[shrubble]

I’m kind of confused, in that Israel is not that big in terms of population, about 10 million people; how much data and cloud do they need?

The state of Pennsylvania is 13 million; would MSFT losing PA do them serious financial damage?

[j_maffe]

When you're doing mass surveilance, including storing every single phone call, of a population of 6 million people, storage needs tend to pile up quite fast.

[raxxorraxor]

Plus most other governments buying the tech as well, I don't think the domestic market has much relevancy here.

[0xbadcafebee]

Israel is essentially fighting wars on multiple fronts at all times. Since they are so small and vulnerable, they have to lean more on intelligence. As a result they have the most advanced intelligence apparatus in the world, far beyond US intelligence for example. Part of their intelligence strategy, clearly, is advanced use of technology & data collection/mining/analytics. So they're gonna end up with a lot of data.

[pcthrowaway]

> As a result they have the most advanced intelligence apparatus in the world, far beyond US intelligence for example

I think if you're going to concoct some kind of per-capita metric of intelligence capabilities, you're likely correct. But their intelligence industry pales in size relative to that of the U.S. and couldn't exist as it does without support from the U.S. and American companies (as we've seen with Lavender and Nimbus). American companies providing services they would otherwise have to develop in-house certainly contributes to their capacity for conducting what most would consider black-hat activities, including gathering intelligence on Americans and goings-on in the U.S., sometimes even of American politicians, in order to manipulate the American political environment to their favour.

I'm not aware of U.S. big tech providing such extensive services to any other country whose behaviour is so similar to that of the officially designated American foreign adversaries

[za3faran]

They're mass surveilling the vulnerable Palestinians they're genociding, and now turning their eyes toward Lebanon and Syria.

[raxxorraxor]

Which is mostly on Lebanon and Syria, because they are the aggressors here. Or in case of Lebanon the largest militant group known to exist. Perhaps they aren't the largest any more since the latest war, but they are still formidable.

[za3faran]

No they're not the aggressors. Let's stop with the victim blaming.

[raxxorraxor]

Hezbollah is an Iranian supported schiite fundamentalist militant group effectively controlling the south of Lebanon. Syria declared war on Israel right after its founding and it rejected multiple peace offerings since. They are anything but victims.

[za3faran]

They are the victims. Hezbollah did not exist before the occupation. And Syria has the right to defend their neighbors against foreign invaders.

https://www.reddit.com/r/israelexposed/

[jameshilliard]

> They're mass surveilling the vulnerable Palestinians

This is mostly so that they can more accurately target Palestinian terrorist/militant groups that hide behind civilians(which is of course a war crime).

> now turning their eyes toward Lebanon and Syria

The Oct 7th attacks likely happened because they weren't keeping a close enough watch over Palestinians in Gaza and were overly focused on threats from Lebanon and Syria. Ultimately Israel's failure to monitor threats coming from Gaza greatly increased Palestinian civilian casualties due to a successful attack resulting in a much stronger Israeli response than a failed attack would have. Israel always considered Hezbollah to be a much bigger threat than Hamas so that's where they put most of their resources.

[rbanffy]

> This is mostly so that they can more accurately target Palestinian terrorist/militant groups that hide behind civilians(which is of course a war crime).

The mass casualties of children are a strong indicator that the targeting is not accurate. Government officials and elected representatives have repeatedly advocated for the assassination of all Palestinians.

[urikaduri]

Why would you need surveilance in a genocide? Seems contradictory.

[tdeck]

So there was no surveillance during the Holocaust then?

[rbanffy]

I think the main difference is that the nazis built entire factories and supply chains to more effectively use their limited resources, while Israel, being funded largely by the US, has no such constraints and can use military equipment to, to use an American figure of language, shoot fish in a barrel.

What the Israeli government is doing is, at best, unconscionable.

[urikaduri]

Wow, this used to be the website with the smart comment section.

Now its all David Duke fans.