Israeli-founded app preloaded on Samsung phones is attracting controversy

What a horrible experience you get with some providers and phones.

It's to the point that I think there should be some sort of regulation that involves you getting a baseline experience on the OS rather than a bunch of malware out of the box.

It's the same with Smart TVs, they've gotten so cheap because of all the other slimy stuff the manufacturers do, like sell your watch data, or pre-install apps.

Economies of scale do bring costs of everything much further than stealing user's data can, but good luck explaining some long term vision to C-suites who only care about short term bonuses.

Every experience may not be as bad as the one the OP had, but it’s surely well within reality. Both carriers and handset manufacturers are glad to sell anything and everything about someone to make a quick buck. They’ve literally been doing it for 25+ years.

Here’s a made up example, and it’s probably not even the best one. - Show Teckno-Detectives shows a “Cameo” of Grapple’s newest mixed-reality glasses. The data shows that 3.9 million additional people watched the episode. Investment firms who pay for the data notice and buy extra Grapple shares to cash in on the expected sales bump.

Many OEMs sell their flagship as a shiny glass slab with only BT or USB-C for audio, and ship 3.5mm jacks and other "antiquated niceties" like a uSD card reader, on their lower-end models.

It's difficult to square the circle of "I want these specific features, but on a phone that's not working against me (any more than modern phones already do)"

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The article doesn't appear to take a side one way or the other in the conflict, it's just listing a potential compliance issue.

By the way, in the Arab world (my reading of "some West Asian and North African markets". Nice euphemism, btw) there isn't the same stigma as in the West so they usually don't feel the need to be cautious and say exactly what they mean, i.e. "the Jews".

But the premium devices (especially TVs) are starting to do this too now via software updates. I had to turn off a bunch of crap in the settings on my LG CX TVs some time ago. Now they are just off the internet and can only connect to my NAS.

> the program was found to be quietly invasive as it allows the installer to install programs on the user’s device without permission. It circumvents the user validation process and successfully bypasses multiple security checks, including antivirus programs

I agree that the headline “controversy” is manufactured.

Physical keyboards were nice back in an era when the web welcomed longform text, and I miss my Nokia N900. Nowadays, though, the web ecosystem that one typically uses from a phone is a cesspool, and for serious things I’ll just use my real computer.

Not really, they've gotten so cheap because the individual components they are made of have become much cheaper due to economies of scale.

The same thing happened with computer monitors, and those don't ship with the bloatware.

Hopefully one day we not only have open software, open hardware but also reproducibly guaranteed secure systems. Now I don't have any idea how this could be verified (and no, Microsoft's "Trusted Computing" is not what I have in mind), but I hope we'll see to this eventually.

EDIT: also see the Xperia 10 VII for a phone that isn't 2 years old (I haven't been keeping up, I buy phones to use for 4+ years)

But to be more specific I would narrow it down to avoiding using any tech which Israel could use for surveillance, narrative control, or harm.

The fact that a data-harvesting bloatware is installed on common handsets should be controversial enough.

Both the title of this post and the link try to add "Israel is baaaad" angle as just because a company was founded in Israel.

Israel is a middle-eastern tech hub that produces a lot of tech companies and innovations. Its just a numbers game that some of them will be working on things of questionable value to humanity.

What GP suggesting is discriminating against all technologies developed by Israel because of his political views, nothing more.

How did I know? My phone had random notifications promoting apps that I had never heard of, and I couldn't find a way to disable them. Eventually I found and removed it via adb.

These scumbags.

Source: me who uninstalled AppCloud via adb on a phone purchased from Best Buy.

> The presence of an Israeli-origin technology component on Samsung phones in WANA countries poses additional problems. Several nations in this region legally bar Israeli companies from operating, and in light of the ongoing Israel–Palestine conflict, the preload of an app tied to such a company becomes even more contentious.

So yes, the presence of Israeli software is a problem in many countries, and may even be illegal.

I hate the 3.5'' jack myself (see below), but I can already tell you that mentioning some unscientific definition of "superior sound quality" that likely no one amongst us is humanly able to distinguish is not going to win any minds over. Proponents of 3.5'' like it because it is ridiculously simple to use, intuitive, cheap, doesn't have a lot of things that can go wrong (e.g. no batteries) and despite that is overall effective.

The reason I dislike 3.5'' is because the _socket_ part (i.e. the part on the expensive device) wears out very quickly, becoming fragile and generating distracting artifacts even with slight cable pulls/movements, as the springs in the connector start to fail. This annoys me to no end, much more than any issues with other interfaces.

Wild how every ecosystem has its own "preloaded surprise pack."

The issue is that it is an app which is forcibly installed without consent or disclosure, which has privileged access to the system and beyond the scope of the device vendor. To have no care for that reeks suspiciously of nationalistic bias.

edit: Please answer: Which country has backdoor control of the phones via this app?

