Why make such a big deal out of how these companies are Israeli? It feels kind of like a dog whistle- what makes the location where a misbehaving company is registered relevant to the story?
You'd never read an article saying something like
"Uber- a Deleware corporation did x y z..."
Are they ex Mossad agents? The article cites one as claiming to be a former "Commander" of something. Everyone Joe in Israel tries to claim that. Only after digging into specifics do you realize that they were cooks who left the army early due to heat stroke.
Black Cube is a private intelligence agency, which is based in London, Paris and Tel Aviv, and is the trading name of BC Strategy Ltd. The company was founded in 2010 by former Israeli intelligence officers Dan Zorella (in Hebrew: דן זורלא) and Avi Yanus (in Hebrew: אבי ינוס). Its employees include former members of Israeli intelligence units, including Aman, Mossad and Shin Bet, as well as legal and financial experts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Cube
It's the title of the article, not the posters editorializing, and the title also points of that the court dispute is taking place in Canada but you don't have anything to say about that. The publication is Israel-based, owned by an Israeli and largely focuses on the issues affecting the Israel tech field.
Well for one thing, the article comes from the tech site with is an arm of an Israeli newspaper. Maybe it's more like The Delaware Herald starting an article off with "Joe's Consulting, a company headquartered in state capitol Annapolis.."
There is to me something negative implied in being a Delaware corporation (tax avoidance). This article is only critical of the shady tactics of the two firms mentioned in the story, not of the existence of Israel. It's not a dog whistle.
Nothing, really, but some people think it's shady because Delaware has very corporate-friendly tax laws. So you'll have silly situations like a company that operates 100% in Missouri but is incorporated in Delaware to take advantage of their tax laws. Legal, but some people think it's cheesy.
My point is that it isn’t wrong to choose a place to incorporate based on a state’s laws. Just as it isn’t wrong to choose to live in Texas because it has no income tax or California for its recreational marijuana. It’s not breaking the law to form an Alaskan corporation even though you personally spend more time in Arkansas or put your factories in Arizona. That satisfies not only the letter of the law but the intent of these laws (as I understand it not being a legal expert).
b.) You'll certainly hear of Uber being an American company.
c.) Sick and tired of any mention of Israel being subject to strict language policing by people who feel the need to protect it from criticism at any rate, even when it's not relevant, or when it genuinely does do something wrong.
Someone boasting about being a "Commander" is not the same as having been one. I had hoped that this piece would have done a bit more research.
Basically, there are two groups, Black Cube and Psy-Group who are completely different. The former is investigated for trying to run sting operations that make no sense. The latter is asserted to be a part of Trump's social manipulation group that got him elected. Something that could have been a part of Cambridge Analytica.
So this article offers almost nothing of substance about the latter group.
The fact that these 'sting operations' by private agencies were intended for planting in newspapers is an interesting issue. Reminds me of an article about how a BBC report about language tests for immigrants caused the UK government to inaccurately crack down on people who were taking tests legitimately https://twitter.com/natematias/status/992739616443772928
Basically, the media is really eager to 'expose' things, but what happened before (if the information was collected by a partisan entity) and after (if the exposé led to overreaction) is something to consider...
Where is the HN relevance? Did Psy-Group or Black Cube employ tech to conduct its influence operations? Were systems compromised? Was there a troll center posting in forums? Influence ops via technical means are a real problem for journalism and online communities and something relevant to HN. I'm not seeing how this article aligns with HN.
> Did Psy-Group or Black Cube employ tech to conduct its influence operations? Were systems compromised?
It's not mentioned in the article, but Black Cube did try and succeed to break the gmail address of Laura-Codruta Kovesi a couple of years ago (she's head of the Romanian anti-corruption agency, a sort of what Antonio Di Pietro and Mani Pulite was for Italy back in the '90s). Allegedly the Black Cube contractors/employees used a social engineering scheme in order to gain access to Kovesi's email. The two Black Cube contractors were subsequently arrested and they've just been given a suspended sentence, so that they can happily go back to Israel and pick other clients.
The email thing is mentioned mostly in Romanian-only articles from 2 years ago, can't find the exact ones I remember reading back then. I found this new article in English, though (http://business-review.eu/news/romanias-dna-head-on-black-cu...), in which Kovesi denied that anyone successfully managed to hack into her emails. But the facts are that 2 Black Cube employees have just been found guilty by Romanian justice in this very case (and then they let them return home, to Israel).
HN is about more than implementation details - some of the most fruitful, engaged, passionate and interesting discussions on here have been about the use of technology to implement real world change, and the impact of technology on human culture and ways of living.
This certainly falls into that category, as in this instance the internet, specifically social media and news outlets, was used by one nation to influence the economy of another.
Frankly, psy-ops, and how to make the internet become less fertile ground for them, is a topic we should be discussing more, not less.
There is training, but basically all of if surrounds not being an idiot with strangers. Aside from people accepting bribes, most of these stings involve the target trying to impress someone. They brag. They think this new person might help them land a job in the future. Or: That pretty girl you met online ... she isn't in to you.
