Hundreds of former Israeli spies working in jobs at Google, Facebook and Amazon | Hacker News Reader

Hundreds of former Israeli spies working in jobs at Google, Facebook and Amazon

mintpressnews.com

29 points_ntga8 comments

Israel has mandatory military service. Of course, the smarter ones are working computer jobs instead of carrying guns in danger zones. Of course, the smarter ones want to make money working in tech instead of staying at IDF.

Next, you're going to tell me that hundreds of former Korean spies are working in jobs at Google, Facebook, and Amazon.

Yeah, but it doesn't conform to the "bad scary Israel" narrative.

And because there is no factual proof to counter this narrative ("well, just because almost everyone in Israel served, it doesn't mean that some of them aren't currently spying on behalf of the Israeli government"), just like there is no factual prove of the original statement, people will cling to this "bad scary Israel" narrative.

Your point about South Korea, sadly, will most likely fall on deaf ears, because "but South Korea is not Israel, it is different".

To make it clear, I am fully in agreement with what you are saying. It is just sad that there isn't much one can do to disprove that narrative, aside from some official list of all Israeli spies and where they work. Which, for obvious reasons, will never happen. And even if it did, people would instantly cling to the "nice trickery, this list was fabricated intentionally to convince us that Israeli spies aren't doing their work on behalf of Israel".

Do I full-on honestly believe there are no such spies working for tech companies? No, because there is no factual proof either way. So I believe in it just as much I believe the same unsubstantiated claims about South Korean and Swiss ex-military people working at foreign tech companies. Aka not much, but of course not with 100% certainty (until there is something factual evidence that will tilt these scales).

There is not a clear duality of "Israeli spy" vs. "Not an Israeli spy." Mossad in particular is known to maintain a network of sympathizers called Sayanim who would take action for the Israeli authorities if they were asked to. So it's clearly possible that Amazon and most tech companies can be/ have been compromised.

You can argue that Israel is a nation which has processes in place not to use these capabilities in the wrong way. But it's not wise to argue that "There is no Israeli spy network, it's a conspiracy, etc. " That just makes it seem like you have an agenda.

> You can argue that Israel is a nation which has processes in place not to use these capabilities in the wrong way. But it's not wise to argue that "There is no Israeli spy network, it's a conspiracy, etc. " That just makes it seem like you have an agenda.

Absolutely agreed. Pretty much any sufficiently powerful nation (and some that are not) has those spy networks that do all those things (including the US). And regarding those capabilities being used "in the wrong way", same thing. No matter how advanced and good your nation's processes are or how trustworthy that nation is, those processes are not infallible. There will be usages of those capabilities "in the wrong way".

I am not disagreeing that those spy networks exist and that they sometimes could be used "in the wrong way". It's just that I dont have any factual evidence that Israel is being some special and unique "shadowy controlling entity" in that aspect, in a way that a lot of other sufficiently powerful nations aren't.

The only nation that I would single out in this conversation is China, given how regularly their spies and PLA overseas agents seem to get caught red-handed. But still, I am not sure whether it is simply due to sheer numbers of them or due to their incompetence.

The same headline could be written about more or less any country in which working for intelligence services, law enforcement, etc is a life long employment from which you aren't allowed to resign.

That may be true but IMHO the more interesting thing connecting 'tech' to Mossad is Amdocs, which runs billing for a percentage of mobile carriers globally. What do you need to run billing? All the customer activity data. When do you need it? ~Live. Where do they run it? In some cases, off-carrier-premises/hosted. With the prevalance of SMS and phone for 2-factor (Google and Apple both ~require this), this gets more worrisome. I would hazard an educated guess that Mossad has, amongst intelligence services, global superiority in both real time personal surveillance and two-factor identity subversion through carrier integrations with Amdocs.

Also, if you're discussing overseas influence networks and nation states in the 21st century, China is known for strong-arming overseas Chinese to do or stop doing things for them under threat of consequence to their family members in China. As far as they're concerned, you're always a volunteer.

At least in the overseas Israeli community you do see some nominal protest and resistance.

Not surprising. I would imagine a bunch of current spies (from a whole host of nations, including the US, Israel, China, etc...) are working day jobs at every major tech company.

It's kind of naive to think otherwise.

I would be absolutely shocked if there _wasn't_ intelligence/surveillance from foreign governments in these massive silicon valley companies.

I would also be shocked if the west didn't have their own lackeys penetrating the same companies on their own soil or other countries abroad.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com