Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/25/microsoft-blocks-israels-use-of-its-technology-in-mass-surveillance-of-palestinians

by helsinkiandrew • 10 months ago

873 535 10 months ago

theguardian.com

srameshc• 10 months ago

Microsoft told Israeli officials late last week that Unit 8200, the military’s elite spy agency, had violated the company’s terms of service by storing the vast trove of surveillance data in its Azure cloud platform

You can spy but data is all mine.

sionisrecur• 10 months ago

What's the protocol when a client stores data that violates their terms of service? Delete it immediately? Retain it until the client can retrieve a backup? Deny access until they sign a new contract?

IlikeKitties3• 10 months ago

I suspect that really depends on the content. What does Microsoft do when it's CSAM? They can't legally posses it but can't legally delete it because that would be destroying evidence. I'm sure there's a process.

Cenk• 10 months ago

11,500 terabytes of Israeli military data – equivalent to approximately 200m hours of audio – was held in Microsoft’s Azure servers in the Netherlands

Aeolun3• 10 months ago

It bothers me more that it was held in the Netherlands than that it was held on Azure servers.

It’s a fucking disgrace to any government to be facilitating anything like this, and the Netherlands seems extra complicit.

dh20222• 10 months ago

What makes you think Netherlands government knows what data resides within its borders?

bilekas• 10 months ago

But why do you think the Netherlands govt was in anyway involved in this? I host some bsremetal in the Netherlands but I don't need to report to the government what I store..

dh20222• 10 months ago

I wonder why IDC choose the Netherlands location. Microsoft has one Azure region in Israel itself: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/reliability/regions-...

honeycrispy• 10 months ago

Safer from ballistics

smileybarry• 10 months ago

The Israel Azure region wasn't launched until 2023, and AFAIK has substantially less services available than the others. I know Google's Israel region doesn't have as many GPU options, for example.

AlfredBarnes2• 10 months ago

Why build something near or semi near conflict?

warrenmiller• 10 months ago

might have something to do with the Netherlands being a large investor in Israel. the largest in the EU. It's responsible for two-thirds of EU investment in Israel. https://www.somo.nl/economic-sanctions-eu-is-israel-largest-...

ballenf• 10 months ago

How much would the bill be for this?

tiahura• 10 months ago

A little more surveillance might have prevented Oct 7.

n1b0m3• 10 months ago

A lack of surveillance wasn’t the problem. It was not believing the intelligence.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/28/israeli-milita...

mrits• 10 months ago

Such a Monday quarterback's perspective. There is always plenty of intelligence to suggest there will be an attack

nemomarx• 10 months ago

Not moving troops and police away from the border might have prevented Oct 7th. I think they were more focused on the West Bank at the time.

emsign• 10 months ago

Or following up the reports of suspicious behavior in Gaza by your own IDF border troops days before the terror attack.

fph• 10 months ago

Ah, yes, the classic argument: we must ramp up surveillance because it is the only way to stop pedophiles, terrorists, and pirates.

buyucu6• 10 months ago

Egyptian intelligence informed Israel before October 7. Israel chose to let it happen anyway: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67082047

Israeli government wanted October 7 to happen, because they knew it would provide a good pretext for the genocide they wanted to commit.

codeulike• 10 months ago

“I want to note our appreciation for the reporting of the Guardian,” [Microsoft’s vice-chair and president, Brad Smith] wrote, noting that it had brought to light “information we could not access in light of our customer privacy commitments”. He added: “Our review is ongoing.”

Its interesting that they seem to be saying they dont know the full details of how their customers are using Azure, due to privacy commitments.

AnonymousPlanet• 10 months ago

It could also mean "now that someone else has seen it, we can finally act on what we have only privately seen but couldn't admit seeing"

scuff3d3• 10 months ago

More likely MS was well aware of what was going on and didn't care until the Guardian forced their hand.

williamdclt• 10 months ago

I don't know if it's _true_, but it seems right? I don't want Microsoft to have this level of visibility into my usage of Azure, just like I don't want my phone provider to eavesdrop on my conversations. I'm no privacy ayatollah, but this seems like a reasonable amount of privacy from Microsoft

ngcazz• 10 months ago

Well, the average org isn't out there literally committing genocide

madaxe_again3• 10 months ago

Privacy ayatollah? Is that like an infosec shah?

Etheryte• 10 months ago

The whole point of confidential computing is that the cloud provider can't access your data and can't tell what you're doing with it. This is a must have requirement in many government contracts and other highly legislated fields.

IlikeKitties3• 10 months ago

I've personally never seen anything requiring confidential computing in anything. Is this required in the USA? I find that hard to believe, because the technology on a cloud level is still very beta-feeling. I think that Microsoft just never looked because they did not want to know.

StanislavPetrov2• 10 months ago

What country does this "confidential computing" exist in, and how can I get there?

braiamp• 10 months ago

That comment is... weird, considering they disabled the accounts of certain International Court of Justice that were individually targeted.

lazide5• 10 months ago

The reality is that no one can tell whose ass it is safe to kiss now a days, so it’s all scandal driven actions. Unless someone can create a big enough scandal, no one is going to do squat.

covercash2• 10 months ago

Weird, pretty sure employees brought this to their attention a few times already…

https://apnews.com/article/microsoft-azure-gaza-palestine-is...

https://apnews.com/article/microsoft-azure-gaza-israel-prote...

https://apnews.com/article/microsoft-build-israel-gaza-prote...

https://apnews.com/article/microsoft-protest-employees-fired...

cl0ckt0wer• 10 months ago

If they act on information their employees report, they are violating their commitments.

zamadatix• 10 months ago

Can anyone help clean up these sources/verify?

The first one seems to be after Microsoft's claim "and Microsoft has said it is reviewing a report in a British newspaper this month that Israel has used it to facilitate attacks on Palestinian targets".

The second one looks similar "Microsoft late last week said it was tapping a law firm to investigate allegations reported by British newspaper The Guardian".

The 3rd one seems to be a genuine example that Microsoft employees were reporting this specific contract violation concern - but I feel like there are more genuine examples I've heard of than just this one report.

