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Posted by pera 2 hours ago

Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes(www.reuters.com)
127 points | 36 comments
Matl 32 minutes ago|
Last time I suggested on a similar story that there's a disproportionate number of firms in Israel with an explicit focus on subversion, manipulation, spying and malware, seemingly because a large portion of the Israeli population gain a certain expertise in these fields as part of serving in the IDF and working to suppress Palestinians, I got accused of bias because apparently there's many more Israeli startups working on medical research, green technology and world peace.

If there are, they certainly would do no harm in being more vocal, firms like BlackCore is unfortunately what Israel is becoming known for around the world.

r_lee 25 minutes ago||
there's not much controversy that would pull media attention in green tech or medical research
inglor 24 minutes ago|||
Israeli here - I'll try to write this the least political as I can since I on one hand disagree strongly with the government and on the other my experience has been getting antisemstic (yes, not anti-zionist) comments whenever this gets discussed a lot (and likely downvotes but who cares I've been here 10 years and have more fake points than is important anyway).

Israel has several "cores" of technology. The military stuff is shameful (as well as other stuff). It's not just the NSOs (or less infamously the Wiz's/Palo Altos etc).

There are plenty of good things though - startups in the biotech/health/classic "tech" space. I'll spare you the long list of stuff like Mellanox that drives Nvidias in data centers and leave the googling of medtech to you. Lots of neutral stuff too.

ai_fry_ur_brain 4 minutes ago|||
The Nazis did a ton of cutting edge research too.
HappyPanacea 13 minutes ago||
Remilk is an Israeli food-tech startup using yeasts to produce milk proteins. Frankly I find your comment rather odd, why should a startup be more loud because other people are biased? Diplomacy is the job of the state. We have innovative index on which Israel does well and large number of unicorn per capita.
WhatsName 26 minutes ago||
I predict that this will be flagged very soon. I would love for HN to publish some data on likes/flags, even anonymous IDs with some infos like account age and number of posts. Sure someome will argue things here get flagged cause they are political, but I don't buy that.
free652 10 minutes ago||
>Sure someome will argue things here get flagged cause they are political, but I don't buy that.

Are you saying that this isn't political? It's literally about politics. The comments section will be predictable and it will be flagged for that.

Do you disagree?

inglor 23 minutes ago||
We've had discussions about this sort of stuff before.

As an Israeli (note the article exposing them is Israeli too) I was not aware until I saw this and I definitely intend to protest/organize about this (though to be fair I've been protesting about other stuff in the past and the climate here sucks).

stuaxo 1 hour ago||
"Lecornu said the French government had asked Israel for explanations of BlackCore's actions, and also for help in trying to find out who may have been behind the smear campaign."

This is a very well executed bit of diplomacy.

Simon_O_Rourke 55 minutes ago|
Nonsense, it'll end up with merely some public head scratching and shrugs, and a "gee whiz monsieur, it sure is a mystery to us too".

Interesting that whatever they wanted to do backfired in NYC.

pera 29 minutes ago||
Here in Scotland it seems the desinfo campaign targeted mostly the SNP and Swinney. I guess it's hard to know how effective it was but his party lost 6 seats in last month's elections.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/26188090.john-swinney-ta...

abc123abc123 13 minutes ago||
Ahh... I see some cracks in the mirror, but the posts were tidied away. So, please dear people, the EU is a happy little family, and we're all friends. There are no burning cars or discontent here. Move along. We're all frieds! ;)
inglor 37 minutes ago||
As an Israeli this is shameful though I find it nowhere (company registry, news sites etc) locally so I wonder how they figured it out.

If anyone is from here and is up for protesting this hit me up at username @ gmail

(leaving any other politics I disagree with aside)

hibberl7 1 hour ago||
Brazilians up to their usual tricks!
mentalgear 7 minutes ago||
Another entry in the 'Black' villain line, along with BlackStone, BlackRock, BlackWater etc ... really makes you think the world is run by a thinly veiled cult of evil comic style villains.
zby 28 minutes ago||
I would love to hear from someone knowledgeable - is that bad for the company or good?
trolleski 27 minutes ago||
A shocker!
Zealotux 1 hour ago|
The israeli ambassador in France should already have been kicked out a while ago for a myriad of reasons, I'm ashamed my country is so spineless.
karmakurtisaani 33 minutes ago||
Europeans couldn't even get Israel out of a silly pop song contest, so it seems a bit hopeless to expect any actual political action.
bdidiend 50 minutes ago|||
[flagged]
weregiraffe 1 hour ago|||
[flagged]
Keyframe 1 hour ago||
You do realize French did administer Lebanon? All of those things led to that hot mess of a region.
youre-wrong3 1 hour ago||
[flagged]
defrost 1 hour ago|||

  As of September 2025, the State of Palestine is recognized as a sovereign state by 157 of the 193 member states of the United Nations (UN), or just over 81% of all UN members.
~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_P...

Hamas, not so much.

stuaxo 1 hour ago||||
Which countries ?
expedition32 1 hour ago|||
A Dutch commentator said something incredibly profound that stuck with me: Israel is a Middle Eastern country instead of an outpost of European civilization.
hibberl7 1 hour ago|||
How is this profound? Only the goofiest evangelical boomers nowadays are hanging onto comically misguided propaganda like this. The rest of us can't wait for boomers to get out of the way so we can put an end to their stranglehold on Western politicians and mainstream media while we inexplicably send billions of dollars their way for the privilege.
fakedang 1 hour ago|||
I wonder what makes Europeans think Israel is an outpost of European civilization - just the skin tone? Lol.

Israel has always been a country trying to coopt the culture of its Arab neighbors. They've tried to claim shawarmas, falafel and hummus, dishes that are quintessentially Arabic, as their own.

mschuster91 1 hour ago||
> Israel has always been a country trying to coopt the culture of its Arab neighbors. They've tried to claim shawarmas, falafel and hummus, dishes that are quintessentially Arabic, as their own.

That argument is just as much BS as the squabbles in the Balkans over who can claim Nikola Tesla, cevapcici, burek/börek, döner/gyros, pljeskavica and a whole other host of foods. Everyone got their own takes on food and trying to act like shawarma/falafel/hummus are "exclusively" Arabic (or Israeli) is borderline moronic.

ChrisMarshallNY 56 minutes ago||
Baklava is a fairly good example of a “regional, not cultural” food.

I have enjoyed Greek, Turkish, Lebanese, Moroccan, Afghan, and Iranian baklava.

Each culture puts its own stamp on the food.

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