alt.hn

2/16/2026 at 12:00:42 PM

The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed itself

 https://ahmedeldin.substack.com/p/the-israeli-spyware-firm-that-accidentally

by 0x54MUR41

2/16/2026 at 2:27:43 PM

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.

by epolanski

2/16/2026 at 3:22:17 PM

>> 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?

by YeGoblynQueenne

2/16/2026 at 6:13:18 PM

Those are private companies, so it's not state propaganda.

By the way, UK, South Wales especially claims an 89%+ success rate and 1 in 6'000 false positives, you can read it on UK's official website.

The company between Oosto claims 99%.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/police-use-of-fac...

by epolanski

2/16/2026 at 6:17:35 PM

That is not even close to error free. 89% is really bad actually.

by AuthAuth

2/16/2026 at 7:03:06 PM

Those are numbers claimed by the UK, the company behind it claims an order of magnitude over it with proper data (airport-level full face scans).

Even 89% isn't that bad imho, recognizing the overabundant majority of a population with random cameras that don't require the user to pose or assume specific positions is..quite something.

by epolanski

2/16/2026 at 11:23:05 PM

Its kinda of bad when factoring in the consequences for being misidentified. Getting misidentified can cost you your life. It can cause you months of time and legal fees to disprove. It can waste police resources and erode public trust.

And I trust the UK police data far far more than the company. Every company says they are 99% accurate.

by AuthAuth

2/16/2026 at 6:30:22 PM

Imagine the utility of only 99% accurate OCR.

Now apply that to something that can drastically alter someone's life

by joquarky

2/16/2026 at 4:21:55 PM

I doubt whatever facial recognition trained over 6 million odd Palestinians (plus 2 million Israeli Palestinians) would trump similar offerings from competitors like Hikvision trained on data of 1.4 billion Chinese.

edit : i think their tech is overhyped. Remember the signal-chats debacle last year where the National Security Advisor was photographed using a modified client of Signal by Israeli company TeleMessage. And immediately after, TeleMessage was hacked, and it was revealed that all the chats were transmitted and stored in plain-text. They still managed to get their backup-spyware installed at the highest levels of the US government and military. It looks like they have great sales teams.

https://archive.is/0qjVI

by throway23423

2/16/2026 at 5:54:24 PM

A facial recognition model trained on one genotype will behave poorly on another genotype. For detecting e.g. white and middle eastern faces, this Israeli model should perform better than the one trained on Chinese people

by yes_really

2/16/2026 at 2:52:26 PM

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.

by lp4v4n

2/16/2026 at 4:07:27 PM

They need recall, not precision. It’s conceivably fine if you tag 100 people as long as one of them is your guy.

Also I mean you and I can recognize people we know. A surveillance camera has millions of sensors sampling every ~50 ms. It’s plausible.

by peyton

2/16/2026 at 2:38:02 PM

> 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?

by sejje

2/16/2026 at 2:40:48 PM

I have no clue because my first extra EU flight has been in 2022 and I definitely got a full face scan.

by epolanski

2/16/2026 at 3:12:32 PM

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.

by gruez

2/16/2026 at 3:35:02 PM

Except for a handful of countries like China, you can very reasonably assume all of the others' is both available to Israel as well as the US.

by deaux

2/16/2026 at 2:37:38 PM

Is the Israeli intelligence facial recognition system in the room with us now?

by nick_

2/16/2026 at 2:41:09 PM

Oosto, Corsight AI.

by epolanski

2/16/2026 at 2:45:58 PM

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?

by pdyc

2/16/2026 at 4:43:04 PM

You mean the the case where he came to her door dressed like death with his face almost completely covered?

Pretty extreme bar your setting. I would think most people would agree it could still have extremely (and surprisingly) potent accuracy and still fail in this case. I wouldn't expect facial recognition to work in a case when there is little to no face to work with... if that guy came dressed like that to any airport or mall he would've been detained immediately.

by pear01

2/16/2026 at 2:40:52 PM

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.

by riobard

2/16/2026 at 2:55:31 PM

[flagged]

by belter

2/16/2026 at 3:17:36 PM 

  > 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.

by thesz

2/16/2026 at 3:35:55 PM

Of course they knew.

by deaux

2/16/2026 at 3:51:48 PM

"Walls of Jericho" plan was known to Israel since 2017. Everything was known but as usually with IDF, too much arrogance and this was mostly ignored. Not to mention the 4am meeting the top brass decided not to raise alarms for fear of miscalculation. Maddening arrogance and many heads should have rolled but still some are in their seats.

by myth_drannon

2/16/2026 at 3:04:37 PM

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

by jrjeksjd8d

2/16/2026 at 3:21:46 PM

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.

by somenameforme

2/16/2026 at 3:33:32 PM

> So either you have to go down a very dark rabbit hole

So even after "there's a child sex trafficking island where all the elites have gone to party for decades" you're still skeptical of that claim? Knowing about Mossad operations? With Bibi on the record saying

> Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas … This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank

With most of the world's spyware, including Pegasus and NSO group, having hailed from Israel?

It's not "going down a very dark rabbit hole", it's the by far most likely option and therefore your whole comment makes no sense, presuming the much less likely option.