The 4th one is a bit unclear, it seems to be a general complaint about the contract - not about specific violations of it.

Perhaps the more confounding question remaining is "what was so different about the report from The Guardian". It's not like these kinds of claims are new, or in small papers only, but maybe The Guardian was able to put together hard evidence from outside that allowed Microsoft to determine things without themselves going in breach of contract details?

duxup6• 10 months ago

I actually think understanding exactly how your customers do a thing is not an easy thing to be 100% sure of.

I've had sales, customer reps, even engineers and customers describe how a customer / they work ... and then I go and look and ... it's not how anyone said they work IRL.

kevin_thibedeau• 10 months ago

They should ask their Chinese engineers in charge of sensitive Azure servers.

filoleg• 10 months ago

That’s the best part, they cannot. Well, they technically can, but the answer from the company that runs chinese azure servers is gonna be “none of your business.”

slt2021• 10 months ago

JIDF and Unit 8200 have infiltrated a lot of US tech companies.

This is a very significant issue for American tech companies, they either need to restore the trust of global customers, or they will lose it completely.

nashashmi4• 10 months ago

What is interesting is they gave some privacy while others they strip away.

buyucu6• 10 months ago

A small step, mostly for PR I guess, but still better than nothing.

There should be no tech for genocide!

hdlothia• 10 months ago

Kinda bullish for azure that the idf chose it over aws

igleria• 10 months ago

Not sure about that. To many companies or individuals, it might make them choose another provider. Unless... they already are Azure customers, in which case they might probably want to avoid the cost of moving from a cloud provider

tasn• 10 months ago

Israel (like many governments) is very Microsoft Windows centric, so if I had to guess it wasn't chosen due to technical merits but instead based on existing business relationships.

Note: I've used Azure and it sucks. :)

dmix4• 10 months ago

Azure’s web app for managing servers is a nightmare

Uses the same awful UI/plaform as their Xbox account settings

Microsoft always somehow succeeds in spite of the quality of everything they build.

NooneAtAll3• 10 months ago

why would that imply bullying?

madaxe_again3• 10 months ago

Bullish, as in, not bearish.

asadm• 10 months ago

meh more of a bearish signal. evil using shitty evil tech.

_blk• 10 months ago

Seems to be fairly equivalent to ABC pulling Kimmel and reinstating it a few days later.

aaomidi• 10 months ago

After they fired how many protestors?

pbiggar• 10 months ago

There was an interesting point in the earlier article on this, where Microsoft tried to push their Israeli employees under a bus. They claimed their Israeli employees had lied to them about the use of Azure for war and civilian harm because they held more allegiance to their army than to Microsoft.

Now obviously, this was a lie, but the implication is staggering: Microsoft can't trust it's own employees in Israel, and believes they're lying to the mothership! And if microsoft can't trust them, surely no one else should either!

hashim33• 10 months ago

Unrelated, I knew I recognised that name, thank you for everything you do, I've made a few commits to T4P myself in the last few months and can't imagine the regular work that must go into it.

jajuuka4• 10 months ago

Wow, they actually are pulling back. That is really surprising. Wonder if they see the winds changing on this issue and want to get on the right side of history. Big props to everyone at Microsoft who spoke out about this and risked or lost their jobs because of it. They kept that fire lit on their ass.

slantedview• 10 months ago

Last week a UN human rights commission found that Israel is carrying out a genocide. I think you're right that the winds have changed and now companies will shift their positions.

rhetocj23• 10 months ago

Sentiment toward Israel outside of USA has changed.

The leaders of the developed nations of Europe have gone against Trump and publicly stated their recognition of Palestine.

some-guy• 10 months ago

It has changed quite a bit here in the US too, even among the Jewish population. Our synagogue is very divided on this, mainly between the young and the old.

DSingularity4• 10 months ago

Politics is weird. With the Biden administration there was lots of lip service given in opposition to the slaughter in Gaza while at the same time they were shipping unprecedented amounts of weapons to the IDF.

Now with Trump they state that they have max support for Israel while it seems like all of Europe is turning away from unconditional support for Israel and a massive change in the typical rhetoric around media in the US. That’s odd.

dmix4• 10 months ago

The article says they are continuing to work with IDF. It’s the spy agency who crossed a line.

leosussan• 10 months ago

Honestly, respect to the big M.

moogly2• 10 months ago

No one left to surveil, I guess.

underdeserver• 10 months ago

Estimates of deaths are around 60,000, of a 2 million strong population.

moogly2• 10 months ago

I could write things here about those officially reported deaths (not estimates, which are much higher, but no one really knows and very likely never will), or the internal diaplacement, but since there might be at least 1 Palestinian still alive digging in the rubble somewhere, literalists like you would still feel the need to overcorrect.

I thought the defeated tone of my post made it clear that it was not meant to be taken that literally. I guess not.

Hikikomori5• 10 months ago

That's about the latest number from Gaza health ministry that stopped counting well over a year ago as Israel had destroyed all but one hospital. It doesn't even count the people left in rubble from destroying 80% of all buildings.

hashim33• 10 months ago

If you think that figure is remotely accurate despite the fact Israel has decimated all hospitals, leveled entire areas, wiped out entire families and is starving those that are still alive to do the counting, you're being naive, and that's a generous interpretation. Once Israel finally allow the UN in, that figure is going up by a factor of at least 2 or 3. The true cost of most genocides are only counted years after it's over, when it's too late.

AtlasBarfed4• 10 months ago

So... 1/10th of the civilian deaths in the Iraq war?

aa-jv3• 10 months ago

Confirmed deaths are in the 60,000's.

Estimated deaths are in the 300,000's.

The international community must be allowed into Gaza to start counting skeletons.

oefrha• 10 months ago

Military spy agency involved in ongoing war stores 11.5PB of data, Microsoft commissioned external review founds no evidence that military spy agency is using said data to target and harm people, only to backtrack after media breaking more project details? Come the fuck on. What’s the point of these performative external reviews? Just thugs hired to say whatever their customer wants them to say.

sharpshadow• 10 months ago

It would be only just if the Palestinians would get their own state after this.

barbazoo• 10 months ago

And their own datacenter!

lupusreal5• 10 months ago

Right of return for all Palestinians and their descendants, worldwide.

vkou2• 10 months ago

Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, here, that would have the stench of colonialism about it.