Best step up to your words and throw away your phone then.

All major tech companies and chip manufacturers have R&D and design centers in Israel.

Four children were killed and dozens of _innocent_ bystanders were injured.

> What do you know about Lebanon and Hezbollah?

It's a conflict that's been going on for 30 years that I can remember and I don't think that more kinetic operations are going to accomplish anything other than fomenting an actual genocide.

Did you think gatekeeping was going to work? This conflict has spilled out into the broader world. If it were strictly contained to Lebanon and only implicated Hezbollah then you might have a point. We're well past that.

> How do people end up making such unfounded, unbiased claims so confidently??

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/world/middleeast/israel-e...

4000 civilians were injured

There were two waves of attacks. You're ignoring the second one.

morocco went from 250000 to 2000

algeria went from 130000 to 200

tunisia went from 105000 to 1000

libya went from 40000 to 0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maghrebi_Jews#Communities

Compared to thousands of Hezbollah members. Literally one of the most targeted large-scale attacks of all time. There are effectively zero other military means that would have been even close to as selective and discriminant. Would you prefer they drop a 500lb bomb on each of their houses instead?

Edit: I know what they wrote

https://www.icrc.org/en/law-and-policy/geneva-conventions-an...

If ‘no bomb/missile ever is a war crime’, then .. there is no such thing as “terrorism”, either. (Although the argument could be made that there is no such thing as ‘terrorism’ at all, and that indeed, the word terrorism is merely a propaganda crutch used to justify atrocities against so-called ‘lesser cultures’ deemed inferior by the same institutions which used to use the ‘n-word’ to justify their atrocities in decades past, too, before that became difficult to do ..)

You can indeed commit war crimes with sticks too, though, incidentally.

I didn't make it up, the Balfour declaration makes it pretty clear, so if you're upset natives are attacking you what's your point exactly.

Anyway, point is Israel has almost always lied throughout it's genocide against Palestinians. The IOF has lied or distorted the truth in almost every statement, one which always comes to mind is the attack on the Christian hospital.

The Israeli government are liars, they have a whole online army dedicated to misinformation and the 5 D's. For them lying is just another effective weapon of war which must be utilised.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device...

And since you value their voices, why not his grandson's voice? Or do their voices only matter when they agree with yours? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45958241

There are plenty of us on HN who believe in the Israeli peoples’ human rights just as seriously as we support those of the children of Gaza, too.

Those of us who actually care about civilized society, human rights, and international law also consider that there are plenty of Israeli citizens who are, themselves, victims of their own states acts of terrorism as well.

You are responsible for the crimes of your state, citizen. No amount of chicken-waving is going to absolve you of that fact.

The point of discussing the heinous nature of the pager attack is to prevent the precedent set by that attack from taking further victims.

It is not in the interests of Israeli citizens to have their war-crime committing state subjugate their societies’ commercial institutions to commit further atrocities.

That's a pretty awful ratio.

On the other hand a wired headphone always work, had maybe better quality and almost surely a better latency. I use one of them when doing calls from my laptop.

Because the Israeli Hasbara is now failing at this gaslighting strategy, you're leveling ad hominems towards people who see this as what it is - decades of war crimes and a humanitarian crisis.

So either come up with a proper argument, or stay quiet. Gaslighting us into thinking we're being biased, or that we're ill informed, just isn't going to work anymore.

So per the KPI metric you've chosen, making it more lethal and more dangerous to bystanders would have been better.

The last time I saw an update that just fixed security bugs and improved performance was... never.

Consumers often have a choice, at least between "filled to the brim with crap" and "a modicum of crap", by choosing between buying their phone from a store or from a carrier. Carriers have better deals but shovel their phones full of the worst apps you can imagine. Still, people will buy the crap-filled experience that makes you want to tear your hair out because they like the idea of scoring a better deal.

Nothing like unadulterated greed combined with short-sighed consumer behaviour at scale to drive a market segment into an awful race to the bottom.

I'm looking at HMD or Motorola.

What is antisemitism is people shouting sieg heil outside my house when they read my name on the door thinking I am Jewish (I am not, though our family fled from German forces during WW2, not all survived).

This is simply false, virtually every single spicy pager casualty was part of a terrorist organization.

> 3. Regardless this is still considered a war crime, and is by definition a terrorist act because it was not targeted. When they launched the attack they had no knowledge of where each pager was.

It was highly targeted in reality, spicy pagers were sold exclusively to the terrorist organizations for use on the terrorists communication network. It's arguably one of the most highly targeted attacks in history in terms of enemy to civilian casualty ratios.

The difficulty in comprehending an answer to this question is precisely why allowing ones military to perform such actions using covert means is so dangerous for a civilian population to support.

War is supposed to be fought in the open in order to protect the civilians.

I suppose when the distinction between soldier and civilian is not so easy to make, the profligate mindset which allows covert, indiscriminate mass murder at scale becomes a norm.

