
Government-grade spyware hits Mexican advocates of soda tax - srameshc
http://www.bendbulletin.com/nation/5063332-151/government-grade-spyware-hits-mexican-advocates-of-soda-tax
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colemannugent
_> [NSO Group] claims to sell its spyware only to law enforcement agencies to
track terrorists, criminals and drug lords_

 _> An NSO spokesman reiterated those restrictions in a statement Thursday,
and said the company had no knowledge of the tracking of health researchers
and advocates inside Mexico_

 _> NSO executives point to technical safeguards that prevent clients from
sharing its spy tools._

Of the above only two can be true. My bet is they sell to anyone who can pay.

~~~
Someone1234
Governments often classify protest groups as "terrorists."

The UK government has spent millions investigating non-violent environmental
groups for one example, using anti-terrorism funds, teams, and laws to do so.

Companies asking the government to squish protestors is also extremely common
all around the world. I mean in the US right now we have oil pipelines which
primarily benefit private companies getting built by the Army Corps of
Engineers using public money and protesters harassed & beaten by police. All
to reduce an oil company's costs and/or increase their profit margins.

~~~
toomanybeersies
Isn't the land simply the property of the Army Corps of Engineers, and it's
being built by a private company?

The USACE is a weird organisation. It's part of the US army, but almost
exclusively does domestic civil engineering and public works.

~~~
omegaworks
The land was illegally annexed by the government. The Sioux signed a treaty
that was broken by the US, were offered money in compensation for the land,
which they refused. That land abuts the reservation's surface water sources.
Without it they have no water security, an asset they consider priceless.

The ownership remains contentious.

~~~
malandrew
That land was stolen from the Arikara/Sahnish by the Sioux using guns and
horses acquired from trading with Europeans. The descendants of the
Arikara/Sahnish now live on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.

The venue to resolve this dispute was in the courts and the timevto do it was
Years and decades before there was a project planned for that land. However,
if we're really going to go down this absurd path, let's take the entire
Standing Rock reservation away from the Sioux and hand it over to the
Arikara/Sahnish.

~~~
crumpled
I find that history interesting.

What absurd path? I honestly don't understand what you are getting at.

~~~
malandrew
The absurd path of the court of public opinion and a cultural marxist framed
discussion of the "oppressed vs oppressors". Protesting on land that is
currently recognized as private land is depriving its owners of its use. If
the ownership is in dispute, the venue to resolve that dispute is in the
courts. Literally no one cared about the land until a pipeline was going to be
placed on it.

FWIW, my original source for this information is a friend who is 1/4 Sioux and
thinks the protest is absurd. I've fact checked his claim. The Sioux only
occupied the land east of the Missouri river in pre-contact America. The
Arikara/Sahnish were agrarian people driven off their land by the Sioux.

~~~
omegaworks
The problem with going to court is precedent. The Sioux don't want the court
to rule in favor of the government. That would set precedent about the
government's ability to force the exchange of native land for fiat currency.

The problem is that in the west private ownership carries with it a right to
destroy. If the army corps wanted to build a wind farm on the plot, there
wouldn't be a problem. They want to build an oil pipeline over the water
supply.

If a disaster were to occur, there is court precedent for abdicating the
company of any responsibility for cleanup.[0] The present administration's
Indian Affairs appointee wants to preserve this privatization agenda at all
costs[1], so there's even less likely recourse if damages should occur.

0\.
[http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-06-28/india...](http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-06-28/india/32456094_1_ucil-
union-carbide-india-ucc)

1\. [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-tribes-
insight-i...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-tribes-insight-
idUSKBN13U1B1)

------
Reason077
Seems like "Big Sugar" is increasingly behaving like the new "Big Tobacco" as
they gear up to fight against regulation and taxation.

