
How the United Arab Emirates Intelligence Tried to Hire Me to Spy on Its People - evilsocket
https://www.evilsocket.net/2016/07/27/How-The-United-Arab-Emirates-Intelligence-Tried-to-Hire-me-to-Spy-on-its-People/#.V5kvSWj9f78.hackernews
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erlehmann_
It is not mentioned in the article, but the UAE is a country with sharia law:
Flogging is a punishment for criminal offences such as adultery, premarital
sex and alcohol consumption, while apostasy and homosexuality are crimes
punishable by death. Amputation and crucification are legal punishments.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_Ara...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_Arab_Emirates)

I wonder if the author is afraid of retribution (e.g. abduction,
“disappearance”).

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evilsocket
I didn't know that! ... anyway, yes I'm afraid, I just did what I felt to be
my "duty" and hope for the best :)

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erlehmann_
Just never – ever – visit UAE again.

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cup
I like the UAE.

As long as you don't break their laws the experience is fine. To be honest,
I'm more frightened of going to America as a non-white person where even
obeying the laws can result in death.

Edit: If you disagree with my post please add to the conversation rather than
just down-voting.

~~~
Olscore
Your comment shows the level of misinformation and reputation damage done by
media and various social movements. America is safe for all law-abiding
persons. Not only do I disagree with your comment, but I find it offensive
that you would propagate the myth. It's damaging and unsubstantiated.

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proksoup
> America is safe for all law-abiding persons

Your comment shows the level of misinformation and reputation damage done by
media and various social movements. Not only do I disagree with your comment,
but I find it offensive that you would propagate the myth. It's damaging and
unsubstantiated.

"why did you shoot me?" "I don't know" [1]

[1]
[https://mobile.twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/7566992798261...](https://mobile.twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/756699279826137088)

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Olscore
You going to base an entire argument on one example?

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oldmanjay
You are the one who said America is safe for _all_ law-abiding citizens. One
example invalidates your claim handily.

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Olscore
Then we can argue about the definition of safe, or the reasonable expectation
of safety. But it seems that Hacker News would rather point to one example
which apparently "invalidates" the claim "handily". What do you consider safe
then? If you are determined to argue based on one example; Do you not take a
risk starting a business? Do you not take a risk eating foods? Do you not take
a risk driving?

There are reasonable mistakes made in the course of living and of any action.
So if you want to exaggerate the claim of one (or even a few) examples to the
point of making it appear as an epidemic in America; then I will hold you to a
higher standard than the half-assed arguments that I see here. Many people
engaged with these narratives are grossly misrepresenting legitimate claims of
police brutality or racial discrimination. If you cannot be honest in debate,
then I would also not expect the same to be honest in any proposed solution.
Blatant misrepresentation by so many; it's disgusting.

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analog31
If we can argue about the definition of safe, then "America is safe" is
meaningless. Why don't you help us out by defining how you measure safety, and
"law abiding" for that matter. Is anybody in the US rigorously law-abiding?
Based on what evidence?

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hackaflocka
Little known fact:

Most top intelligence officials from Western countries retire to form
"security analysis and consulting" firms.

Rudy Giuliani has such a firm.
[http://www.giulianisecurity.com/index.php/us/](http://www.giulianisecurity.com/index.php/us/)

His former Police Chief has one.
[http://www.thekerikgroup.com/](http://www.thekerikgroup.com/)

Most former U.S. Secretaries of Homeland Security have one (each). Look up
[https://chertoffgroup.com/team.php](https://chertoffgroup.com/team.php)

Ever wondered what exactly they do? They help wealthy dictators and despots in
other countries monitor their populations, and crush dissent.

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nprescott
Puts me in mind of Moxie's experience in a similar incident with Mobily and
Saudi Arabia[1]

[1]: [https://moxie.org/blog/saudi-
surveillance/](https://moxie.org/blog/saudi-surveillance/)

~~~
evilsocket
to be honest, finding out that someone else disclosed something very similar
in the past has been a big contribution to my final decision to publish the
post.

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throwawayosiu1
I lived in UAE for 10 years.

All I can say is...it's not a "bad" place if:

1) you are working as a direct hire for any of the govt companies (Adnoc,
Etisalat, etc.).

2) if not, you are contracted directly by those companies

3) if you are on contract and your visa's sponsor is good (won't take your
passport on arrival, won't create issues when you need to leave, etc.)

4) If you keep your head down basically - go to work, come home, have fun -
Don't get involved in politics, using encrypted chatting applications, talking
about human rights or anything along those lines.

oh and there's definitely a lot of brain washing going on. Almost everyone
claims that it's the best place to be, discrimination ain't a thing (yes it
is), everyone's fair (nope) and so on...