There were lots of downsides to that deal, of course, but I appreciate that it broke the carriers' exclusive control over mobile phones.

Common Article 3 was breached by carrying out lethal attacks against persons taking no active part in hostilities (including off-duty medics and civilians) without individual assessment; GC I Articles 12 and 18 were violated when medical personnel and facilities were hit by exploding devices carried by wounded or off-duty health workers; GC III Article 13 was infringed because many victims instantly became hors de combat through injury yet were subjected to further maiming by shrapnel designed to cause maximum harm; GC IV Articles 27, 32 and 51 were contravened by the indiscriminate killing and mutilation of civilians (including children and bystanders) and by imposing collective punishment through mass, simultaneous detonation regardless of individual status; Additional Protocol I Articles 48, 51(2–5), 57 and 54 were violated through the failure to distinguish combatants from civilians, the inherently indiscriminate and disproportionate nature of detonating thousands of devices in populated areas, and the use of treachery/perfidious means to kill; finally, Amended Protocol II to the CCW Article 7(2) was directly breached by transforming ordinary civilian pagers into prohibited booby-traps specifically designed and constructed to contain concealed explosives.

The use of treachery/perfidious means to kill is particularly disturbing, since it sets the precedent for similar means to be used in retaliation, very likely to result in yet more unjustifiable acts of terror.

what a disturbing infantilization

Any and all means are and will always be justified to prevent that.

“The IDF attacks civilians. It uses perfidy to indiscriminately attack the civilian population of its enemies. It, too, ignores the laws of war.”

There is no way to continue justifying acts of terror being committed by your in-group, without also become equivalent to the terrorist of your out-group.

There will always be a move towards centralization when a project gains enough converts because the bulk of concerns are exactly the same but we don't have n+1 people willing to do the necessary legwork to secure.

As such, just like REST apis and their N+1 query problem, forcing everyone to have a security conscious posture is never going to happen.

You absolutely need centralized authorities; what the real argume is about is how that authority is selected, changed and intermediated. The same way we argue about how a stable RAFT algorithm operates.

Move on from this "decentralization is all we need" argument. It's failed and failing.

Just originally founded in Israel.

Almost like posting it has an alterior motive.

You can usually disable them, but they are still there.

No? The slave workers in Nazi germany who purposely fucked up equipment to get german soldiers killed were not committing a war crime. Sabotage is legitimate warfare. The french people getting the trust of german soldiers and then slitting their throats were not committing war crimes.

>Civilians died in those indiscriminate attacks - which were terrorist in nature and deed.

Civilians die in every war because war is messy and the geneva conventions, which only considered prisoners of war until the 4th, do not prevent civilian causalities. They are not intended to. The Geneva conventions were updated after world war 2 and were STILL not made to prevent things like the London Blitz or infrastructure attacks, and indeed things like Russia trying to freeze Ukraine to death by blowing up it's electrical infrastructure is not a war crime.

If hezbollah are legitimate combatants, then they have to wear a uniform during hostilities to be protected by the conventions/protocols/hague. If they do not wear a uniform, they are considered defectors to lawful war and have less protections than actual combatants.

If China puts backdoors in all the chips we buy from them, and we build weapons with those chips, and China pressed a button that self destructs all things made with those chips, that is also not a warcrime.

War crimes are pretty much only treating POWs incorrectly by doing medical "experiments" on them or genociding them. If you are not a POW yet, the Geneva conventions don't say much about you.

Do you people think anyone would have signed a treaty that says "You can't kill more than 1 innocent person per bad guy"?

>Tell me you don't care about the Geneva convention without telling me you've probably never read the Geneva convention.

Big words from someone who doesn't seem to recognize that they geneva convention they've "totally read" doesn't say what they seem to think it says. Please quote the part where blowing up a civilian with your target is called a war crime

It pre-installs some games, but you can uninstall them. The only thing it forces on you is a weather app which you can deactivate but not uninstall.

Israel is guilty of both the forcible expulsion and mass killing of Palestinians, so the definition certainly applies.

Fortunately Android is a pretty diverse range and Samsung is just one player. I had much more user-friendly experiences with Fairphone and Motorola.

For context: https://www.eunews.it/en/2025/11/05/italian-journalist-fired...

I remember the Verizon crapware phone experience well.

Obviously yes, Hamas and Hezbollah indiscriminately firing rockets at Israel consistute war crimes. I assume you must agree that Israel's systematic targeting of schools, hospitals, mosques, and refugee camps would also qualify?

for example, annapurna labs in haifa develops the technology behind AWS’s nitro cards, which run the hypervisor, block storage, and networking in every EC2 server.

