Comment by ohashi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ohashi | Hacker News Reader

The automaker example is awful in this case. This is a drunk guy going into a car rental and asking to take it for a spin. NSO being the rental company says do you have cash? Drunk guy gives a pile of cash and rental company gives them a car to drive. Drunk driver kills someone. Is the car rental company liable? We just rent cars they say as a defense, but know they are selling to someone who is dangerous and isn't known for abiding by international (or perhaps western) norms of behavior.

You cannot have it both ways, if you're going to sell the software to awful regimes who target people like journalists, you're responsible for the outcomes. The fact they found it was used on Khashoggi family phones would seemingly implicate them in the murder of a journalist. Did they kill him? Probably not. But if their software is being used by governments who did kill him, then they contributed.

I hope they get criminally held responsible for assisting in the murder of Khashoggi if they are found guilty and we need laws and norms to catch up to a place where this kind of business is more restricted/limited.

> You cannot have it both ways, if you're going to sell the software to awful regimes who target people like journalists, you're responsible for the outcomes.

It's going to be hard to keep software out of the wrong hands. Perhaps it would be better to ensure everyone is using secure/encrypted/private communication and services.

The general population may need to organize this, despite selfish corporations and the politicians they fund.

>It's going to be hard to keep software out of the wrong hands.

If your entire business model is to sell covert intrusive software to powerful entities, then the argument is irrelevant.

I don't think that I understand what you are saying.

In my comment I meant to say that keeping software out of the wrong hands was ultimately not possible, and thought it would be better the give people more secure and more private means to communicate (something like pinephone, tor, matrix, etc).

Your first clause seems to agree with the first half of what I said (can't stop bad software), but then you said it was irrelevant. Maybe irrelevant to NSO, as long as they can get away with it? Or irrelvant to something else I said?

(I'm not opposed to going after NSO, also. Power to the people. But it seems many governments care about our data more than they care about our votes.)

Irrelevant to the argument as it pertains to NSO. Thanks for clarifying.

> Perhaps it would be better to ensure everyone is using secure/encrypted/private communication and services.

Isn't NSO's whole shtick their software can get into and read everything from even the latest iPhones ( and probably Androids, I've only seen it stated for iOS though)? What good is a secure/encrypted service when the device you access it from is hacked and sends everything to the hacker?

That's true, there's a lot of exposure on the typical iPhone or Android device, lots of installed apps, lots of collected metadata.

I was kind of picturing people en-masse becoming upset with this stuff, and having real/better/open tools available for them when that happens - stuff like a slick pinephone running mastadon over matrix over tor, or something, etc.

I guess I threw that comment out there because it seemed like going after the metadata seller that crossed a line leaves all the other metadata sellers in business, and free to push the line further along. I was thinking it would better to address the root cause - giving people better security and privacy.

We need both. It's not a binary choice.

We shouldn't enable companies to sell cyber weapons to regimes who use them against innocent people. You can debate where that line is all you want, using it to murder journalists in other countries who are critical of your regime is across that line wherever you may draw it.

We also should encourage better privacy and security to protect everyone's communications and data.

Where do we end up? Anyone who sells a knife is charged for any murder committed with that brand of knife. Does that mean anyone buying a knife has to sign a form releasing the company from legal issues that may arise?

A knife has plenty of valid uses beyond being able to kill someone. Malware doesn’t.

A better example would be a specially designed knife for bringing undetected onto an airplane.

> Where do we end up? Anyone who sells a knife is charged for any murder committed with that brand of knife.

We could split the difference and just assign liability for the ones done by serial murderers and people who show up asking for knives that are good for murdering. Knowing that your product is going to be used for some purpose and providing it anyway makes you an accomplice.

Most knives are not intended to harm or kill, they just happen to be used for that case sometimes; you can make the same argument for a large stick wielded by someone with the intent to kill. Handguns however have one purpose: to kill someone (aside: saying "but wait they can be used in gun ranges" kinda proves that point). They were explicitly produced for this purpose. Ideally gun manufacturers would be held accountable for their production; unfortunately they are not, and gun companies just throw up their hands and say "well this gun was legally sold so I can't help you". Likewise, if you produce and sell a piece of software whose main goal is to infiltrate personal devices, especially in a targeted manner, then you are ideally liable for outcomes regardless of who applies your software. NSO is giving the exact same response as those gun companies.

NSO would argue that the software in question is only intended for use against terrorists and criminals. Gun companies argue that they’re not designed to take human life. Who draws the line on when a company is lying about the intended purpose of products? You?

Unfortunately those that draw that line in reality are the same people who want encryption banned for consumers but not government agencies because it prevents the sharing of child pornography and terrorism make that decision. Are they right? Is that the only argument that matters?

I would argue that a more apt comparison is to selling assassinations, rather than guns. While most laws prohibit that, governments and powerful entities engage in that. Anyway, this comparison makes no sense from many different perspectives.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com