I've learned from a former college colleague that got into cyber security that Israeli intelligence facial recognition is virtually error free.
It has been trained on decades of Palestinians crossing check points, some being Hamas camouflaging with beards, glasses and what not.
Also the data it's fed for third party customers is as flawless as it can be: if you ever took an international flight your biometrics are fully recorded and available to virtually every agency in the world.
If you're walking in a random mall on the other end of the world, even if you have no phone, you have covered your tracks and you're wearing a hat and glasses, etc, you are going to be recognized by the software if a camera gets even a mediocre shot at you.
Compound this with all the information people put online on their own on socials, you're gonna be tracked and recognized, whether you want it or no.
>> I've learned from a former college colleague that got into cyber security that Israeli intelligence facial recognition is virtually error free.
What does "virtually error free" mean? There's no "error free" in facial recognition, or any other application of machine learning.
More to the point, who says all this, besides yourself in this thread? Why should anyone believe that "virtually error free" is a factual description of real technological capabilities rather than state propaganda?
I believe that most of what you said is true, but I don't think the tracking of people around the world is as efficient as your post suggests. If a single face scan were enough to track people anywhere like that, American government agencies (I'm thinking ICE, the FBI, etc.) wouldn’t have as much trouble as they do arresting people. That’s just my impression of course, maybe for some reason they choose not to use these technologies.
I think these sort of claims of excessive competence are challenged by the October 7th attacks. Think about the massive amount of planning and organization that went into that attack over a period of years. There were thousands of forces engaging in some specialized and unusual strategies. Hamas even released a propaganda video more or less showing their plan with paragliders and everything. And they carried it out the day after the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. And somehow this all caught Israel completely by surprise. So either you have to go down a very dark rabbit hole, or accept that these claims of excessive competence are, at the minimum, exaggerated.
Similarly this would make things like evading law enforcement pretty much impossible, while in reality there are countless people, at least thousands, who have been photographed in relation to e.g. a crime, but never found, and never identified.
I used to think that the scenes of the TV series “Person of Interest” were exaggerated for storytelling purposes. Maybe not and it was accurate prescience.
The part I'm skeptical about is "available to virtually every agency in the world". I think every immigration checkpoint I've been to have some sort of camera setup, but the extent of data sharing is unclear. Is China sharing data with the US? Or US sharing with Canada? US with Germany? etc.
i have doubts on accuracy of face recognition. There is already nancy guthrie case going on and if it is so accurate why are suspects still not recognized?
>> Compound this with all the information people put online on their own on socials, you're gonna be tracked and recognized, whether you want it or no.
These very much touted capabilities, are not the flex many think it is :-) Let me explain..
It is well known Israel operates a sophisticated, indigenous network of surveillance satellites, the Ofek series, that provides high-resolution, round-the-clock, all-weather intelligence over the Middle East.
It is also known, half of the well know Cybersecurity firms in the US, have CEO or CTOs that are ex Unit 8200, that you serve until you are on your 50s.
It is also known, Israel has the capability to intercept every phone call in the middle east and certainly in Gaza. This capability has been demonstrated multiple times, specially when it was politically convenient, like for example
the intercepted Hamas calls that showed that some of the rockets fall inside Gaza by mistake.
Given ALL this, the problem is that makes the narrative that the Hamas
attacks of 7 of Oct, were a total surprise impossible to sustain...It is now known hundreds of Hamas militants, were rehearsing the attacks for weeks, on the other side of the border.
Nobody can believe this whole spy and realtime alert network, was not aware of it for weeks in advance.
And this gives a much stronger sense to the alternative narrative, that the objective was to allow the attack to happen to justify the massive military response and finish Hamas. But the Israeli apparatus underestimated
the size of the attack, and lost control, leading to the
massive Israeli casualties.
There is a reason why, 2 years in, and despite Israel being a democracy, there is not yet a public inquiry to the events that led to 7 Oct.
"...In an interview with Israeli journalist, Dan Margalit in December 2012, Netanyahu told Margalit that it was important to keep Hamas strong, as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
Netanyahu also added that having two strong rivals, this would lessen pressure on him to negotiate towards a Palestinian state..."
> This capability has been demonstrated multiple times, specially when it was politically convenient, like for example the intercepted Hamas calls that showed that some of the rockets fall inside Gaza by mistake.
Can it be something generated? One can display something that is politically convenient and not true at once.
Even if you don't believe in the capabilities of Israeli intelligence, it's well documented that Israel supported Hamas as a hard-line alternative to the PLO to avoid a two-state solution. The Israeli right has for decades intensified the conflict to justify total war against Palestinians. Allowing a domestic attack to gin up support for aggression is in line with their behaviour for the past 3 decades.
I'm old enough to remember when Arafat was well-respected in the west and a two-state solution was the mainstream view amongst Americans. Once Netanyahu came to power in 1996 (30 years ago!) he worked to delegitimize the PLO and pursue an aggressive genocide against the Palestinians.
What stands out to me here is the pipeline. Israel has built an unusually tight feedback loop between military intelligence, private startups, and global markets. When that ecosystem scales internationally, it’s fair to ask whether partners are buying technology or importing unilateral leverage that only benefits Israel here.
They are usually incompetent on things that are not important, like keeping infrastructure from falling off the cliff, maintaining a good economy, or in general serving the people. They are pretty competent on things that are really important, like hacking into people's phones, killing other people.
After all you have to admit that getting killed is more serious than getting starved...
EU law enforcement agencies regularly buy this kind of software, even if illegal!
The Italian Carabinieri bought Paragon even though they can't legally use it, because mass surveillance is obviously illegal and against our constitution.
Don't get me wrong, I get why they want to and it is probably a justified security concern, but it's also things like that which will probably cause Europe's economy to continue to stagnate while the US's will probably continue to soar even with Trump (and perhaps, later, Vance) completely destroying our international reputation and credibility and our most important political and scientific institutions.
The fact that the US can continue to economically do so well relative to others despite currently being run by some of the stupidest and most abhorrent people possible is... sad.
Europe could be more competitive but then they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Just in the past week they're meddling with the infinite scroll feature and then the unrealized taxes in the Netherlands. Why would a tech company wanna operate in such an environment?
