Is the NSA outsourcing its domestic spying to Israel?(geektime.com)
geektime.com
Is the NSA outsourcing its domestic spying to Israel?
http://geektime.com/2013/06/09/is-the-nsa-outsourcing-its-domestic-spying-to-israel/
12 comments
It is outsourcing domestic spying to an Israeli company (yes, a private enterprise) that produces "lawful interception" software (which it undoubtfuly sells to other customers too). Saying "Israel" is helping NSA spy on its citizens is akin to saying "the United States" gets people hooked on Farmville.
Or that "China" hacks American businesses.
So you are taking the position that Unit 61398 of the 2nd Bureau of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) General Staff Department’s (GSD) 3rd Department has no relation to the state of China. Please elucidate.
http://intelreport.mandiant.com/
http://intelreport.mandiant.com/
I'm going to invoke Betteridge's law of headlines here.
"One theory that’s been gaining traction as of late, on how the NSA got around those pesky little things called laws, is that they outsourced the project to Israel."
So basically a random conspiracy theory clickbait. Also the reference to 8200 here really shows the author has no fogey idea.
In short, Israeli intelligence out of necessity doesn't focus on PRISM like data-mining approaches.
"One theory that’s been gaining traction as of late, on how the NSA got around those pesky little things called laws, is that they outsourced the project to Israel."
So basically a random conspiracy theory clickbait. Also the reference to 8200 here really shows the author has no fogey idea.
In short, Israeli intelligence out of necessity doesn't focus on PRISM like data-mining approaches.
Well said. Also, tip to US journos (and Israeli Business-Insider-wannabe bloggers): 8200 used to be a small and highly selective unit. These days it's the biggest unit of any kind in the IDF.
The fact an Israeli company has people who served there is meaningless, it reflects nothing on what the company does nor the quality of its people.
The fact an Israeli company has people who served there is meaningless, it reflects nothing on what the company does nor the quality of its people.
Conspiracy theory presumes a secret: not a fog of misinformation to counter the known and open facts.
Carry on citizen. You have nothing to worry about. Yes, the government is collecting all the possible data they can on you, but it's okay. You can trust them to never use it against you if you ever speak against or embarrass the government, or any other future governments.
All your government are belong to us. (HN gave me -7 for this statement. But some pts just come back.)
Narus is an Israeli company ?
Headquarters in California but also offices in India.
Half of the management is Indian the other half American. I would say if an NSA really outsources to Narus it would be to India not Israel.
Hate to repeat myself here, but they forgot to mention AMDOCS, another Israeli firm who run 'outsourced billing' for loads of major telecommunications companies globally. What do you need for billing? Metadata on everything.
Back in the day, many European countries had registers of known communist and socialist sympathizers. They where used to keep communists out of government and union jobs. Those in the registers had a harder time getting promoted, was fired for spurious reasons and so on. The other effect it had is that people became frightened to voice their support of communists lest they also be placed in the register and having their careers ruined.
It is not far-fetched to think that broad intelligence gathering will be used in the exact same way today. Communism may not be the big boogieman it once way, but there are still ideologies and causes that can get you branded as undesirable. For example, by being drug liberal.
I think it's naive to think that the information they are collecting will go unused. There aren't enough terrorist threats in there to act upon, so they will focus on the secondary threats which is people with the wrong opinions.
It is not far-fetched to think that broad intelligence gathering will be used in the exact same way today. Communism may not be the big boogieman it once way, but there are still ideologies and causes that can get you branded as undesirable. For example, by being drug liberal.
I think it's naive to think that the information they are collecting will go unused. There aren't enough terrorist threats in there to act upon, so they will focus on the secondary threats which is people with the wrong opinions.
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They could be watching us read this right now!
this is not a very good news for our future
The Mormons don't go on missions to Arab countries, so the Utah spy site is of limited use. But many Israelis on the other hand do speak Arabic; its a secondary language there; so they are naturally a place to outsource electronic surveillance of Arab speaking countries.
Not so many: there are indeed ~1.4*10^6 arabic speakers in Israel, but most are Palestinian-Israeli, barred from getting any security clearence by the Israeli military.
When they say "Israel", they actually mean "Jews". Exploit the prejudice without appearing antisemitic.
That's stupid. When they say "Israel", they mean "that nominally democratic ally of ours who survives on our military aid and who is well-known for technical savvy and outsourcing to whom would neatly circumvent our inconvenient laws forbidding the wholesale surveillance of our citizens." Not "Jews". We have more Jews than they do anyway.
US military aid is about %1 of Israel's budget, so factually it can't be said to "survive" on it (BTW it's required to spend nearly all of it buying from US suppliers).
As for "nominally democratic" I'll ignore it in order to not bring the already devastated level of discourse here yet lower.
But, back the point, do you seriously believe the NSA will outsource its most sensitive operations to another country? HN is now moving from r/politics to r/conspiracy.
As for "nominally democratic" I'll ignore it in order to not bring the already devastated level of discourse here yet lower.
But, back the point, do you seriously believe the NSA will outsource its most sensitive operations to another country? HN is now moving from r/politics to r/conspiracy.
I didn't mean financial survival. To listen to any apologist of our Middle East policy, it's utterly vital for Israeli survival to have the threat of American nuclear reprisal at their beck and call.
Perhaps "military assistance" would have been a better term.