It's not their land to 'return to' - after all, people already live there and they have no moral right to displace them.

nailer• 10 months ago

Also for the 850K middle eastern Jews that were kicked out of their countries by arabs?

bhouston5• 10 months ago

It would be only just if the Palestinians would get their own state after this.

This seems off topic. I will flag it.

bhouston5• 10 months ago

Good on Microsoft! This is really amazing.

baobun• 10 months ago

All: Please actually read the article before posting conclusions based on the headline or a quick skim. Most of this thread is confused.

throwaway314155• 10 months ago

This is off-topic, but I'd like to hijack your comment to remind everyone that your comment is _technically_ against the rules. I hope this particular example reveals that the rule against "RTFA" is misguided and should be changed or removed because it creates a culture where people are deliberately misinformed seeking only a summary in the comment section (if that) and some kind of hot take to fume about.

notmyjob3• 10 months ago

I agree but there are some dodgy links that make it through and a good way to lower risk is being hesitant to click random links, or at least not being the first person to do so.

hashim33• 10 months ago

Articles should probably come with a similar delay that comment replies do, to prevent comments in the first few minutes after it's posted.

lupusreal5• 10 months ago

Wow! This is fantastic news, I wouldn't have bet on Microsoft ever doing something like this. I pray it's just the start and other American companies start to do the same.

politelemon• 10 months ago

I am seeing several kneejerk "Microsoft bad" reactions here, which HNers don't do for many other companies. I encourage many of you to read what is written.

They listened to their internal staff and stakeholders and public pressure, and did terminated the contract instead of ignoring it or doubling down.

That is a good thing.

n1b0m3• 10 months ago

They fired staff who protested against the firm’s ties to the IDF.

sugarpimpdorsey5• 10 months ago

That's a funny way to say "they fired staff that vandalized company property, broke into the CEO's office, and used an internal company website to publish and promote anti-company propaganda".

That will get you fired from bussing tables or washing dishes, let alone a six-figure job at MS.

Edit: Source on the last one; the first two were widely reported on in media:

https://lunduke.substack.com/p/fired-microsoft-employee-enco...

duxup6• 10 months ago

I think how you protest matters.

I can agree with protestors, also think their choices are bad.

catlover76• 10 months ago

I am deeply opposed to the Israeli military, and sympathetic to the cause of the employees, but as the other poster pointed out, they were legitimately fired.

Moreover, their actions didn't improve anything and only serve as further fodder for painting their side here as radical.

evolve2k• 10 months ago

Yes it’s a good thing AND we don’t need to be celebrating companies when they finally do the bare minimum.

Nobody with any semblance of ethical, just or just plain being a basic good corporate citizen would say.. oh yeah mass surveillance of the comms of a whole population for money is in any way acceptable or ok. This shouldn’t be a tech side note this should be a total meltdown front page scandal. What a disgusting abuse of power by all involved.

bhouston5• 10 months ago

Yes it’s a good thing AND we don’t need to be celebrating companies when they finally do the bare minimum.

I think we should give props here. This is an important step forward. Thank you Microsoft!

I think we should protest when companies do things that are wrong and we should give them kudos when they make good moves. Carrot and stick.

I am not fans of those that say because you did wrong things in the past, I will never recognize when you change and make good moves.

I want to encourage more companies to correct their involvement in this.

hashim33• 10 months ago

I disagree that we shouldn't give them their props when companies finally give in, because most are still not doing that (see Project Nimbus). The problem here is that we don't even know they have done the bare minimum yet, since this is only one contract and to my knowledge they have several, including still actively working with the IDF.

nashashmi4• 10 months ago

The Guardian last month reported a meeting between Microsoft CEO and Unit 8200. That means this comes from high level and they did not cancel because of protestors but because of media publicity.

t-writescode• 10 months ago

Did the protestors help the media publicity?

platevoltage2• 10 months ago

Isn't media publicity the entire point of peaceful protest?

pmontra• 10 months ago

I guess that one needs some help to transfer "swiftly" 8000 Terabytes of data. At 1 Terabit per second it would take about 18 hours.

  8000*8 Tb / 60s / 60 / 24 = .740740...
  24 h *.740 = 17.76 h

But is 1 Tb/s a thing?

I think this has been another case of "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway" (Andrew Tanenbaum, 1981). Maybe rack units of disks? For very important data I would pay for the privilege of removing my disks at a very short notice.

https://what-if.xkcd.com/31/

yieldcrv• 10 months ago

or it means that they met with Unit 8200 to see if there was common ground that would rationalize keeping the contract and their tech being used for a way that respected human rights, dignity, and a coherent strategy to getting to that place,

and there wasn't

righthand• 10 months ago

did terminated the contract instead of ignoring it or doubling down

This was after they ignored it and doubled down for almost 3 years*. What was the total gain in profits and how many Palestinians died during that time? You’re going to ignore the full cost because they did the least they could do almost 3 years later?

* if the starting line is set to October 2022 attacks, if not how long were they making money off this contract?

selimthegrim• 10 months ago

October 2023

mock-possum• 10 months ago

M$ is bad, just not cause of this

jimbo808• 10 months ago

I mean, they have thoroughly soiled their reputation with the US tech workforce by being the most egregious abusers of the H1B program.

WhereIsTheTruth• 10 months ago

Will Microsoft rehire the employees who were fired for protesting?

No? Hmm, then you should not let Microsoft whitewash its record by taking credit for the very cause those workers were punished for defending

JumpCrisscross9• 10 months ago

Will Microsoft rehire the employees who were fired for protesting?

One can be correct in theory and wrong in practice at the same time.

thisislife23• 10 months ago

The project began after a meeting in 2021 between Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, and the unit’s then commander, Yossi Sariel ... In response to the investigation, Microsoft ordered an urgent external inquiry to review its relationship with Unit 8200. Its initial findings have now led the company to cancel the unit’s access to some of its cloud storage and AI services.