> The fact that the US can continue to economically do so well relative to others despite currently being run by some of the stupidest and most abhorrent people possible is... sad.
It's not sad, it's strong evidence (I hesitate to call it proof, but...) that a federated model of governance with limited regulation is the most resilient and successful form of government.
All the EU states need to do is learn that regulation is not the solution to every theoretical problem any bureaucrat can imagine, and they too can experience meaningful economic growth.
I agree that if you want to pursue economic growth laissez-faire is possibly the best course of action, but economic growth isn't the only metric worth pursuing.
It is probably in their blood because as someone surrounded by enemies you gotta be pragmatic and on your toe all the time. No wonder they are pretty good at intelligence collection. One of my previous bosses told me that people with highest scores join the intelligence staffs. Not sure if it is true, though.
Surrounded by enemies of their own creation. It’s a beautiful cycle of aggression and self-victimization; a true ouroboros.
On the intelligence front, Mossad does a wonderful job performing extra-judicial killings using the dirtiest tricks you could think of. They’re also very good partners: almost every counter-intelligence outfit sings their praises.
I don't disagree with you, but this is the reality already and I don't see how they can get out of it. I wouldn't hope for any long-term peace between IL and surrounding country without IL holding a very big stick which the US gives to them.
I think actually they are in a bit of panic mode because the US might want to get out from the ME and focus on China. They want a guarantee that Iran won't be able to come on its foot again in at least 10 years. That's all my guess, though.
I think also everyone needs to understand that Israel are a wedge in the operations of rival Islamic terrorist factions. If they went poof and ceased to exist suddenly then it'd switch straight to Darfur mode out there. It wouldn't suddenly be kumbaya and holding hands.
Step 1: Get 6 million of you systematically eradicated in Europe and hundreds of thousands more booted from their homes in the Middle East for "reasons".
Step 2: Build yourself a country so no one can throw you out again.
Step 3: Get attacked by the countries who threw you out for "reasons".
Step 4: Get accused of "aggression".
People's continued downplay and revisionism of Jewish and Israeli history is truly something to behold.
Step 1: A Holocaust perpetrated by Germany, not Palestine.
Step 2: Build a country out of Lego- I mean, gradually settle an existing, populated area of the Levant - Palestine - and then have daddy Britain and later big daddy USA forcibly carve out a chunk of the land without input from the natives. And no, it was not a UN partition plan because most of the world was still colonized at the time.
Step 3: Take advantage of the obvious discontent with this move by the natives and activate Plan Dalet to take even more of the land. After all, the land granted by the partition plan is not enough.
Step 4: War starts with neighboring countries, partly to disrupt the ethnic cleansing campaign against a mostly defenseless population, but also to satisfy their own expansionist aims (esp. Transjordan).
The people who fled Europe or forced out of the Middle East purchased empty lands, dried marshes, planted forests, installed infrastructure, sown fields, built cities and created a democracy to govern themselves. Incidentally, some purchased lands had squatters from Syria, Jordan, Arabia, etc., who lived on lands they did not own. Bye bye and boo hoo.
Seven different armies invaded Israel on its day of foundation. Seven armies got wrecked. Entire countries with billions of people keep crying about it, going so far as making the destruction of Israel an official goal, in some countries even actual laws! No conspiracy theories, no "Plan Dalet" and other bullshit your Hamas friends told you about, their real, actual goals stated right in your face.
Every day since its first day as a state. There are several countries with billions of people whose stated, official objective is the destruction of Israel. Iran has giant countdown clocks and advertisements for the destruction of Israel. They have laws against peace with Israel. The Houthis literally have "Death to Israel" (and America) on their flag.
They're just too busy repackaging the same spying tech on different channels and then selling that for billions in the US stock market. Also knowing that US regulators won't say a single word, because how could they ever say something bad about these companies... It must be a very good business.
You should look at Israel deal for the F-35. They got the only F-35 unlocked and non dependent on the US software lock. They were never part of the development program like Norway, Denmark, Italy or the Netherlands so did not have to bear those costs. Norway, Denmark, Italy or the Netherlands, still had to pay for their F-35...
Israel paid 2.3 Billion for their F-35, but the US committed to buy 4 Billion from Israel defense firms, so concluding with a net positive of +1.25 Billion for Israel economy....all at the cost to the US tax payer. :-)
It's really unbelievable how much data most people put online about themselves. "Valentina" has probably shared all the information about here the alleged system dashboard showed. Any interested party would only have to search the open internet (and some walled gardens like Facebook) and aggregate the information found in there.
Spy agencies and spyware companies don't have some magickal tech nobody else knows anything about. They take advantage of peoples' careless style of interacting online.
90% of startups coming out of Israel seem to be some dodgy 'security' or spyware startups.
This in addition to them boasting of having 'field tested' their stuff on Palestinians, which is also why U.S. cops go there for training. I suppose to learn from the 'real experts' how to suppress the masses.
This is not true. It's just "dodgy security/spyware" startups are more open coming from Israel that they exist than the myriad of hidden companies that you never heard about because they focus on tailored exploits.
Israel is the British colonialism foreign base where the Brits and the US can dodge their own laws while developing their own "defence" hardware, software, tactics, and ideology.
>where the Brits and the US can dodge their own laws while developing their own [...]
Source that a large proportion of founders/employees are actually American/British? The more believable claim is that such Israeli startups are US/UK backed, but that's not as damning as it sounds, because US/UK is the finance hub, so thats where you expect funding to come from, rather than "colonialism foreign base" or whatever.
Meh, imho it's much simpler: Israel has had insane security needs since it's birth, thus naturally security firms concentrated where there was an immediate market and testing possibility.
Which makes the failure of October 7th even more striking. It's insane Israeli leadership hasn't paid for this.
So the Palestinians and Arabs thought a hundred years ago. It served them badly.
It’s not that US/UK and others don’t get anything out of the relationship, as you note. But the arrows have been mostly pointing the other way for a long time. Trump and his background, as well as Epstein/Mandelson/McSweeney/Labour are just the latest, blatant examples of how this works.
> 90% of startups coming out of Israel seem to be ...
Not to claim that Israel is the land of saintly virtues - but if your news sources are inclined toward tech or polarized left/right politic, they make sure that's what you see. Wouldn't matter if 99.9% of actual Israeli startups were working to build better home bagel-makers, or gene-engineering perfect breeds of salmon for lox.