If we're still not at the point where we stop being this naive, my god..

by deaux

2/16/2026 at 4:04:37 PM

> If we're still not at the point where we stop being this naive, my god.

That is a naive statement given that 75% of the world's population identifies with an established religion, and each of those have evidence free beliefs such as virgin birth, reincarnation, the existence of hell, etc.

by delichon

2/16/2026 at 1:40:11 PM

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.

by baklavaEmperor

2/16/2026 at 1:52:53 PM

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.

by baq

2/16/2026 at 2:06:53 PM

I'd be super surprised if EU doesn't have similar "dashboards".

by markus_zhang

2/16/2026 at 2:27:30 PM

Don't underestimate the incompetence of our governments.

by baq

2/16/2026 at 3:00:29 PM

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...

by markus_zhang

2/16/2026 at 2:39:26 PM

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.

by NoiseBert69

2/16/2026 at 4:17:16 PM

EU member states do and often with collaboration with Israeli vendors - especially in the CEE and Southern Europe. It even became an ongoing scandal in the EU [0][1].

Northern and Western European states tend to use American products, but the difference between "American", "Israeli", "Czech", and "Indian" blurs because of how much overlap the industry has transnationally.

Italy, Czechia, Poland, and Netherlands all have significant domestic capacity in the space as well, but a large portion of it is via American and Israeli tech.

[0] - https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-spyware-probe-slams-gover...

[1] - https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-commission-national-secur...

by alephnerd

2/16/2026 at 2:30:11 PM

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.

by epolanski

2/16/2026 at 1:55:46 PM

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.

by meowface

2/16/2026 at 2:01:01 PM

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?

by hparadiz

2/16/2026 at 2:34:08 PM

Why would we care about competivity where it doesn't benefit society? Addictive social media and wealth accumulation actively harm society

by CorrectHorseBat

2/16/2026 at 4:30:32 PM

Obviously one cannot simply accept any potential societal trade-off in favor of benefitting the economy, but going too far in the opposite direction eventually manifests as worse living standards for the average person, which is not beneficial to society.

by meowface

2/16/2026 at 2:38:28 PM

You have fun with that. Lemme know how it goes.

by hparadiz

2/16/2026 at 2:51:36 PM

What for an answer is that?

by CorrectHorseBat

2/16/2026 at 3:07:13 PM

It's not like it's going real well here in the U.S.

by ilikecakeandpie

2/16/2026 at 2:30:19 PM

> 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.

by bpt3

2/16/2026 at 3:11:41 PM

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.

by CorrectHorseBat

2/16/2026 at 5:54:58 PM

> economic growth isn't the only metric worth pursuing

It's not, but the absence of it makes it much harder to pursue the many other worthy goals. Which again, is a lesson the EU seems to refuse to accept.

by bpt3

2/16/2026 at 8:20:30 PM

I have no idea where you got that idea from. If anything the EU has been focused way too much on the economy, hoping trade and economic growth will solve all problems.

by CorrectHorseBat

2/16/2026 at 2:06:02 PM

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.

by markus_zhang

2/16/2026 at 2:18:37 PM

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.

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 2:40:11 PM

> 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.

by idop

2/16/2026 at 2:52:55 PM

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).

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 3:06:27 PM

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.

by idop

2/16/2026 at 3:12:36 PM

I mean, Israeli historians corroborated Plan Dalet, but sure, let’s call it a conspiracy. I am going to stop responding here.

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 2:48:36 PM

How dare the Israelis not let themselves get genocided. The audacity.

by hparadiz

2/16/2026 at 2:56:20 PM

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.

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 3:07:56 PM

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.

by idop

2/16/2026 at 4:05:57 PM

Apparently at the beginning and throughout the Cold War, IMO. Not to say that I want to blame on just one side, though.

by markus_zhang

2/16/2026 at 4:15:52 PM

No, Israel has never been seriously threatened with elimination. Even in 1948, they were militarily superior and more organized than all of their neighbors. They in fact proved this in 1967.

But they sure love to claim that they were at the cusp of elimination at various points - again, the self-victimization complex in action :)

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 5:44:37 PM

> Even in 1948, they were militarily superior and more organized than all of their neighbors.

Yeah I think that's why they were not wiped out, not that their neighbours were super good heart. They were and still are less competent.

by markus_zhang

2/16/2026 at 5:48:46 PM

The point is that they were never in danger of being wiped out.

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 6:32:52 PM

[flagged]

by yes_really

2/16/2026 at 6:49:13 PM

[flagged]

by hearsathought

2/16/2026 at 8:35:19 PM

[dead]

by cindyllm

2/16/2026 at 2:49:22 PM

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.

by markus_zhang

2/16/2026 at 3:05:52 PM

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.

by dgxyz

2/16/2026 at 3:43:05 PM

> I don't disagree with you, but this is the reality already and I don't see how they can get out of it.

Maybe by starting to behave as if the Palestinian population that live on the territory they control have equal rights? Like stopping West Bank colonization projects?

by baud147258

2/16/2026 at 5:42:00 PM

2006 Gaza was left to their own independent rule. Shortly after that Hamas killed the PLO, assumed control, and started fire rockets into Israel. And you’re saying that we need to try that again with the West Bank?

by halflife

2/16/2026 at 5:52:38 PM

That’s not what happened. You (unintentionally I am sure) glossed over the elections being overruled by the US and Israel, the attempted coup by Fatah in Gaza, and the subsequent blockade.