It is also a war crime to carry out what is known as the Nakba - ethnically cleansing and displacing hundreds and thousands of Palestinians. It is a crime illegally occupy land that does not belong to you. It is a crime to maintain an apartheid state. It is a crime to hold 'prisoners' without any charges It is a crime to rape said prisoners. It is also disgusting to have a society that riots when said rapists are called out for their actions. It is a crime to continually bomb and kill Palestinians for just existing. It is a crime to continually kill Palestinians for no reason via 'mowing the grass' exercises It is a crime to crime to kill Palestinians when they peacefully protest It is a crime to indiscriminately bomb Gaza because some Palestinians have had enough of being subjected to sub-human conditions.

So if you say 'any and all means are justified to prevent that', then any and all means should be justified to prevent the above, right?

And all of this is ignoring the blatant international law violation against booby trapping. This was very clearly a war crime.

I'll start to believe this sort of fantasy when the people who win wars begin investigating and prosecuting themselves for the crimes that they committed or suborned.

- Not use Intel processors, as many are developed in Haifa

- Not use a firewall. It was invented in the IDF.

- Not use Waze. It's Israeli.

- Not use thumb drives. Invented in Israel.

- Not eat cherry tomatoes. Israeli development.

The list goes on and on, but I must add - if you ever suffer a serious head or stomach injury, tell the medics to not use the Israeli bandage.

Where the question “which Israeli companies are involved in committing Israels war crimes?” needs to be answered, is at the ICC - not here on HN.

(Unless the question is being answered by a whistleblower, of course..)

So, its a little bit tone deaf to hear these complaints from Americans honestly.

We’re told that we’re uncompetitive (yet when rising startups happen they’re bought out before being too large)- we’re told that we shouldn’t run on anything except US SaaS and US cloud providers.

I’m not saying that you specifically make these arguments, but the zeitgeist on HN definitely centres on this notion.

So, please forgive me for not taking this as seriously as you’d like me to.

> “I don’t think there’s any question that it’s a form of terrorism,” Panetta said on “CBS News Sunday morning.”

https://thehill.com/policy/international/4893900-leon-panett...

I don't take anything Leon Panetta says as gospel, but the fact that someone like him says this shows how the position is not ludicrous in the way you and other similar replies are painting it.

Also America is behind all sufferings in the world?

That’s some amazing interpretation of reality

Show me the Article in the CCW which supports this claim. And do you mean sabotage against civilian infrastructure, or military materials? Again, show the Article, either way.

>If hezbollah are legitimate combatants, then they have to wear a uniform

Yes, true. Just as those responsible for the pager attacks had to identify themselves as combatants, also.

> If China puts backdoors in all the chips we buy from them, and we build weapons with those chips, and China pressed a button that self destructs all things made with those chips, that is also not a warcrime.

If this were to occur, it would be considered a war crime under one or more of the following articles:

- Perfidy (Art. 37 AP I)

- Indiscriminate attack (Art. 51(4) AP I)

- Excessive incidental civilian harm / disproportionality (Art. 51(5)(b) AP I)

- Treachery (broader Hague prohibition)

- Superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering (Art. 35(2) AP I)

- Failure to take feasible precautions (Art. 57 AP I)

Any of these 6 violations can constitute war crimes.

>“War crimes are pretty much only treating POWs incorrectly by doing medical "experiments" on them or genociding them.”

Okay, this is just plain, ignorant, crazy talk.

>”Please quote the part where blowing up a civilian with your target is called a war crime,”

Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions and from the Rome Statute of the ICC.

I'll tell you as soon as you tell me exactly why ZTE devices were banned in the United States. The thing about clandestine operations is that they aren't done in the open.

Oh, and .. who are you referring to as “people living in the US”, and by what means are you certain of this fact? HN is an international community.

Some of us don’t see national identity and just want the mass murder of children to stop, whatever it takes.

What's a better word here? Adverts cost the consumer, however I'm sure the consumer doesn't get equal recompense. Theoretically a SmartTV with adverts costs less money ("subsidised" due to price competition), but is the consumer actually ($,time) better off?

The costs are invisible and the consumer cannot actually measure the costs (the vendors do measure profitability but this is not legible).

I reckon most people are terrible at judging the value of their own time (especially children and retirees).

Only then will you have the moral altitude required to gain the support of the rest of the world in prosecuting “their” war criminals.

Common Article 3; GC I Art. 12 & 18; GC III Art. 13; GC IV Arts. 27, 32 & 51; AP I Arts. 48, 51(2–5), 57 & 54; CCW Amended Protocol II Art. 7(2) of the Geneva Conventions.

Common Article 3; GC I Art. 12 & 18; GC III Art. 13; GC IV Arts. 27, 32 & 51; AP I Arts. 48, 51(2–5), 57 & 54; CCW Amended Protocol II Art. 7(2) of the Geneva Conventions.

Common Article 3; GC I Art. 12 & 18; GC III Art. 13; GC IV Arts. 27, 32 & 51; AP I Arts. 48, 51(2–5), 57 & 54; CCW Amended Protocol II Art. 7(2) of the Geneva Conventions.