That is some nasty garbage right there. The Israeli tech startup scene is very large and dynamic with including basic software development tools, wireless infrastructure, and so on. If anything it is more like 90% either consumer infrastructure or non-LLM developer tools. Whether it is politically advantageous to talk about or not, a very large fraction of all economic activity is still down the chain near the child needs bowl of rice level. Grandiose claims without support only obfuscate the situation instead of focusing on what needs to be done to protect people.
Except the English articles are not generally fearmongering, more praising of the 'bursting' Israeli tech scene. It's only when you look at what the startups do you realize what's up.
It makes sense in a way, most Israelis probably acquire a fair bit of skills and contacts as part of being in the military there. And because the military 'needs' to surveil millions of people it rules over without any mandate whatsoever, what better way to get a contract than to enhance the surveillance capabilities of the army once you get back into civilian life?
I don't see WeChat, which is weird, considering it has been out for decades and not particularly famous for being secure. Maybe it is rarely used by people in Western countries, I guess. But anyway the Chinese government can conveniently read your WeChat messages. Congratulations to all tech brothers and sisters who bring upon the love of governments to us.
Maybe it's just me being old, but it generally seems unlikely that 5 or 6 messaging apps. I can understand having both TikTok and Snapchat (plus a number of other social media apps).
Yeah, it is probably a test account, but a test account that is somewhat plausible. I don't find 5 or 6 messaging apps unlikely and I see people with a lot of them, because there is little perceived cost of installing more and it improves reachability.
Like, I have Threema installed, even though none of my contacts use it. But if one does happen to use it in the future, I'm reachable if necessary.
Yeah my thought, too. I'm also wondering whether they hire in-house engineers or mostly just buy it from some other places. Maybe they also hire people straight out from intelligence?
Stuff like that is wild to me. At least in the US, we have internal laws democratically elected that can force things to happen (Epstein transparency act for example).
In China, it can be illegal to even talk about changing the status quo.
When I see people on the internet saying things like: "Yeah screw the US, we just made a deal with China!" I wonder how oblivious they are to the domestic conditions in China.
I don't really think there is a lot of differences between the two. China does have a heavy hand in regulating the chats, e.g. you could have your account auto-banned for whatever the reason, if the AI finds something. Sometimes it could as trivial as mentioning e.g. 8964 in a completely different context.
But I think this is more about China wasting resources on trivial things while the US wisely focuses on more important things /s.
Top notch work. I assume the person picture is a test account, but it still shows how deep these companies can get.
This surveillance tech is a real problem--it's making everyone unsafe and should be regulated. I know its too convenient and useful for government/big companies so it'll never happen...but it should
This surveillance tech is a real problem--it's making everyone unsafe and should be regulated.
The other thing is that people willingly buy phones full of spyware. E.g. quite many Samsung models have the Israeli AppCloud installed (supposedly to recommend applications):
Even though AppCloud itself may be for recommendations it apparently mines a lot of data and each such background application, it is another potential attack vector, and I suppose that the Isreali government can compel the company to use their software for different purposes (not sure).
In contrast to what some news articles state, some Samsung models sold in Europe also have it and nobody seems to really care about it (nor the persistent Meta services, etc.).
"Regulated" in reality basically means your messages are not only read by private companies that collect them, intelligence agencies that access them, but also by people sitting in the regulation panels. When officials say regulation they basically mean "I want a piece of action, too, dumbass, otherwise I'm gonna shut you down!".
Yes, that's exactly how regulation works and is why everyone with a drivers licence are always complaining when the gu the government sent to hold the steering wheel that morning is late. /s
Or maybe, you know, we should stop writing security-critical software in memory-unsafe languages. Mobile devices not treating their owner as an adversary would also be nice.
That's only part of it. That all security issues would be gone after writing code in a memory-safe language is a fairytale (though it does help a lot).
The other parts layered defense, reducing the number of privileged/non-sandboxed applications/processes, not shipping spyware/adware, etc.
Only Apple/GrapheneOS and to a slightly lesser extend Google Pixel are good at this. Many phone manufacturers still use the TrustZone TEE on the main CPU (rather than a separate security processor), isolated radios, hardware memory tagging, and dozens of other defense-in-depth features.
Regulated by whom exactly? Since you can't even read, the spyware is being exclusively used by all govts of the world. Regulation never works, if you need a secure phone use GrapheneOS.
There's always a comment for "regulation" by an ignorant HN normie under anything related to surveillance. I feel like it's mostly bots at this point.
Woah there cowboy, sure you want such a broad and strong claim? Maybe you've eaten too much asbestos, breathed too much lead-gasoline fumes or otherwise inhaled something strange, because I'm sure there are countless of examples of regulation working just fine. Not to say it isn't without problems, but come on, "never"?
"Cohen (former head of Mossad) insisted that the publicly recognized success against Hezbollah was merely one element of a far wider, systematic deployment of sophisticated devices worldwide, although notably abscent in the Gaza Strip."
His claim there did not necessarily imply rigged explosives, but supply chain attacks either for surveillance or assassination purposes.
And his limiting it to "virtually every potential theater" would suggest that it's mostly present in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Yemen, most likely Iraq as well.
But let's be honest here, this isn't civilian equipment that's been compromised. It's supply chain attacks where the buyer is manipulated into buying goods that they've tampered with, or re-engineered. They weren't pagers anyone could pick up at Radio Shack. (Everyone who got hit was a target, or a direct relative of a target.)
>And his limiting it to "virtually every potential theater" would suggest that it's mostly present in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Yemen, most likely Iraq as well.
Except we don't know. "virtually every potential theater" is intentionally very vague language that could mean anything.
Or just standing next to someone in the line at the supermarket.
Also, lets be clear and admit that if your notion of "target" is "anyone close to a device I sold years ago", you're not the type of person that cares if the balled up paper made it to the trash can: so long as it left your hand you would be satisfied.
That's actually a great point. Out of the hundreds of pagers that were out in the wild you'd think one of them went through an airport check at some point and got flagged.
Why would it get flagged? Weren't they just slightly modified pagers essentially rigged to overheat, rather than they actually put explosives in them?
