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Comment by JCWasmx86 | Hacker News Reader

Well. If they sell spyware to others, they should at least ensure/check, that it is only used against criminals and by democratic states.

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"criminals" and "democratic states" are very subjective terms.

I agree with you. You would have to find some accurate definition for "What is a democracy?", e.g. look at the freedom of press, freedom of election (E.g. are there any inconsistencies in the last elections), conflicts in a country. Based on a lot of factors you could probably say "This is a democracy" or "This is somewhere between".

But still no good solution.

And criminal would be too far, as such spyware should only be used against extremely serious crimes, e.g. warcrimes or terrorism

Rather the opposite, they should be used only against “small crimes”, since those crimes are universal.

What you call serious crimes are highly political topics. Ones hero is anothers war criminal, and the same guy may be both freedom fighter and terrorist, depending who you ask.

The exact lines might be blurry, but that doesn't mean you can't try. Like there's plenty of countries that plainly aren't democracies

So in your mind, democracy is the only valid form of government?

According to Wassenaar arrangement (the loose moral analogue of Geneva convention but regulating the export of dual use weapons) the seller is under obligation to ensure that the buyer uses the weapon in a compliant way. Its a little complicated because Israel is not a direct signatory (but indirectly it is, see my other comment on this thread).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassenaar_Arrangement#2013_ame...

Passing the buck is not an option if one wants to stay with the Wassenaar agreement. But then USA found a way to skirt around Geneva convention too during Iraq war.

If state is buying NSO tech and using it abroad they are pretty much defined as criminal.

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