

What you probably don't know is that America is a very big and complex country. It's so big that you can love one part and hate the other part at the same time.

It's so complex that even its government is not entirely a single rock. There are avid defenders of human rights as well as evil masters in its government. Somehow they are both coexisting. That's how big America is.

I'm non-white and non-American and I certainly hate some ugly parts of it. But I have mixed feeling to America. I guess it's a kind of feeling that many people have towards the country.

One of the more accurate descriptions of America that I've seen. It's truly a country of contradictions.

What you probably don't know is that this describes just about every country, even some of the tiny pacific island ones.

"As long as you don't break the law you are fine" this is the excuse that dictatorship apologists give "well, if you behaved and didn't demonstrate and didn't join a left/right party you were fine under Pinochet/Ceaucescu"

Little known fact:

Most top intelligence officials from Western countries retire to form "security analysis and consulting" firms.

Rudy Giuliani has such a firm. http://www.giulianisecurity.com/index.php/us/

His former Police Chief has one. http://www.thekerikgroup.com/

Most former U.S. Secretaries of Homeland Security have one (each). Look up https://chertoffgroup.com/team.php

Ever wondered what exactly they do? They help wealthy dictators and despots in other countries monitor their populations, and crush dissent.

Puts me in mind of Moxie's experience in a similar incident with Mobily and Saudi Arabia[1]

[1]: https://moxie.org/blog/saudi-surveillance/

to be honest, finding out that someone else disclosed something very similar in the past has been a big contribution to my final decision to publish the post.

I lived in UAE for 10 years.

All I can say is...it's not a "bad" place if:

1) you are working as a direct hire for any of the govt companies (Adnoc, Etisalat, etc.).

2) if not, you are contracted directly by those companies

3) if you are on contract and your visa's sponsor is good (won't take your passport on arrival, won't create issues when you need to leave, etc.)

4) If you keep your head down basically - go to work, come home, have fun - Don't get involved in politics, using encrypted chatting applications, talking about human rights or anything along those lines.

oh and there's definitely a lot of brain washing going on. Almost everyone claims that it's the best place to be, discrimination ain't a thing (yes it is), everyone's fair (nope) and so on...

So UAE is “not a ‘bad’ place” for people whose definition of “fun” does not include premarital sex, alcohol consumption, kissing in public, adultery, blasphemy, homosexual sex, criticizing rulers … may I ask, what do they do then?

that was a bad choice of words from my end. Sorry.

By "have fun", I meant - go around, visit places, hang out with friends, shop etc. While I am personally not aware of premarital sex, alcohol consumption is fine (as long as you have a licence, and do it indoors)

kissing in public, adultery, blasphemy, homosexual sex, criticizing rulers - yep, all these are big no-nos.

Question: if "using encrypted chatting applications" is banned, can on use iMessage?

Or for that matter, HTTPS?

I'm not too sure about iMessage (I was a kid when it first debuted in UAE).

But I do remember them having an outright ban on BBM (for about 3 days) till Blackberry had a local datacenter (and I believe provided the govt access to the messages - I am not sure about the details in parenthesis).

iOS devices sold in UAE don't have iMessage and FaceTime support. I can't remember whether I was able to use iMessage the last time I was there with an iPhone I purchased elsewhere.

"it's not that bad if your sponsor doesn't steal your passport"

Your employer stealing your passport is something that generally only happens in a hellhole?

Most decent companies there, generally don't do that. However, there are always exceptions.

Furthermore, this issue generally plagues the contractor companies (those that provide workers to bigger govt companies - who don't really care and use contractors to get around this in the first place)

Quite a lot of private companies do the same as well.

Very recently (just 6 months back), a friend of mine, got an offer from an import/export company in UAE. They had a few interviews over the phone and agreed upon the everything (including salary, accommodations and so on..)

Once my friend (a Canadian citzien) landed in UAE, the company took his passport and then demanded that he sign a different contract (reduced salary, longer period, etc.) and refused to hand over his password till he signed it. He had to threaten to visit the Embassy, for them to hand it back to him. However, if he was a citizen of some 3rd world country like India, Pakistan or anywhere from Asia, or even some European countries - he'd not have a choice but to sign the new contract.