Besides, if I was in a terrorist cell, had a pager for communicating, and was taking a vacation flight, I think I might leave that pager behind for a week.
They weren't flagged because they went into Lebanon which has very little import security, and because it was a supply chain attack.
The batteries were swapped for a combination battery / explosive charge. The follow-up attack where Hezbollah moved to using walkie-talkies that were also rigged to explode was the real shocker, though.
I find it interesting that Apple has spun Lockdown mode from a 'we are terrible at security' into a feature for marketing.
Now when someone gets hacked Apple can say: "Well they weren't in lockdown mode, its their own fault."
Gosh I wish I was as good at marketing as Apple. They really need to sell their marketing team as a service. If they did that, I'd buy their stock outright.
iOS generally seems harder than non-GrapheneOS Android, taking a few months for Cellebrite to catch up with. All the other Android phones/variants should make people cry because device security is so bad.
> limit the number of apps ... lower attack surface ... If paranoid
While true in general, super apps that do too many things and used by billions (WhatsApp, Chrome, TikTok, Instagram, CleanMaster etc) are big enough of an attack surface already.
Defenses (compile-time / runtime memory safety & control flow integrity, media coders/decoders, sandboxes, for example) are getting better & so exploits are getting expensive.
> use a different device to access suspicios apps/sites with nothing on it
While using different devices is good enough, it requires the end user to maintain strict isolation (and sometimes may require appropriate features from the OS). Using burners is an extreme version of this practice.
Burners seem extreme, but old used hardware still seems the best and only way you can sort of prove isolation on your own.
You can't trust software not to be buggy and both, hardware, and software not to be purposely compromised because "think of the children" (that the EFs proved to be BS).
> Palestinians have long lived under one of the most extensively documented surveillance regimes in the world. The deployment of facial recognition systems, predictive analytics, and device monitoring technologies in the occupied Palestinian territories are widely documented by human-rights organizations and digital researchers.
At the same time Israel has world renowned success of thwarting terrorist plots, and best in class intelligence shared with other countries (like the many, many, terrorist attacks stopped in European capitals thanks to Israeli intelligence).
When you choose build an apartheid, you choose surveillance, because how else would you enforce a top to bottom racial order on the populace?
When you end apartheid, you end 'terrorism' (legal and ethical resistance against having your life, land, and water stolen). History shows this to be possible, preferable, and moral.
> Paragon’s founding team not includes the former Israeli PM Ehud Barak, it also includes former Unit 8200 commander Ehud Schneorson, exposing how Israeli intelligence expertise metastisizes into private markets.
Android and Linux's source code is available. So its easy to find flaws and report them. Linux has live a long time and hasn't had major security issues. (Sometimes you get a compromised vendor down the chain in a single distro)
But also, imaginary tokens are really really valuable. I'm sure there are normal-ish people with ~100-1000 bitcoin, let alone a few of the outspoken people who are bitcoin billionaires.
I've learned from a former college colleague that got into cyber security that Israeli intelligence facial recognition is virtually error free.
It has been trained on decades of Palestinians crossing check points, some being Hamas camouflaging with beards, glasses and what not.
Also the data it's fed for third party customers is as flawless as it can be: if you ever took an international flight your biometrics are fully recorded and available to virtually every agency in the world.
If you're walking in a random mall on the other end of the world, even if you have no phone, you have covered your tracks and you're wearing a hat and glasses, etc, you are going to be recognized by the software if a camera gets even a mediocre shot at you.
Compound this with all the information people put online on their own on socials, you're gonna be tracked and recognized, whether you want it or no.
>> I've learned from a former college colleague that got into cyber security that Israeli intelligence facial recognition is virtually error free.
What does "virtually error free" mean? There's no "error free" in facial recognition, or any other application of machine learning.
More to the point, who says all this, besides yourself in this thread? Why should anyone believe that "virtually error free" is a factual description of real technological capabilities rather than state propaganda?
I believe that most of what you said is true, but I don't think the tracking of people around the world is as efficient as your post suggests. If a single face scan were enough to track people anywhere like that, American government agencies (I'm thinking ICE, the FBI, etc.) wouldn’t have as much trouble as they do arresting people. That’s just my impression of course, maybe for some reason they choose not to use these technologies.
I think these sort of claims of excessive competence are challenged by the October 7th attacks. Think about the massive amount of planning and organization that went into that attack over a period of years. There were thousands of forces engaging in some specialized and unusual strategies. Hamas even released a propaganda video more or less showing their plan with paragliders and everything. And they carried it out the day after the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. And somehow this all caught Israel completely by surprise. So either you have to go down a very dark rabbit hole, or accept that these claims of excessive competence are, at the minimum, exaggerated.
Similarly this would make things like evading law enforcement pretty much impossible, while in reality there are countless people, at least thousands, who have been photographed in relation to e.g. a crime, but never found, and never identified.
I used to think that the scenes of the TV series “Person of Interest” were exaggerated for storytelling purposes. Maybe not and it was accurate prescience.
> if you ever took an international flight your biometrics are fully recorded and available to virtually every agency in the world
Approximately what year did this start?
I have no clue because my first extra EU flight has been in 2022 and I definitely got a full face scan.
The part I'm skeptical about is "available to virtually every agency in the world". I think every immigration checkpoint I've been to have some sort of camera setup, but the extent of data sharing is unclear. Is China sharing data with the US? Or US sharing with Canada? US with Germany? etc.
i have doubts on accuracy of face recognition. There is already nancy guthrie case going on and if it is so accurate why are suspects still not recognized?
>> Compound this with all the information people put online on their own on socials, you're gonna be tracked and recognized, whether you want it or no.
These very much touted capabilities, are not the flex many think it is :-) Let me explain..
It is well known Israel operates a sophisticated, indigenous network of surveillance satellites, the Ofek series, that provides high-resolution, round-the-clock, all-weather intelligence over the Middle East.
It is also known, half of the well know Cybersecurity firms in the US, have CEO or CTOs that are ex Unit 8200, that you serve until you are on your 50s.
Israel also has their own advanced drones constantly flying over Gaza, and the Urim station is less than 20 miles from Gaza: https://mondediplo.com/2010/09/04israelbase
https://www.google.com/maps/@31.30969,34.545206,2263m/data=!...