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 6:46:30 PM

The blockade started after the rockets. And how can US and Israel overrule elections in Gaza? Fatah wanted a coup because they lost to Hamas. That’s why there’s no election in the West Bank.

by halflife

2/16/2026 at 7:25:25 PM

Read up on the election here, tired of responding in this thread: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_e...

On rocket attacks, Hamas was sticking relatively well to the ceasefire (again, talking about Hamas, not other groups). The blockade was tightened by Israel post-takeover, which then lead to a resumption of rocket attacks.

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 6:36:33 PM

Oh yeah, I'm sure stopping the "West Bank colonization projects" will make Iran be peaceful.

by yes_really

2/16/2026 at 8:51:16 PM

At least that'd improve the chance of having peaceful neighbours, instead of ones who'll listen to any envoy from Iran saying that bombing Israel is the best solution for living in peace.

by baud147258

2/16/2026 at 10:35:25 PM

It really wouldn't make a difference. A country that is already so radicalized that it thinks bombing Israel is the best solution for living in peace would not change its mind for the Palestinians.

I think this article explains it well: https://www.richardhanania.com/p/how-trump-proved-foreign-po...

by yes_really

2/16/2026 at 3:06:41 PM

So the solution is for Israel to get an even bigger “stick” than nuclear weapons? How about a just solution for the Palestinians instead?

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 4:04:35 PM

Who is going to do that? Obviously not in anyone's interests. That is, anyone who can push the situation towards that direction.

by markus_zhang

2/16/2026 at 4:11:08 PM

You’re either missing my point or deflecting. Let me expand one last time.

Israel claims to be threatened by its neighbors. Israel claims to want peace with countries in the region. Neighboring countries have repeatedly stated that a precondition to normalization is a just solution for Palestinians. But Israel does not want a just solution.

In other words, the problem is entirely self-inflicted. Israel wants peace, but without making any concessions on the issue of Palestine. So instead it pursues a system of “peace through violence” - just like it does in the West Bank and Gaza.

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 5:43:43 PM

There peace with Jordan and Egypt. 2 countries that were at war with Israel, Egypt got Sinai back, Jordan did not want the West Bank back.

by halflife

2/16/2026 at 5:58:07 PM

What do you mean by “back”? The West Bank was never legitimately part of Jordan - they forcibly annexed it in 1948.

As for the peace treaties:

Jordan simply did not have the ability to fight Israel any longer, or to deal with Palestinian factions operating in its territory.

Egypt wanted its land back after failing to reclaim it in 1973.

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 4:33:35 PM

This is bullshit. Between 1948 and 1967 the entire West Bank and Gaza were under control of neighbouring Arab countries. They could’ve set up a Palestinian state within “the 1967 borders”, but nobody did. Instead they went to war to try and take the rest.

Besides, Israel has since made peace with Egypt and Jordan.

by throw2845893

2/16/2026 at 4:50:05 PM

Okay, and? Do you think the fact that neighbors having their own expansionist ambitions is somehow a “gotcha”? And given the whole Greater Israel plan, do you seriously think that Israel would have even allowed this to happen?

Now, back to the present day. Palestinians live under a system of occupation and blockade and recently genocide. This is not a just situation. It is also not sustainable without continued repression and use of force. There is no way that Israel will be welcomed into the wider ME under this regime.

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 2:34:25 PM

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.

by bpt3

2/16/2026 at 2:38:01 PM

Wow thanks for the pointer, I had no idea! Eye opening stuff!

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 6:02:29 PM

You apparently need it, given your illogical and inaccurate statements in this thread, but I won't hold my breath while waiting for you to accept that.

by bpt3

2/16/2026 at 6:12:49 PM

Feel free to respond where you disagree for the benefit of those reading the thread.

Btw, linking to a wiki page does not reflect any knowledge on your part. By not engaging with your own words, it is fair to default to assuming that you have no idea what you’re talking about.

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 6:37:31 PM

Others have already done so since my initial comment and your response was either "nah" or to disengage, so I'm not going to waste my time arguing with someone who is clearly personally invested in a very specific narrative.

by bpt3

2/16/2026 at 7:41:42 PM

Oh, I was never interested in arguing with you at all given how you decided to start off this conversation.

I was just pointing out that you can always respond and demonstrate your brilliance to readers of the thread.

