Israeli spyware company NSO Group placed on US blacklist
theguardian.comSee episodes 99 and 100 on the Darknet Diaries [1] for background on NSO and Pegasus.
Great podcast.
Serves them right. I wonder how Israel would react here, and how the US squares blacklisting the company, but saying nothing of the Israeli MoD that had to authorise every sale due to export restrictions. If the company sold to bad actors, surely the MoD is at least partly to blame for allowing it?
I highly doubt that some of the more shady deals like selling to the KSA weren’t greenlit if not brokered by the US.
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.
Not the MoD, but the cabinet, and the previous PM specifically
There are several US companies that provide the same service, though they ostensibly operate under guidelines set by the US government.
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.
If people who exploit this sort of thing for financial gain would spend a fraction of their problem solving on developing a constructive solution that solves a real world problem they would probably have more money
Call me when the US federal government and its bombing and drone assassination program runners are placed on the blacklist.
For what exactly? Your issues with that program probably has more to do with Taliban war crimes. Don't forget it's a war crime to not wear a uniform during combat.
It just goes down to the function of such a rule. Who made that rule? It’s just power dynamics. It’s simply oppressive to force weak militaries to lose. Weak countries that will lose in head to head combat. In paraphrasing but there’s two ways to fight the U.S. the stupid way or guerrilla warfare. Let’s not forget how the revolutionary war against Britain was won because they didn’t follow formalities.
The US won the Revolutionary War because ultimately France joined in against the British. The French provided substantial support and training for the Continental Army, and the French navy held the British fleet at bay.
The land battles that were won by the Continental Army were won using the standard tactics of the day.
There’s lots of reasons, they had the forage war and used guerilla tactics, ambushes and non conventional warfare since they’d lose a head to head war.
"Aged like milk" Bill Cosby aside, he had a great bit if more things were decided by coin toss.
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.
I'd reckon that the 'war crime' of a lack of a uniform is lower on the scale than a drone strike on a civilian aide to the U.S. during the withdrawal from said State.
Nope that drone strike only happened because of the lack of uniform and clear insignia. If they didn't use that tactic the strike would never have happened.
"happened because of the lack of uniform"
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.
They investigated themselves and found no wrongdoing.
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?
> Don't forget it's a war crime to not wear a uniform during combat
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"?
It's not about making it fair. When soldiers dress as civilians in civilian areas during combat. It's nearly impossible to make sure a real civilian doesn't get harmed.
Unfortunately the US is well-known for actually actively engaging civilians.
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.
Nobody will call you.