~~~
calibas
The sugar industry has been doing this for about as long as the tobacco
industry. They've been using their influence to poison nutrition science for
decades and steer modern dental practices.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-
in...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-
shifted-blame-to-fat.html)

[http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jou...](http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001798)

~~~
dmix
Big Oil has done this in the past too. I remember reading 'Private Empire'
about ExxonMobil and the previous CEO was funding all of these PHD researchers
to challenge climate science research in the early 2000s. They were quite
successful at it too.

Fortunately when Rex Tillerson (current Secretary of State), who was trained
as an engineer, took over ExxonMobil he stopped the company from taking a
climate denial position and took some minor steps to reverse that position,
such as investing in some green tech companies. This was largely due to the
fact they got a bad name from doing it and they otherwise had a very rigid
clean cut image. So it's important to call these companies out when they do
it. Despite what people think corporations _do_ respond to bad press.

Especially companies run by engineers and scientists, they can be persuaded to
stop being anti-science. Now if only we could get more STEM people into
politics on the right... One thing lawyers aren't known for is an affinity for
numbers and science.

------
canistr
Here is the original report from Citizen Lab:

[https://citizenlab.org/2017/02/bittersweet-nso-mexico-
spywar...](https://citizenlab.org/2017/02/bittersweet-nso-mexico-spyware/)

------
thinkcontext
Using the software in a way that reveals its use seems ham-handed, perhaps its
not a sophisticated actor using it in this instance.

But that is in some ways even more disturbing. It shows the capability is so
available that even the unsophisticated are able to use it.

~~~
coldtea
> _Using the software in a way that reveals its use seems ham-handed, perhaps
> its not a sophisticated actor using it in this instance._

Or the message they want to pass is "we're tracking you", and that's more
powerful than anything to get from actual tracking.

------
mi100hael
_> The soda industry has poured over $67 million into defeating state and
local efforts to regulate soft drink sales in the United States since 2009,
according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest._

Why don't these companies just pivot harder towards diet sodas? Seems like a
win-win.

~~~
adanto6840
Personally, I'd really prefer to not pay inflated costs for soda, should I
choose to consume it.

I am however completely and 100% fine with paying a higher i.e. health
insurance premium due to my soda drinking habit (or any other habit that
causes my health risk to be higher).

I'm just not a big fan of 'sin taxes' \-- though I could be persuaded if they
were actually put to use in the same way that the health insurance/risk
concept would be; I'm just not convinced that's actually what would happen in
the long or short term.

~~~
cantankerous
I agree with the idea that sin taxation is stupid in the sense that there's a
moral component involved. The tax in this case is essentially an indulgence.
That said, I see a benefit in taxing soda and cigarettes in particular because
they impose a substantial externalized cost on society that isn't reflected in
their price. With smoking its lost productivity for smoking, sickness,
secondhand smoke, etc. With soda its increased diabetes, weight, secondary
issues (joints, etc.).

I do love me some regular Dr. Pepper, but it's so bad for me I rarely drink it
any more. (Admission: I still drink diet soda. I had to acquire the taste.)

~~~
anigbrowl
Please pardon me nitpicking on one phrase from your comment - it's not
directed at you but at the discourse that often ensues when selective taxation
is discussed. There was a soda tax on the ballot where I live last election
season and I got more junk mail opposing it than _all the other political
mailers put together_ \- completely wasted as it passed anyway :)

I absolutely reject the notion that tax on soda or other potentially-addictive
substances are a punishment of the consumer for poor moral choices. Making
sugar expensive is simply an effective strategy to lower consumption by
shifting the equilibrium point for consumer purchases.

We have a family friend that's disabled, she's an adult but only able to read
around a 4th grade level. She's seen her grandmother die of diabetes, her mom
has it too and the friend herself is fat. But notwithstanding the healthy food
we give her when she visits or stays with us, and no matter how many times we
remind her about how to choose between different kinds of food, if she goes
into a store on her own and has money she's more likely than not to buy 2
quart bottles of soda and drink one of them immediately.

It's really hard for some people, especially kids, to resist getting jacked up
on sugar. The younger they do so the more likely they are to develop lifelong
eating habits that are going to give them painful and expensive medical
problems and send them into an early grave. There's no moral component
involved at the consumption end for me because many people are just not smart
enough to carry around the idea of healthy eating and to choose it over the
marketing signals that surround them. The younger they get exposed to an
addictive substance, the more difficulty they're likely to have resisting the
temptation to consume it.

I am utterly indifferent to the economic situation of shareholders in the crap
food industry. They don't have a right to make money out of people; it's
usually _the suppliers_ who make the moral argument about consumers needing to
make healthy choices and tax being a horrible punishment. That's just an
attempt to shift the entire burden of responsibility onto consumers at the
same time that the suppliers are spending a fortune on marketing to kids.
Frankly most of the drug dealers I've met in my life had more of a moral
center than the professional lobbying and marketing people I've known.

