I always wondered how the software people who work in places like this live with themselves. Is it some sort of “enough money can make me forget and look myself in the mirror” situation?
Very few countries have dedicated offensive cyber units. Even fewer have dedicated offensive military cyber units. Of those that do, almost none are peers to unit 8200.
You can say this about most of tech. Sure, we agree spying is bad.
But, is it worse than ad tech at large? Is it worse than companies addicting people to their phones via psychological tricks at alarming rates? Or siphoning money from kids via freemium models? Or working on a chatbot that helps kids kill themselves? Or the gazillion payday loan apps? Or the gazillion prediction market/sports betting avenues?
I'm sure some work for more ethical companies, and I like to think I do.. But let's not pretend the vast majority of big money and biggest employers are doing any good in the world.
Given the choice between said evils, I'd probably rather work for a company that is at least honest about what they do.
“Is spyware that causes torture and death in oppressive regimes worse than freemium apps?” is almost a comical take on the situation. I agree that many tech out there is useless or detrimental to society, but spyware must rank very close to the top. Adware a close competitor.
It's a choice. I make a lot less money than I could because I refuse to work in ad tech, etc. If I'm spending a third of my time putting energy into a business, it's not acceptable for me if that business is evil. I want that effort going to something that's a net positive for the world.
That being said, I also don't have a family to support - it's just me - which makes the calculus easier. It's still a choice, and everyone should try to face the reality of "what effect is the 8 hours a day I work having on the world?", but I know life-shit can be complicated and stressful and most people are just trying their best.
What is concerning is the willingness of companies to do these things.
Take Epic for example, on one hand they're heavy in Marketing/PR about user freedom, but in practice they deliberately targeted children for harm with their Fortnite game, while also looking the other way when it came to issues of sexual predation and bullying. Their behaviours led to a settlement with the FTC for over half a billion USD.
I briefly worked in offensive security at somewhere you may consider to fit the bill of “places like this” - people do it because it’s fun interesting and rewarding work. The pay is good too, but the fact that you just develop the exploits and don’t Push The Button(tm) really provides more mental space than you’d think.
I asked this (in a less accusatory tone) of an NSO employee once and he said something about how the big tech companies also spy on people and do unethical things.
Anyone that works at FAANG or "big"/mobile game studios, anything to do with advertising, banking, natural resources extraction/processing, non-sustansible farming, etc, etc.
In my opinion there are not many constructive things you can work with that really improve society or peoples lives.
But then again I'm in a quite dark place this year.
The morals and values are very different in different cultures. For those hacking foreigners is not ethically questionable, because foreigners are below a dog in their hierarchy, local leaders agree on this and shield these companies from classified as crime.
> “This investment does not mean that the company is moving out of Israeli regulatory or operational control,” said Hershowitz. “The company’s headquarters and core operations remain in Israel. It continues to be fully supervised and regulated by the relevant Israeli authorities, including the Ministry of Defense and the Israeli regulatory framework.”
The usual story they tell themselves is that the software is used against criminals and child pornography and terrorism. Which is not wrong, the majority of the use cases are probably that, in the majority of jurisdictions.
Outcasts. You know, some people aren’t gratified by society. Even well-inserted people.
I’ve always wondered why people had ethical questions as soldiers dropping Little Boy. Imagine being a soldier at war, of course you hate your enemies. Now imagine being bullied at school and later. Some criminals even literally do crime for the thrills.
Life isn’t generally rewarding, except for a few lucky with a nice social fabric.
The mission: Enabled dictators to cling on to power against the will of the people. Help suppress the civil society and the rule of law. Endanger shaky democracies by helping authoritarian leaders and wannabe dictators to get rid of journalists, lawyers and the political opposition.
There are lots of justifications. It's the same as why people can be soldiers or build missiles and still sleep at night: you believe (or at least tell yourself) that you're stopping bad people.
There are good applications of these tools. If you can hack the phones of a terrorist organization, you can find out about attacks before they happen and stop them. If you can extract data off of locked computers, you can help win convictions that wouldn't otherwise be possible against people who do truly awful things.
The question, of course, is whether these good applications outweigh the misuse, but that's where it gets murky in a hurry. Individual researchers at these privately owned "boutique" exploit companies (to my knowledge) tend not to know the nitty gritty details of how their work is used out in the world unless it gets caught and dissected online. The more reputable western companies sell only to "democratic" governments which are political allies, but that only goes so far as misuse and abuse is always a risk (not to mention the shaky nature of...certain... western democracies).
At the end of the day, you really just have to hope your work is being used to target terrorists and not journalists. The money obviously makes it easier, but it's not completely disingenuous of the people who work there to believe they're doing good.
> "The money obviously makes it easier, but [...]"
But, but, but.
> "[...] it's not completely disingenuous of the people who work there to believe they're doing good."
Given how well and widely NSO and their merchandise were reported on, including the dissection of various associated scandals in the mainstream media, I beg to differ. These people are not dumb, they know exactly what they do, and who their clients are. Your good-faith assumptions with regards to these players come across as extremely naive, to put it mildly.
I guess it is like the scammers working in call centers and building RAT:s. They surely must have a level of sociopathy greater than the average person.
The scammers I can imagine. They’re more in the “thieves” category. Some break into houses, others trick people virtually. It’s not cool but I can imagine their motivation.
The “develops weaponised software exploits” is not clear for me. Maybe it’s the same kind of mindset that lets people design and build weapons and bombs and such?
It really feels quite divorced. Workers in those roles don’t always even know what the exploits will be used for, and the technical aspects are really interesting.
The company exists to fight illegal activities. Maybe there are governments that abuse this service, but it's not NSO's job to fight this. They're a company and they want to make money. How are they different from Google or other companies? When Google wants to keep you on your phone it becomes OK? When food industries make sugar-full beverages it's OK?
There are also many governments that use this tool to combat terror or drug dealers and more.
Everyone is responsible for the complete consequences of his action and inaction.
"In October 2018, Citizen Lab reported on the use of NSO software to spy on the inner circle of Jamal Khashoggi just before his murder."
If your work indirectly kills people you can't say that it's not your job not to fight this. You are if that is the case among the causes, so you are responsible.