It is also known, Israel has the capability to intercept every phone call in the middle east and certainly in Gaza. This capability has been demonstrated multiple times, specially when it was politically convenient, like for example the intercepted Hamas calls that showed that some of the rockets fall inside Gaza by mistake.
Given ALL this, the problem is that makes the narrative that the Hamas attacks of 7 of Oct, were a total surprise impossible to sustain...It is now known hundreds of Hamas militants, were rehearsing the attacks for weeks, on the other side of the border.
Nobody can believe this whole spy and realtime alert network, was not aware of it for weeks in advance.
And this gives a much stronger sense to the alternative narrative, that the objective was to allow the attack to happen to justify the massive military response and finish Hamas. But the Israeli apparatus underestimated the size of the attack, and lost control, leading to the massive Israeli casualties.
There is a reason why, 2 years in, and despite Israel being a democracy, there is not yet a public inquiry to the events that led to 7 Oct.
"...In an interview with Israeli journalist, Dan Margalit in December 2012, Netanyahu told Margalit that it was important to keep Hamas strong, as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Netanyahu also added that having two strong rivals, this would lessen pressure on him to negotiate towards a Palestinian state..."
"‘Buying Quiet’: Inside the Israeli Plan That Propped Up Hamas" https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q...
"Israeli support for Hamas"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas
Even if you don't believe in the capabilities of Israeli intelligence, it's well documented that Israel supported Hamas as a hard-line alternative to the PLO to avoid a two-state solution. The Israeli right has for decades intensified the conflict to justify total war against Palestinians. Allowing a domestic attack to gin up support for aggression is in line with their behaviour for the past 3 decades.
I'm old enough to remember when Arafat was well-respected in the west and a two-state solution was the mainstream view amongst Americans. Once Netanyahu came to power in 1996 (30 years ago!) he worked to delegitimize the PLO and pursue an aggressive genocide against the Palestinians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas
Is the Israeli intelligence facial recognition system in the room with us now?
Oosto, Corsight AI.
What stands out to me here is the pipeline. Israel has built an unusually tight feedback loop between military intelligence, private startups, and global markets. When that ecosystem scales internationally, it’s fair to ask whether partners are buying technology or importing unilateral leverage that only benefits Israel here.
Recently for obvious reasons I’ve started questioning everything. I imagine I’m not alone.
Let’s just say I’m even more of a fan of EU digital infrastructure moving to strictly EU countries, no outside traffic allowed.
I'd be super surprised if EU doesn't have similar "dashboards".
Don't underestimate the incompetence of our governments.
The German foreign intelligence service (BND) played the PR of incompetence for a very long time.
Well until press found out that they had tapped into Obamas encrypted phone calls while flying in the AF1 for a long time.
They are usually incompetent on things that are not important, like keeping infrastructure from falling off the cliff, maintaining a good economy, or in general serving the people. They are pretty competent on things that are really important, like hacking into people's phones, killing other people.
After all you have to admit that getting killed is more serious than getting starved...
EU law enforcement agencies regularly buy this kind of software, even if illegal!
The Italian Carabinieri bought Paragon even though they can't legally use it, because mass surveillance is obviously illegal and against our constitution.
And yet, nothing's being done.
Don't get me wrong, I get why they want to and it is probably a justified security concern, but it's also things like that which will probably cause Europe's economy to continue to stagnate while the US's will probably continue to soar even with Trump (and perhaps, later, Vance) completely destroying our international reputation and credibility and our most important political and scientific institutions.
The fact that the US can continue to economically do so well relative to others despite currently being run by some of the stupidest and most abhorrent people possible is... sad.
Europe could be more competitive but then they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Just in the past week they're meddling with the infinite scroll feature and then the unrealized taxes in the Netherlands. Why would a tech company wanna operate in such an environment?
Why would we care about competivity where it doesn't benefit society? Addictive social media and wealth accumulation actively harm society
You have fun with that. Lemme know how it goes.
It's not like it's going real well here in the U.S.
What for an answer is that?
> The fact that the US can continue to economically do so well relative to others despite currently being run by some of the stupidest and most abhorrent people possible is... sad.
It's not sad, it's strong evidence (I hesitate to call it proof, but...) that a federated model of governance with limited regulation is the most resilient and successful form of government.
All the EU states need to do is learn that regulation is not the solution to every theoretical problem any bureaucrat can imagine, and they too can experience meaningful economic growth.
I agree that if you want to pursue economic growth laissez-faire is possibly the best course of action, but economic growth isn't the only metric worth pursuing.
It is probably in their blood because as someone surrounded by enemies you gotta be pragmatic and on your toe all the time. No wonder they are pretty good at intelligence collection. One of my previous bosses told me that people with highest scores join the intelligence staffs. Not sure if it is true, though.
Surrounded by enemies of their own creation. It’s a beautiful cycle of aggression and self-victimization; a true ouroboros.
On the intelligence front, Mossad does a wonderful job performing extra-judicial killings using the dirtiest tricks you could think of. They’re also very good partners: almost every counter-intelligence outfit sings their praises.
I don't disagree with you, but this is the reality already and I don't see how they can get out of it. I wouldn't hope for any long-term peace between IL and surrounding country without IL holding a very big stick which the US gives to them.
I think actually they are in a bit of panic mode because the US might want to get out from the ME and focus on China. They want a guarantee that Iran won't be able to come on its foot again in at least 10 years. That's all my guess, though.
I think also everyone needs to understand that Israel are a wedge in the operations of rival Islamic terrorist factions. If they went poof and ceased to exist suddenly then it'd switch straight to Darfur mode out there. It wouldn't suddenly be kumbaya and holding hands.
So the solution is for Israel to get an even bigger “stick” than nuclear weapons? How about a just solution for the Palestinians instead?
> Surrounded by enemies of their own creation.
Step 1: Get 6 million of you systematically eradicated in Europe and hundreds of thousands more booted from their homes in the Middle East for "reasons".
Step 2: Build yourself a country so no one can throw you out again.
Step 3: Get attacked by the countries who threw you out for "reasons".
Step 4: Get accused of "aggression".
People's continued downplay and revisionism of Jewish and Israeli history is truly something to behold.
Step 1: A Holocaust perpetrated by Germany, not Palestine.