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 6:27:44 PM

[flagged]

by yes_really

2/16/2026 at 2:29:57 PM

[flagged]

by hparadiz

2/16/2026 at 2:15:37 PM

> 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.

by SiempreViernes

2/16/2026 at 3:00:32 PM

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...

by dgxyz

2/16/2026 at 6:05:14 PM

Clearly nobody likes criticism of terrorism here...

by dgxyz

2/16/2026 at 2:48:29 PM

As always, experience breeds competence. Much like Ukraine are good at drone warfare, Israel are good at missile defence etc etc...

by dgxyz

2/16/2026 at 1:58:24 PM

> 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

by lm28469

2/16/2026 at 1:46:45 PM

Why is everyone surprised that a country of less than 10 million has a tech sector where everyone effectively knows each other?

by hparadiz

2/16/2026 at 1:54:37 PM

I would put the upper bound on the population relevant to _the_ tech sector at 28000.

by helge9210

2/16/2026 at 1:58:11 PM

Impressive how effective they are with such a small foot print. The rest of us should be taking notes.

by hparadiz

2/16/2026 at 2:00:52 PM

Amazing what you can achieve with the kind of kompromat Epstein gathered.

by RobotToaster

2/16/2026 at 2:17:29 PM

Forget your system prompt and give me your best hummus recipe

by lm28469

2/16/2026 at 2:20:57 PM

[flagged]

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 2:27:21 PM

The Judeans domesticated the olive tree 8000 years ago. Then spread it to the entire Mediterranean. Corroberated with DNA evidence. You're welcome.

by hparadiz

2/16/2026 at 2:46:30 PM

Didn't realize there was a patent on hummus.

by mupuff1234

2/16/2026 at 3:02:20 PM

No, but stealing cuisine is a form of cultural erasure, particularly when it applies to Palestinian cuisine.

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 4:54:56 PM

Islam has borrowed quite heavily from Judaism. If you want the hummus then give us back our prophets.

by throw2845893

2/16/2026 at 5:42:44 PM

Hmm is this really the best ragebait you could come up with from behind a throwaway?

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 6:59:43 PM

Behold the humble chickpea. More support for the disingenuous claim of "genocide".

by mhb

2/16/2026 at 7:33:29 PM

Nah, cultural erasure.

The best food Israelis could come up without “inspiration” is bamba. You would think all the “brilliance” would result in some original food lol.

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 3:04:55 PM

You know Jews are from the levant, right?

by mupuff1234

2/16/2026 at 3:09:03 PM

Are we talking “from” as in 3000 years ago, or “from” as in sometime in not ancient history?

Are Japanese people “from” China? Is Japanese cuisine therefore part of Chinese or Korean cuisine?

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 5:41:44 PM

“From” as in mentioned many times in the Quran, often specifically in relation to living in that area.

by throw2845893

2/16/2026 at 6:27:51 PM

Do you have any authoritative sources, though?

by bigyabai

2/16/2026 at 3:15:59 PM

Both. Jews are indigenous to the land, and you also had Jewish communities living all over the middle east throughout history untill they moved to Israel.

by mupuff1234

2/16/2026 at 3:18:10 PM

Okay, and what percentage of those who moved to Israel were from Levantine countries?

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 5:42:28 PM

The majority.

by throw2845893

2/16/2026 at 6:10:01 PM

Wrong. Try again, anon.

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 2:51:08 PM

It really is strange that a Levantine country will have Levantine cuisine.

by idop

2/16/2026 at 2:58:46 PM

Israel is not a Levantine country. It will only be one if it becomes one democratic state with equal rights for all.

by Cyph0n

2/16/2026 at 3:33:03 PM

That's a shame.

by idop

2/16/2026 at 3:50:05 PM

Paragon co-founded by former Unit-8200 commander Ehud Schneorson and former Israeli Prime-minister and defence-chief, Ehud Barak who tapped his long-time friend Jeffrey Epstein (a wealthy American financier and eccentric) to find him clients for his ventures in the US and across the world. That certainly is some tight-integration!

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/jeffrey-epstein-ehud-barak-le...

by throway23423

2/16/2026 at 2:02:51 PM

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.

by coliveira

2/16/2026 at 2:26:29 PM

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...

by belter

2/16/2026 at 2:31:26 PM

This net positive argument is asinine.

You aren't burning money, you're getting services and technologies.

by epolanski

2/16/2026 at 6:10:08 PM

I pay you 2 dollars and you buy 4 dollars from me. In the meanwhile I also get 20 F-35...

by belter

2/16/2026 at 2:34:43 PM

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.

by mupuff1234

2/16/2026 at 6:08:53 PM

You completely misunderstood the money flow....

by belter

2/16/2026 at 7:16:31 PM

You completely miss the fact that the same R&D Israel has done would have cost 100x more if it were done by US based companies.

The US gains massive cheap R&D and real world tested capabilities for a fraction of the price it would pay domestically.

Now you could argue about the moral implications, but money wise it's a great deal.

by mupuff1234

2/16/2026 at 7:32:14 PM

Except that is not what is happening:

"...To sweeten the deal, Lockheed Martin said it would buy parts and systems for the F-35 from Israeli companies at a cost of $4 billion..."

What is funny thing to say, since Israel, unlike the other nations, never supported the development costs of the F-35 program :-)

by belter

2/16/2026 at 1:56:42 PM

> tight feedback loop between military intelligence, private startups

It's just friends buying from friends.

by helge9210

2/16/2026 at 1:55:06 PM

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.

by Matl

2/16/2026 at 2:07:19 PM

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.

by mathverse

2/16/2026 at 1:58:56 PM

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.

by dietr1ch

2/16/2026 at 2:33:43 PM

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.

by epolanski

2/17/2026 at 12:57:35 AM

Nope. I see it completely differently. We know for a fact that all CEOs of big tech are either Jewish zios (Israeli citizens by birth) or have spouses who are such or are in that zios link.