Remind me again of all the help Israel has provided the USA/the West that they are considered such a great (the greatest, in fact) ally?

Ps humans are biased. Humans need to be able to have respectful discussions

Israel was founded in the middle of an offensive when it was "descended upon by the Arab world". That was a defensive reaction to Israel's brutal Plan Dalet, an invasion and occupation of Palestine, which extended far beyond what the UN had drawn up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Dalet

And then they destroyed 500 villages, ethnically cleansed Palestine of three quarters of a million of Palestinians and never let them return.

They went around with detailed lists of people identified as Arabs in each village, rounded them up, set fire to the villages, and then blew up the rubble. How can you believe that is the act of a legitimate state? It is quite simply evil. Nazi-level shit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba

This was not an operation that was sanctioned by the UN's partition plan (which was ridiculous and at odds with the UNs founding principles of self-determination to begin with) it was just retconned into being a legitimate action.

Which country has backdoor control of the phones via this app?

The claims made in the interview align with various other sources, including videos of the explosions showing that bystanders were unaffected. Likewise none of the spicy pagers were found to have been sold to the general public.

You claim:

> “sold exclusively to terrorists” - false.

> “used exclusively by terrorist organizations for communications” - false.

> “weren't any non-terrorist affiliated medics ” - false.

From the interview

> Lesley Stahl: Did people other than Hezbollah want to buy this based on what was being said about it online?

> Gabriel: Yes. We received several request from regular potential customer. Obviously we didn't send to anyone. We just quote them with expensive price.

You claim:

> “bystanders were essentially unaffected due to the design of the explosive payload” - false.

From the article:

> In order to put explosives inside. But not too much. Using dummies, Mossad conducted tests with the pager in a padded glove to calibrate the grams of explosive needed to be just enough to hurt the fighter -- but not the person next to him.

The Nakba is undeniably a catastrophe for Palestinians, involving mass expulsions, village destructions, and profound human suffering that shapes their identity to this day.

Plan Dalet, as outlined in the Wikipedia article you linked, was indeed a Haganah blueprint that shifted to offensive operations, leading to the depopulation of hundreds of villages and the flight or expulsion of around 750,000 Palestinians.

Historians like Ilan Pappé (in “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”) argue it was a systematic plan for ethnic cleansing, with tactics like sieges, bombings, and forced removals. That’s not something to downplay or excuse: it’s a dark chapter, and comparing elements to other atrocities (while avoiding direct equivalences) highlights the moral weight.

That said, I think the full picture is even more layered, and understanding both sides means grappling with the context without absolving anyone. The Arab states’ intervention in May 1948 wasn’t purely defensive; it was also driven by their own territorial ambitions and opposition to the UN Partition Plan (which, as you note, was flawed and rejected by Palestinians and Arabs for giving 55% of the land to a Jewish minority that owned ~7%). But Plan Dalet was finalized in March 1948 amid escalating civil war violence; after the UN vote in November 1947 sparked attacks from both sides, including Arab irregulars blockading Jewish areas and the Haganah responding in kind. Benny Morris (a “New Historian” who revised much of the traditional Israeli narrative) describes it as a response to anticipated Arab invasions, though he acknowledges the expulsions were often brutal and opportunistic. The plan’s text emphasizes securing Jewish areas and borders “in anticipation of” invasion, but in practice, it went beyond that, capturing territory outside the UN-allotted Jewish state.

You’re right that this wasn’t explicitly sanctioned by the UN, and the partition itself violated self-determination principles (as the Arab Higher Committee argued). But the “retconning” happened post-facto through armistice lines and international recognition of Israel. It’s tragic that Palestinians paid the price for European colonialism, the Holocaust’s aftermath, and Zionist aspirations; all while Arab leaders failed to unify or protect them effectively. My original point wasn’t to defend Israel as “legitimate” in every action (far from it: they’ve committed wrongs that demand accountability). It was to urge empathy for how each side’s trauma fuels the cycle: Israelis seeing 1948 as survival against existential threats (five Arab armies invading a nascent state), Palestinians as the theft of their homeland. Both narratives have truths, and dismissing one entirely risks perpetuating the divide. If we’re serious about peace, we need to hold space for that complexity; maybe starting with works like Morris’s “1948” or Rashid Khalidi’s “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine” for balanced views.

Thanks for engaging thoughtfully; these conversations are hard but necessary.

If not, this article and almost every comment on this submission is a colossal waste of time.

This is supposed to be a technical website full of inquisitive hackers, right? Then perhaps try to examine the facts instead of guessing and bullshitting.

Genuine question.

Apparently only for the at&t variant.

You demand higher quality, yet don't care about the loud noise created with every small movement of your body? I have heard this dismissed before as "doesn't bother me" and it's hardly ever mentioned in discussions about good audio vs Bluetooth.