The military deals with this issue through other means, mainly by trying to prevent employees becoming vulnerable in the first place. Living in secure housing with stable costs of living. Retirement planning / pensions. Not allowing people to fall into stupid dept (payday loans etc). And making sure employees feel valued enough that they want to stay with the company. An employee who feels secure in their position, who sees a clear road to advancement within the organization, doesn't feel the need to brag to strangers. Corporations would do well to consider these tactics.
This can be properly understood as a spearphishing attack. You would handle it in the exact same way: security awareness training to minimize data leakage, even if, in this case, the data in question isn't financial (for example) but personally and professionally damaging.
OT: Paul Grahm founder of YC was placed on some kind of a blacklist by SV Israeli supporters after the twitter spat he had during Gaza bombing a few years ago. I believe the spat was between PG and Mark Suster, if I remember correctly.
I can do nothing but commend pg for his commitment to stop what I personally think is close to shooting fish in a barrel. Except it's people and the barrel is mostly dry.
There is context which neither you nor pg presumably understand.
Gaza is closed off not only by Israel but by Egypt in the latter case it is because terrorists from Gaza have killed many Egyptian soldiers in Sinai. Israel is in fact using its technology to save the lives of Egyptian soldiers.
Israel pulled out of Gaza and the Palestinians elected to lead them Hamas, a terrorist organization according to the EU, US, and Israel that also brags about blowing up family restaurants such as Sbarro in Jerusalem where a pregnant American woman died among many others.
They chose terrorists to lead them over Fatah. Instead of improving Gaza, Hamas used funding to shoot missiles into Israel and to dig tunnels into Israel attempting to kill civilians.
Israel ended up developing the Iron Dome missile system that protected Israeli civilians from rockets from Hamas. Israel now has a joint venture with Raytheon building and selling these weapons systems. Three countries besides Israel have thus far purchased them.
It was when Iron Dome made Hamas missiles ineffective that Hamas began building tunnels into Israel to attack civilians.
The 2014 conflict was the third conflict (2008, 2012, 2014) and in that conflict Saudi Arabia and Egypt both backed Israel over Hamas.
I'm not surprised Israeli companies were behind this. It seems like in the world today, Israel is above approach and can do whatever they want. They don't respect the rule of law or the sovereignty of other nations. And any criticism of Israel will have you labeled as an anti-Semite and you'll face harassment from state-sponsored Israeli PR teams.
Which brings up an interesting question: why do progressive tech companies such as Google and Facebook have an office in Israel?
So we have evidence that Trump was aided by Russian and now possibly Israeli propaganda efforts. Obama (and Clinton) did things to anger both of these nations: sanctions against Russia and the Iran nuclear deal respectively.
These nations are not necessarily allies, so it's not that there was one big conspiracy of foreign powers to elect Trump. Rather it seems that multiple different foreign powers may have had different reasons to do so.
One of the costs of being a global superpower/empire is that your politics are no longer just domestic. The entire world has a vested interest in what happens in American elections and can therefore be expected to attempt to work very hard to influence them. Citizens United among other things opened the door wide to soft money influence of American elections, making it easy for foreign powers to do so. The global nature of the Internet also makes influence of domestic elections quite easy.
The political parties, at the state level, sabotaged any reasonable intention in the Electoral College. Most states have laws, some with heavy penalties, requiring that the Electors are made up of party loyalists. These are not deliberative people, and the founding idea of the College in Federalist 68, is that the this body should be deliberative.
I argue those state laws make it essentially impossible for a national 3rd party to emerge.
Another factor, ironically, is more democracy and less process, in the party primary system, while at the same time not having mandatory voter participation, has allowed an even lower signal to noise ratio in the eventual two choices the parties select. A tiny number of people participate in the primaries, and making it easier for highly emotionally motivated yet ignorant people to participate gets us increasingly partisan politics. That's what's edged out the moderates from both parties, and by moderates I mean, having the capacity to compromise.
Israel is a big ally of the US. Israel was the first Western, OECD nation visited by The President.
Israel co-develops weapons systems with US manufacturers (e.g. Iron Dome anti-missile system with American Raytheon which has been sold to Azerbaijan, India, Romania thus far). [1]
The US military trains with Israel and Israel serves as a major Middle East weapons depot for the US.
In the 1960's Israel convinced an Iraqi to defect with the most modern Russian plane of the day, the MIG-21, Operation Diamond, which Israel then let the US military access and fly.
55 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 98.8 ms ] threadYou'd never read an article saying something like "Uber- a Deleware corporation did x y z..."
More info here: https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/report-weinstein-hired-ex-mo...
There is to me something negative implied in being a Delaware corporation (tax avoidance). This article is only critical of the shady tactics of the two firms mentioned in the story, not of the existence of Israel. It's not a dog whistle.
Source: Lived in Maryland for twelve years.
You don't need to cite personal experience when any map of will provide sufficient evidence for your argument.
Source: Has Google Maps installed on my phone.
b.) You'll certainly hear of Uber being an American company.
c.) Sick and tired of any mention of Israel being subject to strict language policing by people who feel the need to protect it from criticism at any rate, even when it's not relevant, or when it genuinely does do something wrong.
