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Comment by dmantis | Hacker News Reader

There should be no difference with usual botnet owner/ransomware gangs and such companies. Management should go to prison for good 20-30 years for that and being extradited worldwide. Considering that ransomware gangs are probably less harmful to the society than guys who hack journalists and politicians, putting their lifes at literal risks, not just their pockets.

There should be no "legal" hacking of someone's devices apart from extraction of data from already convicted people in public court with the right to defend themselves

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Its not like this is that different than traditional "weapons" (i hate the "cyberweapons" analogy, but if the shoe fits).

Sell guns to governments, even unsavoury ones, it is very rare anything will happen to you except in pretty extreme cases. Sell guns to street gangs, well that is a different story. Like i don't think this situation is different because it is "hacking".

The NSO created/ran cloud instances for each client country and reviewed and approved every target. The didn’t sell weapons like in your analogy. They were effectively assassins for hire.

The problem with selling exploits is you want to maintain “ownership” of the exploit details, lest your customer just take the exploit and sell/use it without paying more or use it to attack you or your friends. This means you end up with veto power. I.e. culpability.

All the cartels in Mexico buy their guns from America and nobody is going to jail over it.

People do in fact get sent to prison for that, straw purchases are a federal felony. Not all of them actually get caught, which is true of any crime.

Except when the ATF does it, no big deal

More information about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal

Kind of like the CIA importing heroin and cocaine. The laws cover this scenario but we have a problem with especially poor enforcement when the crimes are committed by parts of the government.

And meanwhile, if the government sells guns to cartels... no big deal. Rarely throw a fall guy under the bus. Or often not even that.

Trying to remember the quote I last heard, something to the tune of "we don't want to punish, we want to educate", which was about "educating" LEOs and entire police departments they shouldn't be selling fun switch guns illegally to gangs and private buyers.

(And do I even have to mention "fast and furious?" Hah! Feds get it the easiest.)

Certainly the ones that hack journalists should go to prison.

Anyone can be a journalist, so the requirement should be that all of us have our human rights protected by criminalizing this heinous behavior.

Why should journalist badge provide some kind of protection shield? [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Gonz%C3%A1lez_Yag%C3%BCe

In Israel's opinion? It shouldn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_...

Israeli forces killed 38x more journalists than Hamas did on October 7th.

Also by now the number of people killed in Gaza by Netanyahu is very close to the number of Ukrainian people killed by Putin. Did anyone suggest sanctions against Israel for that genocide? Nope, they enjoy their full immunity and keep going forward with a massacre that has the same exact motivation as the Russian invasion: rob other people of their territory and resources. Two war criminals, two rogue terrorist states, yet two completely different weights.

I agree with the first part, at least in spirit.

The second part though doesn't make sense. If the US president can send drones to kill terrorists without taking them to court, surely he can order hacking their phones. If you think that there's no case where the latter is ok you shouldn't you fight against the former first?

> send drones to kill terrorists

The part that you miss is, are they only killing "terrorists" extrajudicially? To take that propaganda at its face value is to ask, what else could they be killing brown people for, if not terrorism?

To further this. Look at how easily they are bringing terrorism charges on American citizens now (check out the Mangione case)

And I would guess they’ll use the opportunity to increase the reach as well

I didn't say if I think that drone killing is justified or not, since I have no opinion on that - I don't know enough to form an opinion. I only say that since the government have the right to send killing drone it doesn't make sense to raise pitchforks against phone hacking

The thing is, extrajudicial murder justified by labeling the victim “terrorist” is illegal and should not be accepted in a free and open society.

The ‘terrorist’ label was invented as a means of abrogating human rights by governments who felt they were encumbered by the obligation to protect human rights. “Terrorist” labeling is a totalitarian-authoritarian apparatus to avoid culpability for its actions when a government decides the easiest solution to its problem is outright murder.

Do you not think that terrorism exists, that the label has been co-opted for other purposes, that terrorists cannot be treated as combatants, that non-declared-war conflicts should not have deliberate strikes or something else?

It seems to me like terrorism has a pretty plain definition: Using violence against civilians/non-combatants to further a ideological goal, primarily via fear.