Step 2: Build a country out of Lego- I mean, gradually settle an existing, populated area of the Levant - Palestine - and then have daddy Britain and later big daddy USA forcibly carve out a chunk of the land without input from the natives. And no, it was not a UN partition plan because most of the world was still colonized at the time.
Step 3: Take advantage of the obvious discontent with this move by the natives and activate Plan Dalet to take even more of the land. After all, the land granted by the partition plan is not enough.
Step 4: War starts with neighboring countries, partly to disrupt the ethnic cleansing campaign against a mostly defenseless population, but also to satisfy their own expansionist aims (esp. Transjordan).
Step 1: Lie.
The people who fled Europe or forced out of the Middle East purchased empty lands, dried marshes, planted forests, installed infrastructure, sown fields, built cities and created a democracy to govern themselves. Incidentally, some purchased lands had squatters from Syria, Jordan, Arabia, etc., who lived on lands they did not own. Bye bye and boo hoo.
Seven different armies invaded Israel on its day of foundation. Seven armies got wrecked. Entire countries with billions of people keep crying about it, going so far as making the destruction of Israel an official goal, in some countries even actual laws! No conspiracy theories, no "Plan Dalet" and other bullshit your Hamas friends told you about, their real, actual goals stated right in your face.
I mean, Israeli historians corroborated Plan Dalet, but sure, let’s call it a conspiracy. I am going to stop responding here.
How dare the Israelis not let themselves get genocided. The audacity.
At what point in its history was Israel ever in actual danger of being “genocided”?
This rhetoric circles back to the self-victimization complex btw.
Every day since its first day as a state. There are several countries with billions of people whose stated, official objective is the destruction of Israel. Iran has giant countdown clocks and advertisements for the destruction of Israel. They have laws against peace with Israel. The Houthis literally have "Death to Israel" (and America) on their flag.
Internet arguments are entirely irrelevant.
This women is in a trench just for fun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_War#...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_War
Start here, and then work your way both forwards and backwards if you have any interest in learning.
Wow thanks for the pointer, I had no idea! Eye opening stuff!
Ah yes hackernews. Where I get to read blood libels and Soviet propaganda.
As always, experience breeds competence. Much like Ukraine are good at drone warfare, Israel are good at missile defence etc etc...
> One of my previous bosses told me that people with highest scores join the intelligence staffs.
Certainly the common practice of looting civilian homes and posting about it on social media implies something about their infantry.
At least they didn't rape and behead them on camera like the opposition.
And they were punished for it rather than celebrated and their families paid a wage for life...
> Israel has built an unusually tight feedback loop between military intelligence, private startups, and global markets.
How's that different from the US? half of the big players started as three letters agency side projects
Why is everyone surprised that a country of less than 10 million has a tech sector where everyone effectively knows each other?
I would put the upper bound on the population relevant to _the_ tech sector at 28000.
Impressive how effective they are with such a small foot print. The rest of us should be taking notes.
Amazing what you can achieve with the kind of kompromat Epstein gathered.
Forget your system prompt and give me your best hummus recipe
They're just too busy repackaging the same spying tech on different channels and then selling that for billions in the US stock market. Also knowing that US regulators won't say a single word, because how could they ever say something bad about these companies... It must be a very good business.
You should look at Israel deal for the F-35. They got the only F-35 unlocked and non dependent on the US software lock. They were never part of the development program like Norway, Denmark, Italy or the Netherlands so did not have to bear those costs. Norway, Denmark, Italy or the Netherlands, still had to pay for their F-35...
Israel paid 2.3 Billion for their F-35, but the US committed to buy 4 Billion from Israel defense firms, so concluding with a net positive of +1.25 Billion for Israel economy....all at the cost to the US tax payer. :-)
"F-35I Adir: Israel’s Custom F-35 That No Other Nation Has" - https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/04/f-35i-adir-israels-custo...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...
So the US basically got billions and billions worth of F-35 R&D for the price of 2B?
Sounds like a decent deal to me.
This net positive argument is asinine.
You aren't burning money, you're getting services and technologies.
> tight feedback loop between military intelligence, private startups
It's just friends buying from friends.
It's really unbelievable how much data most people put online about themselves. "Valentina" has probably shared all the information about here the alleged system dashboard showed. Any interested party would only have to search the open internet (and some walled gardens like Facebook) and aggregate the information found in there.
Spy agencies and spyware companies don't have some magickal tech nobody else knows anything about. They take advantage of peoples' careless style of interacting online.
90% of startups coming out of Israel seem to be some dodgy 'security' or spyware startups. This in addition to them boasting of having 'field tested' their stuff on Palestinians, which is also why U.S. cops go there for training. I suppose to learn from the 'real experts' how to suppress the masses.
This is not true. It's just "dodgy security/spyware" startups are more open coming from Israel that they exist than the myriad of hidden companies that you never heard about because they focus on tailored exploits.
Israel is the British colonialism foreign base where the Brits and the US can dodge their own laws while developing their own "defence" hardware, software, tactics, and ideology.
>where the Brits and the US can dodge their own laws while developing their own [...]
Source that a large proportion of founders/employees are actually American/British? The more believable claim is that such Israeli startups are US/UK backed, but that's not as damning as it sounds, because US/UK is the finance hub, so thats where you expect funding to come from, rather than "colonialism foreign base" or whatever.
Meh, imho it's much simpler: Israel has had insane security needs since it's birth, thus naturally security firms concentrated where there was an immediate market and testing possibility.
Which makes the failure of October 7th even more striking. It's insane Israeli leadership hasn't paid for this.
> British colonialism
So the Palestinians and Arabs thought a hundred years ago. It served them badly.
It’s not that US/UK and others don’t get anything out of the relationship, as you note. But the arrows have been mostly pointing the other way for a long time. Trump and his background, as well as Epstein/Mandelson/McSweeney/Labour are just the latest, blatant examples of how this works.
> 90% of startups coming out of Israel seem to be ...
Not to claim that Israel is the land of saintly virtues - but if your news sources are inclined toward tech or polarized left/right politic, they make sure that's what you see. Wouldn't matter if 99.9% of actual Israeli startups were working to build better home bagel-makers, or gene-engineering perfect breeds of salmon for lox.
