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Comment by ChrisMarshallNY | Hacker News Reader

Yup. Jon Pollard, for one. He spied for Israel.

Israel certainly has the chops to do something like this, but lots of other "friendly" countries with good geeks wouldn't mind having this kind of info.

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I would bet on China, not Israel. Nation-states calculate risk/reward. With Jonathan Pollard, the reward was huge: getting your own nukes. Hacking the treasury? Not sure what Israel would gain from that; the costs of being perceived to attack a friend would be relatively higher. Whereas China has obvious reasons to want to know what US economic policymakers are thinking, and has little to lose in terms of reputation.

> and has little to lose in terms of reputation.

Nothing to lose at all. Deny the attacks and thank the news gods for publicity that distracts from reporting on their ongoing concentration camps.

> the costs of being perceived to attack a friend would be relatively higher.

Don't think israel is really concerned about attacking "friends".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident

They live by different rules when it comes to the US due to their control/influence over our political parties, media, etc. But you already knew that.

I said they were concerned about the possible reputational loss. I am also skeptical of overblown arguments that Israel "controls the US media". These tend to shade into antisemitic conspiracy theories. The incident you link seems to be a good example: I see little to persuade me that the USS Liberty wasn't sunk by accident.

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