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kejaed
Question: if "using encrypted chatting applications" is banned, can on use
iMessage?

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throwawayosiu1
I'm not too sure about iMessage (I was a kid when it first debuted in UAE).

But I do remember them having an outright ban on BBM (for about 3 days) till
Blackberry had a local datacenter (and I believe provided the govt access to
the messages - I am not sure about the details in parenthesis).

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xyzzy4
I'm pretty sure the UAE is obsessed with spying. Personal anecdote: I once
dated a girl who's the daughter of a high ranking official (while she was in
the US), and the government spied on her text messages and forced her to break
up with me. At least according to her.

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lawnchair_larry
Elaborate on "forced"

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xyzzy4
Someone from the UAE government, possibly a relative, met up with her with a
printout of all the conversations and then heavily pressured her to break up.

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x1798DE
@evilsocket FYI, the <pre> blocks on that page are really hard to read on
mobile because the line breaks are enforced, requiring left-right scrolling.
Seems like a blockquote would be a better choice here.

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evilsocket
that should be fixed now, thanks

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dredmorbius
NB: you've fixed the _styling_ (renders fairly reasonably on my 10" tablet)
but not the _markup_.

<pre> should be used for preformatted code blocks or similar.

When you're quoting something, the appropriate markup is a <blockuquote> tag
pair.

Most sane CSS should render _that_ reasonably, preferably simply by indenting
the content.

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evilsocket
i write posts in markdown, they're then "compiled" into html, I should fix the
software I'm using ... but as long as it works, for me it's ok, being it
styling or markup :)

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x1798DE
In markdown I think a blockquote is indicated by >, so:

> This is a quote

> it is rendered as a blockquote.

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qwertyuiop924
It looks like Britain's got competition for the dubious award of most
surveilled country.

But seriously, this is an absolutely despicable act on the part of the UAE.
And that fact that Tor's security has come into question of late just makes it
worse (not that Tor would help you with this sort of thing).

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return0
Look Dubai is all for the biggest and largest, so if they are getting serious
about surveillance, you can bet they ll want to boast about it.

Also of note is that dubai is ~85% immigrants, which i think it the object of
their surveillance.

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angry_octet
Heck no, it's the local nationals they care about:

The UAE's bizarre, political trial of 94 activists

[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/06/uae-
tri...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/06/uae-
trial-94-activists)

They seem to have everyone pretty cowed. They treat the guest workers like
dirt, but don't seem to be concerned about a slave revolt.

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chinathrow
Another brilliant example on why people should shun travelling to and most
notably _through_ these countries. The UAE is not a safe place to travel
through at all. As others have said, the laws are different.

People have been detained for reasons beyond imagination.

[https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-woman-faces-insult-charge-
unit...](https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-woman-faces-insult-charge-united-arab-
emirates-151700874.html)

[http://gulfnews.com/news/uae/general/jailed-and-fined-for-
no...](http://gulfnews.com/news/uae/general/jailed-and-fined-for-no-fault-of-
his-1.232118)

[http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/561528/British-plane-
spo...](http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/561528/British-plane-spotters-
arrested-prison-Dubai-UAE)

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DKnoll
That's interesting... DarkMatter LLC has an office here in Mississauga, ON,
CA. I kept wondering what the hell they do exactly. Their online presence is a
bit vague and ominous.

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evilsocket
now you know :)

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raulito123
It is really funny the article, you say you use signal to communicate which is
totally interceptable nowadays, you register using your real phone, so i could
trace you and intercept your real phone!. If you are a real top goverment
security guy NEVER use signal my friend. Seems you are newbie on the security
scene.

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evilsocket
I'm not really sure who you're talking to ... they asked me to use Signal,
honestly I didn't really care ...

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erlehmann_
Signal is bad for other reasons, too, like creating a lock-in effect and being
hostile to clients that remove the dependency on Google Play Services:
[http://news.dieweltistgarnichtso.net/posts/signal-lock-
in.ht...](http://news.dieweltistgarnichtso.net/posts/signal-lock-in.html)

~~~
whyever
You could also say that Signal is good because they realized the shortcomings
of federation and want to sign their binaries themselves.

~~~
erlehmann_
What would those shortcomings be? I think that networked software systems
should be forward-compatible, so that new features can be introduced without
breaking every existing client. Some programmers assert the only way to
innovate is by having everyone run the latest version of their software and
excluding competing implementations. You can see this phenomenon not only with
Signal, but also, for example, with systemd.

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whyever
> What would those shortcomings be?

Moxie wrote about it:

[https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-
moving/](https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/)

