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Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by baq on Monday February 16, 2026 @08:52AM (#47034935)
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.

Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by markus_zhang on Monday February 16, 2026 @09:06AM (#47035105)
I'd be super surprised if EU doesn't have similar "dashboards".
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by baq on Monday February 16, 2026 @09:27AM (#47035385)
Don't underestimate the incompetence of our governments.
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by NoiseBert69 on Monday February 16, 2026 @09:39AM (#47035558)
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.

Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by lejalv on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @06:48AM (#47046496)
I did not know - here's a link to Washington Post reporting: https://archive.ph/kCxNw
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by LispShmisp on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @08:00AM (#47047041)
> Well until press found out that they had tapped into Obamas encrypted phone calls while flying in the AF1 for a long time.

As per the article linked above (https://archive.ph/kCxNw)

"The intelligence agency, called the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) discovered that some calls on Air Force One were unencrypted and it was able to tap into radio frequencies that were used for those calls, according to the book, "

No hacking or deployment of listening devices, just passive listening. Unless you have other sources?

Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by markus_zhang on Monday February 16, 2026 @10:00AM (#47035846)
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...

Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by ddalex on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @06:45AM (#47046468)
Appear weak when you are strong, and all of that
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by baq on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @07:16AM (#47046693)
hope for the best, expect the worst...
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by alephnerd on Monday February 16, 2026 @11:17AM (#47036872)
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...

Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by epolanski on Monday February 16, 2026 @09:30AM (#47035436)
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.

Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by ddalex on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @06:47AM (#47046479)
but its not mass surveillance, its targeted at a large but finite number of people
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by meowface on Monday February 16, 2026 @08:55AM (#47034971)
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.

Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by hparadiz on Monday February 16, 2026 @09:01AM (#47035027)
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?
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by CorrectHorseBat on Monday February 16, 2026 @09:34AM (#47035489)
Why would we care about competivity where it doesn't benefit society? Addictive social media and wealth accumulation actively harm society
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by meowface on Monday February 16, 2026 @11:30AM (#47037005)
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.
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by gzread on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @07:23AM (#47046743)
How does banning intentionally addictive media-feed apps (they are not social media, they are parasocial at best) make society worse?
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by meowface on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @03:40PM (#47052996)
"How does banning unhealthy food make society worse?" "How does banning unhealthy habits make society worse?" "How does banning harmful/hateful speech make society worse?" "How does banning things and, as a result, our economy stagnating, make society worse?"
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by gzread on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @07:32PM (#47055479)
Pam Bondi suggested that it would be impossible to prosecute the pedophiles, because the economy would collapse. To which many people reacted: then let it collapse. You remind me of Pam Bondi.
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by meowface on Friday February 20, 2026 @09:17PM (#47096810)
Except Bondi was wrong and I am right, and also letting the economy collapse actually would be really, really bad and saying things like that is something only children and economically illiterate people do.

Also, most of the things I listed in my previous post had absolutely nothing to do with the economy. It's just that it's unethical and tyrannical for the government to dictate people's behavior in this way. "How is it unhealthy for the government to ban alcohol?" These statements would apply whether in a socialistic or fully neoliberal country.

Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by hparadiz on Monday February 16, 2026 @09:38AM (#47035548)
You have fun with that. Lemme know how it goes.
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by CorrectHorseBat on Monday February 16, 2026 @09:51AM (#47035730)
What for an answer is that?
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by ilikecakeandpie on Monday February 16, 2026 @10:07AM (#47035946)
It's not like it's going real well here in the U.S.
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by mikrotikker on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @10:36AM (#47048637)
Infinite scroll? Just ban social media algorithms you buffoons. Then u can even let kids use it.
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by bpt3 on Monday February 16, 2026 @09:30AM (#47035438)
> 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.

Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by CorrectHorseBat on Monday February 16, 2026 @10:11AM (#47036019)
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.
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by bpt3 on Monday February 16, 2026 @12:54PM (#47037998)
> 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.

Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by CorrectHorseBat on Monday February 16, 2026 @03:20PM (#47039812)
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.
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by meowface on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @12:44AM (#47044117)
Probably one of these scissor statements where economic leftists think that obviously the problem is focusing way too much on [X] and the others saying the problem is focusing far too little on [X].
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by bpt3 on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @06:34AM (#47046383)
To some extent yes, but the issue the leftists have in this case is that X = money (or the equivalent in resources) which is absolutely required in large quantities to enact their political agenda.
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by gzread on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @07:24AM (#47046748)
Is it? When the political agenda is "no infinite scrolling" it seems they can just ban infinite scrolling, and that doesn't cost any money.
Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by bpt3 on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @10:22AM (#47048450)
You'd think so, but paying all the people who sit around and think of things to regulate, the people who actually write the regulations, the people who enact the regulations, and the people who enforce the regulations is not a trivial cost, especially at the scale that the EU wants to regulate things.

Also, the actual political agenda is based around a welfare state, which absolutely costs money to maintain.

Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by meowface on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @03:42PM (#47053032)
I like infinite scrolling. Probably most users like it. My country's government banning apps from letting me infinite scroll in them sounds very paternalistic and silly.

I make apps for myself above all else. I always add infinite scrolling support to all my apps. It's just a better and smoother experience than pagination.

Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by bpt3 on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @10:19AM (#47048417)
I got it from two places:

1. Watching the standard of living in the US outpace the EU for decades and comparing their economic systems.

2. Basic common sense tells you that you need resources in order to fund a welfare state, a long list of positive human rights, and all the other things that the EU states want to do. Money buys resources, especially when you don't have direct access to them (which is the case for most EU states).

Re:The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed i... by mikrotikker on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @10:35AM (#47048622)
Balkanization of the internet. It was foretold.