Microsoft Disables Some Cloud Services Used by Israel's Defense Ministry (msn.com) 119
Microsoft has disabled the Israeli Defense Ministry's access to certain services and subscriptions, after finding evidence that the ministry used the tech company's cloud services to surveil Gaza citizens. WSJ adds: The software company made the move after an internal investigation indicated Israel's Defense Ministry used Microsoft's Azure cloud services for surveillance, according to a person familiar with the matter. The company probe is ongoing. "As employees, we all have a shared interest in privacy protection, given the business value it creates by ensuring our customers can rely on our services with rock solid trust," Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a blog post Thursday on Microsoft's company website.
Smith said Microsoft's investigation was guided by the company's "longstanding protection of privacy as a fundamental right." Microsoft opened the probe after the Guardian, the British news organization, reported in August that Israel used Azure to store data on Gaza civilians and surveil them. The issue has been the source of protests at the company.
Smith said Microsoft's investigation was guided by the company's "longstanding protection of privacy as a fundamental right." Microsoft opened the probe after the Guardian, the British news organization, reported in August that Israel used Azure to store data on Gaza civilians and surveil them. The issue has been the source of protests at the company.
I know they'll be consistent (Score:2)
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Yeah, but soldiers are people. Terrorists are people. You still kill them when you're at war. It's a privilege to not have had to fight for your existence or safety. The US hasn't had to do that in living memory. By the grace of geopolitics and big sticks I'm a pacifist in my personal life, but that's going out the window the moment my future safety is endangered.
Who is Hamas? (Score:1, Flamebait)
Do you ask that question? I guess not, why would you?
The bad actors in Palestine are a mixed bag, every nut job and proxy in the local area who wants to have a pop at Israel and some from one perspective you might also call local freedom fighters against an invader. I'd expect Americans to do the same if they were invaded.
You are delusional if you think Hamas is coordinating them all. There aren't many of them left for a start.
Our chimp brains need someone to blame to fit a narrative to justify in this case
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Israel withdrew from Gaza years ago, so the complaint would have been encroachment on their territory, not occupation. And the regular retaliation for rocket attacks-- but Gaza could have stopped that by stopping the rockets.
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Yes. I've responded a few times to bleeding hearts who were claiming that all of the violence there is Israel's fault by pointing that out. Not once have I received an answer that actually addressed my point.
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Again who is Gaza?
Are you talking about the children and mothers of Gaza? About 30K of those are dead. They would have died horrifically, often within the sight and sound of each other.
You don't ask enough questions.
From your comfort you appear happy for someone else to shoot the guns and commit atrocities.
Out of interest would you be prepared to kill woman and children? Maybe this is how you feel about woman and children generally, rather than it being some tribal political thing?
Show us your intelligence
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Maybe you are traumatised. Or just evil. I don't believe in Evil, if its true with all the other Sky God crap I guess you will be saying hello to Hitler in the showers when you are in hell.
If you do eventually find yourself planning the next church shooting or ending yourself. Take a breath. Don't do it. You could still do some good in the world.
The universe is very big and empty, life is rare and precious, even yours.
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And maybe you're an ignorant, narrow-minded schmuck. At the time I wrote about, the U:SN was helping ARVAN repel the Easter Offensive [wikipedia.org], an invasion of the south where the NVA got its ass kicked because it forgot that its eastern flank was totally controlled by a bunch of ships with big guns. And while you're at it, you might want to ask yourself why we went Over There [wikipedia.org] not once but twice to rescue your sorry asses and what would have happened if we hadn't.
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Another war you lost. With you sitting well away from the front line. Really brave of you, such courage bombing civilians, what do you call it collateral damage? Any friendly fire cases?
Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan made no difference to me. Apart from the last two that have caused a distracting immigration problem.
I don't want to take away your love of country, or the honour of soldiers, but you could try taking a critical view of US foreign policy over the last 70 years. US assumed the role of world p
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What the bloody hell are you talking about you blithering idiot? Shore bombardment has nothing to do with dropping bombs on civilians, it's ships using their guns against enemy troops and equipment. Before you come back and sneer at me again, take a moment to find out what I'm talking about instead of showing the world how much of an ignoramus
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So when you pulled the trigger or pressed the button or whatever it was. How did you know at that moment where the shell would land and who was under it? You were just following orders right? Like Auschwitz guards were just following orders. Did you like the power of destruction at your finger tips, was it intoxicating to be the bringer of death?
You'll never know the people you killed with all your righteousness and duty.
