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Technology

Israel Restricts Cyberweapons Export List By Two-thirds, From 102 To 37 Countries (therecord.media) 89

The Israeli government has restricted the list of countries to which local security firms are allowed to sell surveillance and offensive hacking tools by almost two-thirds, cutting the official cyber export list from 102 to 37 entries. From a report: The new list, obtained by Israeli business newspaper Calcalist earlier today, only includes countries with proven democracies, such as those from Europe and the Five Eyes coalition: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US.

The list noticeably removes autocratic regimes, to which Israeli companies have often supplied surveillance tools. Spyware developed by Israeli companies like Candiru and the NSO Group has been linked in recent years to human rights abuses in tens of countries, with the tools being used by the local governments to spy on reporters, activists, dissidents, and political rivals.

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Israel Restricts Cyberweapons Export List By Two-thirds, From 102 To 37 Countries

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  • Yet Israel continues to illegally seize Palestinian land and imprison/execute men, women and children at will. https://www.amnesty.org/en/loc... [amnesty.org] No justice, no peace.
    • by ARos ( 1314459 )

      When you say "Palestinian land", that would imply that there was a Palestinian nation (or Palestinian people) prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. There was not. Ever. Your propaganda is rubbish and devoid of historical merit.
      --
      What you refer to as "Palestinian land" prior to the British Mandate was part of a larger Ottoman province of Southern Syria (whose capital was Damascus - not Jerusalem). Your "Palestine" consisted of the Ottoman sanjaks of Gaza, Nablus, Acre, and Safed for 400 year

  • Not even a token muslim majority county in there. LOL. I mean, they could have wussied out and added Albania or Bosnia and Herzegovina or something if they didn't want to be in I don't give a fuck land.

    • Bosnia is quite low on that democratic index:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
      Albania is a bit better.

      But they are missing democracies such as Taiwan, Costa Rica, which both scores higher than Israel itself.

      • Malaysia could have been on the list however.

        • by Sun ( 104778 )
          Malaysia has not diplomatic relations with Israel.
        • by jlar ( 584848 )

          Malaysia could have been on the list however.

          Malaysia is openly hostile towards Israel. In all Malaysian passports it is for example written that: "This passport is valid for all countries except Israel". And the two countries have no formal diplomatic relations. So, no it does not make sense for Israel to include Malaysia on the list.

    • What the hell? Do you know the country with world's second largest Muslim population?

      It is India. India is in the list. Till recently it was THE LARGEST MUSLIM population in the world. Recently Indonesia's total population exceeded India's muslim population.

      You want Israel to export weapons to countries that have avowed to erase Israel off the face of earth?

      Anyway Muslim countries don't need any knowledge from Israel. They have Allah on their side and all the truth a human would need exists in the Q

      • I never said I wanted them to do anything. I was making an observation, it was more for humor. Anyway, what's your point regarding India? If muslims are not in the majority in a democracy, they are not the ones making and ultimately enforcing the laws & policy of the country. In fact the current Indian government is governed by a fairly explicitly pro-hindu party.

        • Muslims routinely make it to the top of the government. Several Presidents were Muslims, the last one was actually from what you call "the pro hindu party". The Cabinet routinely includes Christians, Muslims, Sikhs. The armed forces are integrated, as are the police, judiciary and the administration.

          All its wealth was looted by the colonists, still it manages to maintain some form of democracy, peaceful transfer of power. The abject poverty patently visible for all to see and some form of democracy. Even

  • who they can in reality sell to -- who knows ?

  • by aerogems ( 339274 ) on Thursday November 25, 2021 @02:09PM (#62021115)

    Doesn't that rule out the US? I'd say after Trump was elected, but definitely after the 2020 election where there were multiple concerted efforts to overturn the results and then there have been multiple ongoing efforts to undermine/infiltrate/co-opt key positions ahead of the next round of elections.

    India doesn't seem like it belongs on the list either for the same basic reasons. Just s/Trump/Modi/

    • It's borderline now, but after 2024 it will no longer be. Just look at what's happening in the state legislatures. The 2024 presidential election will be a farce.
    • Yeah, was odd seeing India when there is currently a scandal over NSO's Pegasus being found in opposition political leaders and journalists phones.

      https://www.ndtv.com/india-new... [ndtv.com]

      Doesn't sound like a proven current democracy to me. Maybe it was a proven democracy before the BJP got into power a few years ago.

  • Could this be a response to The NSO Group and everything that surrounds them? Thoughts?

    • Yep, I think they are feeling the heat and are in damage control.

    • by q4Fry ( 1322209 )

      I certainly fucking hope so. And frankly that asshat that runs NSO should be prosecuted by the Israelis for the abject lies he's already promulgated in defense of his company and industry. "Law abiding citizens have nothing to be afraid of." He's likely enabled thousands---if not tens of thousands---of killings in the last ten years.

      Get fucked, Shalev Hulio.

    • by Sun ( 104778 )

      It's a combination of two things, I think.

      The first is precisely that. NSO group has been getting a lot of (justified) bad press lately, and being an export restricted company, the Israeli government has not been able to legitimately dodge the flak.

      I'll be clear: the Israeli government gets a lot of crap for anything even tangenially related to Israel as a whole, justified or not. In this case, however, it is justified.

      The other part is how those countries made their way into the allowed export list i

    • Certainly - you can't have just anyone using cyberweapons to spy on journalists, politicians, activists and lawyers. Only authorised countries should be allowed to do that..

  • It sounds like a desperate, last ditch attempt to save NSO Group's business model.

  • by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Thursday November 25, 2021 @03:24PM (#62021367) Journal
    Very good start.
  • So the "successful" authoritarian tyrants have been removed leaving only the "I wanna be" authoritarian tyrants with access to the CyberWeapons. As more and more of the "wanna be's" join the authoritarian tyranical dictator club, I assume they will be removed from the list as well?

    I won't hold my breath ...

    I think the weapons should be provided *only* to the "removed" tyrants and that the "wanna be's" should be prohibited.
    What they have done is exactly backwards ...

  • Note that Poland and Hungary isn't on the approved list.

    • by Gabest ( 852807 )

      If this makes them better, then giving this tech to the listed countries makes them a worse place. It's just logical.

  • Why would the better countries need to spy on their own people and not the bad ones?

    • by znrt ( 2424692 )

      they wouldn't. this is all bullshit, so as to give the impression that israel isn't a prime abuser of human and political rights, model democracy and hi-tech military grade espionage be damned.

  • We need a UN sanctioned regime change operation in Israel. For all the Humanitarian excuses used by the US and allies for past regime change operations it should be a shoe in for the UN Security Council to bring it about seeing what Israel has been doing since they invaded Palestine. ...oh wait.. the US and and allies have been vetoing every time anyone so much as sneezes in Israel's direction after their latest round of crimes against humanity.

    Imagine if the Nazis had such influence in foreign governments

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