4mo ago

Google 'playing with fire' by acquiring Israeli company founded by Unit 8200 veterans

www.middleeasteye.net

Google employees and human rights groups have raised concerns about the tech giant’s purchase of an Israeli start-up in an unprecedented $32bn deal.

Google on Tuesday announced the all-cash acquisition of Wiz, an Israeli cloud security firm which was founded by former members of Unit 8200, an elite Israeli army cyber-espionage and surveillance unit.

The deal comes with the Google already facing internal and external pressure over its controversial Project Nimbus contract, through which along with Amazon it provides cloud computing and AI services to the Israeli government and military.

A spokesperson for No Tech for Apartheid, a coalition of Google and Amazon workers campaigning against the companies' involvement with Israel, said Google was "playing with fire" by buying Wiz.

22 comments

Paul Biggar made a great summary about how these "acquisitions" serve to get Israeli spies into American tech companies. Those spies then use their powers for Israel.
The Wiz acquisition is the largest transfer of Israeli intelligence operatives into Big Tech in history.
- I'm convinced my old company was complicit in this to some degree. It was a start up with absolutely silly funding for a bunch of products (b2c and b2b) that were aimed to hoover up personal information under the guise of gaming.
  For some reason we were told to start an office in Tel Aviv and to specifically hire devs from unit 8200.
- As if Google isn't already crammed with Israeli spies. In fact, that's probably why an Israeli company just got a sweetheart buy out from Google! This is just a continuation of a pre-existing issue Google already had.
  
  It also puts $4billion directly into the Israeli tax bank for some much needed genocide funding.
- It’s easier to get operatives to apply for a job and get hired than build a company which ends up being bought. This sounds like conspiracy theory to me. Any large US corporation likely has operatives of various countries working for it.
  
  Not every "conspiracy" is fiction. Anyone paying attention the last two years cannot deny that the pro-Israel positions these companies hold are completely nonsensical.
  The flowchart in Pauls article is pretty representative how Israeli spies use their position to redirect funds to Israeli companies, which then get acquired and given prominent roles in American companies and VC. Which then send more funds to Israel. Etc etc.
  AIPAC is also an amazing example of a few hundred million in Israeli bribes to politicians is sending billions of taxpayer dollars back to Israel.
  But besides politics it is extremely visible in news organizations:
  Revealed The Israeli Spies Writing America's News
  And tech organizations:
  Revealed: The Former Israeli Spies Working in Top Jobs at Google, Facebook and Microsoft
Google isn't "playing with fire". They're a major contributor to this genocidal bonfire.
Also isn't that valuation way overblown so they can send billions in tax to Israel, behind the facade of a "deal".
Google's on: "Let's see how EVIL we can get"
- I did not know they had a new slogan
Humanity is so screwed that I don't want to bring children to this world
- Terminal birth rates across the world are the real gift that keeps giving
I'm still using Gmail, mostly cause of how much of a hassle it is to change to a new email address. Shit like this is really making me find motivation to switch.
- Proton makes it easy to switch by setting up email forwarding from your Gmail to protonmail
  
  Doesn't that defeat the purpose of switching, if Google still get to harvest all your data?
- When you do eventually switch, I'd recommend getting your own domain and using an email address at that domain, so that your email address becomes independent of your email provider. It will make it easier to switch again in future should you need to, because you can keep the same email address and use it with a new provider.
- Don't feel like you have to race. It took about a year to shift e-mail addresses last time I did it. Keep the old one as a harvesting point until you move over what you want. Then just leave the old one around to use up space on Google's servers if you really want to softly be a dick. (They eventually close them after some period of inactivity.)
  Basic steps for a slightly more thorough method that also preserves old e-mail:
  Do a GDPR/Google data dump of your gmail to mbox file(s).
  Install Mozilla Thunderbird on a computer and use ImportExportTools NG to import the mbox file(s) into Thunderbird so you can access all your old e-mail.
  Delete all e-mail from Gmail.
  Turn off all mail rules on Gmail so everything just comes to the inbox.
  You can forward to your new address if you want to, or, just let email collect in the old account and switch addresses from time to time as you use various services.
  After a time, delete the account if you so choose, or leave it dormant until Google deletes it.

22 comments