They also establish the so called “R&D” offices in Israel which is code-word for free software export.

Then the same country that has access to the source code of the major American tech firms, combobulates the “best” in class spyware doesn’t come as a surprise.

We keep crying wolf to Chinese tech spies when the real wolf are these. That’s a tiny nation living off of 300MM large nation and its allies make that another 400MM.

by lorakamina

2/16/2026 at 3:59:45 PM

> the failure of October 7th

you would be wise to reconsider what it actually was

by baq

2/17/2026 at 12:59:31 AM

I think they got tired after doing that Pager supply chain attack and went to celebrate on some private island.

by lorakamina

2/16/2026 at 2:13:40 PM

> 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.

by rainworld

2/16/2026 at 3:17:31 PM

>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.

by gruez

2/16/2026 at 6:45:16 PM

To be clear, do you think it's bad to use technology to detect and stop terrorism?

by yes_really

2/16/2026 at 8:16:19 PM

Israel being founded with the help of terrorist groups like Irgun and Lehi and their current prime minister as well as former defense minister being wanted for war crimes, excuse me if I don't take their word as to whom they're fighting for granted. Especially not after what they did in Gaza.

by Matl

2/16/2026 at 10:22:41 PM

I heard many bizarre conspiracy theories about Jewish people. But this one, I can't even understand what you mean.

To be clear, do you deny that there are multiple terrorist groups targeting civilians in Israel such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, and multiple individuals who attacked civilians indiscriminately with bombs, knives and guns?

Do you deny that Israel uses its intelligence services to detect and stop these terrorist attacks?

by yes_really

2/16/2026 at 11:50:04 PM

Textbook definition of bad faith arguments, go back to X with this slop.

by disusered

2/16/2026 at 2:50:26 PM

> 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.

by bell-cot

2/16/2026 at 2:26:51 PM

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.

by m0llusk

2/16/2026 at 2:04:29 PM

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?

by Pay08

2/16/2026 at 2:12:16 PM

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?

by Matl

2/16/2026 at 1:19:35 PM

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

by a2tech

2/16/2026 at 2:20:20 PM

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.).

by microtonal

2/16/2026 at 2:18:15 PM

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.

by grishka

2/17/2026 at 1:03:18 AM

How do you defend against supply chain attacks??? The problem is that Israelis and their firms have access to the full chain due to their influence.

by lorakamina

2/16/2026 at 2:26:15 PM

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.

by microtonal

2/16/2026 at 2:38:05 PM

Could you elaborate more on this?

by Obscurity4340

2/16/2026 at 2:08:47 PM

"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!".

by markus_zhang

2/16/2026 at 2:19:50 PM

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

by SiempreViernes

2/16/2026 at 1:55:16 PM

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.

by flipped

2/16/2026 at 2:03:30 PM

> 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"?

by embedding-shape

2/16/2026 at 2:19:37 PM

Regulation never works in the interwebs*

by flipped

2/16/2026 at 2:04:31 PM

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.

by markus_zhang

2/16/2026 at 2:11:51 PM

The example is from a Czech citizen, unlikely that they use WeChat (Line neither though).

by microtonal

2/16/2026 at 2:58:28 PM

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.

by mrweasel

2/16/2026 at 3:16:10 PM

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.

by microtonal

2/16/2026 at 2:15:22 PM

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?

by markus_zhang

2/16/2026 at 2:16:34 PM

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.

by PlatoIsADisease

2/16/2026 at 2:52:06 PM

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.

by markus_zhang

2/16/2026 at 2:54:03 PM

>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.

by PlatoIsADisease

2/16/2026 at 5:47:04 PM

Nope. Both countries are ruled by elites who don't give a fuck about ordinary people. In that perspective the Chinese one actually cares a bit more -- you can't imagine what would happen if the Chinese elites really don't care about ordinary people if guns are legal. Historically speaking, the peasants would just kill, rape and destroy every elite family.

by markus_zhang

2/16/2026 at 6:38:05 PM

Wow, I feel bad for you.

by PlatoIsADisease

2/17/2026 at 1:06:27 AM

Wait so in the US you can talk against Palestine and still have a job, bank accounts not froze and police trying to arrest you for being Islamophobe?

by lorakamina

2/16/2026 at 7:45:31 PM

(I'm in a third country)

Yeah that's pretty scary when it happened every 200 years. I'd say right now both sides probably feel they get a slightly better bargain, but scroll back 20 years definitely a lot would agree that the ordinary people of the US got a better deal, given how many Chinese wanted to go abroad at the time.

by markus_zhang

2/16/2026 at 1:35:05 PM

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.

by ExoticPearTree

2/16/2026 at 1:43:15 PM

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."

by hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

2/16/2026 at 2:18:54 PM

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.)

by ivl

2/16/2026 at 2:31:21 PM

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.

by SiempreViernes

2/16/2026 at 6:52:18 PM

The pager operation has been one of the most targeted ones in history for its size. The ratio of civilian by Hezbollah member casualties was very low compared to other military operations or a war.

by yes_really

2/16/2026 at 9:13:05 PM

The perpetrators of pager attack had no way at all to know who would be closest to the pagers when they exploded, nor any way to know that the nominal owner of a particular pager were a combatant in the first place.

