Israel’s lucrative and secretive cybersurveillance industry
restofworld.org
restofworld.org
> Behind NSO Group, there are many more. Cellebrite offers services to reconstruct data deleted from devices. NSO’s sister company Circles sells the ability to locate a person’s physical location using only their phone number.
Terrifying stuff. All this makes me wonder: nowadays, how are citizens living under oppressive governments ever to conceivably organise any kind of resistance? Such pervasive and all-encompassing surveillance makes it impossible that any kind of opposition can ever be mounted, if citizens can be monitored everywhere at all times. Absolutely depressing stuff.
https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-phone-hacked-saud....
Like, I think there was something about the journal threatening to release the photos and being able to describe the photos, but they never followed through or sent a proof that they did have the photos, which suggests someone looked at Bezos' phone but didn't actually download the data.
“I feel people like J. Edgar Hoover and Joseph McCarthy were born just a little too early.”
For non-Americans:
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy
Actual selection starts in kindergarden. Various games and activities that select for ability to follow and understand the rules and so on. Results from kindergarden define class distribution in elementary. At the second grade kids do kind of IQ test (0-100). Those who scored 92-95 get selected for one-day-a-week development program. Those with 95-100 get selected to special schools. Every half a year each teacher fills a summary on each kid. The summary is added to general evaluation.
By the time, they get to army, it's known precisely which unit is the best fit mentally and physically.
Drawback of this system: if immigrant kid gets directly into high school without document trail, he is labeled as not smart. Goes directly to the Border Police. There is a special unit within the Border Policy for kids, who are smart and got there by mistake. In general border police are mentally challenged grunts unable to follow complex written instructions (anecdote: my collegue was treating in the field a border police soldier who lost an eye by shooting through the hole with label "Do not shoot through this hole, you'll lose an eye").
Psychometric test after high school and before university is calibrated to predict performance at the first semester finals.
8200-alumni, can confirm lol.
I decided not to pursue. I wasn't particularly thrilled with being a janitor for six months, while they cleared me.
These days, I doubt they'd touch me with a ten-foot pole. Young folks are clean slates. Us old farts are baggage, personified. No "red flags," but I'm also really cynical, and they'd have a hard time getting me to jump through their hoops.
I use this to motivate myself to this day... "well I was born a perhaps slightly above-average schlub... if those other people can succeed then with a bit of persistence so can I."
Maybe I've been going about it all wrong!
it's all about intentions. when you do it, you know your intentions. when it's foreign interest it's another story.
That said outside of Israel it’s essentially impossible to validate, I actually wonder how many people take advantage of that, 8200 is huge it’s the largest (single) unit in the IDF (tho 8200 is technically the command level unit number, there are numerous sub units under it) it won’t be that hard to simply lie especially to a foreign company.
also before you are being recruited, you are asked to list preferences. then in intelligence again, what are your interests, etc. I guess I aced the tests because I went through so many of them, should've focused only on what I actually wanted. it goes without saying it's not odd for them not to give a fuck about your preferences.
just kidding, it's the same from what I hear and see. usually 8200 have it better, it's supposedly most "elite"... but other units have it easier so...
For example - the US dominance in fields like internet, electronics and aviation is probably directly related to the investment the country has made in related fields for military reasons. Once you have a manufacturing base and labor force that knows how to do X, they will do it commercially.
Israel is a small nation of well educated people which is consistently dealing with external existential threads. Of course its military strategy is going to be intelligence-based (rather pre-empt on pin-point basis rather than go to all out war down the road.) And then of course people will graduate from that military experience of using computers for broad data analysis and look to put it to commercial use. This manifests in cyber security and ad tec and plenty of other civilian uses like medical imaging. None of this is particularly malign or surprising. It comes down to - if you have a large labor force who can do X, and there are subsets of X you don't like, there's going to be some proportion of what the country does that you won't like.
Does Israel have enemies? Plenty, and justifiably so in many cases! But enemies and existential threats are not the same thing. There is no existential threat to Israel, certainly not any in the form of a foreign aggressor. Anyone even considering becoming a serious existential threat to Israel has to contend with the reality of attempting to get rid of it militarily, assuming they could even come close to doing so: the inevitable (and probably immediate) annihilation, Dr. Strangelove-style, of the entire region in retaliatory nuclear strikes. Israel has militarily guaranteed its continued existence, and wagging our fingers at each other on the internet cannot change anything about it.
