My wife works for NSO, Facebook closed down the personal accounts of anyone working for NSO which is quite the aggressive move. I definitely see things warming up.
I’m sure your wife is a lovely lady. But NSO Group is a hostile intelligence asset. They actively undermine Americans and American security interests, here and abroad.
It’s not only reasonable for American companies to block them and their affiliates, it would also be reasonable for their travel to the country to be restricted (or monitored in the way a known spy would be).
I am not so sure. People who knowingly work for organizations that help plots to torture, murder and dismember journalists are not "lovely". She might not have known about it before, but she does now, and yet she still works for them.
You've conveniently omitted your work place information, else one could guilt trip you for continuing to work for your employer despite their worst acts being widely known. We shouldn't support this kind of specious virtue signaling, maybe the lady genuinely worked/works there for the company's publicly stated good intentions.
Also, how the Sauds use the tech is beyond NSO's, and especially the lady's control. Just like how the Sauds use American defense tech to wage war on Yemeni civilians - defense tech subsidized by the American taxpayer - that is you. And still, you continue to live in, and pay taxes to the US, instead of moving to a non-exporter of arms, like Greenland. All while casting blame on a lady working for an Israeli tech firm. For Shame!
It's not. They aided this regime, and other regimes, and chose to do so. And they knew that they weren't just selling them a few cars or some designer handbags, but actively aided in operations against everybody the house of Saud considers an enemy, and knew - just like anybody else who did some cursory googling - about the regime's targeting of any civilian opposition and protests, handing out gruesome "penalties" which can only be described as state sponsored murder, mutilation and torture.
>and especially the lady's control
She decides where she works. This is the old "I was only following orders, and wasn't even directly involved in any of the evils" excuse deep down.
>Just like how the Sauds use American defense tech to wage war on Yemeni civilians - defense tech subsidized by the American taxpayer - that is you. And still, you continue to live in, and pay taxes to the US, instead of moving to a non-exporter of arms, like Greenland.
I am not living in the US, but a country that still exports arm to the Saudis, so I kind of get your point. However, there is considerable societal backslash against this here, me being tiny part of it, to the point where the government "froze" such exports for the time being[1].
Your "just fuck off then to a nicer country" argument is built on a false premise anyway. You fix things in your society that are wrong, and you don't get to tell those people who raise concerns, which is the first step in fixing things, to just fuck off to some other nation.
[1] https://www.dw.com/en/german-arms-export-freeze-on-saudi-ara...
If they had announced they were blacklisting those governments as customers, maybe they could've partly repaired their reputation, but that would destroy their entire business model, so they don't and won't. Their total addressable market is strictly capped. They need every government in the world as a prospective customer, else their business probably isn't financially sustainable. Ethics stop where sales start. In response to all of the reporting, they actually do claim to now be factoring ethics into their sales decisions, but the rigor behind it seems extremely questionable, to say the least. [1]
There is absolutely no other employer someone could work for (besides those in the same niche, like Hacking Team, or military contractors that work with such governments) which is anywhere near as unethical as companies like NSO. Not Facebook, not Google, not even CIA/NSA/FBI, probably.
Also, you can't liken living in a country with a government who you know does unethical things to working for an employer who you know does unethical things.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/us/politics/government-ha...
>The company has established an ethics committee, which decides whether it can sell its spyware to countries based on their human rights records as reported by global organizations like the World Bank’s human capital index, and other indicators. NSO would not sell to Turkey, for example, because of its poor record on human rights, current and former employees said.
>But on the World Bank index, Turkey ranks higher than Mexico and Saudi Arabia, both NSO clients. A spokesman for Israel’s Ministry of Defense, which needs to authorize any contract that NSO wins from a foreign government, declined to answer questions about the company.
I didn't say the CIA/NSA weren't unethical; just that they're probably not as unethical as NSO. But I could also be unaware of awful things CIA/NSA have done which are worse than what is publicly known, in which case I cede the point.