It's often misused as an excuse, but there are actual terrorists, the word has a meaning and we should not let it be watered down by either the people wanting to use it as an excuse or the people trying to shroud terrorism in something else.

Every single nation state in the context of this discussion has murdered civilians/non-combatants to further an ideological goal and are thus guilty of acts of terrorism - in the case of the US, for example, terrorism is official doctrine used for regime change across the world. The US literally funds, arms and supports terrorist groups whenever its ruling military determine that their domestic population has no stomach for outright war - in most cases, in fact, terrorism is how the US gets its regime change designs implemented.

As citizens of nations which use terrorism as a tool for their political purposes, it is long since past the point we let ourselves be bullied by terminology and started instead to enforce the legislation required to rid our own ranks of war criminals - who are factually terrorists.

And now watch as the definition is stretched to fit whatever the powerful want to do

Like how they are now charging the UHC CEO suspect with terrorism

Then, if you support the guy, now a terrorist, well then you can be called a terrorist too

I don't get what's happening in this thread. This is a pretty clear statement: hacking isn't worse than the killing that the government is already allowed to do. It's a pretty straightforward argument which for some reason seems to be being misunderstood.

I'll gently push on the premise though: hacking isn't worse for the victims than death, obviously, but I think it's possible weaponizing of exploits does more total damage. Both collateral, due to the manufacturing of exploits which ultimately leak and harm a bunch of unrelated actors, and because the marginal hacking is lower cost, practically and politically. So a given attack is likely to be used against groups we'd recognize less clearly as "terrorists" / deserving of the harm / etc.

Thanks for the understanding. I'll say that because of that we should make the price for using the device much higher. For example using it should require authorization by process that will involve a stiff political price/barrier. Maybe a bi-partisan committee. Something of that sort.

> I have no opinion ... I don't know enough to form an opinion.

Why speak in hypotheticals supporting some phantom opinion? Concern trolling is even worse.

It is not hypothetical, the fact is that killing drones are used in practice, and it just doesn't make sense to oppose lesser measures that are being used without judgement when killing is allowed.

> killing is allowed

You said it is okay / allowed because "terrorists". Otherwise, it is a heinous crime. Just like the Pegasus one.

Ever heard of drone papers?

https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Hale

I have no idea what you are talking about. Ok is a value judgment which I didn't state. Allowed is a fact. Are you arguing with what I'm saying or with an opponent in your mind?

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L O L. No Israelis are ever extradited to the US for anything even though the US essentially financially bankrolls that entire country. It's basically a place we allow to go gloves off to militarily threaten our enemies, so we can sit back and maintain the "rights-based world order" without catching flak for our own deeds.

Friday, October 20, 2017:

   WASHINGTON - Stanislav Nazarov, 46, a dual citizen of Israel and Russia, has been extradited from Israel to face charges in an indictment accusing him of taking part in an international money laundering scheme.

Israel is quite financially independent these days, and has been so for decades. The US does not simply "bankroll the entire country" by any stretch.

But hey, it's a free planet, and you can believe whatever you want to belive. I certainly wouldn't want to get between you and one of your pet narratives.

https://m.jpost.com/opinion/article-712631

https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?params=...

https://www.timesofisrael.com/diaspora-pedophiles-increasing...

You're very aware what I'm saying is true on a general scale. Sure, exceptions exist. You also know that the aid the US gives is significant and if it hadn't been given every year for decades, Israel would be nothing like what it is right now, it may not even exist.

Try refuting all the Israeli newspapers above which talk about how difficult it is to extradite obvious criminals from Israel. Apologies that you took my comment starting with "L O L" as if I literally meant no person ever in history has ever been extradited. Only a shockingly large portion have not been and will not be, enough to attract attention in the Israeli and foreign press.

Imagine if they chase NSO as hard as they chased Wikileaks

NSO helped Saudi kill a journalist for an American company and the father of American citizens.

And we're still huggy buddies with Saudi's Crown Prince and Netanyahu. Citizens lives only matter so much to our corrupt rulers

Well NSO does their work for them, so that’s not gonna happen

Also, look at how the govt has acted in the last year or so, they will never move against Israel

Unfortunately, incorporation is how you whitewash normal criminal culpability to just a cost of doing business fine.

Capitalism is neat that way. Diffusion of responsibility.

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