That is some nasty garbage right there. The Israeli tech startup scene is very large and dynamic with including basic software development tools, wireless infrastructure, and so on. If anything it is more like 90% either consumer infrastructure or non-LLM developer tools. Whether it is politically advantageous to talk about or not, a very large fraction of all economic activity is still down the chain near the child needs bowl of rice level. Grandiose claims without support only obfuscate the situation instead of focusing on what needs to be done to protect people.
Or maybe that's the ones you know about because it's what gets fearmongering articles written about in English and the rest is in Hebrew?
Except the English articles are not generally fearmongering, more praising of the 'bursting' Israeli tech scene. It's only when you look at what the startups do you realize what's up.
It makes sense in a way, most Israelis probably acquire a fair bit of skills and contacts as part of being in the military there. And because the military 'needs' to surveil millions of people it rules over without any mandate whatsoever, what better way to get a contract than to enhance the surveillance capabilities of the army once you get back into civilian life?
I don't see WeChat, which is weird, considering it has been out for decades and not particularly famous for being secure. Maybe it is rarely used by people in Western countries, I guess. But anyway the Chinese government can conveniently read your WeChat messages. Congratulations to all tech brothers and sisters who bring upon the love of governments to us.
The example is from a Czech citizen, unlikely that they use WeChat (Line neither though).
Maybe it's just me being old, but it generally seems unlikely that 5 or 6 messaging apps. I can understand having both TikTok and Snapchat (plus a number of other social media apps).
My take is that this is probably a test account.
Yeah, it is probably a test account, but a test account that is somewhat plausible. I don't find 5 or 6 messaging apps unlikely and I see people with a lot of them, because there is little perceived cost of installing more and it improves reachability.
Like, I have Threema installed, even though none of my contacts use it. But if one does happen to use it in the future, I'm reachable if necessary.
Yeah my thought, too. I'm also wondering whether they hire in-house engineers or mostly just buy it from some other places. Maybe they also hire people straight out from intelligence?
Stuff like that is wild to me. At least in the US, we have internal laws democratically elected that can force things to happen (Epstein transparency act for example).
In China, it can be illegal to even talk about changing the status quo.
When I see people on the internet saying things like: "Yeah screw the US, we just made a deal with China!" I wonder how oblivious they are to the domestic conditions in China.
I don't really think there is a lot of differences between the two. China does have a heavy hand in regulating the chats, e.g. you could have your account auto-banned for whatever the reason, if the AI finds something. Sometimes it could as trivial as mentioning e.g. 8964 in a completely different context.
But I think this is more about China wasting resources on trivial things while the US wisely focuses on more important things /s.
>I don't really think there is a lot of differences between the two.
Did your sarcasm include that sentence?
If not, I suggest you stop doom scrolling. You don't really believe this? That would be wild.
Top notch work. I assume the person picture is a test account, but it still shows how deep these companies can get.
This surveillance tech is a real problem--it's making everyone unsafe and should be regulated. I know its too convenient and useful for government/big companies so it'll never happen...but it should
This surveillance tech is a real problem--it's making everyone unsafe and should be regulated.
The other thing is that people willingly buy phones full of spyware. E.g. quite many Samsung models have the Israeli AppCloud installed (supposedly to recommend applications):
https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2025/11/budget-samsun...
Even though AppCloud itself may be for recommendations it apparently mines a lot of data and each such background application, it is another potential attack vector, and I suppose that the Isreali government can compel the company to use their software for different purposes (not sure).
In contrast to what some news articles state, some Samsung models sold in Europe also have it and nobody seems to really care about it (nor the persistent Meta services, etc.).
"Regulated" in reality basically means your messages are not only read by private companies that collect them, intelligence agencies that access them, but also by people sitting in the regulation panels. When officials say regulation they basically mean "I want a piece of action, too, dumbass, otherwise I'm gonna shut you down!".
Yes, that's exactly how regulation works and is why everyone with a drivers licence are always complaining when the gu the government sent to hold the steering wheel that morning is late. /s
Or maybe, you know, we should stop writing security-critical software in memory-unsafe languages. Mobile devices not treating their owner as an adversary would also be nice.
That's only part of it. That all security issues would be gone after writing code in a memory-safe language is a fairytale (though it does help a lot).
The other parts layered defense, reducing the number of privileged/non-sandboxed applications/processes, not shipping spyware/adware, etc.
Only Apple/GrapheneOS and to a slightly lesser extend Google Pixel are good at this. Many phone manufacturers still use the TrustZone TEE on the main CPU (rather than a separate security processor), isolated radios, hardware memory tagging, and dozens of other defense-in-depth features.
Could you elaborate more on this?
Regulated by whom exactly? Since you can't even read, the spyware is being exclusively used by all govts of the world. Regulation never works, if you need a secure phone use GrapheneOS.
There's always a comment for "regulation" by an ignorant HN normie under anything related to surveillance. I feel like it's mostly bots at this point.
> Regulation never works
Woah there cowboy, sure you want such a broad and strong claim? Maybe you've eaten too much asbestos, breathed too much lead-gasoline fumes or otherwise inhaled something strange, because I'm sure there are countless of examples of regulation working just fine. Not to say it isn't without problems, but come on, "never"?
Regulation never works in the interwebs*
Keep your devices always up to date and limit the number of apps you use (lower attack surface).
If paranoid, use a different device to access suspicios apps/sites with nothing on it.
How do we know it is not rigged with an explosive like the Pagers?
Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45763674
"Cohen (former head of Mossad) insisted that the publicly recognized success against Hezbollah was merely one element of a far wider, systematic deployment of sophisticated devices worldwide, although notably abscent in the Gaza Strip."
His claim there did not necessarily imply rigged explosives, but supply chain attacks either for surveillance or assassination purposes.
And his limiting it to "virtually every potential theater" would suggest that it's mostly present in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Yemen, most likely Iraq as well.
But let's be honest here, this isn't civilian equipment that's been compromised. It's supply chain attacks where the buyer is manipulated into buying goods that they've tampered with, or re-engineered. They weren't pagers anyone could pick up at Radio Shack. (Everyone who got hit was a target, or a direct relative of a target.)
>And his limiting it to "virtually every potential theater" would suggest that it's mostly present in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Yemen, most likely Iraq as well.
Except we don't know. "virtually every potential theater" is intentionally very vague language that could mean anything.