So I would say NSO is just another outfit of money-grubbing intelligence-industrial complex SOBs, who happen to be mostly Israelis rather than US citizens.
NSO can be justifiably blamed for selling to a regime like Saudi Arabia, but it can't be blamed for undermining 'Americans and American security interests' when the American government itself does not see SA's actions as contrary to 'American security interests'.
NSO could at least argue that they did not predict beforehand that SA would go to such lengths - Khashoggi himself did not expect it - but the US obviously knew after the fact. Yet, the US keeps selling weapons to SA and applied no penalty.
We can't expect NSO Group to take a stricter view of 'American security interests' than the US government does.
No, but we as people can take a stricter view. The people working for companies like NSO Group are torture and murder facilitators, plain and simple. There is no legitimate use case for products like these in a democracy. Police forces working under rule of law are not in need of these products.
The agencies are willing to invest far more in 'breaking computer security' than in 'finding lethal injection drugs for people who are anyway in custody' . 'Breaking security' is a priority to them in the way 'finding lethal drugs' never was.
That does not get NSO Group off the hook, they did agree to work with SA in the first place - but I suspect we'll just discover there are other outfits (and inhouse talent) out there, and that lasting change requires looking also at the demand and infrastructure sides.
It would be hard to even make the case that the murder was good for Saudi Arabian interests. It was apparently done for Mohammad bin Salman and it's a stretch to say that the interests of Mohammad bin Salman are categorically the interests of Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has been an extremist, terrorist plutocratic religious dictatorship since the house of saud was influenced by the terrorist philosopher Wahabbi.
Bin Salman matches the character of the average Saudi, I've spent a great deal of time there.
In life, Khashoggi may have been a critic of Saudi Arabia, but I don't think he was an existential threat to Saudi Arabia's ability to be an effective ally to America or Israel.
The US is truly great at claiming things are bad while _controlling those things_ at the same time.
For what it's worth _personally_ I believe that NSO is a bad company and US regulation needs to change - but those things need to change together at the same time.
What they can do —like in this case— is to sue in civil court. What they can also do is to kick the people that they are suing away from their platform for violating their terms. It’s actually not rare (several people involved with Cambridge Analytica were locked out of their account) so “aggressive” is a stretch, but that kind of side-show is representative of the internal tone of the discussion.
A friend talked about “their large legal team” and, yes, that’s more to the point. Said legal team has a lot of friends familiar with Den Hague so I wouldn’t be surprised if your wishes become reality.
It looks like they sold software that could breach whatsapp security. Where can I read more (something that's understandable) about how this is export restricted?
If it was export restricted, who is responsible for enforcing the law?
>4. A. 5. Systems, equipment, and components therefor, specially designed or modified for the generation, command and control, or delivery of "intrusion software".
https://www.wassenaar.org/participating-states/
Click on your country and it should point you to the relevant authority for your government.
As I understand it, VUPEN was buying exploits before the exploit section was added to the Wassenaar agreement. They attempted to dodge the agreement by moving the company from France to Singapore (which is not a Wassenaar signatory), but then Singapore still added the exploit section to their laws [0]. VUPEN shut down before that law change anyway, due to bad press from the Hacking Team leaks.
Who is tracking / investigating what just happened? How would they even know?
Would getting an export license even be possible?
For you selling to Zerodium, it would be the government agency in your country in charge of managing export controls. Unless you are bragging about it on social media, it is unlikely that they would know about you selling the exploit. As long as Zerodium doesn't tell your country about you selling the exploit, it will be very difficult for your country to find out (unless they investigate where you are getting tens of thousands of dollars from).
For Zerodium reselling, it primarily falls under the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). If they are selling to somebody nasty the Department of State's Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation could be involved, along with Homeland Security. Since Zerodium is very public about buying and selling exploits, they are certainly on the radar of these agencies. If they don't see Zerodium applying for export licenses, they will investigate.
>Would getting an export license even be possible?
Contact your local government. It might be difficult to do so as an individual, so you could need to form a small company.
