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Comment by beagle3 | Hacker News Reader

They are less sneaky and have less reach than Google and Facebook - but are comparable (they provide some value to users, but mostly to advertisers at the expense of users - and they keep most of that value for themselves. On a smaller scale)

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?

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> “Most Israelis think that intelligence is pure and slick,” he says. He came to see IDF intelligence as blunt, dirty work. “Old school things,” he says. Like blackmailing gay Palestinians, he explains. Or threatening to cut off medical care from people with health problems. Or threatening the families of people with health problems. But when it comes to criticism of 8200, K. is an anomaly among his peers. Many are more like Raphael Ouzan — true believers.

Literally every intelligence service does this, they're called "assets"[1]. Right and wrong isn't as black and white as you may think.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_(intelligence)

I think blackmailing someone in the closet is almost always wrong -- I'm sure there's some contrived edge case that could be thought of, but as a whole, it's never okay.

Just because most / all intelligence agencies do something doesn't mean it's okay. It's unambiguously wrong.

Other intelligence services do not do this to people they have subjugated.

It is roughly equivalent to if the CIA did this to Black Americans pre-1965.

Bayard Rustin (who was pro-Israel btw) would like a word

I was in 8200 and this sounds like rubbish to me. unit 8200 doesn't directly deal with human intelligence: they don't contact Palestinians/threaten them. This stuff is done, don't get me wrong, but that's the Shabak's doing. Shabak has way more tools to gather this kinds of info (vast network of snitches, really good Arabic experts etc) and can also use this info since Shabak deals with Palestinians directly. BTW the cooperation between army intelligence and Shabak is shit, at least that's how it was in my days. So I doubt any data about gays is passed from 8200 to Shabak. I call bullshit, sorry.

>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?

Google and Facebook are hacking journalist's phones and selling access to dictators for the purpose of planning an execution? Citation?

GP was talking about Outbrain and Taboola who are not as far as I know hacking anyone’s emails. That was what I was responding to.

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