"Some" ... Microsoft's chief executive was involved in cementing a collaboration for a secret military / intelligence project with an AI component, to spy on people against whom a genocide is ongoing by their colonial occupiers. This only "ended" when the public became aware of it, for political and (possibly) legal reasons, clearly indicating that they would have continued with "business as usual" if the public hadn't become aware of it. What other Israeli projects are Microsoft hiding and supporting, that possibly aids Israel's genocide, is what concerns me ...

gruez• 10 months ago

to spy on people against whom a genocide is ongoing by their colonial occupiers

To be fair in 2021 you'd be laughed out of the room (or be in a DSA conference) if you called what was happening in Palestine a "genocide".

hashim33• 10 months ago

What concerns me is that Project Nimbus is a public project that is still actively being enabled by Google and Amazon. Secret projects are one thing, but largely meaningless, because companies, people and governments have shown they don't even care when they're in the open.

ilt• 10 months ago

It has come a tad too late to be called a good thing.

BrenBarn4• 10 months ago

The problem is that if you're very very bad, you can do a good thing and still be very bad.

hashim33• 10 months ago

What other reasons are Microsoft very very bad? Genuinely curious about what your definition of "very, very bad" is and whether it aligns with mine.

ahf8Aithaex7Nai4• 10 months ago

That's a very dishonest framing. The article contains some not particularly subtle relativizations in various places, e.g., “ability to use SOME of its technology,” which make it clear that Microsoft is not reacting decisively here in any way, but is trying to muddle through somehow and make a few publicly visible concessions.

Furthermore, why do you think the reactions are knee-jerk? That implies a rather biased attitude on your part.

tmtvl• 10 months ago

If we tally up all the good things Microsoft did and weighed them to some of the bad things, it'd be like weighing a few grains of sand versus Mount Olympus.

bArray3• 10 months ago

The issue that people have with Israel's actions is the death of civilians, not the death of Hamas, the widely recognised terrorist. I believe it also to be true that the IDF do not want to kill civilians, and that their target is only Hamas.

In which case, is it prudent to remove the IDF's ability to successfully target the correct people? Precise military intelligence is absolutely necessary for minimising civilian casualties.

roughly2• 10 months ago

I believe it also to be true that the IDF do not want to kill civilians, and that their target is only Hamas.

I think it’s this second assertion that relies on facts not in evidence. Previous Guardian reporting on IDF use of compute for targeting indicated they were using it to increase, not decrease, the number of approved targets.

flumpcakes• 10 months ago

Quantity doesn't correlate with accuracy. OP's point was that surely having more intelligence means you are more accurate and thus less collateral damage.

jameshilliard9• 10 months ago

Hamas is quite open about their desire to increase civilian casualties by deliberately using civilians as human shields(which is of course a war crime). It's clearly part of their overall strategy.

DSingularity4• 10 months ago

Israel claims that they “don’t want to kill civilians” but historically have not substantially changed course when the killings became grotesquely excessive. It’s also arguably true that they have never even sincerely investigated any issues.

Israel just gets more aggressive in the murder and bombing.

rozap• 10 months ago

[edited to remove snark] there is a ton of evidence to the contrary, that the killing of civilians is intentional and systematic. that's why the ICC (finally) determined it is a genocide.

rashkov4• 10 months ago

The ICC did no such thing, you're probably thinking of the ICJ, which also did no such thing according to one of the judges that ruled on that decision:

“I’m glad I have a chance to address that because the court’s test for deciding whether to impose measures uses the idea of plausibility. But the test is the plausibility of the rights that are asserted by the applicant, in this case South Africa” she told the BBC show HARDtalk.

“The court decided that the Palestinians had a plausible right to be protected from genocide and that South Africa had the right to present that claim in the court,” Donoghue said. “It then looked at the facts as well. But it did not decide—and this is something where I’m correcting what’s often said in the media—it didn’t decide that the claim of genocide was plausible.”

“It did emphasize in the order that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right to be protected from genocide,” she added. “But the shorthand that often appears, which is that there’s a plausible case of genocide, isn’t what the court decided.”

Donoghue’s term on the bench expired a few days after the court delivered its initial ruling on Jan. 26.

https://www.jns.org/former-top-hague-judge-media-wrong-to-re...

perfmode• 10 months ago

Evidence indicates the intention is to kill indiscriminately, hence the genocide determinations.

bArray3• 10 months ago

I would be interested to read the evidence for myself if you have sources?

umanwizard• 10 months ago

Precise military intelligence is absolutely necessary for minimising civilian casualties.

Whatever they've been doing on that front doesn't seem to be working so far...

ars6• 10 months ago

It's so weird how people think the casualty rate in Gaza is high, it's actually incredibly low, virtually no other army in the world could achieve such a low collateral damage rate in urban warfare against guerillas.

zawaideh4• 10 months ago

It is a genocide. They are targeting civilians.

davidjeet• 10 months ago

Proof? Or just what is convenient for you to believe?

If anything, quite the opposite. Think about this logically - why the need for expensive surveillance if your chief goal was to annihilate a population?

basilgohar6• 10 months ago

It is the IDF and Israel governments explicit goal, as stated by high up government officials and leaders, to eradicate all Palestians in Gaza. A cursory view into their own Hebrew media make this abundantly clear.

They are committing a genocide in both word and deed.

js2123• 10 months ago

A few government officials have said this. No one part of the War Cabinet has said this and it is definitely NOT the explicitly goal of the IDF.

This is entirely made up.

JumpCrisscross9• 10 months ago

issue that people have with Israel's actions is the death of civilians, not the death of Hamas

Would note that this issue has sufficiently polarised that there are thoughtful people in e.g. New York who think it’s an atrocity for even Hamas fighters to be killed. (Same as there are folks who think every Palestinian is safely presumed a terrorist until proved innocent.)

stackedinserter2• 10 months ago

Inconvenient truth is that anyone who remained in Gaza, in active IDF ops area, is not a civilian. Civilians left these areas, or at least asked to leave many, many times. Unless it's a little child that's not capable of lifting a firearm, this person is Hamas at this point.