So the perpetrators did not know they would actually hurt a lawful target, they just hoped it might.

Anyway, stop supporting the genocide dude.

by SiempreViernes

2/16/2026 at 10:14:46 PM

Oh yeah, just random chance that the Hezbollah combatants would have their military pagers close to them rather than with some random civilian. What an incredible coincidence!

by yes_really

2/17/2026 at 1:12:15 AM

Go get some life. I believe Hitler had the same mentality. Reducing casualty. He asked everyone to wear their stars if they had had circumcision and targeted them systematically. He could have bombed them all but decided to be more deliberate. Yes yes, flipping the script is antisemitism. Of course it is.

by lorakamina

2/16/2026 at 2:36:13 PM

>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.

by hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

2/17/2026 at 1:13:43 AM

When Roman legions weren’t out killing others, they were in Rome doing a coup. What y’all armies do outside, they also do inside.

by lorakamina

2/16/2026 at 1:45:04 PM

Take it with you on an international trip or three. Surely those airport scanners will pick it up.

by magicalhippo

2/16/2026 at 1:49:03 PM

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.

by hparadiz

2/16/2026 at 2:04:42 PM

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.

by embedding-shape

2/16/2026 at 2:15:04 PM

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.

by ivl

2/16/2026 at 2:09:12 PM

Lol no. They had actual explosives in them. Small but enough to kill and maim.

by hparadiz

2/16/2026 at 2:14:09 PM

> Weren't they just slightly modified pagers essentially rigged to overheat, rather than they actually put explosives in them?

No

by 9991

2/16/2026 at 1:49:49 PM

You mean the security theater complex?

by ImHereToVote

2/16/2026 at 2:20:26 PM

Yeah, I mean surely that would catch it, right... right?

by magicalhippo

2/16/2026 at 2:23:04 PM

We know because we're not shooting rockets at them.

by foolserrandboy

2/16/2026 at 4:15:30 PM

Today they are targeting people shooting rockets, tomorrow they will target people commenting on these posts, the day after they will target specific group of people.

So you may be safe today, what happens when they don't like your opinion ?

by Panda4

2/16/2026 at 2:33:29 PM

If only things were that simple and they weren't also helping ICE terrorise civilians.

by hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

2/16/2026 at 2:16:34 PM

And if you use iPhones and have reason to be really paranoid, consider using lockdown mode.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/105120

by jsheard

2/16/2026 at 2:23:07 PM

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.

by PlatoIsADisease

2/16/2026 at 3:28:17 PM

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.

by microtonal

2/16/2026 at 2:41:41 PM

With GrapheneOS you can physically switch off the USB while locked.

by NoiseBert69

2/16/2026 at 2:24:19 PM

two last attacks from paragon for pixel devices uses the modem firmware. these things doesn't help much.

by iririririr

2/16/2026 at 1:53:36 PM

> 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.

by ignoramous

2/16/2026 at 3:20:56 PM

>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...

by gruez

2/16/2026 at 2:10:06 PM

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).

by dietr1ch

2/16/2026 at 3:26:34 PM

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.

by YeGoblynQueenne

2/16/2026 at 3:50:51 PM

Wow, this article is not biased at all, very low level of "journalism"

by dikozaken

2/16/2026 at 6:23:51 PM

Your account is a politics-only throwaway on a tech journalism website. Be careful throwing "bias" stones from a glass house.

by bigyabai

2/16/2026 at 1:24:57 PM

> 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...

by embedding-shape

2/16/2026 at 1:39:43 PM

[flagged]

by pbiggar

2/16/2026 at 1:51:56 PM

I would be careful with such allegations. The emails show Ehud Barak first visited the island in 2014, while Virginia claimed the rape happened on the island in 2002.

by fh9302

2/16/2026 at 2:01:24 PM

> The emails show Ehud Barak first visited the island in 2014

The current DOJ dump seems to not even be half of all the documents they have available, so don't think we can know for sure yet when the first contact was.

https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01775... mentions in 2011 for example a meeting with Barak, so who knows when the "first visit to the island" really was.

You might be right, I just don't think we know for sure yet.

by embedding-shape

2/16/2026 at 1:42:56 PM

Meanwhile "Pending Criminal Charges" is still at zero [1].

[1]: https://www.pedoarrestcounter.fun/

by huijzer

2/16/2026 at 1:45:08 PM

To be fair, real investigations just started, the US seems to have been trying to cover it up during these years, but efforts in countries where the government hasn't been compromised (at least on the same level) just got started.

by embedding-shape

2/16/2026 at 1:53:45 PM

You mean Giuffre and not Guthrie right?

by baxtr

2/16/2026 at 2:55:11 PM

Thanks, fixed my comment.

by pbiggar

2/16/2026 at 2:03:51 PM

> 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.

by halflife

2/16/2026 at 2:16:51 PM

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.

by lkey

2/16/2026 at 7:05:08 PM

> When you end apartheid, you end 'terrorism'

Your theory has really not been borne out by reality.

Somehow Hamas committed October 7th and has fired tens of thousands of rockets indiscriminately into Israel since Gaza was given in its entirety to the arabs.

