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Comment by byteman | Hacker News Reader

Isn't it a bit weird that all of the criticism is pointed at the state in which a private company made this technology and none of the criticism is pointed at the actual states that bought and used it?

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The article makes a pretty good reason why it's aimed at the state. The potentially close relationship between private companies and the state and how intelligence is/was likely shared between them. If that's true, NSO Group is acting as an agent of the state - thus Israel would be spying on France and caught doing it. Thus the anger directed at the state level, as well as the company and governments. A lot of the government you would want to be upset at, well, they don't give a shit and that's why people don't like them.

Yet those reasons are circumstantial and unverified claims, whereas we know that Morocco spied on France. If, and that is an if, Israel received intelligence as a result, Morocco is still the country that crossed that line. The framing makes no sense. Why is a third party, Israel, limiting fallout instead of Morocco?

Because Israel is generally thought of as an ally to the west.

If it's clearly not a big deal, can you explain why the Israeli defense minister is in France?

An Israeli company made a weapon, assembled it, loaded it and acted as a spotter for Morocco, who's the party that selected the french targets and then pulled the trigger. Even if the intelligence wasn't shared, the Israeli government should be held responsible for its arms exports.

Export of cyberweapon is regulated by the state.

As if Israel would be the only country selling weapons to the Saudis and they even have a tactical excuse aside from making money. It is not an excuse and they perhaps shouldn't, but it is the reality of weapon deals today.

And import by those other countries isn't?

If a nuke sold by the US would be detonated over the heads of EU politicians or journalists, you can be sure that the US would be blamed for that.

There’s plenty of criticism for those regimes at baseline. The goal is to reduce the amount of surveillance. It is cheaper to convince the NSO group to raise its customer standards or to provide more direct oversight than to convince each regime to stop these activities. Obviously we should try both, but I suspect pressure on NSO will reduce more harm in the short run because they have more to lose.

Not weird at all, given the recent uptick in anti-israel sentiments in the left, and uptick of antisemitism worldwide

I get it.

Calling out chinese, russian and north korean hacking = fighting cyber terrorism.

Calling out israeli hacking = antisemitism

you're missing the point, and putting words in my mouth. Israeli hacking criticism is not anti-semitism, and thats not what I meant. But the thousands of articles coming out every week criticizing Israel are largely motivated to destroy the countries image. The antisemitism is related and undeniable as a side to all of this.

Please stop adding to flamewars, and don't post like this to HN in the future, regardless of which side you're on or how right you are or feel you are.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I am Israeli, and when I see blatant misinformation being brigaded in the tech community that I am a part of, about my country, I feel the need to respond. It is actually stressful to respond, but I feel the need to because I don't think the moderation on these Israeli threads is enough. And regarding the guidelines the posters who are targeting my comments have no problems being rude, patronizing, and breaking guidelines.

I totally get that, I understand, and I feel for your situation. But you still have to follow the rules here. Other people breaking the rules doesn't entitle you to break them. They aren't allowed to break the rules, either, and we try our hardest to be as even-handed about this as we possibly can.

There are a lot of cognitive biases at work in these situations. It always feels like the other person started it; it always feels like they did worse; it always feels like one is being "brigaded" and so on. Mostly the others are feeling the same things. Everyone has good reasons for what they're fighting for, even if those good reasons aren't expressed, and even when the arguments they're making are wrong or distorted or one-sided. Since everyone is having these similar feelings and perceptions, we all have to be super careful about moderating (in all senses of the word "moderate"), or we're guaranteed a downward spiral. That wouldn't do any of us good, regardless of our views on countries or anything else.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You are right. I am going to not even click the links with the "Israel" in them to save myself anguish. Positive vibes only

Thank you for the kind reply. I know it's not easy! Believe me I know :)

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