If you have better way to differentiate, I will happily pass it to IDF. Don't forget to mention about the last time you risked your own life.

dunekid4• 10 months ago

Civilians left these areas, or at least asked to leave many, many times.

Where to?

Hind Rajab ,literally a child, was brutally killed when fleeing their home, after being asked of course. The ambulance which came to rescue was blown up by the ITF. The Whole world has seen it all, ITF proudly displays it. Maybe it is time to update the Hasbara points.

Don't forget to mention about the last time you risked your own life.

Why? ITF certainly risks many children's life, just for sport often.

Hikikomori5• 10 months ago

You can easily find telegram channels that show what regular Israeli soldiers are up to, they post it themselves like they're proud of it. Take a look at it and see what you think then.

joe4633692• 10 months ago

I believe it also to be true that the IDF do not want to kill civilians

They should probably stop shooting them then.

greenie_beans2• 10 months ago

hasn't the death toll surpassed the number of hamas members?

hashim33• 10 months ago

What part don't you understand? EVERYONE is Hamas, including the several kids that Western doctors have testified to being hit by snipers, and the little girl named Hind Rajab that they shot 300 bullets into. And the hospitals? Crawling with Hamas.

propagandist• 10 months ago

The state you are referring to literally calls Palestinians a demographic threat.

Sporktacular5• 10 months ago

Reading the article you'll see that much of the surveillance is against the West Bank population, which has nothing to do with Hamas or Oct 7.

Israel has been very effective at blurring that distinction, using that attack from Gaza as the pretext to accelerate land theft in the West Bank.

oulipo2• 10 months ago

Too little too late, but anything we can do to stop this genocide...

nicce• 10 months ago

I doubt it can be stopped anymore without physical intervetion.

hashim33• 10 months ago

At least, not without the Palestinians being virtually wiped out, cause that's how long we'll be waiting for Israel to do the right thing. We don't even know for sure how many are dead, but the vast majority of deaths during genocides are counted after it's over, least of all when there's so much rubble and so many whole families have been wiped out.

eggy• 10 months ago

"According to sources familiar with the huge data transfer outside of the EU country, it occurred in early August. Intelligence sources said Unit 8200 planned to transfer the data to the Amazon Web Services cloud platform. Neither the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) nor Amazon responded to a request for comment."

So was the data moved in August to Amazon (AWS)? I am sure the $3.8bn USD the US gives annually will pay for it anyway. Because it is given as a loan, no accountability is required if it were a grant to Israel, and then the US forgives the loan, so there's not payback or interest for borrowing.

myth_drannon2• 10 months ago

I guess time to buy more Oracle or Google stocks? They can easily provide more than needed, especially Oracle which is very friendly to Israel and Ellison is a big supporter of IDF (large donations to "Friends of the IDF" non-profit).

Here is a link in case anyone wants to donate https://www.fidf.org to this amazing organization.

amdivia• 10 months ago

No? No one should service them

greenie_beans2• 10 months ago

makes sense to do if you support genocide

hersko• 10 months ago

https://www.jfeed.com/analysis/gaza-nutella-cafe-reality

dunekid4• 10 months ago

Wow nice, I wish i could donate, but US Taxpayers already cover for me. What do the donors get? Like souvenirs? Funding Genocidal ITF to kill more children and bomb more hospitals has to have its perks.

dark_mode3• 10 months ago

The decision brings to an abrupt end a three-year period in which the spy agency operated its surveillance programme using Microsoft’s technology.

Are we supposed to believe Microsoft was unaware of the contents but decided to terminate coincidentally when reports of what they're doing came out?

dmix4• 10 months ago

Are you asking whether Microsoft engineers routinely poke around their customer’s private clouds (including ones used by foreign intelligence agencies) to make sure everything is kosher?

t_mahmood2• 10 months ago

Well, MS reviewed previously, and said they've seen nothing wrong, now they are saying some employees (coincidentally, Israeli) might have not been all transparent ...

The disclosures caused alarm among senior Microsoft executives, sparking concerns that some of its Israel-based employees may not have been fully transparent about their knowledge of how Unit 8200 used Azure when questioned as part of the review.

You think, that is plausible?

To me, Nope, it's just that, the money was too good.

Only after Guardian's report, they realized:

"Oops, we got caught, now do the damage control dance"

And here we are ...

Also, are those employees going to get fired? I doubt. But the protestor, standing up for something, did. Who is more damaging?

Oh right, the protestor, because, they ruined the big cake.

Did the unit that breach the contract lose anything? Nope, they got enough time to move their data safely, and will continue doing the same thing.

It's all evil entities feeding each other, for their own benefit.

verteu• 10 months ago

"Routinely"? No.

When the customer is indicted by the Hague for crimes against humanity? Yes, it's difficult to imagine a more clear-cut case of professional ethics.

dark_mode3• 10 months ago

The decision has not affected Microsoft’s wider commercial relationship with the IDF, which is a longstanding client and will retain access to other services. The termination will raise questions within Israel about the policy of holding sensitive military data in a third-party cloud hosted overseas.

It's worth noting that even after finding out the "most moral" army is conducting mass surveillance, they're still happy to provide them services.

Capricorn2481• 10 months ago

It's worth noting that even after finding out the "most moral" army is conducting mass surveillance, they're still happy to provide them services.

Well, why wouldn't they? It's Microsoft, they're not exactly stewards of privacy.

tick_tock_tick• 10 months ago

Doesn't every army conduct "mass surveillance"? What do you think all those satellites with cameras are doing orbiting the planet?

Wouldn't the opposite be incredibly immoral? Attacking/bombing/etc without large scale surveillance would largely mean increased collateral damage.

dark_mode3• 10 months ago

Wouldn't the opposite be incredibly immoral? Attacking/bombing/etc without large scale surveillance would largely mean increased collateral damage.