~~~
tomjen3
While that is pretty sad, it is also an extreme case and it sounds like she
either needs a caretaker or she needs a better caretaker; I would say the same
thing about children: they are the parents responsibility.

And whether you reject the notion the fact of the matter is that it is still
going to punish every responsible person with a new tax that will go into the
general government coffers.

~~~
anigbrowl
It's not an extreme case; it only seems so because this person is disabled and
it's surprising to discover that this superficially adult person has the mind
of a 9-year old. I'm using that to draw attention to the fact that kids often
make terrible decisions, and there are a lot of 9-year olds buying a lot of
soda whose future negative health outcomes are easy to overlook because
marketing has trained people to associate soda with healthy people having fun.

 _I would say the same thing about children: they are the parents
responsibility._

I know you would, and I think your reasoning is foolish. Many parents are
clearly not responsible, either from indifference or ignorance. I am fine with
government acting _in loco parentis_ in a very narrow way (even for adults)
because the negative health outcomes and their associated costs are
predictable and lowering those costs has demonstrable overall utility.
Available information shows this policy to function better than waiting for
people to get a responsibility transplant and just shrugging our shoulders
about kids who end up suffering because of their parents' poor guardianship.

How are you being 'punished' if your soda costs $0.50 more? When I smoked
cigarettes I didn't feel punished by their continually-rising cost. I'd rather
pay for something with a large negative externality at the point of purchase
than in the form of income tax, since it's likely to be more efficient. The
Coase theorem tells us that aside from transactional friction, it is no more
expensive to pay up front than later, and in its role of insurer of last
resort the public interest is best served by minimizing the predictable scope
of the problem.

The fact that revenue ends up in the general fund is irrelevant; the objective
is to _reduce consumption_ , and soda taxes have been demonstrated to be
effective in that goal. In case you're not familiar with the geography,
Berkeley and San Francisco are only about 20 minutes apart by subway and
travel between them for work or leisure is very common.

[http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2016.3...](http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303362)

------
ryandrake
What the heck is "government-grade" spyware? 3X the cost but doesn't work?

~~~
halestock
I would assume they're referring to spyware that's sophisticated enough that
it was likely state-sponsored, a la stuxnet, as states usually are the only
entities with the resources to develop spyware of that level.

~~~
trafficlight
I don't buy that for a minute. There are so many amazing developers out there
who could absolutely do this independently.

~~~
Z1nfandel
Capable of writing the code, yes I agree there are others out there more than
capable. But part of what makes stuxnet and others of its kind limited to
Govt. sponsored is the amount of funding required to do the research to write
the code. Very few malware developers are going to go purchase a Siemens
nuclear refining centrifuge (plus controlling equipment) so they may reverse
engineer it and figure out how to break it. Someone had to buy one, then
realize if you stop it suddenly enough times it will break.

~~~
shimon_e
What kind of features are included in government sponsored spyware vs the
regular kind?

~~~
tpinckard
One or more Zero-Day exploits

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ourmandave
"Government-grade spyware" reminded me of the deleted scene from Napoleon
Dynamite.

"Do you want to die Napoleon?"

"Yeah right. Whose the only one here who knows illegal ninja moves from the
government."

[https://youtu.be/IdAZJNEYuEs?t=20s](https://youtu.be/IdAZJNEYuEs?t=20s)

------
cantankerous
I wonder if somebody with a bone to pick with a soda tax works in a bureau
that has access to this weaponized malware. Seems like the most plausible case
to me.

~~~
a3n
More plausible to me is that someone in the Sugar Industrial Complex bribed
someone in a bureau that has access to this malware.