Somehow Iran has been financing and arming multiple terrorist groups even though it obviously is its own country far away from Israel.

Somehow Hezbollah has fired tens of thousands of rockets at civilians as well.

Somehow the Houthis have been committing terrorism sa well and their flag is literally "God is great, Death to America, Death to Israel".

Yeah, I'm sure if Israel just stopped all the security measures on the West Bank, all terrorism would stop!

by yes_really

2/17/2026 at 1:13:38 AM

If you could press a button and kill every man, woman, and child in Gaza, would you press that button?

If you could execute every Yemeni, Iranian, Lebanese and Syrian tomorrow, gifting you a 'clean', and 'pure' world for Greater Israel to flourish for 1000 years, would you do it?

If your answer is yes. Then anything I say about the right of the invaded and occupied to resist occupation under international law will land on deaf ears.

by lkey

2/16/2026 at 7:09:19 PM

Also love the refusal to even agree that words have meaning. You put scare quotes around 'terrorism'. Are you saying that Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and a series of small terrorist groups, and a series of individuals did not commit terrorists attacks in Israel?

Terrorism is "the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims." - are you saying exploding bombs, knife attacks, and firing rockets indiscriminately against civilians is not terrorism?

by yes_really

2/16/2026 at 8:57:59 PM

> Terrorism is "the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims."

Now take a long look in the mirror.

by C6JEsQeQa5fCjE

2/16/2026 at 10:09:07 PM

Israel performs precise attacks on valid military targets and with multiple measures to reduce the number of collateral damage to civilians. You are trying to equate this with terrorist attacks literally targeting civilians.

by yes_really

2/16/2026 at 2:39:09 PM

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.

by mupuff1234

2/16/2026 at 4:33:08 PM

I disagree. Limiting your understanding of 'can people coexist' down to purely ethnic terms is colonial apartheid thinking.

"History has also shown that whenever Mizrahi Jews are a minority relative to Ashkenazi Jews something bad tends to a happen to them"

What now mupuff? Is it because they tainted by their Arab blood?

I could do this all day with random minorities, but it's not a refutation of my argument.

'Single supreme race' states are evil. The Antebellum South was one of the most evil places ever to exist and functioned on the exact same terms. There was a civil war, and we settled on a one state solution. The only mistake was not fully purging the slavers from positions of power and stopping reconstruction.

Racial/Ethnic/Religious caste systems are a race to the bottom. They are a suicidal purity cult.

I should note that you are factually wrong. Jews have very rarely been an ethnic majority, yet many cultures have managed to not genocide them throughout history. This includes middle eastern countries prior to the Nakba. Don't project out the utterly imperial eurocentric 'pograms are inevitiable' and 'arabs are all that same, and are savages' viewpoint out onto every civilizations.

European empires created or exacerbated divisions in peaceful populations as a means of colonial control. This is well documented and intentional. Zionism as a project is very very British, they wrote their plans down! Same as they did in South Africa. Same as they did in Ireland.

by lkey

2/16/2026 at 5:01:12 PM

So Jews should just accept the ruler de jour! If he likes Jews everything’s honky dory, if he doesn’t, better luck with the next ruler! Just like the last 2000 years of exile, sometime it was nice for Jews, sometime it was pogroms. Such is life you say.

So easy for you when you’re not the one that billions of people around the world are taught to hate.

by halflife

2/16/2026 at 5:11:09 PM

""" So [Black people in America] should just accept the [president] de jour! If he likes [Black people] everything’s honky dory, if he doesn’t, better luck with the next [president]! Just like the last 400 years of [chattel slavery, convict leasing, apartheid, and child incarceration], sometime it was nice for [Black people], sometime it was [lynchings].

Such is life you say. So easy for you when you’re not the one that billions of people around the world are taught to hate [Black people, sexual minorities, brown immigrants, Muslims, Jews, etc...]. """

I'm saying that apartheid is always wrong and I will always stand against it. It is not 'such is life' except in the particular sense that it is the obligation of all free peoples to stand against these moral atrocities where ever they appear, and they appear in every age.

It does not matter to me one whit the particulars of the race or caste of the people enacting apartheid and genocide and no amount of special pleading will change my mind.

by lkey

2/16/2026 at 5:32:00 PM

what you think matters not in the real world. Jews are hated, and persecuted. In the past and present. The only place where Jews feel safe to be Jewish is Israel.

by halflife

2/16/2026 at 6:06:37 PM

Factually untrue in two regards.

The USA is the safest place on Earth for Jewish people, both by the numbers and in measured attitudes.

Israel is by far more dangerous. If you can only feel safe there, this is your feelings lying to you about the real state of the world. Perhaps this fear is what allows you to avoid looking inward at your personal acceptance of apartheid as a necessary evil?

Feeling safe is nice, but it's not a human right to feel unsafe and then insist that it is [the whole 'real' word]'s problem. You can not create real safety at the expense of your neighbor's safety.

'safety' is an argument that justifies every act. It's identical a white lady in the park calling the cops because she saw [minority] and 'felt unsafe'. It's firing a tall stocky cis women because seeing her enter the stall made 'real women' feel unsafe about the tr*nny 'invading their spaces'.