The concern is who gets to decide what is or isn't a legitimate target? Today's heroes might be tomorrow's victims. I'd rather no one have that much power over others.

lordofgibbons• 10 months ago

Are you seriously equating observing an area using satellites with indiscriminately monitoring everyone's calls, messages, and possibly hacking their devices?

samirillian• 10 months ago

Holy crap you’re totally right

Sporktacular5• 10 months ago

Arguing that mass surveillance is not unethical but actually a way to save lives is pretty disingenuous, absurdly so considering how little the country wielding it cares about collateral damage.

ycombigators• 10 months ago

It would be pretty difficult for the IDF to increase their level of collateral damage.

kennywinker6• 10 months ago

Perhaps the actual moral choice isn’t attacking blindly or mass surveillance of an occupied nation - it’s peace?

Regardless, the death toll in gaza (somewhere between 45,000 and 600,000) suggests that this mass surveillance isn’t being used effectively to reduce the death toll. It also doesn’t take mass surveillance to know that bombing hospitals and schools is going to kill innocent people.

StanislavPetrov2• 10 months ago

Attacking/bombing/etc without large scale surveillance would largely mean increased collateral damage.

That would only be true if your goal was not to completely obliterate the population you are attacking and bombing, as Israel has demonstrated.

nashadelic2• 10 months ago

Two things: 1. The death toll has shown that this is the most indiscriminate bombings (Biden's own words) and deaths of civilians in recent memory. So, you could argue the tech is aiding in killing key civil infra staff

2. Sure, they can surveil, let them do it on their own data centers. It's actually strange that they would put such data/tech on a 3rd party data center to begin with.

xg15• 10 months ago

"Finding out" in the "shocked! shocked!" Casablanca sense.

The IDF's "Wolf" system have been well known for years.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/19/idf-facia...

AzzyHN• 10 months ago

Where does "most moral" come from?

reverius42• 10 months ago

Per Wikipedia, the idea that the IDF is the "most moral army in the world" comes from Colonel Richard Kemp, a retired British army officer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_of_arms

thrance2• 10 months ago

It's a throwaway line Israeli officials have been using for a long time. I heard Netanyahou himself use it to describe the IDF and explain it can't possibly do wrong.

https://x.com/IsraeliPM/status/1745501858611786029?lang=en

wolvesechoes• 10 months ago

I mean, there are other reasons to not provide them services. Really, mass surveillance is quite low on the list.

alsetmusic• 10 months ago

Guess those protesting employees who lost their jobs weren’t fired for nothing, at the very least. Finally.

everdrive4• 10 months ago

I'm confused what this really means. Countries don't store their really secret things in Azure. So what do we think the source of this surveillance was?

bhouston5• 10 months ago

I'm confused what this really means. Countries don't store their really secret things in Azure. So what do we think the source of this surveillance was?

Why wouldn't countries store secret data in Azure, Google Cloud and AWS services? I think that this is quite common.

everdrive4• 10 months ago

I think you're misunderstanding my question. I'm not saying "this story is bogus," but rather I'm saying that this sort of data is probably not the kind of data which is acquired through really secret means. Perhaps it was purchased from providers, or some other less-secret method.

derektank• 10 months ago

Yes, they do

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-government-top-...

everdrive4• 10 months ago

I'm clearly not informed and equally surprised. Thanks for letting me know.

catigula6• 10 months ago

It's okay if they mass surveil and kill other people using sweeping AI systems, surely it will never happen to me.

creatonez• 10 months ago

After 2 years of genocide, and massive dissent from their own employees repeatedly warning that this was happening...

Those who make holocaust tabulation machines belong in prison.

hashim33• 10 months ago

Well, to their credit, they've also seen that IBM, Volkswagen and Ford were still allowed to do plenty of business with no repercussions whatsoever (that I know of).

nerdjon• 10 months ago

The project began after a meeting in 2021 between Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, and the unit’s then commander, Yossi Sariel.

This seemed completely glossed over in the article (never revisited beyond this) but seems to imply that Satya must have at least known something about what was happening?

Or was he mislead, told partial truths, or something?

Very curious who within Microsoft knew anything about what was happening.

dijit• 10 months ago

I think people don't tend to realise how authoritarian the internal structures of companies are.

They're effectively miniature dictatorships. Normalising removing services because a tenant does something you personally find disagreeable is fine in the moment, but what happens when it's someone you support? Like when they removed Office365 access for a member of the EU parliament.[0]

For me, this is more proof (not less) that I shouldn't rely on US tech giants. Not because I will be collecting data on a population to do god-knows-what with, but because someone believes themselves to be the moral authority on what the compute I rent should be doing and that moral authority can be outraged for the whims of someone completely random, for any reason.

[0] https://www.aurasalla.eu/en/2025/05/26/mep-aura-salla-micros...

shadowgovt2• 10 months ago

I expect this to continue to be the conflict of responsibility and capability in the 21st century.

Alfred Nobel was known as a "merchant of death" for enabling the use of combat explosives that could do (by the standards of the time) preposterous damage to people, but his argument was that he just sold the dynamite; he wasn't responsible for the anarchists getting it and bombing something twice a week in New York. And even then, his conscience weighed on him enough that he endowed a Peace Prize when he died.

The story is different when the data conversion is being done on machines you own, in buildings you own, in a company you own (for practical reasons in addition to moral / theoretical; if someone wants to stop those computations, they're now going after your stuff, not trying to stop a supply-chain).

themafia2• 10 months ago

is fine in the moment, but what happens when it's someone you support?

That's why I never find it "fine." It's only a matter of time before corporate power finds it's way to your hobby horse. I thought part of the "hacker vibe" was being highly suspicious of any form of authority.

snickerbockers2• 10 months ago

They're effectively miniature dictatorships. Normalising removing services because a tenant does something you personally find disagreeable is fine in the moment, but what happens when it's someone you support? Like when they removed Office365 access for a member of the EU parliament.

Not that I necessarily agree with what they did here, but I would like to point out that one alternative which has been employed previously would be to silently forward her e-mails to the NSA or state department. Refusing to offer their services is probably the most ethical thing that MS has ever done on behalf of the US federal government.

soraminazuki• 10 months ago

because a tenant does something you personally find disagreeable

You do realize that the said tenant is massacring an entire population as we speak, right? Framing that as just something that's "disagreeable" is one hell of a euphemism.