As to "nominally democratic", they're governed by a bunch of repressive thugs who don't listen to their own people - slightly better than the United States in that respect. Or do you really think their Palestinian policy is democratically derived?
And yes. I think the military-industrial complex will do anything to win, and the Israelis are known to be non-stupid. They could do worse.
As to the level of discourse, I thought my response was better than JEW JEW JEW ANTISEMITISM, but your mileage may vary.
Perhaps "military assistance" would have been a better term.
As to "nominally democratic", they're governed by a bunch of repressive thugs who don't listen to their own people - slightly better than the United States in that respect. Or do you really think their Palestinian policy is democratically derived?
And yes. I think the military-industrial complex will do anything to win, and the Israelis are known to be non-stupid. They could do worse.
As to the level of discourse, I thought my response was better than JEW JEW JEW ANTISEMITISM, but your mileage may vary.
I agree the parent comment's insinuation of antisemitism was nonsense.
>it's utterly vital for Israeli survival to have the threat of American nuclear reprisal at their beck and call
(1) Why exactly do you think Israel has US support at their beck and call? I can tell you Israelis definitely don't think so. (2) Why does Israel need it, when - following the collapse of the USSR which was the main lifeline of other Mideast forces - it now has the most powerful military in the region? and (3) Israel has its own nukes since the '60s.
American support for Israel started only in the early '70s, after Israel proved itself a useful asset by winning the Six Day War, without any US support and as counterbalance for the USSR support of Arab nations. Israel is one of very few nations in the world (certainly the western world) which the US didn't have to send its military to protect at some point.
>it's utterly vital for Israeli survival to have the threat of American nuclear reprisal at their beck and call
(1) Why exactly do you think Israel has US support at their beck and call? I can tell you Israelis definitely don't think so. (2) Why does Israel need it, when - following the collapse of the USSR which was the main lifeline of other Mideast forces - it now has the most powerful military in the region? and (3) Israel has its own nukes since the '60s.
American support for Israel started only in the early '70s, after Israel proved itself a useful asset by winning the Six Day War, without any US support and as counterbalance for the USSR support of Arab nations. Israel is one of very few nations in the world (certainly the western world) which the US didn't have to send its military to protect at some point.
Now this is the kind of comment I come to HNN for.
(1) From the point of view of a liberal American, it seems a given. To have any negative opinion of Israeli politics in the States marks you as Not The In Crowd.
(2) I dunno - all I know is that American politicians represent the situation in this way. I know a few Israelis, but we've never talked politics and I've never been to Israel, sadly. So I'm woefully ignorant.
(3) We're never supposed to talk about that, are we? Only Evil Rogue Nations violate nuclear treaties they didn't sign, after all.
On your final paragraph - now I'm going to have to go read some things.
(1) From the point of view of a liberal American, it seems a given. To have any negative opinion of Israeli politics in the States marks you as Not The In Crowd.
(2) I dunno - all I know is that American politicians represent the situation in this way. I know a few Israelis, but we've never talked politics and I've never been to Israel, sadly. So I'm woefully ignorant.
(3) We're never supposed to talk about that, are we? Only Evil Rogue Nations violate nuclear treaties they didn't sign, after all.
On your final paragraph - now I'm going to have to go read some things.
(1) Well, Chomsky is doing alright.. And I wouldn't say The Nation or the New Yorker have any qualms about criticizing Israel (and they shouldn't).
(2) I agree, the situation is represented in the US in very simplistic terms, by both sides.
(3) IMHO Israel, along with Pakistan and India, took the only respectable option by not signing that treaty. When my wife was doing her MA she'd often tell me how her professors mentioned various UN human rights treaties the US didn't sign and which many dictatorships did sign. It amazed me how her ivy league teachers didn't realize the signature of most nations is meaningless, as they have no intention of committing to it.
(2) I agree, the situation is represented in the US in very simplistic terms, by both sides.
(3) IMHO Israel, along with Pakistan and India, took the only respectable option by not signing that treaty. When my wife was doing her MA she'd often tell me how her professors mentioned various UN human rights treaties the US didn't sign and which many dictatorships did sign. It amazed me how her ivy league teachers didn't realize the signature of most nations is meaningless, as they have no intention of committing to it.
The alleged spying project is led by a Scottish American and organized by guys named Randall and Paul Jacobson, using software from an Indian company owned by Boeing and an Israeli company headquartered in Massachussetts. Of all the different people involved in this, we are only supposed to care about the Jews. Singling out the Jews for hate is racism, especially given how minimal their alleged involvement is.
The evidence for this alleged act of Israel spying on the US is that an Israeli company developed software that was purchased and used by the government and phone companies. That's all. We don't even know what the software is named or what it does other than a vague description of it logging and copying network data; it could be a frontend to wireshark or netcat. Consider, how does Hacker News react when any other startup develops useful cutting-edge network management software and gets a big government deal? Now see how we react when an Israeli company does the exact same thing? This is a hate-the-Jews thread.
The evidence for this alleged act of Israel spying on the US is that an Israeli company developed software that was purchased and used by the government and phone companies. That's all. We don't even know what the software is named or what it does other than a vague description of it logging and copying network data; it could be a frontend to wireshark or netcat. Consider, how does Hacker News react when any other startup develops useful cutting-edge network management software and gets a big government deal? Now see how we react when an Israeli company does the exact same thing? This is a hate-the-Jews thread.