Basically, there are two groups, Black Cube and Psy-Group who are completely different. The former is investigated for trying to run sting operations that make no sense. The latter is asserted to be a part of Trump's social manipulation group that got him elected. Something that could have been a part of Cambridge Analytica.
So this article offers almost nothing of substance about the latter group.
Basically, the media is really eager to 'expose' things, but what happened before (if the information was collected by a partisan entity) and after (if the exposé led to overreaction) is something to consider...
It's not mentioned in the article, but Black Cube did try and succeed to break the gmail address of Laura-Codruta Kovesi a couple of years ago (she's head of the Romanian anti-corruption agency, a sort of what Antonio Di Pietro and Mani Pulite was for Italy back in the '90s). Allegedly the Black Cube contractors/employees used a social engineering scheme in order to gain access to Kovesi's email. The two Black Cube contractors were subsequently arrested and they've just been given a suspended sentence, so that they can happily go back to Israel and pick other clients.
The email thing is mentioned mostly in Romanian-only articles from 2 years ago, can't find the exact ones I remember reading back then. I found this new article in English, though (http://business-review.eu/news/romanias-dna-head-on-black-cu...), in which Kovesi denied that anyone successfully managed to hack into her emails. But the facts are that 2 Black Cube employees have just been found guilty by Romanian justice in this very case (and then they let them return home, to Israel).
This certainly falls into that category, as in this instance the internet, specifically social media and news outlets, was used by one nation to influence the economy of another.
Frankly, psy-ops, and how to make the internet become less fertile ground for them, is a topic we should be discussing more, not less.
The military deals with this issue through other means, mainly by trying to prevent employees becoming vulnerable in the first place. Living in secure housing with stable costs of living. Retirement planning / pensions. Not allowing people to fall into stupid dept (payday loans etc). And making sure employees feel valued enough that they want to stay with the company. An employee who feels secure in their position, who sees a clear road to advancement within the organization, doesn't feel the need to brag to strangers. Corporations would do well to consider these tactics.
There’s not a support network.
Gaza is closed off not only by Israel but by Egypt in the latter case it is because terrorists from Gaza have killed many Egyptian soldiers in Sinai. Israel is in fact using its technology to save the lives of Egyptian soldiers.
Israel pulled out of Gaza and the Palestinians elected to lead them Hamas, a terrorist organization according to the EU, US, and Israel that also brags about blowing up family restaurants such as Sbarro in Jerusalem where a pregnant American woman died among many others.
They chose terrorists to lead them over Fatah. Instead of improving Gaza, Hamas used funding to shoot missiles into Israel and to dig tunnels into Israel attempting to kill civilians.
Israel ended up developing the Iron Dome missile system that protected Israeli civilians from rockets from Hamas. Israel now has a joint venture with Raytheon building and selling these weapons systems. Three countries besides Israel have thus far purchased them.
It was when Iron Dome made Hamas missiles ineffective that Hamas began building tunnels into Israel to attack civilians.
The 2014 conflict was the third conflict (2008, 2012, 2014) and in that conflict Saudi Arabia and Egypt both backed Israel over Hamas.
GAZA KINDERGARTEN GRADUATION CEREMONY: KIDS STAGE MOCK MILITARY ATTACK AND HOSTAGE-TAKING https://www.memri.org/tv/gaza-kindergarten-ceremony-stage-mi...
Which brings up an interesting question: why do progressive tech companies such as Google and Facebook have an office in Israel?
These nations are not necessarily allies, so it's not that there was one big conspiracy of foreign powers to elect Trump. Rather it seems that multiple different foreign powers may have had different reasons to do so.
One of the costs of being a global superpower/empire is that your politics are no longer just domestic. The entire world has a vested interest in what happens in American elections and can therefore be expected to attempt to work very hard to influence them. Citizens United among other things opened the door wide to soft money influence of American elections, making it easy for foreign powers to do so. The global nature of the Internet also makes influence of domestic elections quite easy.
I argue those state laws make it essentially impossible for a national 3rd party to emerge.
Another factor, ironically, is more democracy and less process, in the party primary system, while at the same time not having mandatory voter participation, has allowed an even lower signal to noise ratio in the eventual two choices the parties select. A tiny number of people participate in the primaries, and making it easier for highly emotionally motivated yet ignorant people to participate gets us increasingly partisan politics. That's what's edged out the moderates from both parties, and by moderates I mean, having the capacity to compromise.
Israel co-develops weapons systems with US manufacturers (e.g. Iron Dome anti-missile system with American Raytheon which has been sold to Azerbaijan, India, Romania thus far). [1]
The US military trains with Israel and Israel serves as a major Middle East weapons depot for the US.
In the 1960's Israel convinced an Iraqi to defect with the most modern Russian plane of the day, the MIG-21, Operation Diamond, which Israel then let the US military access and fly.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Dome#Plans_for_co-product...
You know, for two covert intelligence gathering firms they sure could have chosen names that are a little less conspicuous.