The absolute bare minimum one can do is to not actively provide the technical means to carry out this atrocity, yet you claim it's only moral to do the exact opposite. This neoliberal fantasy that it's moral and good for society to let powerful corporations do whatever it wants is an absurdity not even worth refuting. But it's downright cruel and tone-deaf when it's used to justify taking part in an officially approved genocide.

thrance2• 10 months ago

Companies have a duty to ensure they don't provide services that would enable illegal behaviour. What the IDF is doing is illegal under international law and a crime against Humanity.

licebmi__at__• 10 months ago

I'll be honest, these, like the equivalent "cancel culture" statements, can only come from the politically naive or from someone accessory to the oppressive systems. "Normalizing removing services because the tenant does something disagreeable"? What the hell do you mean?, that is already normal. The only difference is that is usually the disadvantaged side that gets hit; when it's the regularly protected entity, and then and only then, we get these statements about "What if it happens to someone you support?".

shadowgovt2• 10 months ago

Impressive.

I often think of Microsoft as the new IBM, and it's startling to me to watch them buck that reputation.

hashim33• 10 months ago

They could never be that while Amazon and Google still run Project Nimbus.

hashim33• 10 months ago

As someone who's been boycotting Microsoft in line with the BDS movement, I welcome this (belated) move, but seeing Bill Gates on stage laughing (maybe nervously) at Ibtihal Aboussad's (now validated) protest still makes me uneasy about a guy who I previously followed and liked to a reasonable extent, and I'll still probably hold off on watching his most recent documentaries. It makes me wonder how comfortable you have to be (as a supposed philanthropist, no less) with the deaths of tens of thousands of brown kids to laugh in a situation like that. Hell, even Ballmer had the sense to keep a straight face.

JumpCrisscross9• 10 months ago

how comfortable you have to be (as a supposed philanthropist, no less) with the deaths of tens of thousands of brown kids to laugh in a situation like that

Laughing at someone yelling on stage can be entirely orthogonal to what they’re saying. (And it’s not like that outburst did anything.)

hashim33• 10 months ago

The article you're commenting on quite literally mentions that employee pressure, of which Ibtihal Aboussad's was the most vocal and memorable in the media, played a significant role in the decision.

zhengiszen• 10 months ago

Nice

efitz2• 10 months ago

I think Cloud providers should be common carriers. I don’t think that it is a good thing when a company can make an arbitrary decision and disable functionality that you have put millions of dollars and thousands or tens of thousands of person hours into.

I think that the only reasons that a cloud provider should be permitted to use to justify termination of service, are illegal activity (in the country of service), non-payment, or attempting to harm or disrupt the service.

I am in no way condoning anything that Israel is doing, just like I wasn’t condoning what people on Parler were saying when AWS axed them in 2021.

No matter how much you like what the people in charge are doing today or who they’re doing it to, sooner or later someone will take the reins who decides that you are the target.

Same with banks, credit card companies, etc. if you are incorporated and your business is to support commerce, you should keep your thumb off the scale.

taco_emoji• 10 months ago

MS is saying they violated terms of service. Are you saying common carriers shouldn't have terms of service?

khnov• 10 months ago

So you think making a genocide is not illegal ?

baobabKoodaa• 10 months ago

Look how carefully they worded that to make a carve-out for this very case: "in the country of service". As in, Gaza is now part of Israel, and according to Israeli laws, Israel is not doing any genocide on Palestinians.

mlinsey• 10 months ago

I agree with you in most contexts, but "illegal activity (in the country of service)" is a tough one in the context of an invasion, a territorial dispute, or international espionage.

Before the current war, Hamas was the governing authority in Gaza, despite the Palestinian Authority being the internationally recognized one. Regardless, whether the surveillance was legal under Israeli law doesn't seem like the correct standard.

efitz2• 10 months ago

I think that if Azure offers their service in Israel it has to comply with Israeli law; I don’t see why that would not govern in this case.

If Azure were providing service to the US Government then that service would be governed by US law even if the employees using the service traveled abroad; the only exception would be if service was initiated by an employee in another country under the terms for the service provider in that country, but even then likely government has contracts with the provider that would shift jurisdiction back to the US.

freeopinion• 10 months ago

The concept of common carriers in not a wartime concept. Should occupied Ukranians keep providing service to their occupiers on principle?

Aside from the common carrier concept, operating a significant war-supporting facility makes you a significant target. And I don't just mean a target for criticism. Datacenters risk a security threat on a whole new level if taking them out is important to war operations.

Would you criticize a commercial port in the Black Sea if it turned away Russian warships? Harboring Russian warships makes it extremely likely that your port could become the target of missile strikes. If you want to remain an innocent bystander, don't harbor combatants.

This is not a statement in support of any side of any war.

joe4633692• 10 months ago

I think Cloud providers should be common carriers. I don’t think that it is a good thing when a company can make an arbitrary decision and disable functionality that you have put millions of dollars and thousands or tens of thousands of person hours into.

Exactly! The IDF have put a lot of effort in to this genocide.

kmeisthax• 10 months ago

Just to be clear: "illegal under international law" isn't good enough? It has to be sovereign entities' own laws? As in, a cloud provider should have no power to refuse service to any government?

danbruc2• 10 months ago

What would happen in a hypothetical scenario where Microsoft cut off everything [1] they can for all of Israel - no Azure, no Office, no Outlook, no Exchange, no SQL Server, no Windows, no Xbox, no ...? Depending on how many things they can make unusable, I would imagine that this would be pretty bad, probably even causing some deaths because of affected infrastructure.

[1] Not sure what they could actually make unusable by revoking licenses, blocking logins, and whatnot. It probably also matters how quickly the effects are felt, Azure would be gone immediately but I am not sure how often Office checks whether its license has been revoked, if at all. If license checks make things stop working over weeks and months, it would still not be pretty, but it would provide at least some time to prepare and avoid the worst.

CommanderData• 10 months ago

That would never happen.

