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Comment by igorzx31 | Hacker News Reader

NSO Group is dead at this point. They fucked with the wrong people. Hacking human rights advocates is fine but when Presidents and PMs start getting their phones hacked I am sure they will implement legislation to outlaw this type of software.

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It’s an Israeli weapon, subject to arms control legislation. But that legislation can only be authored by Israel itself. So it doesn’t matter what other countries outlaw, Israel will continue to authorise NSO to sell the software to state actors around the world.

Israel could always do with an extra friend or two and providing this software gains them a friend while costing them nothing.

It really doesn't cost them nothing - it makes them the target to offensive operations of other states. I'd be very, very surprised if NSO itself isn't hacked.

Israel is not immune from international pressure though.

Um, they kind of are? Or at least think they are? Any sort of international pressure is met with cries of 'anti-semitism' which quickly shuts down anyone. It is used to combat the BDS movement, which itself is intended to put pressure on Israel over the occupation of Palestine. A non-violent option similar to what happened with South Africa.

Attacking NSO would be like attacking the Israeli government and you don't do that because your PM's shitty OpSec was exposed.

Remember the Israelis also need allies.

The Israeli's have two allies of note, the US and Saudi Arabia. Everyone else dislikes to hates them.

The geopolitical clout of the US and Saudi Arabia are in decline.

Europe like them, kind of, many other gulf states, China, many african countries, I can go on and on

Allies are allies because of strategic positioning, and many of Israel's proximal allies are authoritarian nations who have interest in this kind of technology. Israel's strategic value hardly shifted at all from this slate of embarrassing news.

The only overtly pro-nomatterwhat-Israel government is the United States so at most 1 of the 193 countries in the United Nations would avoid regulating NSO on international relations grounds.

That is not true at all. The US is just as critical of Israel as many other countries.

This is actually one of the best reasons to hack another government.

I'd guess that those same presidents will call them up and buy. They'd rather be a customer than try and change a behemoth with political power like these guys.

Unlikely. If anything this is good PR: look we have this great tool that can hack anything and we will totally sell it to shit countries run by tin pot dictators.

The only way this backfires is if somebody sends men with guns after them.

What evidence is there that a PM has been hacked? Their number was on the list but haven't seen anything about Pegasus having been found on their devices.

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