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Comment by krn | Hacker News Reader

I have pointed this out 49 days ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19122206

Thank you! It’s widely accepted and known in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries that NSO is used by their dictators. Not sure why israel gov, the only democracy in that part of the world, is helping dictators by approving NSO to be sold to counties like Saudi Arabia, UAE and Mexico!!

It’s just shocking to see some people not only reject that its NSO but go beyond and above their ways to defend NSO, like the commentator we are relying to.. So many comments here are again insisting it’s the brother who leaked it when this article was SPECIFICALLY written by Gavin de Becker to say it’s the Saudis and not the brother...

please when you make a statement or reject an accusation cite a reputable source.

Check out this psygroup proposal to blackmail people name/shame by Psy-group.

It says in the proposal that these methods of blackmailing often work to silence target.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-a-private-israe...

Worth mentioning that the smear campaign against Bezos on twitter is identical to what proposed to trumps son in his meeting at trump tower with George Nader Here is psy group proposal

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/us/politics/rick-gates-ps...

> Thank you! It’s widely accepted and known in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries that NSO is used by their dictators. Not sure why israel gov, the only democracy in that part of the world, is helping dictators by approving NSO to be sold to counties like Saudi Arabia, UAE and Mexico!

Dictatorial and royal Arab governments are much friendlier to Israel than any democratic government would be. They’re not willing to officially regularise relations because they know how much their populace hates Israel but they’re perfectly willing to work with Israel. Israel knows this. That’s why they’re willing to work with these governments; they’re the closest to friends and allies they’re ever going to get as neighbours.

Precisely that, although the irony is that while the regimes themselves, anywhere in the Sunni Arab world, are friendly and cooperative towards Israel, their educational textbooks still preach for hatred and rejection of Israel and often times straight antisemitism. It's how they prop a common enemy to blame for their troubles.

Israel is a highly pragmatic country, primarily concerned with the survival of the Jews instead of a set of principles. Allowing NSO to be sold to nearby dictatorships like the Saudis would allow the Saudis to more easily defeat their own enemies rather than go after Israel, a sort of dark diplomacy.

>Not sure why israel gov, the only democracy in that part of the world, is helping dictators by approving NSO to be sold to counties like Saudi Arabia, UAE and Mexico!!!

Not surprising. For example the US has a “special relationship” with Saudi Arabia and sells a lot more than software (jets, arms, etc)

But USA never helped Saudi to treat its people inhumanly. The US didn’t help or remained silent when Saudi violeted human rights. The US never EVER helped Saudi to spy on a journalist then advised its murderers on how to weather the storm, like Kushner did. Even Lindsey Graham couldn’t tolerate this atrocity but it was fine with Kushner and Israeli PM Netanyahu https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-netanyahu-on-kh...

>The US never EVER helped Saudi to spy on a journalist...

Israel didn't help them either, it just didn't stop an Israeli company from selling certain products to the Saudis. Do you think the US is stopping all companies from doing business with the Saudis, or even just stopping them from selling tools that can be used by the regime against the public?

because they aren't, they are however supposedly doing that with Iran and to a certain extent, with Russia, so it's not like it's something they can't do, it's just that they choose not to.

I'm by far not an expert, but I believe that This business (spyware for governments) works more similar to international weapons dealing. An Israeli company selling spyware to Saudi Arabia will likely at the same time work together with Mossad or another allied intelligence agency. Selling this software provides an obvious entry point, whether for human assets, piggy-backing on the eavesdropping software, or to map out future attack vectors.

The founders and employees were members of the Israeli military cyber-security apparatus, if not Unit 8200 itself.

(https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2016/08/25/every...)

I assume most software sold by these companies has backdoors either already shared with Aman/Mossad, or stored to be provided upon request.

They were former members in those organizations, like army vets, and as far as I understand they face a lot of criticism from the Israeli public, if not the government.

I think they are basically like those vets that go and work security for private contractors, and some of them end up working for some really bad people.

About the backdoors, I can't tell, on the one hand, I would assume you're correct, that they do provide access to the Mossad+friends, but on the other hand, if it was discovered, they would lose credibility, and all those basically bad people wouldn't work with them, and any normal entity probably aren't working with them already, so they would lose their entire business.

You might be interested in seeing photos of F-15s above the Saana skies. In fact, the first F-15 lost combat was lost due to a Yeminite SAM.

Reminds me of when the US assisted Iraqi poison gas attacks during the Iran-Iraq War.

Your claims about what the US did and didn't do seem rather implausible to me, and in any case it seems unlikely that you're in a position to know what e.g. the NSA, the CIA, or any of the countless US military intelligence agencies did or did not do for Saudia Arabia. All we know is that the US makes massive weapons and oil deals with Saudi Arabia and has considered the Saudis one of the most important strategic partners in the region. Personally, I find it not hard to believe that the same cynics involved in these deals and cooperation wouldn't care all too much about some Saudi journalists, gay Saudi youtube channel dancers, or human rights activists, but of course I could also be wrong. The point is that we don't know.

Let’s see A) they are selling a product

B) they are helping propping the stable status quo

C) do you really help a country by selling oppression tools to its dictatorship, most democratic countries have overtaken dictatorships in all metrics with one exception

D) getting good will from the current rulers and establishing cooperative relationships within multiple levels of those countries

E) good will and relationships can be exploited

At a guess anyway

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