I'm bewildered why wireless audio isn't praised for completely eliminating this source of noise that plagues every wired headphone, earbud, and IEM.

I still don't understand how you can view the Israeli foundation myth, and the "fear of an existential threat" as legitimate, when the Israeli state's founding was an unjust, immoral, wrong undertaking, the foundation of a colony on someone's homeland.

If a perpetrator breaks into a house and kicks out the homeowners, then declares the attempts to take back said house as an existential threat to their new house ownership, a reasonable person would not view that as a legitimate concern.

It's just not a logically consistent way to look at the situation. I agree that the current day situation is different, considering Israel has existed for two generations. It still does not change the fact that they are forcing an apartheid on the Palestinians, and are engaged in genocide, and have sabotaged any attempt to solve the situation by means other than ethnic cleansing.

I refuse to consider a balanced view when the crimes that have been committed are so unbalanced. Israel has established a society, and that society has clearly established itself as the bad guy, Palestine has not even had a chance to create a society for themselves, so they cannot even be judged to the same standard. But even if we do, it's hard to see them as anything but victims of Zionist oppression.

I think a lot of this might come down to carrier deals though.

Best bet I would imagine is to buy an Android device not through a carrier and make sure it has the necessary wireless modem bands

War is a horrible and inherently immoral thing. We do no favors to our humanity or othercs by pretending it's a simple black and white matter when it is really not.

It complains about inability to uninstall from the manufacturers handset which is a manufacturers decision.

Again both articles manufacture controversy simply by nature that the Appcloud is associated with an Israeli company, not by what the app actually does or not by the fact that nobody forced Samsung to install this app on their handsets.

If you have information showing that Samsung is selling phones that are remote controlled by another government or corporate actor, that would be extremely newsworthy. Please share these news when you find them

for t-mobile

Western values include, among other things, a commitment to equality and human rights, not apartheid[1] and genocide[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_apartheid

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide

Nvidia for example tripples size of one of the offices now (out of seven i think) and builds new campus in different city

Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_values

Since the wikipedia page also mentions individual liberty and rule of law, let me also link to this topic:

Arrest and detention of Palestinian minors by Israel — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_detention_of_Palest...

You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter what you're replying to. Please take a moment to read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them if you want to keep participating here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I haven't spent any time investigating, because I believe that privacy is nonexistent, but my Samsung phones have always enabled by default, a backup of everything I have (including the removable uSD cards) to a server in South Korea.

Even when I've disabled this behavior, it seems to persist at some level.

I live in the US BTW.

Would you prefer it be called Operation Grim Beeper?

I wish people could just state the transparently documented historical truth, Israel is a US ally because Truman and enough other backers wanted to create a state for Holocaust survivors. The leadership and majority of voters in the US have been true believers in Zionism (in one of its many versions) for generations, and supports Israel by essentially the same logic that Israelis support Israel by. This existed as a state of affairs with almost no opposition at any level until a couple years ago when it came into conflict with another basic belief (about being close enough to just in the cause and method of war that most people could somewhat believe it).

I don't like Apple either, they are DEFINITELY rent seeking and violating their users' privacy at the same time. There is no excuse for that. I think what the parent post was talking about is something historical. An iPhone at that time was a large step above a Nokia or a Sony Ericsson in terms of flexibility.

Even if that were the case, destroying those buildings with civilians inside is still a war crime

The only thing people can really do today is to acknowledge the past, and to do something about it, and if we’re taking the Israeli perspective now, then what we’re essentially telling them to do is not exist.

Many are fine with that being the case (why should they exist when its founded on evil) but there’s a few points there that make it harder to swallow I think.

1) I think if someone told me that I had no right to live in my home country because of its past I would get quite bent out of shape, especially if blood was shed.

(again, not arguing that this makes it entirely valid, just arguing a perspective).

2) It sort of justifies actual genocide. As mentioned in my other examples; any invading force in future will probably slaughter everyone. Because the international conversation surrounding genocides of the last 30 years is a lot more tame than how we talk about the suffering of palestinians.

This disproportionate discussion probably feels unfair, since the average Israeli probably feels like they would want to live peacefully today, if only they were not constantly attacked by Iranian proxies every time attempts at normalisation looked like they were succeeding. Unfortunately this would then include terrorism from Palestine.

I have to really caveat again, that I don’t think Israel is peachy, just that today the Palestinian narrative is a bit more empathised with internationally- but I wouldn’t like myself being in either countries shoes honestly.

You're mixing two different things with the civilians in buildings. The mass building destruction we see is done on buildings after evacuation to dismantle booby trapped buildings. Israel does frequently do strikes on buildings or infrastructure that contain civilians, but that is a different kind of action with different reasons and circumstances (e.g. collateral damage of strikes on military targets, etc.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcqIDKf1uYU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yvJiW-Ndj0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFUkfmnCR7U

So you might go with ARM, RISC V, but still have to make use of an OS and programming stack with strong ties to US based companies, even if open source.

