Israeli spyware company NSO Group placed on US blacklist
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
About 10 years ago Israel sold Hermes drones to KSA through South Africa, that deal was pretty much openly brokered by the US because KSA wanted drones with attack capability and the US didn’t want to supply them with predator drones and the UK which is primary arms supplier to KSA didn’t had anything to export either.
Israel or not if these companies posed any actual threat to US interests yet alone national security they wouldn’t exist either through political pressure or by much stronger actions than putting them on a sanctioned list.
What will likely happen is that they’ll reform as other entities with sufficient separation from to avoid sanction or Israel would shift that capacity to some of the larger defense contractors like Elbit which the US will not sanction.
As long as there is a market for these services and there is sufficient political will in the west and the US specifically to supply “allies” with controlled offensive cyber capability there will be countries like Israel that would fulfill this demand.
The main challenge of establishing a company like NSO isn’t the human capital you can find people with the right skills pretty much anywhere it’s the connections and the government backing needed to make these deals.
As someone who was busted for hacking way back in the day, it perturbs me just a little bit that I could legally develop an exploit and sell it to someone who I know will use it for illegal activity (but activity that the US govt. might approve of, regardless of legality), but if I myself use this exploit I'll be facing serious jail time. Or if I sell it to someone who isn't on an unofficial "approved" list of users.
lol those dudes are getting shot at with gunships and tanks and have AKs and old mines and stuff to fight back with. They should invest in uniforms to make it "fair"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0
Whether or not that is an isolated incident is irrelevant. The US has a reputation for shooting civilians. The US media doesn't help either, often portraying soldiers shooting civilians even in fiction.
Following interviews of the man's employer, and the official word from the DoD "we tracked the vehicle from a known ISIS safehouse."
The vehicle was a Toyota Corolla whose driver took his coworkers home, and one coworker's home was "a known ISIS safehouse" even though he had long been working for the U.S. effort, in full support of the U.S. effort.
Let alone, ISIS isn't quite a government entity, but rather a terrorist group so not explicitly going to follow international treaties. Their premise is to blend in - the U.S. shouldn't be allowing the collateral damage to happen on our watch, rather do it's best to stop damaging and hurting civilians.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/03/watchdog-finds-no-m...
"Said was asked to investigate the Aug. 29 drone strike on a white Toyota Corolla sedan, which killed Zemerai Ahmadi and nine family members, including seven children. Ahmadi, 37, was a longtime employee of an American humanitarian organization."
What uniform would have avoided the tragedy?
You are blaming ISIS' lack of uniforms for the drone strike on this man and his nine family members?
The land battles that were won by the Continental Army were won using the standard tactics of the day.
The Americans win the coin toss; they can wear whatever they want and hide behind trees and rocks. The British will be forced to wear bright red and march in straight lines.