Saudi Arabia Almost Bought Hacking Team 26
itwbennett writes: If hacked emails posted by WikiLeaks are to be believed, the Saudi Arabian government came close to buying control of Italian surveillance software company Hacking Team, Philip Wilan reports. 'The negotiations were handled by Wafic Said, a Syrian-born businessman based in the U.K. who is a close friend of the Saudi royal family, and also involved Ronald Spogli, a former U.S. ambassador to Italy, who had an indirect investment in Hacking Team,' writes Wilan. The deal collapsed in early 2014.
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MRA? Magnetic resonance angiography?
MILFs, Ready, Able...
This is something I can really get behind!
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I prefer facing the challenge.
Re:why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Saudi Arabia almost buys a lot of stuff. When it comes time to actually put money on the table after endless demos and enthusiastic discussions, the deals suddenly sour. It's their way.
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Haha yes, and not only Saudi Arabia, everyone in the region is like that.
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True enough, Israel is indeed somewhat more civilised, but I had the similar crap from a customer from Israel as well. Being surrounded by Arabs apparently rubs off.
Re:why? (Score:5, Informative)
They'd buy it because of their horrible track record on human rights. The Saudi government is about to execute a man for participating in the Arab Spring protests.. that, and because his uncle isn't from the same side of Islam as the current regime. Protests like the ones they're sentencing someone to death for often get organized online over social media - and what better way to quash dissent than to monitor social media and put spyware on the computers of anyone even suspected of planning a protest, then jail and/or murder them to silence them?
Even if the Saudi government did not use it for some reason, there are plenty of regimes in the Middle East (Iran, for one) that would be happy to purchase such software from the Saudi government in order to crack down on their own dissidents, especially considering that the United States and Europe would have qualms about selling to them.
Re:why? (Score:4, Informative)
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They'd buy it because of their horrible track record on human rights.
This looks like a good place to leave a comment with my initial reaction to reading the headline. When Saudi Arabia buys Hacking Team, Saudi Arabia really buys Hacking Team [wikipedia.org]. That makes the "In Soviet Russia" gag look positively tame.
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When the UEA was hacked and the "Climategate" e-mails leaked, it was just before and important global warming conference involving pretty much every country in the world.
Rumour at the time was that it was either Russia, or Saudi Arabia, both significant petro states with a firm interest in trying to keep everyone consuming oil and put a stop to this talk of moving to renewables and green energy.
If true, it's possible that Saudi hacking actions and ambitions reach far beyond merely oppressing their own popul
Re:So, why did the successor specifically disappro (Score:4, Funny)
Saudis like to flash their cash, not spend it.
I bet the "negotiation" went like this:
Said! What's the internet? Do I need to control it? Go buy me someone who can control the internet for me, then buy me the internet.
OK BOSS!
Hey, Hacking Team, I'm Said a friend of the royal Saudi family. The king dickshit wants to buy you!
How much? What do we have to do?
King dickshit has very many billions of dollars and will pay you any price! All you have to do is be our slaves, essentially.
How many billions, exactly?
Boss! They want to know how many billions you'll give them!
What? Are you still talking about that internet thing? I'm bored of that, go buy me another solid gold horse, I have a formal engagement tonight and I need to look fashionable!
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Saudis like to flash their cash, not spend it.
They are aware that their cash is oil dependent, which will not last forever.
Reminds me of when I asked someone why people were not begging from the rich people with nice cars... "because if they gave money way, how could they afford such nice cars?!?"
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Saudis like to flash their cash, not spend it.
They spend it all right. On luxury getaways on the Mediterranean, palaces within their own country, whatever floats their boats. Also, they use it to buy women that they can fuck, and toss away whenever they feel like it. If one is a foreigner in their country - not just KSA but also UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, et al, they're out of luck, since they have to surrender their passports to their employers, and effectively become slaves.
Oh, the other major thing they do - build mosques anywhere and everywhere, rega
Jason Whitaker (Score:2)
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Wafic Said, al-Yamamah & Oxford Business Schoo (Score:2)
Just in case you're not familiar with the name:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/... [theguardian.com]
http://www.theguardian.com/wor... [theguardian.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
If you have access to 80s & 90s UK newspaper archives, there are many more contemporary reports which are interesting reading.