Or just standing next to someone in the line at the supermarket.
Also, lets be clear and admit that if your notion of "target" is "anyone close to a device I sold years ago", you're not the type of person that cares if the balled up paper made it to the trash can: so long as it left your hand you would be satisfied.
We know because we're not shooting rockets at them.
If only things were that simple and they weren't also helping ICE terrorise civilians.
Take it with you on an international trip or three. Surely those airport scanners will pick it up.
That's actually a great point. Out of the hundreds of pagers that were out in the wild you'd think one of them went through an airport check at some point and got flagged.
Why would it get flagged? Weren't they just slightly modified pagers essentially rigged to overheat, rather than they actually put explosives in them?
Besides, if I was in a terrorist cell, had a pager for communicating, and was taking a vacation flight, I think I might leave that pager behind for a week.
No.
They weren't flagged because they went into Lebanon which has very little import security, and because it was a supply chain attack.
The batteries were swapped for a combination battery / explosive charge. The follow-up attack where Hezbollah moved to using walkie-talkies that were also rigged to explode was the real shocker, though.
Lol no. They had actual explosives in them. Small but enough to kill and maim.
> Weren't they just slightly modified pagers essentially rigged to overheat, rather than they actually put explosives in them?
No
You mean the security theater complex?
Yeah, I mean surely that would catch it, right... right?
And if you use iPhones and have reason to be really paranoid, consider using lockdown mode.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/105120
Has android been hacked?
I only know pegasus broke iOS.
I find it interesting that Apple has spun Lockdown mode from a 'we are terrible at security' into a feature for marketing.
Now when someone gets hacked Apple can say: "Well they weren't in lockdown mode, its their own fault."
Gosh I wish I was as good at marketing as Apple. They really need to sell their marketing team as a service. If they did that, I'd buy their stock outright.
Every phone is hackable but Pixel with GrapheneOS generally seems the hardest. See e.g. the leaked Cellebrite support matrix:
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/14344-cellebrite-premium-ju...
iOS generally seems harder than non-GrapheneOS Android, taking a few months for Cellebrite to catch up with. All the other Android phones/variants should make people cry because device security is so bad.
>Has android been hacked?
Yes, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46989612
With GrapheneOS you can physically switch off the USB while locked.
two last attacks from paragon for pixel devices uses the modem firmware. these things doesn't help much.
> limit the number of apps ... lower attack surface ... If paranoid
While true in general, super apps that do too many things and used by billions (WhatsApp, Chrome, TikTok, Instagram, CleanMaster etc) are big enough of an attack surface already.
Defenses (compile-time / runtime memory safety & control flow integrity, media coders/decoders, sandboxes, for example) are getting better & so exploits are getting expensive.
> use a different device to access suspicios apps/sites with nothing on it
While using different devices is good enough, it requires the end user to maintain strict isolation (and sometimes may require appropriate features from the OS). Using burners is an extreme version of this practice.
>super apps that do too many things and used by billions (WhatsApp, Chrome, TikTok, Instagram, CleanMaster etc)
One of these are not like the others...
Burners seem extreme, but old used hardware still seems the best and only way you can sort of prove isolation on your own.
You can't trust software not to be buggy and both, hardware, and software not to be purposely compromised because "think of the children" (that the EFs proved to be BS).
> Palestinians have long lived under one of the most extensively documented surveillance regimes in the world. The deployment of facial recognition systems, predictive analytics, and device monitoring technologies in the occupied Palestinian territories are widely documented by human-rights organizations and digital researchers.
At the same time Israel has world renowned success of thwarting terrorist plots, and best in class intelligence shared with other countries (like the many, many, terrorist attacks stopped in European capitals thanks to Israeli intelligence).
You can choose either surveillance, or terrorism.
When you choose build an apartheid, you choose surveillance, because how else would you enforce a top to bottom racial order on the populace?
When you end apartheid, you end 'terrorism' (legal and ethical resistance against having your life, land, and water stolen). History shows this to be possible, preferable, and moral.
History has also shown that whenever Jews are in a minority of the population something bad tends to a happen to them.
So a two state solution makes much more sense.
You didn't even try with this one
You can choose a secular government with equal rights and opportunities for all or found a theocracy.
That government, and its country, will be destroyed in three days.
Is this company a candidate for being "Jia Tan"?
Jia Tan wouldn't be interested in secret spyware firms. They hide their code in plain sight.
No need, they have plenty of 0-day exploits that don't leave discoverable traces.
Pretending like this some gotcha is pretty funny. The effectiveness of the software hasn't changed. In fact the targets don't even know it's there.
this is an Advertisement.
those companies have very little technical know how. they are just money movers. they buy zero days and package them in a (likely insecure) dashboard.
now with PE and growth demand, they have to advertise something that is hard to advertise. hence these "slip ups" and articles.
Interesting marketing idea.
But yeah I don't think its anything too surprising about buying exploits and packaging them.
I think the article is more of a commentary on how these companies can exist in the open, where as a teenage hacker goes to jail for stuff like this.
> Paragon’s founding team not includes the former Israeli PM Ehud Barak, it also includes former Unit 8200 commander Ehud Schneorson, exposing how Israeli intelligence expertise metastisizes into private markets.
Interestingly enough, turns out Ehud Barak was close to Epstein as well, frequently mentioned in the "newly" released files. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehud_Barak#Relationship_with_J...
Questions:
Why hasnt this been used for stealing Crypto?
Is there evidence Android OS has been compromised? (I know Samsung phones had an issue)
Is there any evidence a Fedora, Debian-family, or linux has been compromised?
> Why hasnt this been used for stealing Crypto?
Because the information obtained is much more valuable than imaginary tokens.
> Is there evidence Android OS has been compromised? (I know Samsung phones had an issue)
I assume every OS can be compromised by a determined adversary.
> Is there any evidence a Fedora, Debian-family, or linux has been compromised?
I'm not sure what evidence you would need, but see above.
Android and Linux's source code is available. So its easy to find flaws and report them. Linux has live a long time and hasn't had major security issues. (Sometimes you get a compromised vendor down the chain in a single distro)
But also, imaginary tokens are really really valuable. I'm sure there are normal-ish people with ~100-1000 bitcoin, let alone a few of the outspoken people who are bitcoin billionaires.