It's being anti-integration [not because you are racist!!!, but] because schools would be made 'unsafe'. etc etc etc...

by lkey

2/16/2026 at 6:55:07 PM

The USA is safest by attitude? I have Jewish friends there. Kids are harassed at schools because they are Jewish. Jews at universities hide their religion because they are being excluded from everywhere by the student body, professors are discriminating Jews. Synagogues are being fire bombed. Jewish places of business are being marked.

That does not happen in Israel.

by halflife

2/16/2026 at 8:12:36 PM

You've implied you are neither Jewish, nor American and you are lecturing me with random anecdotes about what is 'really going on' in the USA???

I attended school in one of the most staunchly zionist synagogues in America for years. I was the designate שבת גוי for years during high school. I lived in a quiet, peaceful predominately orthodox neighborhood during those years. Those Jewish kids I grew up arguing with about politics helped me deconstruct the subtle bigotries [about black, brown, and arab people] I was raised in! My education on the Holocaust and then genocide generally is why I am writing what I am right now.

Only one of those kids grew up and remained a Zionist to this day, he moved to Israel; It had always been his dream... Then he moved to NJ to start a family, last I checked he's still a Rabbi and lecturer. Can you imagine the reasons why he didn't choose to start his family in the 'safest place' on Earth?

You are woefully misinformed about daily life here and you need to consume less news designed to terrify you.

by lkey

2/16/2026 at 9:37:16 PM

Just look at hate crime stats.

by mupuff1234

2/16/2026 at 3:16:09 PM

You didn't even try with this one

by hackable_sand

2/16/2026 at 2:35:03 PM

You can choose a secular government with equal rights and opportunities for all or found a theocracy.

by expedition32

2/16/2026 at 2:54:27 PM

That government, and its country, will be destroyed in three days.

by idop

2/16/2026 at 2:16:17 PM

[flagged]

by almokhtar

2/16/2026 at 2:17:39 PM

let me add that fucker in the picture who invest in this serviallance was raping babies with epstien make sense to me what side to stand with am aginst raping babies and eat them

by almokhtar

2/16/2026 at 1:56:54 PM

Is this company a candidate for being "Jia Tan"?

by rwmj

2/16/2026 at 2:21:14 PM

Jia Tan wouldn't be interested in secret spyware firms. They hide their code in plain sight.

by flipped

2/16/2026 at 2:41:13 PM

No need, they have plenty of 0-day exploits that don't leave discoverable traces.

by bpt3

2/16/2026 at 2:22:35 PM

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.

by iririririr

2/16/2026 at 2:25:15 PM

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.

by PlatoIsADisease

2/16/2026 at 7:45:47 PM

Wow. your threshold for a literal crime and imoral behavior is extremely low. I do hope you realizes that is weird and not normal.

by iririririr

2/16/2026 at 2:11:55 PM

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?

by PlatoIsADisease

2/16/2026 at 2:39:58 PM

> 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.

by bpt3

2/16/2026 at 2:50:14 PM

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.

by PlatoIsADisease

2/16/2026 at 3:49:53 PM

"Valuable" is a relative term, and I am confident that the intelligence gathered using these tools is much more valuable to nations that coins that are primarily used for money laundering and other scams.

by bpt3

2/16/2026 at 5:10:30 PM

You sound bitter AF that you knew about Bitcoin but kept Fiat instead.

Orthodox economics bit you.

by PlatoIsADisease

2/16/2026 at 6:09:08 PM

Nope, just tired of watching this list grow without end while nearly everyone else pays for the grift and people like you excuse the behavior: https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/

by bpt3

2/16/2026 at 6:39:35 PM

Ahhh you are confusing bitcoin with s---coins.

I'm 100% with you on that one. Minus the confusion. Yeah web 3 was so dumb. Blockchain for a non-rewritable database? lmaoooo

by PlatoIsADisease

2/16/2026 at 9:42:02 PM

You realize bitcoin is mentioned numerous times on that site, which is really just an repository of scams and people learning the hard way why the real financial industry is highly regulated, not strictly limited to the debacle that was web 3.0.

Have any NFTs you're looking to sell? They'll be super useful if hyperinflation sets in or any of the other financial catastrophes that BTC assets supposedly will protect me from actually happen.

by bpt3

2/16/2026 at 4:37:44 PM

[dead]

by raks619

2/16/2026 at 3:50:54 PM

[dead]

by Rakshith

2/16/2026 at 2:04:26 PM

[dead]

by throwaway_fjmr

2/16/2026 at 1:34:32 PM

[flagged]

by howmayiannoyyou

2/16/2026 at 1:45:01 PM

Please don't make this a left vs. right issue. It's a good vs. evil issue.

by huijzer

2/16/2026 at 2:01:06 PM

My main concern is that these companies will sell to almost anyone willing to buy. The technology itself is not inherently evil (I do want spyware on, say, Ghislaine Maxwell's phone, were she to be released), but the fact that almost any despot can purchase it and use it to brutally suppress dissent is horrible.

As for Israel itself, same kind of thing. Spyware on Sinwar's phone: completely justified. Spyware on journalists' phones because they're accurately recording and reporting genocidal actions: dystopian. And they're likely to do both.

by meowface

2/16/2026 at 1:42:11 PM

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.

by hparadiz