You started this with an impotent whinge from paradise about other people suggesting w
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Actually, the only time I got to push the button was during target practice in Hawaiian waters, where the target was an uninhabited island. Normally, I had nothing to do with that as my job had to do with a missile system. Still, I did get to fire what might be considered a huge machine gun (a 5"/54 naval rifle) as I got to fire "five rounds, rapid con
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Yes, I'd call myself old at 76, and do, but I have many wonderful memories to cherish, such as watching both an annular and a total eclipse of the sun, seeing a lava fountain on the Big Island during an eruption from Honolulu, and seeing the Grand Canyon, Half Dome and Fishers Peak. What memories are you storing up for your Golden Years?
Maybe you are lonely in paradise, that's quite the ironic fate. I'll talk to you old man. My cherished memories tonight. Working and fighting with my dad. Building the extension on my house with a friend who needed the experience to setup his trade. Seeing my sons born and growing up. Surviving heart surgery in the hands of a team from all over the world. 100+ friends and family at my wedding in the 1000 year old church I was christened in. Tonight down the pub making new friends with an Irishman, a Zulu an
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The only reason I might be lonely here is would be that all of my friends live about 1,000 miles away now that my sister and I live in our retirement home in a different time zone, but oddly enough I don't feel lonely. And the reason the memories I listed don't involve people is that I don't know you, I don't know what kind of experiences you'd understand and decided to stick to the type of thing that would make sense to
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Me: Out of interest would you be prepared to kill woman and children?
You: I'm a 'Nam vet. I served in the Navy in '72, doing shore bombardment. It didn't bother me a bit. Does that answer your questions?
You clearly have a good heart at times. Where does that comment fit in it?
Maybe it was just rash and defensive locker room talk? Maybe you wanted to provoke a response for a conversation?
Well you got one.
It interests me because what is happening right now in Gaza is terrible. Study the pictures, really listen to the talk, the IDF are treating Palestinians like animals. There is no justification for that. If we could justify killing 10,000's of mothers and children indiscriminately, we could justify the hol
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That wasn't some sort of BS trying to make an impression, it was the reaction you should expect from a soldier or sailor defending an Allie from an invasion. If you can't, or won't understand that, we can never have a meeting of the minds.
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Yes. But, you are not a soldier anymore. You are in a retirement home, appearing to justify a slaughter of kids in Gaza. If these are your last words would you be proud of them? You are in the zone for last words, I wonder how many you have got left, don't you want to spend them well?
Fare well old man.
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Re:I know they'll be consistent (Score:4, Informative)
Yeesh, I thought that bit of stupidity had reached its expiration date at least a year ago. Israel is openly massacring civilians by the thousand, people who have never touched a weapon in their lives beyond a kitchen knife. They're shooting people queuing up to receive food from tanks, for the gods' sake, and deliberately starving people to death. Just listen to the boasting by their leadership, Smotrich openly says that they're going to kill every man, woman and child who are unable to leave Gaza or the West Bank, and then they'll start on "Israeli" Arabs, and Ben Gvir is only slightly more reserved.
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The criteria for being considered a soldier is not about holding a weapon. Even people like army secretaries are soldiers under international conventions. Drivers. Mail deliverers. So the idea of someone not holding a gun might be from someone that tried to trick you about what's really happening.
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That must be why IDF snipers shoot toddlers in the head, because they're secretly Hamas super-soldiers! I wonder why I never thought of that before? /s
Re:I know they'll be consistent (Score:5, Informative)
Netanyahu actually defended paying militant groups in Gaza to give the IDF an excuse to shoot people trying to get food aid, on national TV. It's his usual strategy. Before that he was supporting Hamas, because the alternative was a government in Gaza that wanted a two state solution, which is incompatible with his planned ethnic cleansing and annexation of the region.
Re:I know they'll be consistent (Score:4, Informative)
Both Israel and Palestinian militants (i.e., Hamas?) are committing war crimes, according to this article [wikipedia.org] on Wikipedia. The lists are rather long for both groups.
Here's the first sentence in the article:
Since the start of the Gaza war on 7 October 2023, the UN Human Rights Council has identified "clear evidence" of war crimes by both Hamas and the Israel Defense Forces. A UN Commission to the Israel–Palestine conflict stated that there is "clear evidence that war crimes may have been committed in the latest explosion of violence in Israel and Gaza, and all those who have violated international law and targeted civilians must be held accountable".
Re:I know they'll be consistent (Score:5, Insightful)
Israel may find out consequences of their own.
Whatever kids are left in Gaza and the West Bank will one day be old enough & bold enough to fight.
And there's also the Lebanese, Qatari, Iranians, etc.
Israel may have the upper hand now but no one stays on top forever.