Israel should be held accountable for what it has done, and if it does not further a two state solution, it should be sanctioned by the international community. Current and previous political leaders should be prosecuted for war crimes, and the country should be reformed into a secular democracy.

That's it, that's my stance.

Now, I don't see any of this happening, and I see a genocide being committed.

You're then characterising any military response as genocidal. This no longer feels like an honest response. First, it's Israel that has decided it wants to be an ethnostate, the only reason it would seem genocidal is because Zionists have conflated a religion with a nationality with citizenship. The bad actor of Israel should still be a valid target of military actions just like others are. Would you say that the allies committed a genocide when they attacked Nazi Germany in the second world war?

And where are you getting these ideas of "invading forces slaughtering everybody"? This is starting to sound like Zionist propaganda. I'm sorry but hypothetical threats do not matter when compared with actual apartheid and genocide.

The Palestinians have always been the less violent party. Israel is also a much more violent and offensively postured military actor than Iran, they developed nukes in secret for chrissakes, and they seem to have immunity from international sanctions.

Israel could choose to live in peace by changing it's military posture, by not constantly attacking its neigbours and destabilizing the region. They currently illegally occupy territory in Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon. They could simply stop doing that to begin with.

This moment tests your idea: if Israel follows through on withdrawal and curbs West Bank settler violence (which has surged, with over 200 attacks reported this month alone), it could prove goodwill. Yet ongoing tunnel operations and regional strikes (like recent hits in Lebanon) show the military posture persists, fuelling distrust.

Pushing Israelis to empathise means seeing Palestinians not as perpetual threats but as equals deserving sovereignty. Many modern Israelis; weary from two years of war, economic hits, and global isolation… privately crave normalcy. They fear that unilateral retreats invite repeats of October 7 or Hezbollah barrages, especially with Iran arming proxies. Ending occupations could shatter that fear cycle, but it requires mutual security guarantees, not just Israeli concessions.

Your WWII analogy still fits: Defeat the aggressors’ system, not the people. Target occupation and apartheid policies surgically. Dismiss their fears, though, and hardliners win. Shared trauma acknowledgment, without equivalence, could spark real dialogue. What gap do you see?

Though I am not fully subscribed to the internet school of ”just ignore the trolls”, I think they should all be countered once or twice before being added to a blocklist. That way other people see that those trolls are not welcome and that voices are being raised against them.

Also, Israel has nuclear weapons and the backing of the US, the EU, and Russia. That is enough to deter attacks. Further security guarantees are redundant, but sure, add them.

I agree that the system should be defeated, but I don't think purely diplomatic solutions will work. At least not ones that assumes Israel acts in good faith. Israel has shown that it will not respect international law, and Israeli opinion on Arabs is not just extreme in a small group of hardliners, it's widespread. In order to make a real change.

I believe Israel has to be brought to heel through boycotts, divestment, and sanctions. That is what tipped the scale with apartheid South Africa, that is most likely the best course of action here as well. Israel does what it wants, it is a self-interested bad faith actor. We need a powerful coalition of international actors to associate a cost with Israel's crimes. That's BDS.

The issue is that Israel has lobbied for anti-BDS laws in the US, making this more difficult. It's an uphill battle, which is also why a balanced discussion about Israeli concerns will not improve the situation. Israel is fighting a propaganda war. If we start debating things other than how to reform Israel, Israel wins. It can delay, confuse, and run interference against any actual discussion about the real problem: the ethnonationalist founding principles of Israel, the apartheid, the genocide, the imperial ambitions of Israel, the blatant disregard for international law and treaties.

I appreciate the discussion so far, but I think I've said everything I want to say. If you have any final thoughts, I'd be glad to hear them.

No hypotheticals from opponents come close, and that’s not up for debate. The power asymmetry is massive: nukes, US and EU support (Russia’s more pro-Palestinian, actually, with recent UN pushes for Palestinian statehood), and anti-BDS lobbying make good-faith diplomacy a tough sell without real pressure.

But let’s cut to the core: wrongdoing isn’t one-sided. You have to acknowledge that on the Palestinian side too: rocket attacks on civilians, suicide bombings, and October 7’s civilian massacres are wrongs that can’t be waved away as pure resistance. Both sides have blood on their hands, and denying that keeps the cycle spinning. In the end, it’s all just people: ordinary Palestinians crushed under occupation, and ordinary Israelis living in fear, both wanting safety for their families.

Put yourself in those Israeli shoes; surrounded by states and groups that have historically vowed your destruction, with no other viable homeland to flee to after centuries of global expulsions. You’d feel threatened too, right? That doesn’t excuse Israel’s aggressions, but it explains why zero empathy guarantees endless war.