I think this law changes everything when it comes to trading exploits.
What would they get in taxes from that million bucks? Export controlled things still get sold all the time, look at any country with a weapons industry. The goal of licensing is to control who they get sold to, not to stop them from being sold.
NSO are of the same level of people as those who sold cattle prods to Saddam after knowing how their tool would be used.
Any of those would have been sufficient to ensure I wouldn't work for them for any amount of money, and I'd quit if I found out about them after I was employed.
Honestly, that's blood money.
Using your logic, the murdered journalist took blood money.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/i...
If you work for pretty much any major company in the world, you are receiving "blood money". If you are working for the US government or any major government, you are receiving "blood money".
Can you point me to a company that is "without sin"?
2. Not many people would conflate working for washington post and helping to kill civilians in the middle east. But perhaps if shown enough evidence they would maybe do so and act accordingly. So knowledge, like the knowledge in this article, enabled the OP to make an ethical decision.
3. Your comment doesn't help anyone. Because you have discounted degrees of harm ("any major company in the world", "any government") and this then undermined the small bit of knowledge imparted (the WP link). The nett effect is a call to inaction.
Is it ethically acceptable to join a weapon manufacturer? A drug cartel? The SS?
You always have to draw a line somewhere.
Lockheed because it is primarily a military contractor.
Boeing because one half is military contractor and the other half is cost cutting at the cost of lives.
The lawsuit seeks to have NSO barred from accessing or attempting to access WhatsApp and Facebook’s services...
I think torched is the right word. As in, NSO will be torched, and having them on your resume is not gonna be a good thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act
I personally don't believe them but she does :)
My wife is in finance, it was this or an abusive boss and constant unpaid overtime.
For what it's worth I think it's the same as working for any weapons producing company (a big no no for me but plenty of people there who are very idiological)
>My wife is in finance, it was this or an abusive boss and constant unpaid overtime.
Or not working at all, considering you are so "privileged". Or working for some NGO, probono even, if it's about finding meaning in life and not about paying the bills. Or working as a walmart greeter or meter maid or orderly in a hospital. I'd rather work my really shit orderly job I used to work years ago, than work for scum like NSO.
Given she works in finance, she sounds educated enough and privileged enough to find a nice job that does not involve deliberately targeting and killing civilians. Maybe less "prestigious" or paying less, but still enough to make a nice living on your double income.
I am not buying your excuse, even tho you and your wife might be buying it yourself. Rationalization can be a problem.
It's a lot easier to pursue existential philosophical musings after your mortgage is paid and your kids are fed.
Weapons are created so they can be pointed at living things, regardless of who they work for. I'm not defending NSO but let's not pretend selling exploits is any different to e.g. a Tazer or rifle manufacturer.
The sanctioned use of weapons is against belligerents. The intentional killing or torture of civilians or prisoners is a human rights violation, or a war crime during warfare.
Many people are patriots and defend their country's interests.
As far as I can tell NSO were mercenaries, not patriots.
I'm pretty sure these people are mercs without morals.
I really dislike NSO to the point I don't join my wife on company vacations but she is her own person and I support her choises. She is not in software and the finance and accounting market here isn't nearly as nice.
You can support her as a person but you should not support her choice to work for a clearly unethical company who has actively contributed to the violation of human rights and murder of innocents.
That explains how Saudis got access to NSO products.
Being a little assertive with your marketing will get you a couple of warnings and temporary bans but systematic efforts, after Facebook sent Cease & Desist letters, etc. will. Being one of the very few able to hack WhatsApp, refusing to submit the generous bug bounties but instead using that to get US journalists killed… that will get you at the top of the naughty list.
I understand that, without details, OC’s wife might be an innocent accountant, someone motivated by good values but misinformed or an active and knowledgeable participant to gruesome abuses. We can agree that Facebook doesn’t know yet. I would understand why once the problem is detected, Facebook might want to take precautions and only revise their individual bans later.