from geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml to technology@lemmy.ml on 24 Mar 08:11
https://lemmy.ml/post/27611054
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.
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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.
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.
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:
And tech organizations:
Nothing you wrote contradicts the observation that it’s easier to apply for a job and get it than to construct a full blown company which needs to be acquired. If there are already 99 ‘spies’ at Google, there’s hardly need for such elaborate schemes.
The IDF soldiers do not have to apply for Google and pass the Google application entrance exam.
Also the acquisition can happen for a far higher amount than the company’s true worth. Thus sending a lot of Google money to Israel.
It is very doubtable Wiz is worth what Google is paying.
Similar to how AIPAC works, the IDF spies goal is not to make money, but to invest other people’s money into Israel.
Everything you’re describing is further speculation and unfalsifiable statements for events which already have a simpler explanation. That’s a tell-tale sign of a conspiracy theory.
Google buying the company as some kind of plot to get spies into Google requires more assumptions than Google buying the company for the technology (as it has done with plethora of other companies). If Google is somehow complicit in it, they could just hire those people directly. And if it’s all covert operation, Israel is capable of training and coaching their spies to pass Google’s interviews. Google interviews aren’t trivial, but it’s also not some super-elite company which hires only the top 0.01% of software engineers.
If you want to convince me otherwise, you need to demonstrate why your explanation is more likely than the obvious one.
AIPAC.
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.
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?
Presumably you would switch or cancel accounts/subscriptions as the emails get forwarded.
This would be for a mop up of old subscriptions you forgot about.
It’s to ease the transition
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:
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
Google isn’t “playing with fire”. They’re a major contributor to this genocidal bonfire.
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