alt Hacker NewsRemember that you can burn human intelligence but you can also burn technical capacity. Israel has shown itself willing to burn technical capacities to strike (see also: the pager attacks).
I would also submit that forcing Iranian traffic engineers to investigate their camera system is probably not a very high priority at Mossad. What is much more valuable is forcing other countries to change over their traffic control system to a new vendor that has been compromised by the Israelis. That is exactly how they achieved the pager compromise that they did— they fomented a crisis which forced adversaries to change their networks to a network that the Israelis controlled. This is more effective if it is not a bluff.
Finally, the intelligence that they describe is most easily explained by the capability that they burned. You cannot have a human intelligence source sit on a street corner like that 24 hours a day in a country like Iran without someone asking questions. You absolutely need someone sitting on that corner 24 hours a day in order to get the kinds of intelligence that they got. You simply cannot collect that with a human source. On the contrary, it is quite easy to imagine how that intelligence could be gathered given only a traffic camera.
One of the things I have wondered is why a country would not create an company or VC network from people (spy agents) who for all intents and purposes look like normal citizens of any other country (perhaps even in the enemy country itself) and then just have the Country siphon off some money into that VC to buy some companies.
The fact of the matter is that you can see an Israeli connection to VPN companies like express vpn, cyberghost vpn (the israeli billionaire who owns this has donated to IDF for context iirc)
This is what is happening in the front page. Why wouldn't a nation want to create a VC network which can buy large companies in security industry in neutral countries (germany,switzerland etc.)
People would be none the wiser if this actually happens and the head VC network considering that they can just buy security options and would be even able to sell them sometimes to even their enemy state themselves.
A part of me is worried talking about this idea might give states ideas. Another part of me believes is that this might already be happening.
For record, I am not against Venture capitalism for context, but the opportunity presented by it in the context of governments spending money secretly to buy security related companies in terms of a VC network to then have the same contract with foreign enemy company feels complicated but feels to me easy enough for a nation actor to pull.
This can also not be just a single VC but can be spread across many for example.
Are we certain that this might be what could've happened in this case, I suppose not but there might be a non zero chance.
And we are already discounting the fact that in the case of isreal, sometimes they don't even do this and have it be an israeli company itself. What if they might do it to present two options: say an israeli and a german option. But both options might be tampered (I am absolutely not saying this is the case but I am just presenting a mere hypothetical)
Given the absolute budget of governments for these things and the fact that Govt. hires people so much smarter than me. Surely they must have thought of this and if that's the case then if the plan is working as intended and its hidden and public doesn't know about it and if its hidden/public doesn't know about it, the plan is working as intended.
That being said, It wouldn't be wrong to say that this feels more like a conspiracy theory. I genuinely hope I am wrong tho but why would a govt. give up on such a massive thing
Once again, This is just a thought experiment and let's keep the discussion civil. I am not against Venture Capitalism.