If anything, with an arsenal like that, you wonder whether other countries in the neighborhood might ask whether Israel is an existential threat to them. Who could tell them they're wrong?
Israel's enemies are often non-state actors that have already demonstrated they don't really care about their personal survival or civilian casualties (theirs or Israel's).
You could argue that Israel is well equipped to control any existential threat by it's neighbors, but to argue such a threat doesn't exist is kind of silly.
You know what Israel is also good at. Propaganda and creating fake intelligence.
Israel has for almost 30 years now argued that Iran is just a year away from nuclear weapons and the US must instantly attack Iran.
Iran had no plan to develop anything and wanted civilian nuclear power, complete controlled by France in terms of import and export of nuclear fuel.
When this was blocked Iran moved said, well I guess we will invest in this ourself. Once they had the started capability to do so, again with no evidence of developing nuclear weapons Israel/US started the assassinate Iranian scientists, create one of the most aggressive sanctions programs in world history and a whole host of other things such as stuxnet.
Despite multiple US intelligence agencies saying there was no evidence of a nuclear weapons program and many expert predicting Iran had no such plans.
Iran eventually agree to the most extreme observation of their nuclear program that any nation has ever agree on in history of nuclear agreements. And this program was active for quite a while, and found no evidence what so ever that there had ever been a nuclear program. Basically all expert saying that it was practically impossible for them to have a nuclear weapons program with those safegurads in control.
The US then left an international agreement, despite every other nation that was part of the agreement agree that Iran had behaved perfectly within the agreement. Iran was certified multiple times of having not engaged in any activity that was not allowed in the agreement.
And even after the US left the agreement, Iran and the other nations still hold to the agreement and safeguards are still in place.
So this idea that Iran is this big danger is simply propaganda pushed by Israel mostly and other US interests who hate Iran for various reasons.
What really mind blowing about this whole 'Iran nuclear controversy' is that ironical Isreal IS ACTUALLY nuclear rough state. Iran is a signatory of the NPT while Israel is not.
But of course them having them is just fine and proper, but anybody else getting them existential thread. But that argument of course is never allowed to be made the other way around.
If there is a state of rebellious fanatics that repress large parts of their population that is a thread to the world, I know what state I would pick. And if I were the neighbour of such a state, I be very concerned. It is Israel actually that has invaded other countries repeatedly far more often then they were invaded.
Just about right now that Biden might even consider even possible reopening negotiations, the propaganda machine is pumping out this garbage again.
> ignore the ones that say Israel should be wiped out.
Israel has multiple times and often directly advocated and produced fake evidence in order to attempt to provoke a war between the US and Iran.
There is a well document history of this.
Why do we think its legitimate for Israel to ignore international agreements, and threaten Iran non-stop (including multiple assassination and attacks on Iranian territory) but when Iran does even 1/10 of that everybody freaks out and calls for war on Iran?
I agree with the concern about the 1 year claim. Iran definitely has the right to use civilian nuclear power, and I don't know the math behind the 1 year line. It may be that 1 year is the fastest possible amount of time that Iran could conceivably develop a nuke, in which case, I totally agree, it's propaganda to be citing that.
Neither do most nations in the region. Iran has stated multiple times that Iran would comply with the Arab peace process.
> I don't have data on when Iran will/can develop a nuclear weapon. There is a fear that they would make use of it though, which is definitely a problem.
And what is that fear based on? That they are crazy religious nuts who don't understand game theory? Very reasonable.
This is just more propaganda, that one religious nation claims the other religious nations leaders are a bunch of suicide bombers.
Expert consequences by people who actually study this is that even if Iran had nuclear weapons, they would not use it.
This is exactly like when in the US the anti-Communist claimed the Communist whole nuke everybody.
> Iran also provides funding and weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah, which are both internationally recognized terrorist groups on Israel's borders that launch rockets into the country.
