[vlovich123]

Active serving IDF are also employed by Apple? I know there’s a lot of ex-IDF people in Silicon Valley but since the IDF is mandatory all it means is ex-Israeli people. They could still be secretly working for the Mossad but that’s generally something you can claim true of all foreign nationals - they’re also possibly just normal people with talent and experience.

[demarq]

I’d like to clarify with a couple of questions.

- Are you saying that you believe apple is picking someone who is a real wizz with css, but because of the country’s laws they had to serve with the IDF?

- Are you saying the formality of having to be a former of your previous employer, as part of taking on new employment is to be unexpected in any way?

[vlovich123]

I really don’t understand the questions and they bely an ignorance of things or are intentionally provocative (and not coherent) but I’ll try.

Firstly, the exploits in play would not be introduced by a “css whiz kid” first of all. Creating holes for rootkits like Pegasus requires deep low level expertise.

Secondly, AFAIK all the teams that would be involved on working on that are located in Cupertino - so these people had to relocate to the US.

But yes, I think finding anyone who was a child in Israel and didn’t serve in the IDF is very difficult. This is doubly-so for the tech sector since the IDF is often where they obtain their initial technical education and are serving between 18 and 21.

Unless you’re blanket just going to disallow recruiting from Israel or hiring people who moved from Israel to the US and might even be US citizens. But then you’re also going to have to explain why you’re applying this policy to Israelis and not Koreans, Singaporeans, Taiwanese, Norwegians, who have similar mandatory service requirements (plenty of countries do).

I’m not saying that Mossad don’t try to get their own secret agents working long term undercover in these places. But that’s also true of other secret services of enemies and allies alike and I would think they’re less likely to generate exploits intentionally and more likely to gather information and look for exploits by having access to source, documentation, and able to get information from peers. But Israelis having previously worked in the IDF doesn’t really provide any signal to me on the motivations or beliefs of that person.

[demarq]

> But Israelis having previously worked in the IDF doesn’t really provide any signal to me on the motivations or beliefs of that person

You know what, you’re absolutely right. But you’d be wrong if it turns out it’s not the general IDF we’re talking about, and specifically not one all Israelis have to serve. And that Google has all the good stuff.

But anyway I’m going to let you believe what you believe about a corporation that makes “donations” to a military, and I’m going to believe what I believe.

[vlovich123]

Can you elaborate so I can educate myself? Speaking in innuendo isn’t helpful for a discussion like this.

[LtdJorge]

Are you saying that Apple should ban hiring Israelis since all of them have to serve in the IDF?

[op00to]

Can you try your questions again, but this time coherently?