Israel has too much influence over the US.

danbruc2• 10 months ago

That is why the comment says hypothetical scenario. ;-)

snickerbockers2• 10 months ago

IDK but Mossad is quite possibly the world's most effective spy agency and SV software corporations rarely have effective safeguards to protect against rogue employees so we must conclude that there are many sleeper agents planted throughout major corporations on behalf of just about every intelligence agency in the world including but not limited to mossad.

I have not seen any hard evidence of this nor have i ever suspected a fellow employee at any of my employers of being a double-agent loyal to a state intelligence agency but it's easy enough to do that there must be hundreds, maybe even thousands of sleeper agents all over santa clara and redmond.

trhway• 10 months ago

Unit 8200, the military’s elite spy agency, had violated the company’s terms of service by storing the vast trove of surveillance data in its Azure cloud platform

reliance of everything/everybody on cloud platforms already mind-boggling.

One can extrapolate it further - in a near future conflicts both sides may have their data, weapons control systems, etc. running inside the same Big Cloud Provider ... in this case would they need actual physical weapons systems? or may be it would be easier to just let those weapons control systems duke each other out in the virtual battle space provided as a service by the same Big Cloud Provider.

MomsAVoxell2• 10 months ago

Too little, too late. The whole world knows that Microsoft has blood on its hands.

not_a_bot_4sho• 10 months ago

Yeah, not really. Kind of the opposite: they took action after investigation.

The assertion that Microsoft knew what it's customers were doing, that it was inspecting customer data and workloads, comes from ignorance of how cloud providers work.

aa-jv3• 10 months ago

False. Microsoft knew very well they had contracts with the IDF, it was announced in flowery PR all over the place, and at the beginning of the genocide there were protests against Microsofts' overt involvement.

This is just CYA. That it took Microsoft this long is incorrigible.

insane_dreamer• 10 months ago

My first reaction was "good on Microsoft". Then I read how it was only after a Guardian report exposed this was happening that MSFT took action. They were perfectly content to provide the services so long as it wasn't widely known.

myth_drannon2• 10 months ago

Looks like the contracts are not going to AWS or Google but to Nebius (founded by Volozhin, who founded of Yandex).

https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/nebius-to-build-a...

"Google and Amazon, both of which already hold the $1.2 billion Nimbus contract with the Israeli government, originally received a preliminary tender for the supercomputer but ultimately withdrew from contention."

EchoReflection• 10 months ago

"Microsoft condones Hamas attack on Oct 7th."

"Microsoft changes company slogan to 'Allah Akbar Surveillance for the Future of Glorious Jihad"

"Microsoft Pledges Billions of Dollars to Help Hamas Rebuild Tunnels That Were Used to Invade Israel".

I wonder how the Jewish employees at Micro$oft don't quit en masse...I guess people need income/have families to think about, but still... Preventing Israel from using MS tech to protect itself from terrorist attacks is pretty disgusting. Highly recommend Douglas Murray's (extremely disturbing and sad) book "On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Western Civilization" (warning: includes horrific accounts of extreme violence against Israeli civilians)

https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/on-democraci...

https://www.audible.com/pd/On-Democracies-and-Death-Cults-Au...

phatfish• 10 months ago

I wonder how the Jewish employees at Micro$oft don't quit en masse...

I suspect the sensible ones are keeping a low profile and praying for it all to be over, much like the Palestinians (except they are starving in a wasteland not working for Microsoft).

Sporktacular5• 10 months ago

Cue the victimhood - how unfair it is that the IDF gets singled out for doing what every military does - how Israel is the real victim here.

doubleorseven• 10 months ago

it's a jing jang thing. soon there will be some one else who will be a tastier roast. but as an Israeli im really impressed they were able to use so much compute before someone checked their activity report. I mean this was not just parking space they were using, stakes were high! it's 2025 and (still) money talks.

zawaideh4• 10 months ago

Every single one of these companies that have enabled the genocide should be help accountable. Maybe some are trying to claim plausible deniability.

For those looking for direct sources on the findings of genocide in Gaza, here are several key reports and legal conclusions from human rights organizations, international courts, and genocide scholars:

1. UN Commission of Inquiry: Concluded that Israel has committed genocide in the Gaza Strip. * Report: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-c... * Press Conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trUcK8hHaIA

2. Amnesty International: Concluded that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. * Statement: https://www.amnesty.org/en/petition/end-israels-genocide-aga...

3. B'Tselem (The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories): Published their conclusion that Israel is committing genocide. * Report ("Our Genocide"): https://www.btselem.org/publications/202507_our_genocide

4. International Court of Justice (ICJ): Ruled in January 2024 that it is plausible Israel's acts could violate the Genocide Convention. * Case Details: https://www.icj-cij.org/case/192

5. Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention: Issued an "Active Genocide Alert" in October 2023, warning of the high risk of genocide. * Alert: https://www.lemkininstitute.com/active-genocide-alert-1/acti...

Beyond these formal reports, it's crucial to acknowledge that this has been one of the most documented atrocities in history, often livestreamed by Palestinians on the ground. Their testimonies have been consistent from the beginning, yet they are frequently dismissed until a non-Palestinian, "human" source validates their lived experience.

DaveZale• 10 months ago

it doesn't matter. What is happening is demolition and genocide. Simple as that

r00fus• 10 months ago

Israel is now damaged goods. You interact with them at a reputational cost. It's only going to get worse as they don't seem to want to stop the genocide.

aussieguy12342• 10 months ago

These journalists have saved lives and will almost certainly face repucussions and backlash for their work, so kudos to them.

aussieguy12342• 10 months ago

"Unit 8200 had built an indiscriminate new system allowing its intelligence officers to collect, play back and analyse the content of cellular calls of an entire population"

During the troubles in Northern Ireland all the phones were tapped. IRA supporters knew this, so would frequently discuss fake bombing plans over the phone, sending the authorities on a wild goose chase.

PeterStuer• 10 months ago

Not really my backwaters, but suppose Israel would block US companies from using their tech, wouldn't cybersecurity collapse?

botanical• 10 months ago

Are they going to rehire the employees they fired for being against this and Microsoft's support of the genocide now? It's more than just mass surveillance, and their leaders need to be held accountable.

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/microsoft-azure-israel-top-cu...

Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians

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