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They thought of that. By blowing their limbs off and starving them when they are babies, many of them will have lifelong disabilities that make fighting back against their oppressors much harder.
Re:I know they'll be consistent (Score:5, Insightful)
Israel is using *starvation* as a weapon. It's genocide and a war crime. Period.
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Meanwhile, the UN just wants to drop food at the border and let Hamas pick it up.
Because Israel controls the Egypt-Gaza border.
Re:I know they'll be consistent (Score:5, Informative)
Israel isn't allowing anyone else to provide aid, they've routinely fired upon civilians trying to get food and water, they've turned away groups such as the relief boats aligned with Greta Thunberg more than once and they're not allowing foreign journalists in.
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The *total* death toll in Gaza is appalling. A strong argument can be made that the invasion of Gaza was precisely what Hamas wanted: the disruption of the Israeli-Saudi peace process, the distraction from Israel's legitimate claim to be the victim of genocide on October 7th 2023, and a death toll so high as to facilitate the decades-long slur that the Jews are the new Nazis. (See 'Holocaust Inversion' and Deborah Lipstadt.)
However, in an ideal world, collateral damage wouldn't be misrepresented as genocide
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("Don't go in there in the first place" doesn't count: self-defense is a legitimate casus belli under Article 51(? I forget) of the UN Charter and the principle of jus ad bellum.)
Occupying powers can't claim self-defence.
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Occupying powers can't claim self-defence.
Israel left in 2005.
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Shhh! Stop it with your reasonableness. Such thoughts shall not be tolerated!
Re:I know they'll be consistent (Score:4, Insightful)
"Given that the IDF has the power to murder the entire population of Gaza in a month or less, either (a) they're lazy or (b) they're not committing genocide"
Or they realize they can't simply kill everyone without losing the support of the USA.
If that goes away, current sentiment is very much against them and even with their technological superiority, they'll lose in the long run.
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> They realize they can't simply kill everyone without losing the support of the USA
You're saying that the IDF has the magical ability to do less collateral damage than any conventional military in history and yet chooses to be as clumsy as everyone else. Okay. Evidence, please?
Re: I know they'll be consistent (Score:2)
If 1,200 people are murdered for being Jewish, whether civilian or combatant, that is genocide.
"If" being the most important word in that sentence. Because on October 7th, people weren't killed for being Jews, but for being colonisers. There is a conflict going on since 1948, stop trying to create a narrative where October 7th is the starting point and all was fine before that.
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On October 7th, people weren't killed for being Jews, but for being colonisers.
In your eyes, what's the difference between an Israeli Jew and a colonizer? I'd love to know. Hamas would, too.
Re: I know they'll be consistent (Score:2)
This question is a distraction. Hamas doesn't kill Jews outside of Israel, it is only interested in not being colonised, therefore the claim that Hamas' actions are genocidal is false.
Your attempt at false equivalence is in bad faith and obvious at that. You might as well claim that WWI was a misandry hate crime because male soldiers were attacked.
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the claim that Hamas' actions are genocidal is false.
Eliminationist antisemitism is the defining feature of the Hamas ideology. If the attack were to prevent colonization of Gaza, perhaps they should have attacked the Israelis in Gaza. (Oh, wait... Israel left in 2005.) Instead, they entered a foreign country in plainclothes and indiscriminately attacked the majority-Jewish civilian population. Given that the majority of people murdered had been born in Israel AND had never set foot in Gaza, your comment about colonization is a red herring.
Re: I know they'll be consistent (Score:2)
There are multiple posts and questions from you but the answer is the same so I give it here. If the Israeli Jews you mention were to stop the occupation of Palestine and withdraw, Hamas would not chase them around the world to hurt them. So it's about territory. I don't think Hamas is right to do what it does, but let's get our facts straight.
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If the Israeli Jews you mention were to stop the occupation of Palestine and withdraw,
Israel left Gaza in 2005. Hamas invaded in 2023. You're blaming the victims: all 1,200 of them.
[...]Hamas would not chase them around the world to hurt them.
Hamas's purpose is to ethnically cleanse the land of its Jewish population. Sources are available upon request.
[...]It's about territory.
See above. Israel left Gaza in 2005.
[...]I don't think Hamas is right to do what it does.
Then stop denying it was genocide.
Re: I know they'll be consistent (Score:2)
You are doing nothing but distorting and claiming I say things that I don't. Enjoy doing that alone.
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This question is a distraction.
Okay. So, in your eyes, what's the difference between an Israeli Jew and a colonizer? I'd love to know. Hamas would, too.
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The Israeli war aim since day 1 has been the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza followed by annexation.
