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Posted by jcomp 15 hours ago

AdFection: Targeted ads turned into a pipeline for zero-click mercenary spyware(citizenlab.ca)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/oct/15/israeli-f...

https://www.theverge.com/tech/1011956/discover-tech-zero-cli...

384 points | 553 commentspage 7
karim79 11 hours ago|
Whenever I think of Israeli ad tech one company always springs to mind, which creates some of the worst garbage on the whole Internet.

https://www.taboola.com/

This crap is the worst of the worst.

Cider9986 7 hours ago||
Absolutely terrible companies. Another one is https://fingerprint.com/ but iirc they don't do ad targetting.
igleria 11 hours ago||
"uBlock Origin has prevented the following page from loading:"
ChrisArchitect 10 hours ago||
Title is: Online ads weaponised to deliver ‘zero-click’ spyware, researchers say

In fact, just update the url and title to the report:

How Discover-Tech Turned Targeted Ads Into a Pipeline for Zero-Click Mercenary Spyware

https://citizenlab.ca/research/how-discover-tech-turned-targ...

shevy-java 11 hours ago||
I don't see any ads, so ...
underlipton 12 hours ago||
Chance of sanctions?
edoceo 11 hours ago|
Zero
prettyblocks 10 hours ago||
NSO was sanctioned, so slightly higher than zero imo.
slowin 11 hours ago||
> Related work by the research group Confiant also suggests that Discover-Tech’s ads have been shown to users of the networks of government entities in Europe and the US, as well as the UN, Nato, the international criminal court and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Yet we don't sanction Israel nor hold them accountable in any way. Of course they're spying on members of the UN and ICC, of course. Israel is at war with the entire world right now, and my politicians continue to support them. Thankfully many people have woken up, but the situation is dire.

miohtama 11 hours ago||
Israel keeps being dick earns reputation.

Based on responses from roughly 46,700 people assessing 129 countries, Israel ranked as the most negatively perceived country worldwide, ahead of North Korea, Afghanistan, and Iran. The most positively viewed were Switzerland, Canada, Japan, Sweden, and Italy.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260513-israel-becomes-wo...

hersko 11 hours ago|||
We don't sanction Israel because we are doing it too. Any country with the same capabilities are doing the same thing.
slowin 10 hours ago||
We sanction plenty of other countries where we do the same thing we're sanctioning them for.
thomassmith65 11 hours ago|||
That conflates the state with a business headquartered in it. It begs the question of what the sanctions would be for: is the argument that this firm is an arm of Israel, that Israel turns a blind eye to abusive businesses, or something else?
newspaper1 11 hours ago||
Yes, obviously the state and this company are the same thing. Why would a private company spy on the ICC and the UN? I’m sure there are plenty of 8200 people involved.
thomassmith65 7 hours ago||
That would be the most likely explanation if we knew the ICC and UN were targets, which we do not:

  A Discover-Tech ad impression does not in and of itself confirm targeting or infection with spyware.
That's from the study itself: https://citizenlab.ca/research/how-discover-tech-turned-targ...
HappyPanacea 11 hours ago|||
> Israel is at war with the entire world right now

Israel is at war with Hamas, Iran and its proxies and allies.

buellerbueller 11 hours ago|||
...and the women and children of Gaza who happen to live with members of Hamas.
Ylpertnodi 11 hours ago|||
...and the rest of the world.
HappyPanacea 10 hours ago||
Please explain the state of war between Israel and Mongolia.
bigyabai 8 hours ago|||
IWI exports arms to Mongolia, so arguably they've picked a side.
HappyPanacea 7 hours ago||
That's not a state of war. So you have nothing to support the delusional claim that Israel is at war with the rest of the world as expected.
bigyabai 5 hours ago||
It's the pretenses for war. You asked for the state of war between Israel and Mongolia, and we answered.

In any case, Netanyahu's self-described "eighth front" is world-spanning and being (poorly) fought right now: https://www.timesofisrael.com/failing-on-the-8th-front-the-m...

Israel's engagement in worldwide information warfare is self-professed. You might not call it war, but Likud does.

newspaper1 7 hours ago|||
I would say Israel using Jeffery Epstein to infiltrate Mongolia is a good example:

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/jeffrey-epstein-ehud-barak-le...

buellerbueller 11 hours ago||
My Democratic Rep (who is a Zionist) voted with the Republican Party to financially sanction and impose visa restrictions on members of the International Criminal Court for issuing an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, so the ICC could hold Netanyahu for trial.

I will never vote for this particular (D) candidate again. Fortunately, the (L) candidate seems reasonable.

If indeed your representatives support Israel or the genocide in Gaza, I urge you to consider voting 3rd party. In two-party elections, candidates mostly just try to be a little better than their opponent. What forces them to do more isn’t a third party actually winning. It’s a real risk that enough fed-up voters will go third-party and cost them the election. This is basic game theory optimization.

_DeadFred_ 10 hours ago||
Hacker News sure loves to single out one specific country and blanket label. I remember when comments like those in this thread directed against Russia after the Ukraine war heated up were shut down by Dang. But blanket generalizations against Israel?

Dang's official position by the way https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48100358 let's see how this thread goes.

squidmaster 9 hours ago|
Criticism isn't evidence of persecution. If Israel wants to be criticized less, it should better itself.
_DeadFred_ 8 hours ago||
HN made a special carve out to the rules it had in place when russia/Ukraine escalated for IP discussions and changed moderating behavior from past conflict discussions.
squidmaster 7 hours ago||
If you're so concerned about Israel's reputation, focus less on Ukraine or Russia and turn your attention to what Israel is doing to earn that reputation.
_DeadFred_ 6 hours ago||
I'm actually more concerned about the styffling of speech around Ukraine Russia, but again, we were not allowed to discuss that here historically like we can IP due to IP topics special allowed speech carve out on HN.
squidmaster 5 hours ago||
No doubt.
kittikitti 5 hours ago||
Why would anyone trust any Israeli cybersecurity firm at this point? Any website or service knowingly utilizing their services is a huge risk. They're already deeply embedded in federal and local governments so there is a strong sense of doom.
fhdkweig 11 hours ago||
A later submission has more comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50103000 , 57 comments 1 hour ago
Barbing 9 hours ago||
Seems like the title was too spicy / people couldn’t behave, post rank obliterated https://news.social-protocols.org/stats?id=50103000

Hope we follow guidelines under this link or “then nobody gets it!”

miohtama 7 hours ago|||
What can we expect from the most unpopular country in the world:

Based on responses from roughly 46,700 people assessing 129 countries, X ranked as the most negatively perceived country worldwide, ahead of North Korea, Afghanistan, and Iran. The most positively viewed were Switzerland, Canada, Japan, Sweden, and Italy.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260513-israel-becomes-wo...

fhdkweig 7 hours ago|||
I'm of the belief that when that happens, it is state-sponsored bots messing with the voting. Sometimes when I make a comment on political matters, it gets waves of upvotes and downvotes.

  Thanks by the way for introducing me to that graph.  I didn't know that anyone collected that kind of stuff.
dang 5 hours ago||
Thanks - we'll merge them.
Osmasiki 6 hours ago||
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Osmasiki 6 hours ago|
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