That ‘only’ difference is a very big one, and they are completely aware that their software will be misused and are happy to make a profit with it.

To say, ‘we will only sell our software to countries who promise not to use it to violate human rights, and if we catch them doing it, we will suspend it’ is just hand waving. The software is designed to be undetected. That’s the whole point.

A actual policy would be that ‘we do not sell our software to countries who have a bad human rights track record, as defined by <independent group>’ ... but that would cut into sales.

NSO is strictly regulated by both the Israeli and US government - and only sells to bodies those two approve - I guess your beef is with those entities then.

His and my beef is with the employees who think they're not doing anything wrong and partying/making bank while part of their head definitely knows that their work directly funds authoritarianism and evil acts by governments.

Oh and I agree with both of you and would never go work for NSO. I didn't when they offered me double my current pay (I'm Israeli) and I wouldn't for triple either.

I am just saying NSO is an extension and a tool of the US government and its regional (mostly controlled but somewhat autonomous) colonial ally Israel. So arguing about who gets Pegasus when the US government regulates it rather directly (through the "ethics subcommittee" in Israel that is semi-supervised by the US delegate) is ironic and funny.

Is there any country that doesn't have a bad human rights track record? Sure, some are worse than others. But where do you draw the line, and how far back into history are you willing to look?

This is a decent source: https://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index-new There are 16 countries with personal freedom ranking above 9 (out of 10). US is ranked 26 with a score of 8.72, which intuitively makes sense. Morocco is 135th with a score of 5.68, which pretty obviously indicates, that there is more than one thing wrong about offering hacking tools to the government

It's more like going after people who make waterboarding kits and run logistics for kidnappings. Anti-DRM and p2p software aren't usually associated with aiding & abetting torture and murder of dissidents and journalists. Framing the two as equivalent elides what NSO group's employees are actually complicit in.

Respectfully, I think knowingly aiding covert surveillance of dissidents is a lot worse than merely helping pursuit of copyright violations, even if I don't like the latter much.

> I really don't like NSO, to the point I never go to their parties and meetups even when invited and they have good parties.

> However it's worth mentioning they really don't see it that way. A lot of people working for NSO (or the NSA) see themselves as making a personal sacrifice for public safety.

Yes we as humans are very good in justifying our own actions to ourselves. It also doesn't help if it's in your employers interest to reinforce this perception, creating a culture of "we are what stands against evil". This makes it even more important that outsiders will tell them that we hold a different moral judgement.

> Also, NSO doesn't operate said technology it just sells it - so it's a bit more like going after people making anti DRM software or p2p sharing software. The only big difference is that NSO is making money.

Apart from the fact that people don't die or get tortured because of p2p software, the question is also should someone working on e.g. biological weapons be able to absolve themselves by saying "I did not throw the bomb?". Yes, they did not throw the bomb, but they made a tool designed for one purpose only, to be put into that bomb, and they were fully aware of its purpose. They hold as much responsibility as the person using it.