The civilian-to-combatant casualty ratio in Gaza is typical of urban warfare. So, either (a) the IDF is incompetent or (b) the goal wasn't ethnic cleansing. Which is it?
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The IDF doesn't even look like it's trying to avoid civilian casualties
Yes, because nothing says 'genocide' like a well-edited TikTok video.
Re:I know they'll be consistent (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps Israel shouldn't be murdering civilians waving white flags [nbcnews.com] in a designated "safe" zone.
But please, keep making excuses for the ongoing genocide.
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I am failing to see a problem here. I do not like seeing people getting treated like that, but, I do not matter. All of the people who matter are completely okay with what is going on. Let's face it. We live in an evil world ruled by evil people. All the rest of us can do is live by our own morals and suffer whatever our leaders thrust upon us.
So, business as usual and all of this discussion and wailing and waving of arms and gnashing of teeth is completely pointless. The people, including women and childre
Re:I know they'll be consistent (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the "you made me bomb the kids" argument.
Like the abusive husband who blames his wife for giving her a black eye.
It's deferring personal responsibility. The road to hell.
Do better.
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You're a 1984 master, you piece of shit.
Re: I know they'll be consistent (Score:1)
Psst! Microsoft! (Score:2)
Have you checked into what Elon's "DOGE" cronies have been doing?
I bet... (Score:5, Insightful)
... that Israel is using Microsoft cloud services for a LOT more than merely surveilling Palestinians. And given the ICC's arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant - and the now incontestable fact that Israel is committing genocide - the folks in Redmond should be blocking ALL access by the Israeli government and military.
If that also results in loss of MS services to the citizens of Israel, (who seem to be largely in either support of or wilful denial of the genocide), then I'm OK with that. Fighting the genocide justifies such "it's really the least we could do" actions; in fact, it demands MUCH more than that.
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I'd like to inquire where I can get dosed with your reality. I've been trying to give Israel the benefit of the doubt, but after about a year of daily war crimes, and nothing to suggest that there isn't ethnic cleansing going on, the pile amounted to what we call a "preponderance of evidence". Since then we've had an additional year of evidence.
So maybe I'm not in reality, and neither are the Israeli officials openly celebrating the ethnic cleansing. What would you point us to, to bring us to your reality?
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I contest your "facts" and assert, incontestably, that you're an antisemitic pile of dog shit.
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So if I’m critical of the actions of the government of Israel that equates to me hating jews?
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Motherfucker, your tired arguments are tired. Cunts like you dogpile onto Israel while ignoring far worse evil across the world. Somehow, your hatred keeps coming back to Israel. We all know why.
Re: I bet... (Score:2)
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Jews within Israel including families of the hostages have been openly critical of Netanyahu and the killing.
Are they also antisemitic?
Re: I bet... (Score:2)
The definition of antisemitic has shifted. It just means someone with moral values who calls out crimes against humanity.
Anyone should be proud to be called antisemitic.
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According to gormless cunts like you, sure.
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I have no problem being what you'd call an "antisemitic gormless cunt" who'll continue to call out Israel's genocide and any who support or excuse it
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I have no issue with Jewish people, their culture, their religion. Frankly, they gave been largely a massive benefit to my life via scientific contribution, entertainment in general, and to what I consider the 20th century's great contribution to the arts - stand up comedy.
But Israel... now there is a problem. It's just shitty thinking and blind stubbornness to unreservedly conflate criticism of Israel to antisemitism.
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I contest your "facts" and assert, incontestably, that you're an antisemitic pile of dog shit.
I have nothing against Jews - or against any religious, ethnic, racial, or cultural group. But as a thinking, feeling, compassionate human, I must detest and call out crimes against humanity by anyone who commits them. Starving children, and making sport of shooting them in the head, testicles, and so on as though they're targets in a carnival gallery, is sick, sadistic, and obviously inhumane. As are the perpetrators of such acts, regardless of who those children's parents might be. I'm sorry that you are
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It looks like nobody is going to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and those refugees are going to go seek asylum in other countries. Many will come to Europe, where Microsoft has subsidiaries. Some will go to the US, where Microsoft is based. There is a good chance that there will be lawsuits over Microsoft's assistance in genocide.
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It looks like nobody is going to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and those refugees are going to go seek asylum in other countries. Many will come to Europe, where Microsoft has subsidiaries. Some will go to the US, where Microsoft is based.
You would think that the surrounding countries would be the logical choice. Wonder why none of them will take in the Palestinians? Couldn't have anything to do with how they acted last few times that's been tried could it? You know, attacking Israel from their new homes, starting civil wars, assassination attempts, landing and blowing up civilian airliners with foreign nationals aboard to try to drag other countries into it?
