| ▲ | Invasive Israeli-founded bloatware is harvesting data from Samsung users in WANA(smex.org) |
| 92 points by like_any_other 17 hours ago | 33 comments |
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| ▲ | ddxv 17 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| The company that has the most reach in mobile spyware is AppsFlyer which is Israeli owned and as yet a private company. They operate in a closed space called mobile attribution of which only a few companies are competitors. Appsflyer is by far the largest.
https://appgoblin.info/companies/types/ad-attribution They are probably in 20 or more apps on your phone.
https://appgoblin.com/companies/appsflyer.com |
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| ▲ | markus_zhang 17 hours ago | parent [-] | | Every app uses Appsflyer. I worked for multiple companies and somehow they all use it. Kinda the standard in the industry. Better drop back to a dumb phone TBH. | | |
| ▲ | M95D 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | No phone is dumb internally anymore. Only the UI may make it look like a dumb phone. |
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| ▲ | dang 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| A more recent article was discussed here: Samsung embeds IronSource spyware app on phones across WANA - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44334167 - June 2025 (480 comments) |
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| ▲ | aeon_ai 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Israeli-founded very much buries the lede of US owned (ironSource/Unity). |
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| ▲ | OutOfHere 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I figure Samsung too is fully on the do-not-use list now after all. |
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| ▲ | bigyabai 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| https://web.archive.org/web/20250920032034/https://smex.org/... |
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| ▲ | FirmwareBurner 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Anyone know why it's always Israel with the mobile spyware? |
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| ▲ | sReinwald 16 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's not always, but Israel is uniquely positioned for tech companies of this kind thanks to Unit 8200. Israel has mandatory military service. They grab the most promising teenagers and give them insanely good cybersecurity training on the government's dime. They do their mandatory service, maybe spend a few more years in the unit, then move on to the private sector. Most, if not all, of Israel's tech companies in the cybersecurity/surveillance sector are related to Unit 8200 for this reason. But also: I think it's fair to say that Israeli spyware gets more media attention party because of geopolitical factors. Similar to Russian or Chinese spyware. I doubt the same headline would catch as much attention if you swapped Israeli-founded with Spanish-founded. | |
| ▲ | fancyfredbot 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | NSO group are a particularly successful Israeli spyware company, but there are others. For example Pars is Turkish. | |
| ▲ | markus_zhang 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Not sure, but they are really important in the Ads scene (yeah those ads). You got Ironsource and Applovin, both from IL. I think they are pretty talented in these things. | |
| ▲ | orisho 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's not just Israel. It's just not newsworthy if it's not Israel. | | |
| ▲ | andy99 17 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Somehow "invasive Mountain View bloatware is harvesting data from Samsung users in the US" doesn't get the same attention. | | |
| ▲ | dundarious 16 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It certainly has a valence if you're in Gaza, etc., and this software is typically found in phones in the region. | |
| ▲ | amarcheschi 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I routinely see posts of various shitfuckeries in the home page of hn, mostly from big tech or other companies |
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| ▲ | FirmwareBurner 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Which EU countries are comparable in militarized mobile spyware? |
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| ▲ | fakedang 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Ex Mossad, Shin Bet and Aman guys going into the private sector. In other countries, intelligence services people usually stay around for the long run. In Israel, most do it for a few years before moving to the private sector, and taking those talents with them. It's also the case with Russia and China - there's just more money for these guys in the private sector, while national service ensures they don't get treated any more exceptionally and obtain very little benefit for staying on. | |
| ▲ | kmeisthax 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [dead] | |
| ▲ | Barrin92 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | you know what they said about Prussia, it's a military that happens to have a country attached to it, Israel is sort of like that but with an internet connection |
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| ▲ | andy99 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| This is from February And the "Israeli founded" serves what purpose? |
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| ▲ | like_any_other 16 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Middle easterners probably want to know. I'm sure you can appreciate how that's relevant to their politics [1]. Would you have preferred the author had decided for his readers what information they should be interested in? [1] Iranian state media warns Israel using cell phone tracking to assassinate leaders in Iran - report - https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-85806... | | |
| ▲ | andy99 16 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Would you have preferred the author had decided for his readers what information they should be interested in? I don't understand the implication here, but yes? Broader point, nationalistic click/flamebait shouldn't be on HN. | |
| ▲ | dismalaf 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's literally their own governments who buy the software to spy on them. In the Islamic world, governments privately have relations with Israel and publicly condemn them to keep the populace distracted. Apart from Iran, who of course are straight up hostile to most everyone except Russia. | | |
| ▲ | like_any_other 16 hours ago | parent [-] | | > It's literally their own governments who buy the software to spy on them. I couldn't find any source on who paid Samsung to preinstall this software - Samsung is very tight-lipped about it. I'd be very interested if you have one. |
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| ▲ | computerthings 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | barney54 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | |
| ▲ | dismalaf 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > And the "Israeli founded" serves what purpose? Stir up hate. Feed into conspiracy theories. Click bait. Etc... | | |
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