And Israel has invaded the Lebanon, is consistently stealing more land from Palestinians, is often bombing West Bank and Gaza.
Israel has attacked the Iranian nuclear program and has bombed Iranian forces in Syria. Despite these forces being there based on invitation from the international recognized government of Syria.
Why can this not be treated like any other conflict between two nations, where we use the same standards for both governments?
> So while Israel is technologically ahead, Iran demonstrates intent to be an aggressor against Israel given the opportunity.
In Israel has done the same thing and arguably has done far more. Not to mention the constant and public demands from Israel that the US should attack Iran and bomb them into the stone age.
Seriously, go and actually listen to what Israeli politicians from the Likud and even further right wing groups say about what should be done to Iran. And listen to what people in the US government who are friends of Likud say. Bombing them into the stone age, preemptive war and so on.
Btw, while Israel accepts that Iran as a country should exists, they do not think the Islamic Republic is legitimate and had a regime change policy for a long time.
> In the interest of avoiding a war between Iran and Israel, where I argue there is no real winner when lives are lost, it's worth making sure Iran doesn't have the opportunity to start a war. Israel would much prefer to have peace.
Israel has a funny way of showing they want peace in that case.
> I agree with the concern about the 1 year claim. Iran definitely has the right to use civilian nuclear power, and I don't know the math behind the 1 year line. It may be that 1 year is the fastest possible amount of time that Iran could conceivably develop a nuke, in which case, I totally agree, it's propaganda to be citing that.
As long as the safeguards are in place, Iran can't develop a nuke at all. And from Israels perspective that is exactly the problem. That is exactly why Israel and friends almost went ballistic when Obama showed that Iran could be a international partner with an agreement.
Now the buggy-men about Iran nuclear is gone and that makes it impossible for them to ever get the US into a war with Iran. And they know Iran doesn't have the conventional military.
What if if 'shock' Iran became a normal country in the international order. That must be prevented at any cost.
Out of 9 million population, only 200k work in Hi-Tech and only 28k of those work in startups.
Only half of the high school students successfully pass matriculation examination.
Very common mistake (even in Israel) to confuse Jews as a nation and Israel as Jewish state. Half of the jews chose not to live in Israel. The educated half.
Per available data, that is 321,000 employees, comprising 9.2% of the overall workforce. That is a very high portion, higher even than here in the US, where only 7.7% are tech workers.
https://nocamels.com/2020/02/israeli-high-tech-industry-grow...
> Half of the jews chose not to live in Israel. The educated half.
It's very clear that you have a blatant anti-Israeli agenda. Still important to point out that contrary to your biased, counterfactual claims, Israeli Jews are no less educated or talented than others, based on the actual facts of the Israeli technology industry and its economic achievements:
https://www.amazon.com/Start-up-Nation-Israels-Economic-Mira...
This isn’t the German unification it’s not even the possible Korean unification there is really no way to deal with it other than grant Palestinian refugees an actual refugee status and settle them.
Keep in mind even the PA doesn’t want to grant RoR to refugees many of them weren’t refugees from the land that is now Israel but wasn’t pre-1967 or even 1948, many of them escaped from what is now the West Bank, some one their own, some due to Israeli pressure some due to Jordanian pressure.
"In 2009, 72 percent named a Jewish majority as one of their two leading values, versus 71 percent in 2007, while 36 percent and 29 percent, respectively, named Greater Israel as a leading value. Democracy has been losing public support in the last five years. In 2009, 35 percent of the population opted for democracy as their most or the second most important value; in contrast in 2005, 60 percent of respondents chose democracy as their most or the second most important value."
https://reliefweb.int/report/israel/vox-populi-trends-israel...
This statement is especially funny in the light of the current election campaign where Orthodox parties compare all non-orthodox Jews to dogs.
If you just repeat something often enough people start to believe it. And in reality most of those people wouldn't want to come back anyway.
And of course, what really is unbelievable is that Israel claims the right to return for literally every Jew in the world, despite most of them having no connection what so ever to Israel for 1000s of years.
Israel actively engages in a demographic battle where the recruit Jews form around the world, to come to Israel.