Nah, couldn't be that. They should be welcome everywhere.
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Neighbouring countries don't want to make it easy for Israel to ethnically cleanse Palestine.
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You have to remember that Israelis have, for generations been taught that the palestinians are a lower form of human. That somehow, the people who live over there are worth less than the people who live (illegally in many cases) over here.
It's been going on so long that kids think this way, not just because that's what they've been told but because they learned it from their parents. It's endemic in the country now. Seeing a picture of an emaciated Palestinian child suffering from chronic malnutrician and diseases isn't something for them to feel ashamed of. It's perfectly okay, because that's all that they deserve, what with them being sub-human and all.
The general Israeli populous supports the war because they don't see anything wrong with the terrible things going on there. Just so long as the majority of the IDF soldiers make it home alive, they'll keep supporting it. Generations of propaganda have told them so do so.
Replying just to raise the visibility of your comment. It's a good reminder of the power of cultural and religious brainwashing - something we all need to guard ourselves against. Thanks.
My Irony Meter Just Exploded (Score:4, Interesting)
As employees, we all have a shared interest in privacy protection, given the business value it creates by ensuring our customers can rely on our services with rock solid trust
This makes you wonder how it is possible that the story was based on, to quote the Guardian article, "a cache of leaked Microsoft documents and interviews with 11 sources from the company and Israeli military intelligence". The story also says that MS CEO was aware of this since 2021 when he met to discuss moving large amounts of surveillance data to their servers.
So they are saying that they care about privacy now only after their violation of a client's privacy revealed that they were actually quite happy to store surveillance data violating others privacy. Call me cyncical but somehow this caring about privacy just does not seem to ring true.
The cloud is... (Score:3)
...somebody else's computer.
Is that somebody reliable? Would you trust them with your most valuable data? Really?
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That meme is very 2012. Like it or not, your "valuable data" is already out in the cloud, hopefully in AWS, but likely in Azure and Google Cloud as well.
When I worked at AWS I got talking to some of the storage people, and was quite impressed with their process. Data comes in already encrypted, and is put into an encrypted volume to which only the customer has the key (many customers create their own). All anyone at AWS sees is a blob of encrypted bits which they can't read. They can move the "blob" (th
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that suggests that Bezos has his nudes mixed in with his banking creds
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I hope you're still on the payroll, writing ad copy for them like that.
I'm willing to believe that at some point in the past, they didn't have any obvious backdoors. Not any longer. The people running it are balls deep in politics and if you hadn't noticed there's some mashup of surveillance/police/gangster state being established in the United States this year.
As much as Amazon would like to distance themselves from that with platitudes about "Your privacy matters", nobody is going to buy that much longer.
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The NSA, CIA, FBI, IRS, and parts of the Pentagon and DHS feel confident putting their data out there, that's why they have those contracts.
Re: The cloud is... (Score:2)
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Politicians do not allow government agencies, no matter how critical, to pay enough to attract the top security researchers (except when their funding WMD, then the sky's the limit). AWS has a larger security department alone than any government agency has in its entire IT department, and they're some of the best there are. Expecting an understaffed IT department in a grossly (and deliberately) underfunded IRS to be able to securely host the tax records of 330 million Americans and 35 million businesses i
Starlink (Score:1)
I'm seeing a pattern.
Finally a reason to switch to Linux desktop! (Score:2)
Microsoft is going to face so much shit for this decision, it's not even funny.
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Google and Intel are both well-known to do quite a lot with Israel, and neither of them catches any significant mainstream flak for it. Microsoft being Israel's IBM is probably the least surprising thing I can imagine, they'll be fine.
Wait. Like Hamas? (Score:1)
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According to the Israeli government, there are no innocents in Gaza. Why would they be worried about something that doesn't exist?
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What do you do with a small population obsessed with your annihilation? Hamas' purpose is the eradication of the Jews. It has been since the nation of Israel came into being. How should that be handled? What would you do if you had neighbors whose only interest was your death?
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And the cycle continues. This stupid shit has been going on for a 1000 years and more. I imagine it's not ending any time soon.
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In addition to recognition of Palestine, I would like to see those countries such as France said food & medical aid with armed escorts. I'm curious if Israel will open fire on an international navy
after???? (Score:2)
oh come on microsoft.. you KNEW, like Facebook KNOWS, that the IDF uses your products to murder journalists, activists, protestors, commentators and anybody producing Evidence of Israel's warcrimes.
Now that there is some heat coming you're performing this theater?