BDS is a sharp tool; it broke South Africa’s back through isolation, and it could here: boycotts draining the economy, divestment from occupation profiteers, sanctions on war criminals. Ramp it up, build the coalition, associate real costs with the ethnonationalism and imperialism. But to make it stick, humanise the people enough to split internal hardliners from the weary majority open to secular change. Otherwise, you’re just fueling the propaganda you call out. Good talk.. it’s pushed me to think harder.

Nice work.

You're someone that has deepthroated the Israeli narrative, with no critical thinking whatsoever. I hope, for your own sake, you start to see more of the reality, as defending a violent regime like this can have an impact on ones soul, which will affect - if not already - other areas of your life.

The mere existence of a state per se is violent, and given that both Israel and Palestine insists on having mutually incompatible states over the same territory, there is no other option but endless bloodshed until both sides commit to a conciliatory settlement. Until that day, a day which may never come, since everyone is hellbent on egging their respective favored side on, things will simply continue as is until one or both sides are destroyed. Since Israel unquestionably has more power, it will likely survive. There is no morally unquestionable option, but I think anyone who has a stake in the livelihood of Palestinians would be interested in stopping the conflict as soon as possible and making a settlement, even an imperfect one. In such a quandry, the only ethical option is to remain open and curious, be willing to look at facts and evaluate claims instead of jumping to conclusions, and refrain from asserting an uncertain narrative as fact when there are competing narratives and counterexamples.

There you go. Even when you want to hide it, you can't.

The First thing that popped into my head, was

- is this a problem because of bloatware in general? Or…

- because its Israeli bloatware?

If the latter, I would understand your discomfort because of past security intrusions by Israeli companies.

But not if it’s just „IsRa-HeLl bAd“

And that's the difference I think; US and Israel have high trust, they are aligned in ideals and strategy and the like.

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone

I hate that I have to say this, but I'm a Jew and I'm not anti-Semitic in any way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_espionage_in_the_Unite...

Your claim that buildings are being destroyed because they were "booby trapped" comes from a partisan source (the Israeli Government/IDF), which is an active participant in this conflict. Their claims are a liability limiting exercise and it's in their best interests do downplay destruction they have caused.

Statements from a government at war regarding their own military conduct are basically a PR exercise unless they have been independently verified. Plus independent verification is quite hard, as the same partisan source has prevented independent media from gaining access into the strip which stops independent verification of both side's claims.

Do you have independent sources for the booby trapping other than IDF or news organisations repeating their press releases? Basically anything from international NGOs / neutral observers that confirm that houses are booby trapped to such a scale that it necessitates the flattening of entire residential blocks?

While you say it's trivial to find a house with no damage, that was not my point. My point was from viewing the drone footage - that's view covers entire suburbs - there is not one single intact building in all 3 separate videos.

But since you mentioned "recently satellite imagery", lets look at the actual data provided by experts who analyse it.

The United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT), released its Comprehensive Damage Assessment in late October 2025. So it's 3 weeks old. Completely fresh and up to date.

* It uses high-res imagery from as recent as 11 October 2025

* It tracks damage over time rather than just a before/after assessment

https://www.un.org/unispal/document/unosat-gaza-strip-damage...

Quoting the summary:

> According to satellite imagery analysis, as of 11 October 2025, approximately 81% of all structures in the Gaza Strip are damaged. Among the damaged structures, UNOSAT identified 123,464 destroyed structures, 17,116 severely damaged structures, 33,857 moderately damaged structures, and 23,836 possibly damaged structures for a total of 198,273 affected structures. Compared to the 8 July 2025 assessment, this corresponds to a 4% increase in total affected structures, and an 18% increase in destroyed structures, indicating worsening damage. An estimated 320,622 housing units have been damaged, 12% more than on 08 July 2025.

Their satellite analysis shows:

* 23,464 destroyed structures

* 17,116 severely damaged structures

* 33,857 moderately damaged structures

* 23,836 possibly damaged structures

* A total of 198,273 affected structures

It also shows the destruction of housing / infrastructure has been both systematic and continual over the past two years.

Having 81% of all structures damaged (and 320k housing units) puts extreme doubt to the claim that it is "just making it safe from booby traps".

Hamas members themselves have said they have trapped structures [1]. I don't think it is unreasonable that many buildings were trapped. There are also other causes of destruction, like bombing.

[1] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/videos/international/ham...

Let's say my phone gets $10 cheaper because of all this crap ware. If you have the aggregate of 1000 people that cost someone $10000. Is that really worth it? Is 100000 people worth $1000000? Is there some point at which the aggregate data becomes so valuable it overtakes the per-user cost?

That's what I mean - the marginal value of one person needs to be quite big for this whole thing to make sense.

> Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices as amended on 3 May 1996 (Protocol II to the 1980 CCW Convention as amended on 3 May 1996)

or some other document? IIRC for start it does not have article 18.

I am quite confused by your weird unusually formatted citation style.