In Ukraine, if you can prove even some Jews in your family try, you might get a passport for Israel and a nice place to live in Westbank.
Lets be clear here, this is not about what can and can not be done. This is about what leaders of a Apartheit state want to be the case. Its not surprising an Apartheit state doesn't want to remove itself.
Its profoundly fucked up that somebody 1000 of miles away from Israel who was never there had 'the right to return' and those people who grew up there don't.
Why do you expect them (or Israelis in general) to decide that’s not the right thing to do? Do you expect the same of Google or Facebook? Or Americans for that matter?
Just because most / all intelligence agencies do something doesn't mean it's okay. It's unambiguously wrong.
It is roughly equivalent to if the CIA did this to Black Americans pre-1965.
Google and Facebook are hacking journalist's phones and selling access to dictators for the purpose of planning an execution? Citation?
also, we made peace with 7 countries that's excellent news! and more to come.
Likewise, water processing is mostly pumps. Even better, any competent town has backup generators and they keep a few days of fuel on hand, so even if you get the grid down there is water, and the system can function without internet.
That isn't to say you can't annoy life for everyone. However state collapse won't happen because of that. More likely you firm up the resolve to fight.
Edit: Maybe the most sophisticated attack of that sort was the one against the Iranian nuclear program, and while it was successful it and seems to have set back the program it was hardly a show stopper. It also required pretty specialized knowledge of the controllers used to operate the centrifuges (for enriching the fuel). If you consider the enormous variety of controllers and ways of doing things across different plants I just don't see how it would work to shut down a large fraction of even something like power generation.
here's a scenario.
Edit: My point isn't that cyberattacks can't cause real damage. They can and there are many examples of them doing that already. My point is that they aren't enough to win a war because they are by their nature specialized and restricted in scope.
The situation will be totally different than on the commercial side.
I don't think people understand the devastation caused by just one of NSO's sales. Every country should teach in school the true cost of their own arms trades.
Depressingly it seems peace can only be found within a weapons contract. How long do we wait for stability and freedom? Which arms shareholder's bank balance needs to be satiated before we can have peace?
This community is full of talented and privileged people, if you are reading this I compel you to not lift a single finger in the way of another person's demise - no matter how sophisticated the abstraction or large the paycheck.
Except it isn't. Just because you draw an arbitrary border between the populations under your control doesn't mean those people don't exists.
Israel is in control of these population, and they have no right to vote.
In my opinion that makes them not worthy of being called a democracy.
Israel controls most of the resources, like water and most of the infrastructure. Those things are made available to Israeli settlers but Palestinians are barley allowed to move from one Bantustan to another.
At the very same time as Israel claims not to be responsible for that area, they also claim the right to move in 10000s of people people into that very area every year.
Israel went out of those territories because close domination is expensive, however simply surrounding the territories, taking their resources and restricting their movement is a cheaper way to control the population.
But I really don't like the overall tone of the article and the way it paints Israel as uniquely nefarious. Eg:
> In the Israeli cyberweapon sector, he argues, “the companies are implementing government policy.” Mack says Israeli companies are not truly private, like their European or American counterparts. “Israel has so much military sensitivity” that, in effect, many of these cyberweapon sales are “military agreements between governments.”
Oh please.
You will never find an arm sales from French, British or American companies that wasn't mediated on some level by their respective government.
In France the top executives of weapons companies (eg Dassault, Thales) often come from the same school (ENA) as the political elite, and are always well connected to whoever the current president and ministers are. Thales in particular is owned at 25% by the government.
Israel plays the same game everyone else in the world plays, they just happen to have a more immediate stake in it. Any discussion of weapon sales that doesn't mention the broader picture is misleading at best.
The article mentions 4, and implies the rest of the 700 mentioned are similar.
The specific quote is that 8200 grads have founded a large number of cyber security companies in general, and the article follows by discussing specific offensive and surveillance ones (NSO, etc.). My read of the article is that it implies that most of the 700 companies are similar. The link for the study links to a paywalled article about the survey.
Since defensive cyber security is a bigger market, I'd like to know if 8200 grads found offensive companies at a significantly higher rate than defensive ones.
It literally identifies and tracks individual people all day.
Spooky stuff.