Furthermore, when he tried to leave - as he was no longer interested in working for the company, they refused to pay for his flight back as well.

Yes but what I mean is, that's something that often happens there, whereas even the shittiest companies in the US and Western Europe would never ever do that, because the people/company who took your passport would go to prison or be heavily fined or both if they did.

Which means the UAE is a hellhole no one should visit, because if that's a common enough problem that everyone knows about it, and it's not a problem people face elsewhere, then who knows how many other nightmares lurk beneath the surface in the UAE?

It's not worth the risk for the shaky promise of some amount of money beyond your existing salary (on top of any ethical issues of economically supporting such behavior).

So...sounds like a hellhole? That might be the point of your comment...sarcasm is hard on the interwebs.

I think OPs point is that while they might have treated OP like gold, he couldn't conscious taking part in the horrifying things they do to their own people, to say nothing of migrant workers (taking passports as a means of control).

I'm pretty sure the UAE is obsessed with spying. Personal anecdote: I once dated a girl who's the daughter of a high ranking official (while she was in the US), and the government spied on her text messages and forced her to break up with me. At least according to her.

"It's not you, it's the UAE government..."

Elaborate on "forced"

Someone from the UAE government, possibly a relative, met up with her with a printout of all the conversations and then heavily pressured her to break up.

@evilsocket FYI, the <pre> blocks on that page are really hard to read on mobile because the line breaks are enforced, requiring left-right scrolling. Seems like a blockquote would be a better choice here.

that should be fixed now, thanks

NB: you've fixed the styling (renders fairly reasonably on my 10" tablet) but not the markup.

<pre> should be used for preformatted code blocks or similar.

When you're quoting something, the appropriate markup is a <blockuquote> tag pair.

Most sane CSS should render that reasonably, preferably simply by indenting the content.

i write posts in markdown, they're then "compiled" into html, I should fix the software I'm using ... but as long as it works, for me it's ok, being it styling or markup :)

In markdown I think a blockquote is indicated by >, so:

> This is a quote

> it is rendered as a blockquote.

It looks like Britain's got competition for the dubious award of most surveilled country.

But seriously, this is an absolutely despicable act on the part of the UAE. And that fact that Tor's security has come into question of late just makes it worse (not that Tor would help you with this sort of thing).

Look Dubai is all for the biggest and largest, so if they are getting serious about surveillance, you can bet they ll want to boast about it.

Also of note is that dubai is ~85% immigrants, which i think it the object of their surveillance.

Heck no, it's the local nationals they care about:

The UAE's bizarre, political trial of 94 activists

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/06/uae-tri...

They seem to have everyone pretty cowed. They treat the guest workers like dirt, but don't seem to be concerned about a slave revolt.

Another brilliant example on why people should shun travelling to and most notably _through_ these countries. The UAE is not a safe place to travel through at all. As others have said, the laws are different.

People have been detained for reasons beyond imagination.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-woman-faces-insult-charge-unit...

http://gulfnews.com/news/uae/general/jailed-and-fined-for-no...

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/561528/British-plane-spo...

That's interesting... DarkMatter LLC has an office here in Mississauga, ON, CA. I kept wondering what the hell they do exactly. Their online presence is a bit vague and ominous.

now you know :)

It is really funny the article, you say you use signal to communicate which is totally interceptable nowadays, you register using your real phone, so i could trace you and intercept your real phone!. If you are a real top goverment security guy NEVER use signal my friend. Seems you are newbie on the security scene.

I'm not really sure who you're talking to ... they asked me to use Signal, honestly I didn't really care ...

Signal is bad for other reasons, too, like creating a lock-in effect and being hostile to clients that remove the dependency on Google Play Services: http://news.dieweltistgarnichtso.net/posts/signal-lock-in.ht...

You could also say that Signal is good because they realized the shortcomings of federation and want to sign their binaries themselves.

What would those shortcomings be? I think that networked software systems should be forward-compatible, so that new features can be introduced without breaking every existing client. Some programmers assert the only way to innovate is by having everyone run the latest version of their software and excluding competing implementations. You can see this phenomenon not only with Signal, but also, for example, with systemd.

> What would those shortcomings be?

Moxie wrote about it:

https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/

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